Weekly Update #231! Preview of Hystopia and more alternate history goodness.

Editor's Note

I've been really pumped lately about alternate history. Coming up with ideas for the channel and recording videos has given me more energy to create. Who knows what crazy things I will do in the future, especially as we near the 5 year anniversary of Alternate History Weekly Update!

And now the news...

Book of the Week: Hystopia by David Means

So a recent novel that has gotten a lot of interest in alternate history circles is David Means' debut novel, Hystopia. Here is the description from Amazon:

At the bitter end of the 1960s, after surviving multiple assassination attempts, President John F. Kennedy is entering his third term in office. The Vietnam War rages on, and the president has created a vast federal agency, the Psych Corps, dedicated to maintaining the nation’s mental hygiene by any means necessary. Soldiers returning from the war have their battlefield traumas “enfolded”―wiped from their memories through drugs and therapy―while veterans too damaged to be enfolded roam at will in Michigan, evading the government and reenacting atrocities on civilians.

This destabilized version of American history is the vision of twenty-two-year old Eugene Allen, who has returned from Vietnam to write the book-within-a-book at the center of Hystopia. In conversation with some of the greatest war narratives, from Homer’s Iliad to the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” David Means channels the voice of Allen, the young veteran out to write a novel that can bring honor to those he fought with in Vietnam while also capturing the tragic history of his own family.

The critic James Wood has written that Means’s language “offers an exquisitely precise and sensuous register of an often crazy American reality.” In Hystopia, his highly anticipated first novel, David Means brings his full talent to bear on the crazy reality of trauma, both national and personal. Outlandish and tender, funny and violent, timely and historical, Hystopia invites us to consider whether our traumas can ever be truly overcome. The answers it offers are wildly inventive, deeply rooted in its characters, and wrung from the author’s own heart.

Mark Athitakis of B&N Review called Hystopia "wonderfully peculiar" and I am sure I will read it for the Sidewise Awards some day soon. Let me know if you got a chance to read it and what you thought in the comments.

Video of the Week

Cheating a little bit on this one (like always), but I had a great time making the video review of Terry Bisson's Fire on the Mountain so I am going to share it as much as I can:

If you get the chance you should also go check out my new Facebook page for the channel. I will be sharing a lot more updates and ideas on future videos over there.

You should also check out...

• Military History Now's list of 4 battles that might have ended the American Civil War earlier.
• Washington Post's coverage on the endless Texan secession debate.
• How Amazon's The Man in the High Castle inspired Knute Berger to research Seattle's Nazi past. (via Crosscut)
• How descendants of a slave named Silas are trying to debunk the myth of blacks fighting in the Confederate army. (via Buzzfeed)
• Slate asks: If Britain Had Gone to War With the U.S. in 1910, Who Would Have Won?

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Book Review: Fire on the Mountain by Terry Bisson

Twitter spoke and I listened. Here is my video review of Terry Bisson's Fire on the Mountain:

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Black Alternate History Month

This year, I am going to be scheduling posts a little differently. I have experimented with theme months before to varying degrees of success, but have never been serious about keeping it going by coming up with new themes. My research into genre, however, has shown that alternate history is often dominated by "great men" who win (or lose) military battles, while being created mostly by white, American males.

So in 2015, I am going to try and highlight different perspectives on alternate history, spending more time on overlooked events and minority voices. Since February is Black History Month here in the United States, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to cover Africa-American alternate history and creators.

Although I give a lot of credit to Turtledove for introducing me to alternate history, one of the first non-Turtledove books I read was Lion's Blood by Steven Barnes. Called one of the most unusual alternate history novels ever published by Emily Stamm of io9, Lion's Blood showcased a world where civilization flourished in Africa and the Middle East, while Europe remained barbaric and primitive. In this timeline, black Africans have colonized what would have been North America, using white slaves sold to them by Viking raiders for the heavy labor.

What made Lion's Blood significant was that it did not just create a mirror universe like the film White Man's Burden. Barnes set out to make this world as plausible as possible and while there are some parallels and squashed butterflies to be found, you still get a unique world that shows off Barnes' skill as world builder. In fact I still haven't read the sequel, Zulu Heart, for that very same reason. Its not that I did not enjoy Lion's Blood, its that I am afraid to sequel will ruin the original for me.

Of course if you ask alternate historians (which I have) to recommend works of alternate history written by or based on African-Americans, most would recommend Terry Bisson's Fire on the Mountain. In this timeline, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry touches off a massive slave rebellion that has wide reaching consequences for the entire world. Cory Doctorow called it "one of the best alternate histories I've read" and said it showed a different side to the usually absurd Bisson. Successful slave rebellion alternate histories like this aren't unheard of (see the "The Lions are Asleep This Night" by Howard Waldrop or, hell, the real world Haitian Revolution), but if we speak of blacks as slaves, then our minds usually turn to the American Civil War.

Despite what certain revisionist historians would like you think, you can't discuss the Civil War without covering slavery and that applies to alternate history as well. Works by African-Americans on the subject include the recent The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln by Stephen L. Carter (which at one point had Ron Hogan of Tor questioning whether alternate history was entering the mainstream) or the humorous and controversial mockumentary, C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America, directed by Kevin Willmott. Even Turtledove used black POV characters, such as Scipio, in his epic Timeline-191 series.

Yet African-Americans are usually either portrayed as having it worst off that our timeline (with good reason) or not mentioned at all in an American Civil War alternate history, especially in those featuring an independent Confederacy. In fact, I find later to be a worse portrayal as it confines an entire people's experience to the footnotes. This has often come up when reading web original alternate histories on the subject, but even mainstream publications are not exempt from this omission. Perhaps someone will write about this odd phenomenon in the future...

So for the month of February I am going to try and shine a light on African-American alternate history by not only posting articles on the subject or talking with African-American creators, but also highlighting news I come across on the Weekly Update and any other news posts I write in the coming weeks. If you would like to participate in some way, whether as a guest poster or an interviewee, contact me at ahwupdate at gmail dot com. Thanks and I hope you guys enjoy our exploration of this corner of our favorite genre.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update and a blogger on Amazing Stories. Check out his short fiction. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.