Authors Announced for Tesseracts 18: Wrestling with Gods

You can't ignore religion in history. God may not be real, but religion certainly is and it has impacted our history in some way or another. Even speculative fiction, which includes alternate history, has to take it into account. Tesseracts 18: Wrestling with Gods, however looks to be making the subject its primary focus.

Tesseracts 18 is being published by EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, a Canadian science-fiction and fantasy publishing house who is also responsible for Clockwork Lies a book featured in a recent New Releases. This latest volume of the Tesseracts series contains stories and poems that draw from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Agnosticism, Atheism, Humanism and the beliefs of Indigenous Canadians, (as well as faiths and religions of other worlds).

“Any anthology that starts with a story called ‘Mecha-Jesus’ is clearly not a traditional look at religion” says EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publisher, Brian Hades. “This robotic savior is joined by the Hindu god Ganesh trying to break into Bollywood, the Sun God Ra discovering Coronation Street, a priest on Mars, a vampire in residential schools, and a woman with a secret under her hijab. Tesseracts 18: Wrestling with Gods definitely contains many surprises!”

As in past versions of the Tesseract series, the editors are handpicked by the publisher. Tesseracts 18: Wrestling with Gods is edited by Jerome Stueart and Liana "Liana K" Kerzner. Authors include Robert J. Sawyer, Matthew Hughes, Alyxandra Harvey, Halli Lilburn, Derwin Mak, J.M. Frey, Steve Stanton, Megan Fennell, Jen Laface and Andrew Czarnietzki, S.L. Nickerson, John Park, Janet K. Nicolson, Suzanne M. McNabb, Allan Weiss, Savithri Machiraju, Carla Richards, Mary-Jean Harris, James Bambury, Mary Pletsch, David Jón Fuller, Jennifer Rahn, Erling Friis-Baastad, David Fraser, John Bell, David Clink and Tony Pi.

Tesseracts 18: Wrestling with Gods is expected to be released in April 2015. In the meantime, how do you work religion into your alternate worlds? Have you ever created your own religion when crafting a timeline? Let us know in the comments.

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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.

Freedom, Tyranny, and Technology: The Message of the Afrikanerverse

Guest post by Matthew W. Quinn.

Hey everybody, it’s Matthew W. Quinn again. I’m taking advantage of a recent opportunity afforded by our friend Mr. Mitrovich to discuss my alternate history spy tale, “Picking Up Plans In Palma.”

I’ve got a friend who is rather more zealous in religion than me who once said every work of fiction has a message. I strongly disagree with him on this issue, since I never wrote any of my short fiction with the intention of making a point.

(Okay, “The Beast of the Bosporus” is basically “don’t mess around with things beyond human comprehension,” but most Lovecraftian stories have that due to the nature of the beings involved.)

However, “Picking Up Plans In Palma” is the one exception thus far. The Afrikanerverse in which it is set began as a challenge to create a cold war between the U.S. and an Afrikaner power in the vein of S.M. Stirling’s Draka, so this world is ultimately a homage to the Drakaverse. However, like many others, I had plausibility issues with the Drakaverse. One of the biggest ones is how a society in which 90% of the people are chattel slaves (and most of those are illiterate) can equal or exceed a coalition of free societies, even after the enormous non-Draka “own goal” that was the Eurasian War.

Imagine if American slavery lasted another generation. George Washington Carver’s career as an inventor would have been greatly stunted if ever got off the ground in the first place (his former masters educated him but if they ran into financial trouble he might’ve ended up sold south and working in a field somewhere) and both the USA and the world would be so much poorer for it.

Although the Afrikaner Confederation does not practice slavery, “better than the Confederacy” is damning with faint praise. The die-hard colonialists of Rhodesia limited secondary education for blacks, while for much of its history apartheid South Africa provided blacks with only the education to do menial jobs. The education system in the Jim Crow South similarly failed to develop the talents of the African-American population and successful blacks risked victimization up to and including lynching by jealous whites, which no doubt contributed to the South’s endemic poverty. Though the Confederation’s black underclass is not as grotesquely impoverished as in our world’s South Africa or Mississippi, the same issue remains (and also applies to the Indian lower castes and the Southeast Asian peasantry, also under Afrikaner rule).

On top of not developing (when not actively repressing) the full potential of its non-whites, the later Confederation makes the same mistake (to a much lesser degree) with the white female population. Due to the influence of the Theonomic Party (modeled on Christian Reconstructionism), there comes a fair bit of cultural pressure against women seeking careers and even higher education. This prompts journalist Katje de Lange (lover of “Palma” protagonist Connor Kelly) to immigrate to the United States, thus enriching the Confederation’s great rival at the Confederation’s expense. That reminds me of a quote from the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II on the “wisdom” of Spain’s expelling of the Jews.

(Amy Chua wrote a whole book, Day of Empire, on the economic benefits of ethnic, religious, etc. tolerance. I recommend reading it.)

The result of all this is that the Confederation stagnates while the United States prospers, especially in the exploitation of space. This ultimately results in the nuclear war depicted in my short story “Coil Gun” (available as part of Pressure Suite: Digital Science Fiction #3) that bloodies the U.S.-led League of Democracies but completely destroys the Confederation and its traditionalist allies.

So if this gets into “too long, didn’t read” territory, here’s the gist. Limiting the opportunities for education and advancement of part of your population (be it in the name of an economic system that only benefits part of the supposed ruling class or a misinterpretation of religion) is shooting your community or your country in the foot, if not dooming it outright.

The Anointed One by A.J. Nolte

Captain Simon Diogenes glanced around him at the crowded docks. Jaffa was a busy port city even at the slowest of times, and with the death of the Emperor David I Agrippa, these were far from slow times.

Diogenes' glance flicked over the disembarking passengers, noting several barbarians from the European Mithraic states. After the most recent war against the Manicheans of the Byzantine Empire, in which Mithraist mercenaries from the Gothic and Frankish kingdoms of Europe had fought hard on both sides, it was common to see the big blond warriors throughout the Alexandrian Empire. Diogenes himself would trust an Axumite or Nubian a thousand times over one of those heathen barbarians, and indeed, he saw a fair number of both.

Most of the travelers, though, were men like Diogenes and their wives; loyal Alexandrians and circumcised followers of the one true God. He supposed that was true of the Axumites and Nubians as well, though he wondered, at times, just how deep their commitment to faith and empire really was. Diogenes saw a number of traveling rabbis, probably headed to the Counsel of the Imperial rabbinate to be held in a few months time.

The politically savvy soldier knew just how disturbed the religious authorities of the empire were about the heir apparent's decision to forego the traditional coronation in Bethlehem. After the conversion of the Roman Emperor Judas Constantinus to Judaism and his relocation of the capital to Alexandria, those sections of the Empire which held to other beliefs rebelled. This combined with the influx of barbarians into the empire led to the fall of Rome.

Alexandria, however, had not only survived and prospered, but united all of Egypt, most of the Levant and part of Syria, as well as the former Roman provinces of Africa, into a powerful new Jewish Empire. With the conversion of the kings of Axum and Nubia to Judaism, and their de facto absorption into the empire, it seemed as if God was finally fulfilling the promises he had made to the Children of Israel so long ago.

As a consequence, it had become customary for the emperor to be crowned by the Chief Rabbi at Bethlehem, in order to fulfill the current interpretation of prophecy which linked the Emperor with the anointed one of God, or messiah in old Hebrew. Not coincidentally, this also gave the rabbinate considerable power over the Emperor, which it was not loathed to use on occasion. But Eleazar II Agrippa, the son of the beloved and recently departed Emperor David, had announced his intention to be crowned in Alexandria, and, in his words, "to put the superstitious nonsense of the messiah behind us once and for all."

Certainly, there were factions within the rabbinate who agreed with Eleazar, but the consternation over the decision would almost certainly lead to yet another divisive counsel and considerable civil unrest whatever the rabbinate decided. Diogenes thought the young Emperor was a fool to pick this fight, but sometimes young men were like that.

"Your pardon, Captain." Simon looked down to see a man garbed as a scribe addressing him.

"Can I help you, sir?"

"I pray God that you can. I am Josephus of Cordoba, a scribe in service to Lord Thiudaric of that city." Simon nodded; the Mithraist lords of Europe, whose religion taught them to shun any "work but soldiering", often used Jews as administrators.”I was sent by my lord to deliver letters to the Emperor at his coronation in Bethlehem, and to serve as his ambassador to the Emperor once the coronation was finished. Now, however, I find that the coronation has been moved to Alexandria, and my wife is great with child. I fear she could not easily make the journey, and I would not depart until I have seen her safely settled."

Simon sighed; this man's small crisis was only one of the many things Eleazar's unexpected change of plans had set askew.

"Your difficulties are not unusual, sir. If I can help, I will. Do you have lodgings arranged in Bethlehem?"

"Not yet, Captain. I fear my wife cannot travel much beyond that city, however."

"Perhaps I can help, then," Simon said. "My men and I ride for Bethlehem shortly. We will find a litter for your wife, and you can ride with us to the city. I believe lodgings are to be had with ease, particularly with the Emperor's changed plans. Once your wife is settled, you can best determine how to travel on to Alexandria."

"God Bless you, Captain, and I must accept your kind offer." The two men clasped hands, and Simon wondered what he had gotten himself into.

The trip to Bethlehem was uneventful, and Josephus, as it turned out, made for very good company. The Cordoban Jew had seen a fair slice of the world, even traveling to the capital of the Byzantine Empire, and to Persia.

"Byzantium is no great city," Josephus told Diogenes. "The emperors have tried to make it a new Rome, and its defenses are quite formidable, but it is a cheerless city, and the Manichean priests see manifestations of evil everywhere."

"And what of Rome?"

Josephus sighed. "Alas, it has fallen on very hard times, and is little more than a ruin. The land has not recovered from the ravages of Vandals and Huns. Of the Mithraic lands... well, it would be best if I kept my own counsel I think." Still, for all his reluctance to speak of Cordoba, Simon learned a great deal from Josephus from what he did not say. The man was not surprised to see synagogues, but much more shocked to see faithful Jews baring weapons. Josephus' eyes also darted around furtively, as though he were constantly in fear of ambush. Clearly, life was far from easy for the Jews of Cordoba.

"We are approaching Bethlehem, Captain." Diogenes nodded to his soldier, and turned to Josephus.

"This was a bucolic little town once, but it has grown since. I doubt King David himself would recognize it." The town had become a small city, full of inns and shops, with a number of influential synagogues. None, of course, could compare to the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, which was the heart of the rabbinate's power. Still, Bethlehem had become an important place in the empire, because of the coronations of so many emperors.

Josephus chuckled. "Do you know, Captain, I had a whimsical thought just now."

"Oh? Please do share it."

"Well, in the interpretations of prophecy common outside the empire, it is said that the anointed one, the messiah, will be born in Bethlehem, not crowned there. So if all goes as I think it might, some men might say my son is..."

"That is a whimsical thought best kept quiet, my friend," Simon interjected. "Neither the Chief Rabbi nor the Emperor would find it amusing. There have been pretenders advancing that claim before, zealots who have stirred up rebellions against what they see as imperial decadence."

"Yes, of course. I meant nothing by it, certainly."

"I know that, Josephus, but if your Miriam does give birth in Bethlehem, as seems likely, you had better let it be known your son was born somewhere else. What were you thinking of naming the lad, by the way?"

"Jesua, in the vulgar Latin of Hispania."

"A good strong name. That would be Yeshua in Aramaic?"

"Yes, though it is common for those of us living in the heathen west to make our names less… distinctive. My wife, for example, goes by Maria to the people of Thiudaric’s court."

"That is no bad thing, in this case. I think it best for you, and the boy, if Jesua of Cordoba is never associated with Yeshua, a boy born of Miriam in Bethlehem." Josephus nodded.

"Perhaps that would be best, for now. As for tomorrow, who can say what the future might hold?"

 Simon Diogenes would have cause to remember those enigmatic words of the scribe Josephus, decades later, when the name of Jesua of Cordoba was spoken from far Britain to the east of Persia and the south of Nubia. And he wondered then what part he might have played, if any, in the messianic movement that forever changed the world three centuries after the fall of Rome.

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A.J. Nolte is a PHD candidate in international relations at Catholic University and an aspiring sci-fi and alternate history writer . He is knowledgeable in Byzantine, medieval, ACW, Cold War, Islamic and post-colonial history. Also, he'll read almost anything once if it's got an airship in it.