Why Are Alternate Historians Obsessed with HP Lovecraft?

Happy Halloween! Lets talk about alternate history and HP Lovecraft.

Warping History Ep. 5: More Drama, New Media, Steampunk, Sea Lion Press and Hope for the Future

Warping History comes to an end (for now) as we close out the 2010s and look toward the future of alternate history.

Review: Black Chamber by SM Stirling

I have a confession to make: I don't like spy thrillers. They are just so...boring. All of the sneaking around, coded talk and lavish parties...yawn. Its why I could never get into Tom Clancy and why I tend to abandon alternate histories that use that type of plot. For me to really enjoy a spy thriller, there has to be something unique about it. So what does today's subject got? Well its written by SM Stirling...good start. And its set in a timeline where Theodore Roosevelt won a third term as president...okay, you hooked me, lets take a look at Black Chamber, book one in Tales from the Black Chamber.

Black Chamber is set in a timeline where William Howard Taft, then President of the United States, dies of a heart attack before he could be nominated again as the Republican presidential candidate in the 1912 election. With Taft gone, the Republicans have no choice but to nominate Theodore Roosevelt, former American president who in our timeline ran under the Progressive Party in 1912 after he failed to secure the Republican nomination. In this timeline, however, Roosevelt gets the nomination, defeats Woodrow Wilson, changes the name of the Republicans to the Progressive Republicans and sets about driving America out of its 19th century attitudes as soon as possible.

Fast forward to 1916 and President Roosevelt's reforms have revolutionized the country. New possibilities have been opened for women and POCs, while industrial and technological development is encouraged by the federal government, which sits on any robber barons or traditionalists who might try to stymie change. Mexico has also been invaded in response to a raid by Pancho Villa and is now a protectorate of the United States, which has to deal with an insurgency against their rule there. Meanwhile, the Great War rages in Europe, but Germany is doing a tad better than they did in our timeline, having managed to capture Verdun. Nevertheless, their unrestricted submarine warfare has angered President Roosevelt and it is only a matter of when America will enter the war on the side of the Entente.

As preparation for this, our hero, Luz O'Malley Aróstegui, is tasked with a secret mission that will take her to the heart of Germany. Posing as a Mexican insurgent willing to help the Germans fight America, she meets with a German agent who takes her to the middle of Saxony where she witnesses a weapons test that can finally break the stalemate on the Western Front...and make America think twice before challenging the coming Pax Germanica.

Black Chamber was an enjoyable read...but it had issues. Admittedly I found the setting to be fascinating. Theodore Roosevelt ranks in my top 5 favorite American presidents and seeing what he might have done had he won his third term made for an interesting thought experiment. I especially liked how Roosevelt worked hard to chip away at the laws that kept women and POCs down, which is an optimistic take on the early 20th century that was refreshing to read. Furthermore, I never felt bored during the less action packed scenes of the novel, which is a plus when it comes to the spy genre and me.

That said, a lot of Stirling cliches tropes appear throughout the book. Airships, of course, make an appearance, which is something Stirling appears to love writing about so much he even included them in his book where there was human life on Venus. Luz, thought a likable character, is your standard bad-ass, non-heterosexual female character that Stirling loves to write about. Granted there is nothing wrong with that, especially when SF in general still tends to downplay anyone who isn't a straight, white person with an easy to pronounce name, but that doesn't mean I haven't seen this character before in Stirling's work.

Also I found the idea that Mexico could be subjugated so easily in just a couple of years to be a little hard to believe. The insurgency is described as almost dead by the start of Black Chamber, which is surprising considering the Philippines put up more of a fight in our timeline when the United States tried to incorporate them.

That all being said, Black Chamber is still a good book in my opinion and I am interested in seeing where Stirling is taking the story. Not to spoil anything, but Stirling seems to be trying to take the geopolitical situation of 1940s Europe and transplant it a couple decades ahead of schedule. Granted the Kaiser's Germany is not Nazi Germany, but there are a lot of hints through the book that we are going to see World War II fought with the personalities and weapons of an earlier generation...and that could be cool to read about.

The Warrior and the Saint

Guest post by Ian Sharpe.

There is something otherworldly about an old Norman church. A sanctity, certainly; the trappings of Christian worship both exude and compel hushed reverence. A sense of community perhaps, as the Anglican Communion struggles to fill the gaps left by austerity, providing food banks now alongside village fetes and raffles. But there is always something beyond that; something in the very fabric of the building, buried deep in the centuries old stone. The best of those churches are keepers of ancient tales, conduits that speak of England’s green hills and forests and what lies beneath.

I was married in one such church, parts of which date from the 12^th century, set on falling ground to the west of my home town. The churchyard contains St Withburga's Well, supplied by a spring that is said to have issued forth from the burial place of Withburga, who laid the foundation of a church and convent there, the first Christian settlement in the area in the year 654. She lived and died in an era of unprecedented change. Her father was Anna, King of the East Angles, pagans who came to the British Isles with iron and fire, who believed the green church of the woods heard their prayers more clearly than any monument of stone.

But it is stone that has proved the most enduring store of the pagan story.

At the north side of Gosforth village on Wasdale Road, Cumbria, stands the ancient parish church of St Mary and, in the churchyard the equally ancient and famous Gosforth Cross. This magnificent cross has stood on the same spot for over a thousand years. The monument is a very tall, slender cross made from red sandstone, richly decorated with some very exquisite carvings of Norse gods, Christian symbolism and mythical beasts. It is at the heart of the All FatherParadox and takes pride of place on the cover. I chose this cross as my central motif for the novel because, like Withburga’s well, it has been witnessed to endless change. We can only imagine who built it and why, or what manner of men have toiled in its shadow over the course of that millennium. There was nothing like going there this summer and feeling the power of the landscape myself.

Christianity was in the north-west of England long before of course. Roman soldiers had spread the faith, and left traces when their armies were withdrawn. Wandering saints and preachers came up the Irish Sea from Rome, such as the man later venerated as St. Patrick or Bega of St. Bees, bringing their religion to the Anglo-Saxons who settled there. There is no definitive proof of a church in Gosforth before the Viking Age, but it would have been Celtic, made of wattle and daub, and it too, would have been focused around the local holy spring.

The Vikings swept through Britain with series of invasions throughout the 10th century, and for a time controlled the area of northern England known as Danelaw. Names of towns, roads, and families still in existence today attest to this Scandinavian stronghold. But, like the Angles before them, it seems as though the conquerors were quickly conquered by the customs and beliefs prevalent in their new land. The Gosforth Cross speaks to this unique juncture in time, a world halfway between the pagan and the Christian.

It was first identified in 1886 by the amateur antiquarian Charles Arundel Parker. His findings were a sensation in an age obsessed with Vikings (Wagner's Ring debuted just ten years before), the Victoria and Albert Museum quickly had a replica made. Parker demonstrated that the cross showed scenes described in Norse myth, such as Loki bound, the god Víðarr tearing the jaws of Fenrir, and Thor's failed attempt to catch Jörmungandr, the Midgard Serpent.

Inside St. Mary’s church are two hogback tombs, another example of this unique fusion of Viking paganism and Anglo-Saxon Christian cultures. About four to five feet long and shaped generally like a bowed house, the hogback derives its name from the convex curve of its roof. Narrative scenes on their sides also depict scenes from Norse mythology and Christian iconography. They are assumed to be tombstones or gravemarkers, and once they too probably stood in the churchyard. But over time, their original use forgotten, their pagan overtones became uncouth. When the church was rebuilt in the 12^th century, they were used in the foundations – and only rediscovered in the 1896 rebuilding. At one time, there were other crosses standing in the churchyard as well - some of the fragments remain, also built into the church wall, but most of the structures are lost.

But, what if the experts have got it wrong? What if the depicted duality was something they made up, or misidentified?  What if the gravemarkers and crosses had a different purpose, also broken up and buried with the ages? Or, what if the tipping point toward Christianity changed? What would 1,000 years of history look like then?

I was fascinated by one of the key figures represented on the cross, thought to be the god Heimdall. Heimdall is the sentry of Asgard and a member of the Aesir, the gods of the Norse pantheon. He is the herald of Ragnarök, fated to sound his majestic trumpet, Gjallarhorn, and leading the Aesir into their final battle.

In an entangled world of the Vikingverse, St. Mary’s is home to Churchwarden Michaels, himself a guardian of sorts. But it soon becomes difficult for him to tell Christian from Norse, friend from foe. It is often said that X marks the spot, but exactly what is underneath?

What If Belgium Got Its Empire?

No one expected Belgium to conquer the world...but they sure did try.

What If Pope Alexander VI Had Lived Longer?

Pope Alexander VI (aka Rodrigo Borgia) had big plans for the House of Borgia before he died unexpectedly...but what if he had lived a few years more?

Review: The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal, the first full-length novel in The Lady Astronaut series, is being praised as not just as a great alternate history, but as a great science fiction story. I've seen dozens of reviews recommending this one to alternate historians and general science fiction fans alike. But does it deser...you know what, I'm not even going to finished writing that rhetorical question. Yes, it certainly deserves the praise and you should go read it.

But I still need to write a review of it and while much of what I've said has probably been said by others before, I still feel to desire to talk about this book.

The Calculating Stars is set in an alternate history where the American space program gets a boost from two different points of divergence (PODs). The first one is that Thomas Dewey actually defeats Harry Truman in 1948 US presidential election. Under President Dewey, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (the predecessor to NASA in our timeline) is given a bunch of funding to beat the Soviets into putting a satellite into orbit, which they do.

The second point of divergence is that a meteorite crashes in the ocean not far from Washington, DC. This not only wipes out the city, but devastates much of the American East Coast and causes a nuclear winter to begin. Now I am initially skeptical of any alternate history that has to rely on more than one point of divergence, but apparently there is a short story called "We Interrupt This Broadcast" that links the two PODs. Having not read the story yet I can't confirm if this is true, but I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt for now.

Our protagonist, Elma York (a Jewish-American former WASP pilot and mathematician) is the first to discover that the amount of water vapor thrown into the air by the meteorite will cause temperatures to rise over the years, eventually making the planet unlivable. This spurs a multinational effort to colonize space to save humanity. Elma joins the effort as a computer for the International Aerospace Coalition (IAC), but what she really wants to be is an astronaut. For as we all know, you can't really have a colony without women, otherwise where are the babies going to come from?

Despite this biological requirement, Elma and other female pilots wanting to be astronauts find themselves blocked by the sexist 1950s society, but Elma is determined to get into space. Unfortunately this propels Elma into the media's spotlight as "The Lady Astronaut" and her own anxiety about being in the public eye may bring her down before the patriarchy can.

The Calculating Stars was an enjoyable, character-driven story from start to finish. I've always enjoyed alternate Space Race timelines and the novel delivered everything I could want such as cool rocket technology and ambitious dreams to colonize the Solar System. The world-building was good as well, especially with the brief news snippets that showed what was going on across the rest of the world (for example, the Soviet Union didn't weather the extended winter all that well, but China did and is trying to play catch up with the IAC, since the remaining communist bloc is not a part of the IAC).

I also liked how Kowal essentially took our current debate on global warming and transported it to the 1950s, but still managed to make it plausible, even with the conspiracy theorists who don't believe the Earth will warm up enough to make it uninhabitable. Because even with the fate of humanity at stake, if it effects someone's wallet, then it can't possibly be that big of a threat, am I right?

I also liked the character of Elma York. She is a good balance between the common cliche female characters. She is far from a "damsel in distress", being a trained pilot and skilled mathematician who can easily out-fly and out-think many of the boys, but she isn't a simple "strong female character" and has real flaws. For example, even though she is perhaps more progressive when it comes to race then a lot of characters, she still fails to realize at times how privileged she is as a white woman. Her biggest flaw, however, is her social anxiety. As someone who has his own social anxiety issues, I thought Kowal did a great job at presenting this in a realistic way.

Is there anything I didn't like about The Calculating Stars? Well this might be nitpicky, but I thought Elma's husband and chief engineer of the IAC, Nathaniel York, was a little too perfect. He always had the right thing to say (or knew when to just shut up and listen), was always supportive of Elma's dreams and was very attractive for someone who spent a lot of time behind a desk. That all said, I didn't find the character to be offensively bad and he was still likable, but it would have been nice to see some more obvious flaws. Nevertheless, it doesn't really ruin the story in the slightest and I only included it here because I wanted to balance out the review.

So yeah if you haven't read The Calculating Stars then you are missing out. I personally plan to pick up a copy of the sequel, The Fated Sky, as soon as I can. Hopefully Kowal continues to write more in this universe as we need more stories about humanity reach for stars rather than the current timeline we live in where we do nothing but squabble in the mud.