July, 2001

Terry Bisson is a good storyteller, I came to know him through impressive short stories. This is one of his first novels, and while good, nothing ever actually happens. If it weren't a book about the American Civil War, this might not be a flaw.

John Brown's Harper's Ferry raid goes off as planned, with the participation of Harriet Tubman (which is not how it happened for our history). This results in a different Civil War that is more of a guerilla uprising throughout the American south and southwest, assisted by all the sympathetic European revolutionaries.

The novel is set in the 1960s, with a split American continent. There is Nova Africa, with strong ties to the socialist united continent of Africa, with technology beyond our current level. The northern country of America has just gotten over it's recent revolution that finally turned it socialist. We follow a descendant of a participant in the civil war through her troubles, as she reads her great-grandfather's letters about his wartime experience. Interspersed are also letters from another abolitionist participant. As I mentioned before, nothing ever actually happens, we just read letters from people in which they talk a little bit about what they heard about, and occasionally, just in passing, what they did.

A decent enough exploration of an alternate 20th century America and world.

MAJOR GRIPE - Bisson falls into the typical pattern of the alternate history writer, in which he has a work of fiction appear that is a book about the way things really turned out for us, as an alternate history book in the alternate history. I have seen this before, and it does not amuse me. It was almost cute the first time, but is invariably a tool for the characters to say, "Oh, how ridiculous this all is, how could things possibly have happened that way, and what a nasty world that would be." It was used identically in The Two Georges (I think Bisson's book was out first though), and in both cases the alternate history book is a cult favorite among bigots/revolutionaries/ malcontents/splinter groups, whatever you want to call them. (Although, in The Two Georges' favor, the group with the alternate alternate history actually is part of the plot, unlike in Fire on the Mountain, in which they exist just to exist and provide the book).

Writing an alternate history book in which alternate history is the tool of the book's jerk class doesn't seem to be a good move to keep fans of alternate history reading your books.