Any alternative history has a point of departure from actual history. In SM Stirling's Black Chamber, this point is President Taft's afternoon nap on May 25th, 1912.
Readers lacking knowledge of the period might think that some of the details of the actual history are parts of the alternative history. Thus, there was an Irish Republican Brotherhood before there was an Irish Republican Army and Hugo Gernsback did edit science magazines as well as sf magazines although maybe the June 1916 issue of The Electrical Experimenter was different in the Black Chamber timeline?
Russia is going to Brest-Litovsk for a peace treaty a year and a half early and Admiral von Hipper rises faster in the German Navy.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I was thinking of exactly that today: how the turning point used by Stirling in BLACK CHAMBER was having President Taft prematurely dying on May 25, 1912. It enabled his former friend, Theodore Roosevelt, to reunite and remold the GOP along his preferred lines, and going on to defeat the Democrats led by Wilson in the 1912 election.
The more I learn about Roosevelt in 1912 (real and Beta), the more I'm convinced the only man I could have voted for that year was Taft. I'm also remembering how severely conservatives like Russell Kirk had criticized Herbert Croly and his ideas in works like THE CONSERVATIVE MIND. Croly was to be Theodore Roosevelt's chief ideologist in BLACK CHAMBER.
I did know of Hugo Gernsback and the pioneering SF magazines he edited. But not of the Iris Republican Brotherhood.
Oddly, May 25 was the day I picked up my new Honda FIT 5DR LX.
Sean
Croly's influence on Roosevelt is one of those significant things that might have been much more significant...
The cover of Gernsback's magazine is a -bit- different in the BLACK CHAMBER universe.
You'll also find differences in what Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote, as the series goes on -- Luz is an ERB fan.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
FORTUNATELY, precisely because President Taft did not die in our 1912, the Republican Party escaped becoming Crolyite. Unfortunately, too many of Croly's baneful ideas were adopted by the Democrats, as "Progressives," disgusted by the refusal of the GOP to adopt Crolyite ideas, switched to gradually taking over the Democrats.
I've already seen some references to Edgar Rice Burroughs. But not yet to Hugo Gernsback.
Sean
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