Donald Trump and the American Principate

Back when I was in college and soon afterward, I plotted out a dystopian novel called The American Principate, named after a period in early Roman history in which the emperors reigned but the Republic continued to theoretically function. The gist of it was that the abuse of federal war powers in the name of the "War on Terror" would lead to civil war and a presidential military dictatorship in the U.S. initially established by Not George W. Bush and solidified by Not Dick Cheney. It was heavily tapped into 2001-2007 anxieties about the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, etc. and its time came and went, so don't expect me to finish writing it.

(I suppose I could go full alternate-history like Lindsay Ellis did with Axiom's End, but this really isn't something I'm interested in doing anymore.)

However, in a discussion with a friend about dystopias in fiction and what in particular I might find dystopic, I sent him the blog post. He said it seemed like a more subtle dystopia that many Americans would tolerate and could lead to a true dystopia later on. I'm inclined to view it as a dystopia already, but I remember that long-ago World Book encyclopedia set that differentiated between "authoritarian" and "totalitarian." An authoritarian state regulates its subjects' political participation but doesn't meddle overmuch in other aspects of their lives. A totalitarian state will try to control everything. The American Principate, with a few exceptions, is the former rather than the latter...it's much more like the very early Soviet Union (in which the Communists, Left Socialist Revolutionaries, and Mensheviks were legal parties and the CP was more democratic internally) than the reign of Stalin in which the whole society was reorganized in a bloodthirsty revolution from above.

And the above brings us to Donald Trump. The American Principate allows the two major parties to operate (the Greens and Libertarians are straight-up outlawed on the grounds they undermine the war effort, which given how Twitter partisans of the two major parties are all convinced they're evil spoilers controlled by their rivals or foreign powers would probably be popular), but the range of acceptable political opinion is narrow. The neoconservative/unitary executive crowd is in ascendance and political positions outside that window are only somewhat less verboten than being a Kadet, Right Socialist Revolutionary, Octobrists, etc. were in the early Soviet Union. Democrats like Joe Lieberman, possibly Joe Biden (who supported the 2003 Iraq War), etc. may operate and at least sometimes win (the election system is federalized), but the ones who opposed the Iraq War, especially the more militant ones, not so much. The paleocon wing of the GOP is probably gone too, especially since I had Not Ron Paul as a prominent opposition leader executed by military elements loyal to the president as the civil war drew to a close. Donald Trump, who was advocating against the Iraq War as early as 2004, would probably be staying very carefully out of politics or else some politically-motivated investigations into his finances and other possible crimes would shut him up real quick.

However, should the American Principate suffer a significant reverse, things might change very quickly. Even with a military version of the bracero program allowing large numbers of Mexicans and other Latin Americans to earn U.S. citizenship for themselves and their families, I imagine the occupation of Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Syria, and Afghanistan and consequent counterinsurgency operations have stretched the military very thinly and cause the U.S. significant financial problems. If something like our world's Arab Spring breaks out, the US might be put in the position of either having to openly, violently crush a non-violent democratic movement in front of the entire world or abandon the post-invasion governments they set up. The latter might end up being inevitable because of fiscal factors alone, especially if China isn't willing to loan the U.S. money anymore. That's going to generate a massive backlash that even the Principate's more authoritarian system might not be able to contain.

And then is where Trump, assuming he hasn't been conveniently jailed already (and possibly even if he has, if he can spin himself as some kind of antiwar martyr jailed by the Deep State--after all, Hungary's semi-dictator Orban was an anti-Soviet political dissident as a young man), might come in. Despite getting only 50% of the vote in the Republican primary, he was able to bend virtually all of the GOP to his will very quickly, and all this despite having personal issues (multiple divorces, avoiding the Vietnam draft, outright contempt for soldiers) that by the standards of 1990s anti-Clinton Republicans would totally disqualify him and one might think would vex the Principate's more militarized society even more. Right now there are 1.9 to 3 million "War on Terror" veterans--more than the two million who served in Vietnam--and in this timeline there are a hell of a lot more due to the occupation of Iran, Egypt, and possibly other countries. Trump calling soldiers "losers" is going to piss off even more people--including party elites who have even more power in this scenario as well as ordinary veterans--than they would have in our history. Although a majority of veterans supported Trump, younger ones didn't, and there are a lot more of them this time. Although this would represent a potential anti-Trump bloc, if he's able to play on their resentment of the system that sent them to a war they couldn't win without indulging in the excesses of the Vietnam-era antiwar movement (yes, they did happen), he might be able to bring them on board or neutralize them politically.

Given the much more aggressive "War on Terror" in this timeline and likely radicalization of U.S.-born Muslims (see the San Bernardino shooting and the Pulse nightclub shooting), I imagine the primary targets for a much more empowered Trump would be Muslims. Trump pushed for a ban on immigration from Muslim countries and although existing US laws limited what could ultimately be implemented significantly, those legal checks are going to be much weaker or nonexistent and terrorism-related precedents could be used to override whatever precedents remain. I would imagine Muslim immigration and/or asylum claims would be sharply limited if not barred completely in this scenario, and American-born Muslims would be subject to much greater surveillance and harassment by state authorities or hyped-up Trump supporters. The Principate would likely play up Bush's post-9/11 "Islam is a religion of peace" rhetoric (especially when they need Muslim cooperation for the expanded "War on Terror"), but under Trump the radicalized base would be in the driver's seat.

Another target for a much more powerful Trump would be Hispanics. Although Hispanic support for the Republican Party grew during his administration, he was very zealous about border enforcement even if it led to human-rights violations. In this world, Hispanic immigration to the US was much, much higher due to the "service for citizenship" program and rather than working and going home, they and their families are staying permanently. I imagine the replacement theory enthusiasts will be losing their minds even more so than in our history. Many, many of the January 6 rioters came from areas where the Hispanic population was rising and the white population was declining. Although the Principate would come down hard on anything resembling January 6 (if Not Bush jailed antiwar protesters using anti-terrorism laws and Not Cheney fought a civil war to crush congressional opposition to what was essentially a presidential military dictatorship, I imagine anything resembling J6 in this timeline would be dealt with much more aggressively), this world's Trump and his allies might be able to channel the same sentiment into support for a more aggressive program against further Hispanic immigration. Given how climate change is still going to be a problem in this world, at least some asylum-seekers in recent years were fleeing natural disasters like hurricanes, and this is projected to get worse, I could imagine a much, much uglier migrant crisis. And there would almost certainly be crackdowns on the enlarged U.S. Hispanic population, especially if they object to the stricter border enforcement regime or some other pretext for jailing or deportation could be found.

And Trump does not take criticism or insult well, much less so than Bush 2.0, Cheney, or Obama. According to the upcoming book Holding The Line, Trump sought to have the Justice Department investigate his critics, including former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. In a world where criticism of the government is considered helping terrorists (look at some of the more obnoxious behavior by Republicans in the 2001-2005 period), wartime restrictions of civil liberties were much more severe, and an expanded overseas counterinsurgency to test out new repression techniques, there's plenty of precedent for a President Trump to be much more destructively vindictive than real history. And then there's the prolonged attempt to overturn the 2020 election results, only with a lot fewer if any guardrails against presidential overreach.

So to sum it up, in the world of the American Principate, Donald Trump is much less likely to become president, but if he does, he's going to be much more likely to become a tyrant whose opponents are worthy of the title "the resistance" than the Trump of real life. If Bush 2.0 is Julius Caesar, Dick Cheney is Augustus, and whomever is holding the bag when the Arab Spring breaks out is Tiberius or Claudius, Trump could be the American Caligula, Nero, or Domitian.

A (Somewhat) Realistic North Korean RED DAWN

The YouTuber The Alternate Historian, whom I know from my former days at the Internet's premiere alternate history forum, posted on Twitter recently about making a video discussing a realistic war between the U.S. and North Korea. In the Homefront video game and the 2012 Red Dawn remake the North Koreans manage to land forces on the American mainland and actually take control over much of the continental United States.

Sufficient to say, that isn't going to happen. North Korea's air force is obsolete and owing to lack of fuel, their pilots have little training time. North Korea's navy is primarily focused on its own river and coasts. They're realistically not going transport a whole army to the American mainland and good luck keeping them supplied even if they could get here. Their army is large, but their equipment is obsolete. Their main strengths are masses of artillery threatening the South Korean capital, their nukes and ballistic missiles, and their cyberwarfare capability.

(North Korea's nuclear capabilities seem much more advanced than I'd earlier believed...I thought at best they could manage a "Super-9/11" on one or two cities on the West Coast and then they'd be annihilated, but what the Council on Foreign Relations describes is something more like what's depicted in this faux Congressional commission's report on a North Korean nuclear attack. Yikes.)

So how could you have a realistic Red Dawn where it's the North Koreans of all people landing on the American mainland? Commandos. Before I left the alternate-history forum, I suggested the "more realistic Red Dawn" story would be a small North Korean force taking over an isolated small town in the rural West Coast. In my idea they'd be hidden aboard a civilian ship, while TAH suggested on Twitter they could use submarines. North Korean cyberwar techniques could be used to conceal their approach to the West Coast. The goal isn't to actually conquer the United States; the goal is to seize a town during an international crisis as a bargaining chip to get the U.S. to back off militarily, lift sanctions, etc. Northern California is rather isolated (a large land area with few roads) and if they take a large number of civilians hostage, that would complicate any response from the California National Guard or the regular U.S. military. That means the locals will have to liberate themselves, and so we enter Red Dawn territory.

And that's when things get tricky. There are lots of guns to be had in the rural U.S., even in Democratic states like California, but a force of North Korean regulars is going to have much heavier gear even if they're dramatically outnumbered. I'm imagining them herding captured civilians into camps beneath a battery of portable artillery and then defending said artillery with machine guns. A few dozen guys with rifles might be able to make life difficult for North Korean infantry patrols or do hit-and-run on isolated enemy positions, but good luck with successfully attacking this.

Fortunately, northern California is a major haven for illegally growing marijuana, and the local weed baron "just happens" to have some mortars. Think how mobster Eddie Valentine flips on the evil actor (and Nazi spy) Neville Sinclair in the climax of the film The Rocketeer--like Eddie, this man might not have a problem making money illegally, but collaborating with a totalitarian enemy is something else entirely. A bunch of irregular infantrymen bum-rushing machine guns isn't going to end well for them (and even a successful attack would give the North Koreans time to slaughter the hostages with artillery), but a surprise mortar bombardment could cripple the guns or kill their operators, wreck the machine gun positions, etc.

And that gave me the idea for an analogue for the traitor Daryl from the 1984 version. I'm imagining some young Twitter tankie (an apologist for authoritarian anti-American regimes--think Western leftists defending China's repression of Hong Kong or Xinjiang or Russian bombing of Syrian rebels) initially collaborating with the North Koreans. He erroneously thinks they're "anti-imperialist" or believes the U.S. provoked the North Koreans into this crazed long-shot gamble with economic sanctions or military drills. 

Sufficient to say, the scales fall from his eyes real fast. Although the guerrillas initially don't want his help, he's read the Anarchist's Cookbook and knows how to combine chlorine and bleach to make a crude chemical weapon or can make other chemical concoctions ISIS-style. Putting the trust the North Koreans gave him to good use, he sets off the chemical bomb in the North Korean headquarters at the same time the guerrillas use their new mortars to destroy the artillery the North Koreans are using to hold the townsfolk hostage. If the guerrillas or their weed-baron allies have got some decent machinists, they could make gas shells to make absolutely sure the gun crews are dead.

(Daryl could have some Redemption Equals Death for having been a collaborator initially, or more creatively, survive and everybody believes he was the Wolverines' inside man the entire time.)

I've got a lot going on, so I'm not going to try to pitch this to Hollywood (which wouldn't be interested, especially with the failure of the Red Dawn remake) or even write a book. Still, it might be interesting.

The Politics of BATTLE FOR THE WASTELANDS, Or Putting "Punk" In Steampunk

As most of my regular readers know, I officially became a steampunk writer with my novel Battle for the Wastelands and its companion novella "Son of Grendel." Although those two books came out relatively recently, I'd been tinkering with them and pitching them for years (I completed the first Battle draft sometime in 2012) and I'd attended the Atlanta steampunk convention AnachroCon in 2014. One common concern I've heard re: steampunk over the years was that it was becoming too focused on aesthetics of parasols and dirigibles, with the "punk" angle (subversion of norms, challenges to authority, etc) neglected. In particular, the late 19th Century on which steampunk is based involved a lot of labor/class unrest that was supposed getting ignored in favor of fashion.

Between those comments I'd seen around and reading Killing For Coal in graduate school, I decided to make labor issues part of the worldbuilding in the Wastelands world. If you haven't read Killing For Coal, it's a fascinating look at the 1913-14 "Colorado Coalfield War" and its aftermath. Although it's mostly remembered for the Ludlow Massacre, in the aftermath of the massacre the striking miners proceeded to hammer the state militia (what would soon become the National Guard) for several days and workers in other trades began holding military drills and the like. That and the Battle of Blair Mountain were the closest incidents to outright socialist revolution in the United States I can think of. This is referenced in Battle when, in a meeting with his warlords, the villain Grendel talks about putting down strikes and the various commanders keeping forces at war footing--despite the vast expense--to avoid dumping hundreds of thousands of young men who know how to use weapons into the labor market. One reason the striking Colorado miners were such effective fighters is that many were veterans of wars in Europe. Although the first lord of the Northlands doesn't know about the coalfield war (I'm keeping it very vague as to whether this is our future, the future of a similar world, or something else entirely--think Stephen King's Dark Tower), he doesn't want similar incidents breaking out across his empire.

(Not only are Grendel and his cronies afraid of strikers being effectively able to resist the local police, the armies of lesser lords, or even Grendel's elite Obsidian Guard, but they're also concerned about their own soldiers following orders in the event they're sent against former comrades. The first Russian Revolution broke out when the soldiers refused to suppress food riots in St. Petersburg, after all. The film In Pursuit of Honor begins with a group of cavalrymen refusing to attack the Bonus Army outside of Washington D.C. because they'd served with those men in France, although I'm not entirely sure if that incident actually happened.)

Another plot plot in Battle is a small-scale war between two of Grendel's warlords that starts out over a labor dispute. One of Grendel's warlords is a straight-up mutant cyborg who breeds armies of mutants in the shadow of an "Old World" nuclear reactor. As part of a trade deal, he'd offered another warlord some to work in mines alongside more "normal" workers. The other workers went on strike and took to the hills with guns rather than work alongside "freaks," much like how racial violence accompanied labor disputes when black workers were brought in to replace striking white ones. The film Matawan covers one such incident, while I remember reading about a number of such instances in Making A New Deal. This ultimately escalated into a war between the two that sets Grendel looking for an outside enemy to keep everybody busy, something that will have consequences throughout the entire series.

Another "punk" element that's worked into the Wastelands world is the Jim Crow practice of convict leasing, chronicled in Slavery By Another Name. When Grendel united his homeland of Sejera through a dynastic marriage (and jackbooting those who objected), he made a very big deal about formally ending chattel slavery. But what dictator doesn't have forced labor? In addition to the usual labor camps and mines for political troublemakers and common criminals, both Grendel's overarching regime and private companies also lease convicts from lesser governments for forced labor. Convict leasing began after Reconstruction and continued all the way through World War II, a nice bit of period-appropriate dystopia. And considering how convicts under Jim Crow were viewed as more expendable than slaves (and in-universe there are references to convict laborers dying at high rates on certain projects), I imagine there'll be rebellions and the like should the opportunity arise.

Finally, part of the backstory for the defeat of the Merrill family--the last major independent power in the Northlands--was labor disputes. James Merrill, who was leader at the time, was preoccupied with mediating the concerns of business owners and workers and paid little heed to Grendel's growing military threat until it was too late. It's an underground labor movement that keeps his son Alonzo and his rebels supplied with equipment and trying to find a way to fairly deal with both capital and labor will become a problem for the son as much as the father in the second book.

The historical steampunk era was not just known for labor and class problems, but also an increasing push for women's rights. The first country to allow women to vote nationwide was New Zealand in 1893, while women won voting rights state by state throughout the 19th Century in the U.S. until the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 guaranteed the right nationwide. This is touched on a bit when our oblivious hero Andrew Sutter, son of a prior mayor in his hometown, wonders why nobody asks his twin sister Sarah's opinion on anything the way they ask him and Sarah points out this should be rather obvious. 

(Although I didn't go into a lot of detail about how government in Andrew's town works, there aren't any women attending the town meeting on how to deal with the coming assault on the town by the extortionate Flesh-Eating Legion. This would strongly suggest women were either legally not allowed to participate in formal politics or it was Simply Not Done, since the town has been broadly self-governing since the Merrill dynasty fell but must provide tribute and conscripts to the Flesh-Eaters when asked. This might not be universal, since the surviving Merrill armies do field female soldiers and nobody seems to view that as particularly remarkable. To cite Eowyn's conversation with Aragorn in The Two Towers, those without swords can still die upon them.)

However, the main feminist plot point (so far) is the deconstruction of "it's good to be the king" in regards to the harem Grendel started up after the death of his wife. One of his concubines is Catalina Merrill, daughter of James and sister of Alonzo, who really, really doesn't like it. She exhibits some fairly overt symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder from Grendel's attentions. Meanwhile, there's constant catfighting between the women and rival sons of different mothers plotting against each other, something that polygamous societies like the Ottoman Empire or ancient Israel were known for. This will only get worse later in the series. Although none of Grendel's women could be credibly described as 19th Century feminists, this does show how incredibly destructive this situation is. King Conan and his "luscious concubines" this is NOT.

Guest Post: "SDI-Punk" Literature and Film

(This post is the second part of an earlier blog post introducing the concept of "SDI-Punk" as a retrofuturist genre in the vein of steampunk and dieselpunk. Now we continue with existing works of fiction and non-fiction that would actually fit in this genre.)

RESOURCES

The core era of this genre is the 1983-1988 era, but antecedents could be found in the 1970s. Below is a partial list of works I would consider to be in or relevant to the genre.

MOVIES AND TELEVISION

SDI never really made its way to the big screen--or the small one. So, in addition to one piece of actual SDI-punkness, I offer other relevant movies and TV shows set in that era.

The Americans: This series focuses on the lives of Soviet illegals operating in the US during the 1980s. Sometimes, the plot deals with technology theft (which was a recurring theme throughout this period).

Firefox: The one truly SDI-punk movie entry. Underrated Clint Eastwood movie based on a novel by Craig Thomas. An American pilot, haunted by the demons of his time in Vietnam, must infiltrate a Soviet flight test facility and steal the ultimate warplane--and then get past Soviet defenses to get it to the West. An atmospheric score by Maurice Jarre, a decent adaption of the source novel into film (not an easy task at all), excellent flight sequences, and one of Clint Eastwood's more complex performances make this a worthwhile movie.

Robocop Trilogy: SDI plays a background role in the news updates, and some of the punk themes play out into the movies' "Delta City" arc.

The Hunt For Red October: Tom Clancy's debut novel made its way to the screen in 1990, and the results were outstanding. Excellent performances by Alec Baldwin and Sean Connery, excellent use of Navy support, and a storyline that conveyed the tension of the setting (1984) make it well worth watching.

No Way Out: Possibly the best spy movie of the 1980s. Paranoia you can cut with a knife, and multiple surprise-but-perfectly-logical twists keep you guessing beginning to end.

The Soldier: A fun romp that ends up with rogue agents (East AND West) conducting a nuclear standoff, with tons of action throughout. The soundtrack is by Tangerine Dream; it's a time capsule of the early 1980s. (Pay attention during the opening credits; you will see that material again.)

Stranger Things: 1980s period drama with government conspiracies meeting Middle America. (I haven't actually seen this show, but I've heard good things about it from various people I know.)

NOVELS

The pickings are MUCH better here. Below is a mere sampling of the riches to be found.

Dale Brown

Flight of the Old Dog: High-technology weapons, including a B-52 refitted with stealth technology(!), SDI plays a role.

Silver Tower: This one is another core SDI-Punk entry. The American Armstrong Space Station, armed with various weapons including a hyper-powerful laser, may be the only thing that can stop a Soviet invasion of Iran.

Tom Clancy

Cardinal of the Kremlin: Jack Ryan is at the focus of the race between the Americans and the Soviets to develop high-energy lasers for strategic defense, with espionage playing a core role. Ends with what would be an absolutely LEGENDARY covert operation. Definitely core SDI-Punk material.

Jim DeFelice

Coyote Bird: Published right at the end of the Cold War, it posited a US-Japan rivalry and hypersonic superplanes. Technology, pilots, and the interaction between them are the central themes of this novel.

David Drake

Skyripper: Former NSA agent Tom Kelly is called back in to service to manage the defection of a Soviet scientist who has the secret to powering space-based lasers. The kicker: The Soviet scientist is defecting because little voices are telling him that aliens are about to invade Earth. The protagonist isn't a very nice guy, but he has a definite sense of right and wrong, and he is brutally competent at his job.

Fortress: In an alternate history, JFK survived and put into motion Fortress--a space station armed with thousands of nuclear bombs. Problem: Nazis in flying saucers have hijacked it. (No, really.) Tom Kelly (yes, the same guy from Skyripper, different universe) to the rescue! (Oh, dear, the body count is going to be spectacular.)

Payne Harrison

Storming Intrepid: A Soviet agent hijacks a space shuttle carrying the first SDI satellite. America wants it back. Hilarity Ensues.

Donald Kingsbury

The Moon Goddess and the Son: Expanded version of the Analog serial from the late 1970s. The Soviets go into space in a big way in the late 1980s, and the US launches a crash program to beat them. SDI plays a core role. The punk elements revolve more around what happens when one man can become his own military-industrial complex, and how that could interact with strategic forces. In some ways, it hasn't aged well; in others, it's aged so well it's moved from "that's an interesting idea" to downright disturbing.

William Lovejoy

Black Sky: A joint US/Soviet suborbital stealth aircraft program goes up against their Japanese counterparts.

Delta Blue: An elite USAF spaceplane squadron must take on a resurgent Germany before their geothermal power project causes a global calamity.

Delta Green: Renegade Soviet hardliners steal a USAF spaceplane. Sequel to Delta Blue.

Janet Morris 

Warlord: Someone is killing former operatives of a CIA black project aimed at colonizing Mars. The two remaining survivors must navigate a covert war between the US and the USSR for control of space and flush out the killers. 

MEDUSA (With Chris Morris): Pure SDI-Punk. A CIA operative and a hotshot Air Force test pilot must stop a Soviet provocation aimed at American orbital defenses. Superplanes, lasers, and old-school spying and mayhem all play a part.

Active Measures (with David Drake): More SDI-Punk. The American President is a  Soviet mole, and things are cheerfully going to hell at home and abroad--and in space. Multiple spy plots crash into each other. First description I ever saw of a self-forging projectile charge (published in 1985).

M. E. Morris

Alpha Bug: A new Soviet space weapon threatens America's nuclear arsenal. A medically retired astronaut may be the only guy who can stop it. Action ranges from infiltrating Baikonur Cosmodrome to a dogfight over the Black Sea, with a final confrontation in orbit. SDI-Punk core material.

Ralph Peters

The War in 2020: Published in 1990, as the Cold War was waning, and America was fearing Japanese economic warfare. The US 7th Cavalry Regiment, equipped with the latest high-tech tilt-rotor gunships, is fighting a Japanese-backed Islamic invasion of Soviet Central Asia. The author described it as a novel of nightmares, and the description fits. SDI is in the background, as space-based defenses make central nuclear war impossible--and all manner of mayhem inevitable.

Gary Allen Ruse

A Game of Titans: Published in 1976. The USA and the USSR are squaring off in a remote corner of the Pacific for high stakes. The Soviet Navy sends their (then-new) V/STOL carrier Kiev; the United States Air Force sends a nuclear-powered airship(!), the Grand Eagle. The airship carries drones (then called "remote-piloted vehicles," or RPVs), a laser weapon(!), and Harrier jump-jets. Ruse takes an incredible premise and sells it well.

D. J. Savage

The Glass Lady: A prototype American orbital laser has malfunctioned and destroyed a Soviet research satellite. A joint US/Soviet space shuttle mission is the only chance to deactivate the weapon; if the mission fails, the shuttle crew will be "terminated with extreme prejudice."

Craig Thomas

Firefox: As mentioned above, American pilot Mitchell Gant must steal the ultimate warplane from a test facility deep inside the Soviet Union--and make it back out.

Firefox Down: Takes up right where Firefox ended. Forced to land on a frozen lake in Finland due to battle damage, Gant must escape Soviet capture while the British seek to recover the aircraft itself.

Winter Hawk: Gant is back, flying a stolen Hind helicopter gunship into the Soviet Union to rescue a CIA agent with information on Soviet space-based lasers, vitally needed to close a loophole in a soon-to-be-implemented arms treaty. But there is far more at stake. Complex plot and characterization, shifting alliances, and the stifling environment of Baikonur Cosmodrome make this one of Thomas' best novels.

ANTHOLOGIES

Jerry Pournelle

There Will Be War: Ten volumes published from 1982 to 1990. Many stories and nonfiction essays about SDI and its potential impact on the world.

Dean Ing

Firefight 2000: Fiction and technology essays. Some interesting technology notions that are related to SDI.

NON-FICTION

Dean Ing & Leik Myrabo

The Future of Flight: A 1985 book on potential future aerospace technologies, most of which revolve around using high-energy lasers to beam energy to aerospace craft. Some math, but the authors do their best to keep it accessible to the layman.

David Pahl

Space Warfare and Strategic Defense: Large-format hardcover with gorgeous full-color art and photographs examining SDI from multiple angles; the author examines both the promise and the perils of orbital warfare and ballistic missile defenses.

Curtis Peebles

Battle for Space: Published in 1985. Examines the history and prospects for development of military space programs, including anti-satellite weapons and the Strategic Defense Initiative.

Jerry Pournelle & Dean Ing

Mutual Assured Survival: A 1984 book discussing (and advocating) ballistic missile defenses. Discusses technologies, project management, and places the argument in a larger context of renewing American space exploration.

TABLETOP GAMES

Steve Jackson Games

Orbit War: Originally published in 1984 in the SJG magazine, The Space Gamer. Interesting game of orbital warfare; the game gives a somewhat realistic model for orbital movement and even the Earth's rotation, creating a very dynamic battlefield. Units include space shuttles, space stations, killer satellites, nuclear weapons, mines, etc. Somewhat complex, but worthy of study. (The time I used orbital mechanics to slingshot a nuke into my opponent's space station was a thing of beauty.)

About the author: Ken Prescott is a Marine Corps veteran. He has worked as a management analyst, medical coder, and human resources specialist. His novel Not By Sight is available as a Kindle ebook from Amazon. He lives with his wife in San Diego, California.

Guest Post: Introducing SDI-PUNK, Or The Once And Future 1980s

It's morning in America, it's high noon in the Cold War, and America is on the HIGH-WA-AY TO . . . THE DAN-GER ZONE!

(Admit it, dear reader: you sang that last bit along with me.)

SDI-Punk is yet another form of retrofuturism, just as Steampunk reflects the Victorian vision of the future with its airships and steam-powered hardware, Dieselpunk represents a weird World War II, and Atompunk gives us the future as seen from a time when we really did vaporize entire islands as physics experiments.

SDI-Punk crosses the line of departure in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It is focused on the military, intelligence gathering, and the military-industrial complex. The centerpiece of SDI-Punk is right there on the label: the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and advanced aerospace technologies. The purpose of SDI was two-fold; first, to do research and development on ballistic missile defense, in order to invert the calculus that favored offense over defense; second, to help open a new "technological front" in the Cold War, outflanking the entire Soviet military industrial complex.

In our history, SDI was, arguably, the killing blow to the edifice that was the Soviet Union. German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt once quipped that the USSR was "Upper Volta with missiles." Without missiles, the USSR was a ramshackle imperium where the bosses pretended to pay the workers, and in return the workers pretended to work. SDI eventually died quietly in 1993, barely a decade after it began, apparently no longer necessary because the Cold War was over.

But what if the USSR had been made of somewhat sterner stuff? SDI may have been championed by a Republican President, but it had bipartisan support in an era where "conservative Democrats" still existed. Had the Cold War still been going by the time a Democrat moved into 1600, SDI might have had a bureaucratic and legislative momentum of its own, perhaps eventually leading to deployed weapons.

SDI was just one piece of a much larger scheme of technological flanking maneuver in both the military and civilian realms. Other pieces included stealth aircraft (which would render most of the USSR's very expensive air defense network useless), smart weapons (more targets killed per sortie flown), advanced communications and intelligence systems (making the entire force more responsive and agile), Tomahawk land attack missiles (making US Navy surface ships--which had, since the end of WW2, been relegated to carrier escort missions--into lethal threats that would need to be tracked just like the carriers; this would overload the Soviet ocean surveillance system by giving it too many things to do at once), and using the KGB's penchant for technological theft to pass sabotaged equipment and unworkable designs to the Soviet Union.

The result of all that military investment played out on American television screens during Operation Desert Storm, when a U.S.-led coalition took only six weeks to turn the fourth-largest army in the world into the second-largest army in Iraq.

But enough of geopolitics and grand strategy. Like all literary punk, SDI-Punk is as much about the aesthetic and zeitgeist as it is about story and characters. So, what do we have to work with?

MORNING IN AMERICA

We were coming out of the post-Apollo, post-Vietnam, and post-1974 oil shock doldrums. NASA was returning to manned spaceflight with the Shuttle; it was easy to envision successor systems that would have a lower cost per pound to orbit. We actually started doing blue-collar stuff in space--fixing busted hardware in low orbit instead of simply writing it off.

High-end sports cars were almost universally wedge-shaped. (This is the way! I have spoken!)

Women's shoulders were padded, and women's hair was big. The mullet was popular among men, although not actually called that at the time; sometimes it was called "helmet hair," or the "Tennessee Tophat." Lee Iacocca made the white collar on a colored shirt the power fashion statement for men.

Personal computers were in their infancy (most home computers through the period had less memory than a typical CPU has for cache memory today), and networking was even more primitive (2400 baud over a dial-up modem was considered extremely quick until about 1988 or so). Nobody had any real idea what would happen, so predictions were all over the place, and almost nobody foreseeing anything like the World-Wide Web, social networking, online shopping, or Netflix. Computers and their impact on culture were trivial compared to today, and most of the impact was hype as opposed to substance. Computer networks, when they did appear and did play a role, looked like over-glorified USENET, without much in the way of graphics or video.

In Maryland, an insurance salesman named Tom Clancy wrote The Hunt For Red October, which became a sleeper best-seller, was praised by President Reagan as "the perfect yarn," and finally gave an identity to a genre known as the "technothriller," which fused real-world political and military strategy, operations, and military/law enforcement tactics into (usually) readable popular literature.

Music was . . . well, it was the 1980s. (You really did have to be there.) MTV actually played music videos. Hair metal, synthpop, rap music, punk rock, album-oriented rock, heartland rock, and many other genres coexisted happily, cross-pollinated one another, and even (in my never humble opinion) reached their peak expression in this era. 

HIGH NOON IN THE COLD WAR

Detente was dead, mostly because Ivan didn't play nice in the 1970s. The Cold War fell to a nadir in 1983, with the following events:

March: In a televised speech, President Ronald Reagan asked, rhetorically, if it would not be better to save lives, rather than to avenge them? That speech was the beginning of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Critics labeled the idea "Star Wars" and joked about "Ronnie Raygun." Most ordinary folks thought it was a good idea.

September: Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down after intruding into Soviet airspace (the West maintained the intrusion was accidental; the Soviets insisted that the plane was on an espionage mission). A false alarm in Moscow occurs when an early warning satellite over North America gives false indications of an American strategic missile launch. The duty controller overrides the false alerts.

October: The US invades Grenada to prevent it from becoming a Soviet satellite. This freaked out the Soviet Union, because up to that point their understanding of the rules was "What's mine is mine, and if I can grab it, what's yours is mine, too." The Americans weren't supposed to grab stuff off of the Soviets! 

November: A NATO command post exercise, "Able Archer," is much more extensive than usual. The Soviets interpret this as a sign of a possible first strike by the United States, and go to nuclear alert in Eastern Europe.

Doctrinal revolution was underway inside the military, as the American way of war changed radically in the air, land, and sea domains (much of it coming out of the lessons of Vietnam--failure is a very good teacher), and space becoming a potential fourth domain to military operations. 

The 1980s aerospace future was stealthy (manned) combat aircraft; easy access to space with a manned space station, and eventually a moonbase; laser battle stations would patrol the cislunar void; and hypersonic airliners would fly to the other side of the world in just two hours. (Implied in that last bit: hypersonic bombers would deliver conventional or nuclear weapons to the other side of the world in just two hours, or the Pentagon would take $4,000,000,000 off the price tag. Avoid the Noid!)

POLITICAL HORIZONS: THINKING GLOBALLY, ACTING LOCALLY

The political arguments of this era are interesting because we can see the hazy outlines of today's politics that are driven by global economics, viral videos, and the 24-hour news cycle.

CNN went on the air during this time, and began building the 24-hour news cycle.

The big SDI-related tie-in was the nuclear freeze movement, which arguably spawned SDI as a response. People were made uneasy by talk of building up US nuclear forces, and a wide swath of the political spectrum--generally left of center, but some on the right were at least sympathetic to the idea--settled on the idea of freezing nuclear weapons acquisition and research in place. Whether or not this was a good idea, it became very popular. A counterpart movement arose in Europe due to the impending deployment of improved theater-level nuclear forces by the United States. SDI came about in response to these ideas; perhaps defenses against ballistic missiles would make them less useful.

Political activism ranged from benefit concerts to fight famine in Ethiopia to calls for American schools and pension funds to divest themselves of companies based in or with significant business interests in South Africa as a means of fighting against apartheid. The rise of satellite news and modern telecommunications meant that local activism and non-governmental entities could begin to affect global issues, continuing a process that had begun in Vietnam, with the war being brought to American living rooms every night. A truly "punk" SDI-Punk would take this into account.

The flip side of this was that moral panics could be started in the same way. The 1980s saw a great deal of fear of "satanic ritual abuse" of children, arguably started by the McMartin Preschool case in Manhattan Beach, California. Sloppy analysis and even sloppier questioning of children (frequently involving the children being led by their questioners to the desired answers) led to convictions and plea bargains; eventually, the case petered out in a series of acquittals and hung juries years later. The sensational allegations are much better remembered than the final results.

Rural America was starting its decline; the farm foreclosure crisis began in the early 1980s as a decline in commodity prices hit heavily-leveraged farmers hardest. Further exacerbating the crisis was the rise of globalization, with maquiladoras (foreign-owned factories in Mexico) taking over production from factories located in small towns all across rural America. Losing a small factory in Chicago is bad enough for those who work there; losing that same factory in a town of 10,000 is a regional economic calamity. This made for a one-two punch that sometimes turned what had been thriving communities into near ghost towns where the only remaining industries were growing marijuana, cooking meth, and/or facilitating trafficking, whether in narcotics or people. Farm Aid was a benefit concert in 1985 to help family farms that eventually evolved into a permanent fixture as the artists and the sponsors realized the problems weren't going away.

Urban renewal and gentrification had been topics of discussion in policy and academic circles prior to the 1980s, but the rise of "Yuppies" (Young Urban Professionals) and entrepreneurship brought the conflicts inherent to these efforts from the back rooms of city managers and local community news to the big screen via the Robocop films. Homelessness, gentrification, and urban crime were all examined through these lenses.

BADDIES, BIG AND SMALL

The big scale antagonists are those devious, never-to-be-fully-trusted Commies in the Kremlin. Even in the very endgame of the Cold War, and absolutely no one expected the entire edifice of Soviet Communism and its satellite states to just collapse as they did. (I was on active duty in 1989; if you'd told me on January 1st that by the end of the year, the Berlin Wall would be torn down and German reunification would be on the negotiating table, I would've laughed in your face.)

Lesser antagonists would include various flavors of terrorist (transnational terrorism was a much different beast than today; Moscow funded terrorism in the Free World on the theory that the enemy of their enemy was, at the very least, a potentially useful idiot), drug lords, and regional powers. 

One notable omission from the rogues' gallery of the era: China. They weren't expected to ever be a major player outside of low-end manufacturing. 

(Shows you how much we knew.)

Other possible antagonists, especially for a noir/gritty story, might include devious defense contractors falsifying test results (this has always been a problem, particularly among low-end "schlocker" subcontractors supplying components to larger firms). 

Near the end of this era, Japan began to appear as a potential threat, with several novels focusing on the nature of changing technology and the fear of losing entire economic sectors to Japanese competition; a few of these posited that Japan's increasing economic power might lead to military conflict with a (relatively or actually) declining America.

The 1980s were the decade of the corporate raider, leveraged buy-outs, junk bonds, and insider trading. This could potentially affect military contractors. One could even have Soviet-financed corporate raiding . . .

The current wave of 1980s nostalgia shows no real sign of ending anytime soon; the tropes of the SDI-Punk genre and the 1980s in general are a fruitful vein just waiting to be mined by creators in all fields.

Up next...existing works of "SDI-Punk" in film and especially literature...

About the author: Ken Prescott is a Marine Corps veteran. He has worked as a management analyst, medical coder, and human resources specialist. His novel Not By Sight is available as a Kindle ebook from Amazon. He lives with his wife in San Diego, California.

What If the Cataline Conspiracy Had Succeeded?

Once upon a time, I took a class on classical history (Greece, Rome, etc) at the University of Georgia and one of the subjects that came up was the Catiline Conspiracy. This was a failed attempt by a Roman consular candidate Catiline to seize power as a populist demagogue that was foiled by the great Roman orator Cicero (who was one of two consuls), who forced him to flee the city. Cataline and his allies were later defeated in battle in the countryside and the Roman Republic saved...for a time.

But what if the planned coup had gone ahead? Behold the scenario "O Tempora, O Mores! The Cataline Conspiracy Succeeds" in which Cataline murders his enemies in the night and seizes power in the Roman Senate. A young Julius Caesar, who had objected to Cicero's execution without trial of several of the alleged conspirators in real history, brings the Roman priesthood in on Cataline's side and the demagogue's rule is secure.

But Cataline's men did not succeed in killing Cicero, and as Sherlock Holmes might put it, the game is afoot. Many of the personalities of the Republic's final civil wars--Cicero, Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey the Great--all have their parts to play in another round of civil war.

So if you're interested in Roman political history or if you simply enjoy a well-written historical tale in a history that didn't happen, check this out. It's very interesting.

A Television Series Inspired By Dean Koontz's Novel WATCHERS

This morning I saw fellow Atlanta Horror Writers Association member Andy Davidson posting on Twitter about his lifelong love of Dean Koontz's novel Watchers. Apparently he'd first read it when he was ten and re-read it every year since. I read the book somewhat later--I first got into Koontz in middle school with Cold Fire (the Dickerson Middle School library had it) and read Watchers and Phantoms soon afterward--and so I replied that I would love to see a quality movie adaptation. Unfortunately, most of the films based on it were direct-to-video garbage.

(Seriously, in the first one Travis and Nora, who are married in the book, are a mother and a son. A later version made Travis a military deserter rather than a decorated Delta Force retiree. One looks like a rip-off of Predator. And so on and so forth.)

Andy suggested a television series would be better than a film, something that reminded me of S.M. Stirling's comment at DragonCon many years ago that books made good miniseries. Although my first thought was something like one of those British TV series that lasts for around ten episodes and then done (what I think would be an appropriate adaptation of The Thing in the Woods), then I remembered the original 1960s TV series The Fugitive. Although in the 1990s film the events look like they take place over about a week or two (at most maybe a month), the original TV series ran for four seasons. The Fugitive presumably takes place in the 1960s and the novel Watchers takes place in the 1980s, both before truly large-scale government and private surveillance and tracking. It would be much easier for Dr. Richard Kimble to evade the U.S. Marshals or Travis, Nora, and the super-intelligent dog Einstein to evade the NSA, the KGB, and the predatory monster The Outsider for a prolonged period of time than today.

(It's been years since I read Watchers, but the NSA guys hunting Travis comment on how between his experience as a Delta Force operative and how he and Nora sold Nora's house for cash, tracking them would be very, very difficult. And we see that thanks to Travis's military experience, he knows just how to get false papers.)

The first season could be "everybody meets everybody" and the early hunt for the Outsider, with the climax being the Outsider's killing of Travis's landlady that causes Travis and Nora to become fugitives. The second season and perhaps a third could cover how Travis and Nora are fugitives, their getting stalked by the KGB's assassin, Einstein's distemper scare, and the final confrontation with the Outsider.

Between all the different factions hunting them, how some of them are working at cross purposes (the NSA and the KGB's hired hit-man), and one of them is chaotic force of destruction (the Outsider), a Watchers TV series could last a respectable amount of time. And given fiction's increased interest in exploring social issues these days, one could touch on other topics besides "how will Travis, Nora, and the dog escape the baddies this week" or "how will the NSA keep the Outsider from blowing the cover-up going on a rampage this time."

(In the book Nora, raised as a recluse by her emotionally-abusive aunt, initially has little ability to function in the real world and is stalked and nearly raped by the handyman she hires to work on her house. Given how fearful and lacking in self-esteem Nora is and how inept she is at "adulting" when we begin the story, I could easily imagine her blaming herself and not reporting it to the police if Travis and Einstein hadn't stopped the bastard. And if I remember right, the perpetrator only pled guilty to a lesser charge and got jailed because Travis--a man and a decorated soldier--wouldn't tolerate the police not taking it seriously. Travis's first wife died of cancer they didn't know she had until it was too late, so you could touch on health care, the importance of catching cancer early, etc. And lead NSA agent Lemuel Johnson is so hard-driving and neurotic because his father, a self-made wealthy black man who managed it during Jim Crow no less, raised him without any tolerance for failure whatsoever. One could use flashbacks Lemuel has to meeting Einstein and the Outsider before they escaped the lab to show how just pitiable and messed up the Outsider is despite how to all outward appearances it's a merciless monster. There's a lot of room for thoughtful stuff here.)

And if you make it a 1980s period piece, there's no cell phones or cameras, doing everything in cash isn't really suspicious, stuff like the Patriot Act doesn't exist, etc. That would allow for a much longer show simply because the NSA wouldn't be able to locate Travis and Nora easily, nor immediately locate and squash the KGB. And the success of It and Stranger Things shows that now is a good time for 1980s nostalgia pieces. Barnes and Noble went so far as to even point out that those who loved Stranger Things would really like Watchers.

Book Review: THE LADY HEIRESS (2020)

British independent science fiction and fantasy writer Chris Nuttall has another book out in his Zero Enigma fictional universe, a world of manners, magic, and backstabbing. Although I'm not familiar with the rest of the world, this story stands on its own, so here goes...

The Plot

Lucy Lamplighter, a member of a declining aristocratic family in the fantasy city of Shallot, graduates from her young ladies' boarding school to find herself in a bind. Her father had attempted to stop their family's collapse by engaging in increasingly reckless business gambles, most of which failed, and now House Lamplighter's fortunes are in free fall. Rather than taking what's left of the money and running, Lucy decides to restore the family's fortunes. She makes some risky moves that allow for the payment of some of the family's debts, but like her father soon finds herself playing with fire...

The Good

*Protagonist Lucy Lamplighter is an engaging and clever character whom I really like and whose fate I really care about. She's very well-handled, and how she went about restoring her declining family's fortunes wasn't what I expected. However, she does have character flaws and her decisions, both good and bad, proceed from these flaws. And through her actions we see the benefits and flaws of her boarding-school education--although it teaches her valuable skills, the inconsistent consequences for rule-breaking don't necessarily prepare one for the high-stakes world of aristocratic politics and crime.

*Because the reader cares about Lucy's adventures and ultimate fate, the book is a fast read. I think I finished it in two sessions on my apartment elliptical.

*The villain arrives much later in the story than I expected and they're an absolutely slimy, vile, disgusting person who is also very, very smart. Not going to go into a lot of detail for spoiler reasons, but this character too is very well-drawn. And the villain does a very good job using blackmail to draw characters into committing more and more heinous acts. Science fiction author David Brin illustrates how the process works here. Their decisions, both good and bad, ultimately stem from the character's own personality as well.

*I also liked some of the supporting characters, like wealthy commoner Gary Prestwick and Lucy's long-suffering Uncle Jalil who fears his niece is going down the same path as her father.

*Although this book is set in Chris's Zero Enigma universe, one doesn't need to have read the other books in the series to enjoy it. The main-series characters drop in now and then, but the characters in this story are small fish in this world's upper class who realistically wouldn't interact with them. And you get all the worldbuilding you need in this book, as seen through the eyes of a young woman who has to grow up too soon.

*Finally, Chris spent his money very well on the cover from artist Brad Fraunfelter. His cover is quite frankly awesome.

The Bad

*Some revelations about Lucy's father that explain the villain's actions could have been better foreshadowed. The reader knew he was getting desperate, but there's "making bad investments" and there's what ultimately gets revealed.

*Lucy's school rival Marlene could have been better developed, especially given some revelations the villain makes about her.

*Overall the book felt a bit short.

The Verdict

Some very good characterization of major characters, but the minor ones need some work. Definitely worth reading once, especially if you're already a fan of the Zero Enigma series. 8.0 out of 10.

FALLEN EMPIRE What Might Have Been #1: Choi and Watson

Awhile back, I wrote two Kindle Worlds novellas set in independent science fiction author Lindsay Buroker's Fallen Empire universe, "Ten Davids, Two Goliaths" and its sequel "Discovery and Flight."Both were part of a sub-series called "Choi and Watson" that took place during the rebellion preceding the events of the first novel Star Nomad. They followed Geun Choi, a Korean Buddhist warrior-mystic, and his friend Tammy Watson, a recovering drug addict. Both are fighter pilots for the rebellion that brought down the titular Empire and repeatedly cross paths with canonical characters like main-series protagonist Alisa Marchenko and her lecherous friend Bradford Tomich.

(Since neither character is part of the main series, this avoids the prequel problem of knowing a character's eventual fate. See this comment from Mad Magazine about the duel between Palpatine and Yoda in Revenge of the Sith. Since Choi and Watson aren't canon characters, it's entirely possible one or both of them could die in the events of a story and that allows for suspense.)

However, Amazon shut down Kindle Worlds not long after I started writing for it. Although Lindsay allowed those who'd written KW stories already to republish them ourselves, I didn't see any point in writing more. Here's where "Choi and Watson" would have gone if Kindle Worlds had kept going.

(I had some ideas for unrelated stories, but those will have to wait for a later blog post.)

"Torpedo Protocol" (Choi and Watson #3)-The Alliance unit that includes our heroes expended almost all of their torpedoes during the events of "Discovery and Flight," so the rebels have to steal more. While the mission is being planned, Tomich (who has had an eye on Watson since the beginning of "D&F" at least) finally sleeps with her, much to the protective Choi's irritation. To shut him up, Tomich tries to hook up Choi with one of his (many) previous flings, who's also a Buddhist. This one gets into the Empire's religious policies--in one of the later books, it's revealed the Empire required everybody to join the state religion centered on the three suns and exiled the die-hards of Earth's old faiths to a reservation planet. Choi's syncretic Buddhist faith was tolerated due to its similarity with the official religion, while Tomich's ex had to suffer for her more traditionalist beliefs and is surprisingly resentful of her date. And then the battle starts...

"Fire From The Sky" (Choi and Watson #4)-In the main series the rebels' Tri-Suns Alliance engaged in ruthless tactics like deliberately attacking civilians because they couldn't defeat the Empire in open combat, at least until very late in the game. In this story, we see this firsthand--after the Imperial admiral from "Discovery and Flight" bombards a rebellious planet from orbit, the Alliance uses captured civilian ships as relativistic weapons, devastating a loyalist planet in return. This causes the horrified Watson to break up with Tomich, who abandons his habit of poaching among the lower ranks to start sleeping up the chain of command, which we see throughout the main series. In his mind, Watson didn't want anything to do with him anymore because owing to her lower rank she's not aware of the "big picture," but someone higher on the totem pole would be.

Both of these novellas were plotted out when Kindle Worlds shut down, but I hadn't started writing them. I had some ideas for later novellas involving the characters stealing fighter spacecraft ("Stealing Strikers"), seeking to recover a psychic-amplification device referenced in one of the canonical prequels ("Psychic Fire"), and destroying a factory producing android soldiers for the Empire ("Android Rising"). The latter is particularly important because although sapient androids exist in this world, the Empire didn't mass-produce them to crush the rebellion. The point of this story would be to explain why.

THE ATLANTA INCURSION, Sequel to THE THING IN THE WOODS, Is Here!

Nearly two years after I completed and submitted it for publication, The Atlanta Incursion, the more science fiction-oriented sequel to my debut horror novel The Thing in the Woods, is now available for purchase. As of the time of this writing, the e-book and paperback have not yet linked--if you prefer your books physical, here is the paperback version.

Thing stood on its own, but the way my imagination works, I soon started devising new adventures for the characters that survived what went down in small-town Edington, GA. Before the cult of the ancient tentacle god got involved, male lead James Daly was planning on going to Georgia State University to get his core curriculum done in preparation to transfer to his parents' alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, while female lead Amber Webb was heading for Valdosta State University to double major in PR and theater.

SPOILERS
SPOILERS
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Although both survived, neither survived unscathed. James in particular is afflicted by insomnia and post-traumatic stress, while Amber, though less overtly traumatized, blames herself for the death of her distant in-law Sam Dixon. Furthermore, both of them are now dating--Amber had been crushing on him before and although James would grudgingly admit liking her too, he'd thought he could do better in college. Owing to their shared battle against the titular monster and its worshipers, things changed. Although Atlanta-Valdosta is not much as far as long-distance relationships go, things are going to get interesting when James finishes his core curriculum.

And this new adventure brings us additional characters. We'll meet James' close friend Eli, who's mentioned in Thing, as well as completely new Javion Jackson. When I wrote the book in 2016-2018, #Occupy and #BLM were things that had apparently come and gone (Thing and TAI both take place in 2010), but recent events dramatically revived the latter and the concerns raised by the former never really went away. As the book takes place during the lead-up to these social movements, those two characters in particular reflect them.

And shout-out to Armand Rosamilia. Not only did he produce a podcast episode discussing Thing, but he also provided an author blurb for TAI.

"Another topnotch monstrous tale. I loved the first one and this is even better!"

What If The Paris Commune Had Survived, Expanded...?

A couple weeks ago one of my church friends clued me into the Revolutions podcast by Mike Duncan, which has been going on for awhile and has episodes on the various intricacies of the American, French, Haitian, and Mexican revolutions and a lot of discussion of the different strains of Marxism and anarchism as they build toward the Russian Revolution. I haven't had a chance to listen to all of them yet, but over the last few weeks a lot of driving (especially during my trip to Hypericon--driving from Atlanta to Murfreesboro and back plus a jaunt from Murfreesboro to Nashville to see about getting my books in the city library) meant I could listen to all of the episodes about the Paris Commune. For those of you not in the know, it was a brief Communist-anarchist takeover of Paris that got gruesomely suppressed and the lessons learned from it were quite influential on the Communist revolution in Russia.

One of my big interests is alternate history and although I had myself banned from the premiere AH discussion forum online, I do check in now and then. I decided to see what I could find on the Paris Commune and found a full alternate timeline called "The Spectre of Europe" written by the user whose handle is Reydan. It diverges from real history when conservative politician Adolphe Thiers has a stroke just before the revolt breaks out, preventing him from playing the instrumental role he did in crushing it. As a consequence, the revolutionary Louis Auguste Blanqui isn't preemptively jailed and able to make it to Paris and provides the necessary leadership for the Commune to avoid being crushed, although they do have to make a deal with the Prussian devil to do it.

Highlights of the timeline include...

*The division of France into a very left-wing republic (seriously, most conservative parties are outlawed, although given certain recent circumstances I wouldn't blame them for worrying about the Bonapartists) and a restored monarchy. When said monarchy is defeated in a later war it goes into exile in France's North African colonies, which the monarchy retained when France was partitioned.

*William Jennings Bryan becomes the president of the United States.

*Reform and partition in China.

*One of Kaiser Wilhelm's character flaws is that he was, in addition to being an erratic blowhard, is that he had some very Yellow Peril ideas about the rise of China. Since our world's WWI doesn't happen, we get to see these tendencies flourish and the results are not pretty.

*The rise of a sort of militant agrarianism (in Scandinavia of all places) as an analogue to our timeline's fascism.

The timeline is so popular that it even has a TVTropes page. I would definitely recommend checking it out. Also, don't forget to check out The Revolutions podcast or his History of Rome podcast, all of which are really interesting.