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stoutfellowI'm going to rag on Harry Turtledove a bit more.
I have to recap a little detail from the How Few Remain timeline. The point of departure for the series is this: in 1862, the Union army does not get its hands on a copy of Lee's general orders during the first invasion of Pennsylvania. As a result, instead of defeating the invasion at Antietam, the Union is defeated, er, somewhere else. This opens the door for diplomatic intervention by France and the UK, forcing the US to acknowledge Confederate independence. As one result, the Democrats win the next four presidential elections; the Republicans do not regain power until 1880. They then embroil the US in another war with the Confederacy; this time, the UK takes a hand militarily, and the war ends, again, in Union defeat. Afterward, Republican leaders gather to discuss how to recover from this (political) disaster. Lincoln, still a force to be reckoned with despite his unfortunate presidency, suggests outflanking the Democrats by making a strong appeal to the working class. He is rebuffed, and then leads his followers out of the Republican Party and into union with the Socialists, who thereupon become the second-largest party in the US. The US enters into alliance with Germany, and this leads to victory in World War I (1914-17).
So that's the political layout: the Democrats on the right, the remnant of the Republicans slightly to their left, and the Socialists (their radicalism tempered by the influx of Lincoln supporters) occupying the bulk of the left. The Democrats hold the presidency until 1920; the Socialists then win four of the next five elections, losing only in 1932. Turtledove has some fun assigning political figures to one or another party, and most of his assignments are reasonable. Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Thomas Dewey are Democrats (along with the Tafts and a young Barry Goldwater); Wendell Willkie winds up still a Republican; and the Socialists include Eugene Debs (of course), Upton Sinclair, "N. Mattoon Thomas" (and I'm sure the "N" stands for "Norman"), Franklin Roosevelt, and Charles La Follette. But they also include Al Smith, and I can't buy that. OTL, Smith rejected the New Deal, going so far as to support the Republican candidate in the presidential elections of 1936 and 1940. Turtledove's timeline has the Socialists introducing a version of Social Security in the '20s, and I can't see Smith staying with the party. He'd be a Republican, or on the left flank of the Democrats.
Two lesser points. On a couple of occasions, one of Turtledove's characters recalls a line or two of poetry, but can't come up with the name of the "crazy Englishman" who wrote those lines. They happen to be lines from T.S. Eliot - who was born in the US, in Missouri (which remained in the US, in Turtledove's timeline). OTL, Eliot emigrated to Britain - but in the HFR timeline, the US and the UK are bitter enemies, and I really don't see Eliot's emigration as likely in that case. (Possible? I suppose - but unlikely.) There are also references to people taking aspirin - with a lower-case "a". But "Aspirin" was a trademark of Bayer, and OTL was stripped from them as part of the post-WWI reparations. In the HFR timeline, Germany won WWI, and "Aspirin" should still be trademarked. (Yes, I know, genericization happens, but it seems unlikely to me in this context and time frame.)
Oh, well. Even Homer nods. (At a convention a few years ago, I attended a panel on the legacy of Poul Anderson. His wife was on the panel, and told us that she backstopped him, checking his alt-histories and histories for errors, and often catching them. I wonder if anyone does that job for Turtledove.)
I have to recap a little detail from the How Few Remain timeline. The point of departure for the series is this: in 1862, the Union army does not get its hands on a copy of Lee's general orders during the first invasion of Pennsylvania. As a result, instead of defeating the invasion at Antietam, the Union is defeated, er, somewhere else. This opens the door for diplomatic intervention by France and the UK, forcing the US to acknowledge Confederate independence. As one result, the Democrats win the next four presidential elections; the Republicans do not regain power until 1880. They then embroil the US in another war with the Confederacy; this time, the UK takes a hand militarily, and the war ends, again, in Union defeat. Afterward, Republican leaders gather to discuss how to recover from this (political) disaster. Lincoln, still a force to be reckoned with despite his unfortunate presidency, suggests outflanking the Democrats by making a strong appeal to the working class. He is rebuffed, and then leads his followers out of the Republican Party and into union with the Socialists, who thereupon become the second-largest party in the US. The US enters into alliance with Germany, and this leads to victory in World War I (1914-17).
So that's the political layout: the Democrats on the right, the remnant of the Republicans slightly to their left, and the Socialists (their radicalism tempered by the influx of Lincoln supporters) occupying the bulk of the left. The Democrats hold the presidency until 1920; the Socialists then win four of the next five elections, losing only in 1932. Turtledove has some fun assigning political figures to one or another party, and most of his assignments are reasonable. Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Thomas Dewey are Democrats (along with the Tafts and a young Barry Goldwater); Wendell Willkie winds up still a Republican; and the Socialists include Eugene Debs (of course), Upton Sinclair, "N. Mattoon Thomas" (and I'm sure the "N" stands for "Norman"), Franklin Roosevelt, and Charles La Follette. But they also include Al Smith, and I can't buy that. OTL, Smith rejected the New Deal, going so far as to support the Republican candidate in the presidential elections of 1936 and 1940. Turtledove's timeline has the Socialists introducing a version of Social Security in the '20s, and I can't see Smith staying with the party. He'd be a Republican, or on the left flank of the Democrats.
Two lesser points. On a couple of occasions, one of Turtledove's characters recalls a line or two of poetry, but can't come up with the name of the "crazy Englishman" who wrote those lines. They happen to be lines from T.S. Eliot - who was born in the US, in Missouri (which remained in the US, in Turtledove's timeline). OTL, Eliot emigrated to Britain - but in the HFR timeline, the US and the UK are bitter enemies, and I really don't see Eliot's emigration as likely in that case. (Possible? I suppose - but unlikely.) There are also references to people taking aspirin - with a lower-case "a". But "Aspirin" was a trademark of Bayer, and OTL was stripped from them as part of the post-WWI reparations. In the HFR timeline, Germany won WWI, and "Aspirin" should still be trademarked. (Yes, I know, genericization happens, but it seems unlikely to me in this context and time frame.)
Oh, well. Even Homer nods. (At a convention a few years ago, I attended a panel on the legacy of Poul Anderson. His wife was on the panel, and told us that she backstopped him, checking his alt-histories and histories for errors, and often catching them. I wonder if anyone does that job for Turtledove.)
