Alternative Histories

Authors of Alternative History novels (and TV series) often hinge on specific events: what would happen if Hitler won? After all, the Nazis were close on more than one occasion. Or if the creation story of Jesus never coalesced? Or, in one of my works in progress, Jewish Qabala really worked, starting with descendants of Nachmanides, entirely displacing non-Judaic systems and disrupting the search for the New World.

We’re at that time. The Angry White Men have disrupted what’s been a stable, if fluidly changing, political system. This time is, globally, a schwerpunkt, a turning point, for many futures. Futures that three years ago, in the glow of a liberal view of the world, accepting refugee in numbers unmatched since World War II, accepting people for their love, not their gender or orientation, we could not have imagined.

2016 and 2017 was that slow slide to insanity, led by der Amerikanischenführer. Toward a general-run government, toward a kleptocracy. Let’s see what 2018 brings us…