Another Kind Of Alternative History

Copied from Poul Anderson Appreciation:

I confess to not understanding everything that happens in the concluding chapter of SM Stirling's Under The Yoke - the text becomes cryptic. Some nuances have become clearer with rereading but what is Andrew's motivation?

Draka Volume III should be in the post. Meanwhile, Bryan Talbot presents a kind of alternative history that is not to be found in any work by Poul Anderson or SM Stirling: Britain lost the Napoleonic War (OK, so far) and the world is inhabited by anthropomorphic animals! (See image.)

Maybe funny animals histories make more sense in visual media? Alan Moore attributes familiar animal characters to Doctor Moreau. Talbot has Rupert Bear's father gardening in the background of a few panels.

Thus, I was mistaken to postulate that Anderson and Stirling had covered every aspect of the alternative timelines idea - but maybe writers and readers of prose sf do not want talking animals in their texts? Anderson and Gordon R Dickson came close to it with their Hoka.

Superman In Public Consciousness And Popular Culture

Regular readers might remember that recently I have:

reread Rick Veitch's (sequel to Alan Moore's) Swamp Thing;

been reading for the first time SM Stirling's Conquistador;

been enjoying these texts while also spotting any connections with the works of Poul Anderson.

Our theme for today is references to Superman. In a work of fiction, any reference to Supes implies either that he is a real guy out there somewhere or that the fictional characters share with their readers a popular culture in which this now mythical figure has become a permanent fixture. Veitch gives us the first; the others the second.

Veitch
Swampy goes to Metropolis to kill Lex Luthor who is protected both by his own security system and by Superman. Veitch, like Moore and Gaiman, applies a new insight to an over-familiar character.

Lois Lane: Clark?...Why is it when I'm talking to you, you always seem to be listening to something else?

Lois Lane: There you go again! I start talking and you stare off into space!

Clark Kent: Huh? Oh, uh...Just enjoying the view, Lois. You can see the whole city from up here.

Lois Lane: Yoo hoo! Earth to Clark. Come in, Clark!

-Rick Veitch, Swamp Thing: Infernal Triangles (New York, 2006), pp. 56, 58, 61.

Anderson
See here.

Stirling
"'Brother, with the amount of money RM and M had to throw around, you could bribe Superman'...'Ten million dollars,' the Man says. 'No, no, I am Superman!' Then it's thirty million. 'No, no, I stand for Truth, Justice and the American Way!' So then it's fifty million, and Superman comes back: 'I'll kill anyone you want!...'"
-SM Stirling, Conquistador (New York, 2004), p. 298.

Of course, the real (?) Superman is incorruptible. (In one version, Luthor, formerly the most powerful man in Metropolis, tries but fails to buy Supes as soon as the latter comes on the scene.) But Stirling's character is making a point. Rolfe Mining and Minerals is one of many front organizations for the Commonwealth of New Virginia which has been secretly exploiting another Earth for decades. By any ordinary standards, their funds are unlimited and "Rich enough to bribe even Superman" is a powerful way to say this.

Worlds And Words

I copied this post from Poul Anderson Appreciation because it mentions Miracleman and Smallville:

SM Stirling, "Shikari in Galveston" IN Worlds That Weren't (New York, 2003), pp. 63-148.

Science fiction writers show words changing their meanings in the future. In Poul Anderson's There Will Be Time, Jack Havig, time traveling to his future, meets a young woman who, when asked what she does with her time, replies that she jokes a lot. An amateur comedienne? However, when she and he share a picnic with no one else present, she announces that she had figured they could joke after eating but why not before and after?

(15 Mar: Also relevant is Anderson's "A Tragedy of Errors.")

In Neil Gaiman's sequel to Alan Moore's Miracleman, "London" means an event as "Hiroshima" does to us and "Kidding" has become a swear word because of what the Kid did in London. (Alan Moore had asked, "What would someone with Superman's strength and speed but not his scruples do?" He then answered this question with extremely detailed instructions to a comic strip artist.)

In SM Stirling's "Shikari in Galveston," a Bengali trader surprises us by telling Eric King that the local savages "'...are a clean people...'" (p. 80) Clean? King has just complained of sweat, squalor, smoke, sewage and stink. However, the trader's use of the word "clean" does not refer to hygiene. He spells it out:

"'From the time of the Fall.'" (ibid.)

King understands:

"King nodded...that was one of the fundamental distinctions in the modern world, between those whose ancestors had eaten men in the terrible years after the hammer from the skies struck, and those who hadn't. The only more fundamental one was between those who still did, and the rest of humanity." (ibid.)

And I am certain that the use of the word "clean" would be extended in precisely this way in those circumstances.

Tomorrow there will be a family outing for Mothers' Day (we have two mothers in the household) so maybe not much time for posting. Before turning in this evening, I have had to stop reading Stieg Larsson in order to post and must now stop posting in order to watch Smallville. Retirement, as expected, is an endless choice between enjoyable activities.