Bring the Jubilee in The Evolution of Science Fiction

May 30, 2017 Tomislav rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: net-galley, science-fiction, alternate-history

This 1953 novel is both an alternate history and time travel science fiction. In the years since, it has been in print through a succession of publishers, and will now be released in ebook format by Open Road Media. I received a kindle format version at no cost, prior to release, in return for publishing an honest review.

American Civil War alternate histories are a staple of the genre, probably the best known being MacKinlay Kantor鈥檚 If The South Had Won the Civil War (1961), and more recently H This 1953 novel is both an alternate history and time travel science fiction. In the years since, it has been in print through a succession of publishers, and will now be released in ebook format by Open Road Media. I received a kindle format version at no cost, prior to release, in return for publishing an honest review.

American Civil War alternate histories are a staple of the genre, probably the best known being MacKinlay Kantor鈥檚 If The South Had Won the Civil War (1961), and more recently Harry Turtledove鈥檚 Southern Victory series (1997-2007). There have been numerous stories which employ versions of this concept, and even anthologies thematically focused on it. But Bring The Jubilee predates all of the above, has been cited as inspiration for Philip K Dick鈥檚 The Man in the High Castle (1962), and should be seen as critical in the popular establishment of alternate history as a subgenre.

In the novel, the point of departure (POD) from our own universe is the Battle of Gettysburg turning to a Confederate victory. But rather than reading like a faux history book (If The South Had Won the Civil War), and rather than giving a blow-by-blow of the conflict itself (Southern Victory), Moore immerses his story immediately in the resulting rump 3rd world United States two generations after the conclusion of the 鈥淲ar of Southron Independence.鈥� In the person of young Hodge Backmaker, we first see his native backwater Wappinger Falls, and a much-diminished New York City where he works in a bookstore/printer shop. Eventually he finds his way to a semi-utopian community in the Pennsylvania countryside, where time travel capability is developed.

As a character, Hodge is believable and interesting. While not the central focus of the story, his sexual relationships with women are surprisingly forthright for 1950s writing. At the time of the book鈥檚 release, critics referred to it as 鈥淏ohemian鈥�, which of course had nothing to do with Bohemia. As a result, the narrative has a much more contemporary feel. But this brings us to the character I found to be outstandingly not believable 鈥� Barbara Haggerwells. She is a brilliant physicist, but also seems to be a sexual predator who has cowed the entire Haggershaven community to her will. I guess there just was no good model for a polyandrist female character at the time; she comes across as irrationally needy and always gets her way.

I enjoyed the exchanges between characters regarding the philosophical nature of time and cause/effect, as well as some political observations that seem as true today as at the time this was written. This is a read for thinkers, and while the ending was what I was expecting, the getting there was most entertaining. If only, if only, Barbara was written better. ...more

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Mar 15, 2012 Tom rated it liked it · review of another edition

The cover of the edition I read this in has a one-sentence blurb, set against a lurid gaslight-and-balloons New York in amethyst, green, and orange: "His voyage into the past was to change the whole fabric of history!" This voyage into the past takes place on page 171 of 189; the novel is a bildungsroman that happens to be set in an alternate history where the South won the Civil War; the ways in which it becomes science-fictional (moreso than the gaslight and the balloons, that is) thus stand i ...more

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Jun 29, 2024 Andrew rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: war-fiction, historical-fiction, alternate-reality, ebook, sci-fi-new-wave

I have toiled for a solid month on this tortrous pile of shit and I can takw it no longer. I'm on page 142 of 194, and I'm done. Finished. I can't be bothered.

An alt history book (the south wins the civil war yawn) where the alternate history is badly thought out, awkward, stupid, barely perceptible to the run of the actual narrative, and has to be conveyed with the occasional gollops of plot exposition. Even giving the book its credit as a satire and parody of the then current American south, i ...more

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