Umbric Review: The Two Georges.

I've always seen this book referenced in AH.com here and there, so I thought I'd finally make a full-fledged topic on it.

SPOILERS ABOUND.

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I remember when I first began to really get into alternate history, in the fall of 2007 and discovering AH.com, that I found out about this book. Even though I wouldn't read it till about January 2009 and finish it within the month, I began to hold massive intrest in it: a simple, common scenario that naturally held vast intrest for me: American history, without the defining event that made America. Still British. And dealing with what should be a defining feature for Americans even in such a scenario, the ever-present rumblings of aunotomy.

And so as I joined AH.com and researched into my own North American scenarios (more on that at the end), I tried to find this book. No luck: no bookshop had it, as I learned, due to it being out of print. I had no paypal for Amazon at the time either, which meant finding it online was never an option, and so I began to dispair: sure, it was a Turtledove work...but it was one of the ones that looked interesting! And it was an influence to get me into alternate history in the first place!

Luck would have it, as I finally got it as a birthday/Christmas present last year. I read it, and even though I knew the general plot by now a dozen times over, I still read it with excitement. I still feel it's not at all been a dissapointment.

PLOT AND CHARACTERS: As any blurb will tell the basic scenario-a still British-North America has its symbol of unity, a painting called The Two Georges stolen-I'll focus more on the world and the immediant progress of the book. It's a mystery wrapped up in an alternate history guise.

The characters were typical Turtledove-semi-flat and repeating many traits or phrases over and over-but it was not as bad as the infamous Sam Carsten...perhaps as this is one of his somewhat earlier works, it hasn't come into full bloom yet. And for said semi-flatness, most of the supporting characters to the straight-laced, patriotic Thomas Bushell were quite entertaining. The Irish-American Kathleen Flannery strikes a fun balance at patriotism in her heritage and as an American; and her outbursts and independence against the RAMs were also fun to read. How nice to have a female character able to use her brain and to use it well and upstage the main characters. Her job as a museum curator naturally lends her to be a convient plot-dumper of the history and culture of this world as well, which makes such dumps a bit less awkward since she has to help teach Bushell and Stanley about certain American provinces here and there.

Sam Stanley is the unfortunately-placed alternate-timeline version of the 'magical negro' in the sense he's guiding Bushell through some of the more jarring moments in the book and naturally has seen plenty of sobering action, but his more laid-back attitude and banter against Bushell makes him fun to read as well. It's a very nice twist at the end of the book to see him knighted alongside Bushell. He deserved it.

Bushell, as noted, is typical hero-lost his wife, straight-laced workaholic, patriotic. I wish he would have opened up his eyes more to the horrible conditions of the Irish-Americans in Appalachia. Sure, it's interesting to see how Bragg tried to ruin him enough to turn him to the Sons of Liberty, but I fear to read of him now that he is armed with that information and as a knight and thus part of the establishment if somehow we get a return to these characters. He's going to become some stodgy conservative at this rate.

Pretty much all of the historical characters are cariactures of their real-life selves, barring a less violent American history means most of them live well into the 90s-the time the book takes place in-and are in suitable positions. Nixon is a used-car salesman-no surprise there. MLK is Governor-General-noble, yes, but nice to see the Americans of that world more enlightened by that time than us. Only Kennedy had an interesting contrast as the old geezer who is hypocritically wanting independence from the King-Emperor.

The plot naturally comes out as you expect: the loyal guy you never expected to see do it did indeed steal the painting and was a secret Son of Liberty, which is Bushell's boss Bragg. In turn, he was supported by the French and Spanish, which should have become obvious the minute those countries were stereotyped the minute they were mentioned as backwards in religious tolerance. Reading Ambassador Philippe Bonaparte's mentions of MLK sadly being 'cut from Protestant cloth' made me wince.

ALTERNATE HISTORY: Not as butterflied as I'd have liked, sadly.

America in this world is Canada, the USA, and Baja California lumped into the 'North American Union'-the self-governing possession of Britain that is a direct descendant of their North American colonies. The point of divergence of this world is the colonies striking a last-minute deal with George III to become a dominion with better treatment, and Thomas Gainsborough painting a portrait of the colonial delgation (Washington, Sam Adams, Franklin) alongside many prominent British politicians (George III, Wilkes, North, etc).

From there Washington held the Proclamation of 1763 to 1798, which allowed the Cherokees and the Iroquois to become protectorate provinces of the dominion-the North American Union-and thus become equal citizens to the Anglo-Americans. Blacks are freed in 1834 and since one can presume the heavier government hand, reparations mentioned in the present day, and by-now treatment of Amerindians as equals, the blacks were able to quickly build themselves up into the greater society as fellow citizens.

The only people who don't prosper, oddly enough, are the Irish. It's mentioned in the book they lost out on many jobs and chances in life to the blacks, which makes no sense-as enlightened and optimistic the Americans seemingly are due to their less warred-for rights, it would still take time to get over the racism of the 19th century. The Irish are Catholic, but that's about it. One would presume even if red-and-black-skinned peoples become equals earlier, it would still take TIME, which the English-speaking Irish take better oppurtunity of.

In any event, the North American Union expanded pretty much in stereotypical way-all of the above lands mentioned. I have no clue why Baja California-'Lower California'-is a province. Maybe Turtledove or Dreyfuss didn't like how it's almost on its own strip away from Mexico either. Their provinces amusingly go from the 15 tiny provinces on the eastern seaboard of North America to these big huge random blobby provinces in the interior and midwest, to suddenly nearly OTL boundaries of Russian Alaska, California, and British Columbia (Washington State and Oregon seem to have combined, but that is it otherwise). Oh well, what can you do.

The British Empire presumably not only holds much of its OTL territory it had-imperialism is still in vogue here in this world-but also protectorates of China and the Ottoman Empire. Perhaps with a larger North American base it held more power to effectively do what it traditionally did in power plays in those lands, and take full control for economic oppurtunity like so many merchants wet-dreamed about, I don't know. For some reason, though, Britain lost Jamaica.

France and Spain fulfilled the dream of Louis XIV to become a personal union as the 'Holy Alliance'. The inquisition is still in effect in the Hispanosphere and you get the vague hint the authors are portraying the British Empire as the only enlightened state in the world. I can't tell you if Portugal is part of this, BTW-I never got any maps with my copy of the book and only going by Wikipedia.

Germany never united. Yeah, whatever.

There's also never been any 'major wars' since 1763....wow. Bullshit. Even without Germany around, that's just more territory for Russia, Britain, France, and Spain to jockey around for and make THOSE empires accordingly bigger and more ready to blow. We also never hear of nationalism in other lands beyond America's 'Sons of Liberty'. Sad. So apparently only America has local nationalism? Lulzworthy.

Technology and culture is some odd hybrid of stereotypes-airships and 'steamers' cars and women wearing full-length dresses still. Tech hasn't advanced much without two world wars to spur things along. How odd. Is it implied an independent America would make the world richer and more productive? Probably. That said, 'buggery' is discreetly tolerated, which is still better than our world. Hurrah for liberalism once again.

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Despite this, the world is pretty upbeat. You can't argue, even if it's not sensible, against a world that has not had major conflict and at least more equality in the section of Earth we read about, and I had a lot of fun with this book and anticipation that was met. The characters are only in the beginning stages of Turtledove-flatness, so they're still decent to read about, and it's pretty much the most optimistic AH book I know of so far on the market.

It also, to the chagrin of Commonwealth members everywhere, set me on some Ameriwankage as I simply looked into my own research on how a USA-NOT under British rule-would look with bigger borders like the book referenced, and also Anglicizing/Americanizing North America's toponymy under USA dominion (since the names of many cities and provinces ditch the French, Spanish, and Amerindian names for English ones, presumably due to still staying under British rule). In effect, making the same uber-NAU on federal republicanism lines. I've since restrained myself on these efforts due to inplausibility (America being large enough already, and/or fundamentally changing its character with so much more territory and people) or the Anglicizing (I have an Americo-English name for pretty much every city in the USA/Canada now).

Do I recommend it? Yes, as light, fun fluff and only because everyone seems to know of and reference it like they do with Turtledove's Timeline-191 and WorldWar books.

Two Georges was interesting to me in that it was perhaps the ultimate counter-Ameriwank (or cultural Britwank) co-written by Turtledove of all people, and "with advice from Harry Harrison(!!!)" if you read the introduction. It was strange to see some elements of British cultural mores (albeit largely those from the 1920s) transposed to America, and satisfying in a cackling sort of way but not tremendously realistic. It did inspire me to write LTTW, which is my attempt at showing that an America that stays together with Britain is not going to slavishly follow cultural shifts in Britain but is going to develop its own path - after all, it's not as though Australia and Canada are carbon copies of Britain, are they?

That "no major wars" thing made me WTF as well, not simply because it's unlikely but because it's directly contradicted in the text: at the beginning there's a painting on the wall at the governor's residence in California showing the redcoats taking New Liverpool/Los Angeles from the Franco-Spanish in, I believe, the 1850s. Considering where the POD is for this TL, the British would have had to conquer the whole Louisiana Purchase and the Southwest from the Spanish, which is scarcely a minor war! And, of course, the too-convergent Gadsden border spoiled it, even though some of the internal provincial borders and names are quite interesting.

I always wondered if Napoleon Bonaparte in this TL was responsible for the Franco-Spanish Union: the Habsburgs and probably the Prussians and the British aren't going to like this at all, and it probably leads to war. And who besides Napoleon is going to be genius enough to take Bourbon France to victory? Napoleon in this TL is remembered as the greatest general in French history, retiring to huge estates in Corsica and loaded with honors and titles, and his descendants having been living off his name ever since...but a French-Spanish union wasn't particularly in the cards in the 1760's, and would it have been before Nappy died of old age?

Perhaps the Habsburgs are relatively enlightened...and then they surprise everyone by inventing the atom bomb and unifying Germany!

AUSTROWANK!

Bruce

Umbric Man said:

I wish he would have opened up his eyes more to the horrible conditions of the Irish-Americans in Appalachia.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure how that would have actually been an issue. I know Turtledove made the issue that the miners were (mostly) of Irish extraction, but had the TL been real, I think it would have been more likely to have been an issue over the conditions of the working classes.

The description of Charleroi could easily have been the colliery towns and villages of the Northumberland and Durham coalfields of North East England, circa the 1920s-1930s.

I thought that the portrayal of British America as more or less a democracy (if a little dated, due to the slower progress of technology - I'll come to that) was sensible, in comparison to some US depictions that make British America to be some sort of dictatorship, absolute monarchy (which despite depictions in America of George III as tyrant, was not the case).

I felt that many of the characters were simply traditional British stereotypes (TL-191 is also gulity of this on the few occasions British characters appear). I can accept that with the slower technological advances, attitudes would also have developed slower too and that perhaps the military and political establishment may well have been more 'stiff upper lip' and some of the 'lower orders' more deferential. but even so I felt it somewhat exaggerated.

I struggle to grasp how the British Empire (despite being the strongest power) could have wrestled California, New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana away from the Franco-Spanish, themselves a formidable power.

Despite its faults, it's a really good read. It took me several years to get around to reading it after hearing about it, and I wasn't disappointed.

THANDE: Agreed. I read a review once that he felt the Americans of TTGs were Canadians with American-esque ego in themselves and terms of living up to their feelings of manifest destiny in terms of territory, technology, resource exploitation, etc. I don't know how accurate that is, but it sounds sensible in a broad way. ...if that even makes sense.

B_MUNRO: Hmm, I like the thought of that. Perhaps it takes the place of the French Revolutionary Wars? A more powerful Louis XVII/XVIII/Charles X manipulates the Spanish Bourbons like OTL Napoleon did?

TOM: I think Turtledove and Dreyfuss are intending the Louisiana/Southwest to be just a little 'colonial war'. At least give a hint that the areas were STILL depopulated by the time of this alt-Mexican-American War, Turtledove! That'd be the only big way I can see it being a mere colony spat.

Would be amusing if Jamaica was conquered though, and the British and Franco-Spanish just traded conquests.

Another theory: during the war vs. the Franco-Spaniards in the 1850's, the southern slaveholders take a chance to revolt against British rule, which had already blocked further expansion of slavery and cut off the slave trade. (Actual abolition would be delayed in a TL where slaveholders are a much more numerous and powerful minority).

The rebels are treated as stab-in-the-back traitors, and *reconstruction is forced through at the point of a bayonet, which would explain why certain parties are still so bitter about it, and blacks, not having had to go through nine decades of semi-slavery after the end of the old fashioned kind, are more middle-class: not sure about them all becoming clerks and accountants and such, though. They'll be having some stiff competion from the Jews, lower-middle-class whites, not to mention educated Indians in this cosmopolitan global empire?

(And what's with China? Being a "protectorate" is always annoying to nationalist sentiment, and about the only way the Manchus are likely to be both on the Throne and letting the British run their foreign affairs, control the tarrifs, run the trains, etc., is if British bayonets in the only thing keeping him on the throne? King George, hey hey hey, how many chinese kids did you kill today?)

The Two Georges - imperialistic propaganda piece? The demand of the workers for better pay, unions, etc. is cleverly conflated with the radical minority that want North America to cut loose from the rest of the capitalist, brutal, exploitative empire...

Bruce

The Two Georges had an interesting origin:

Another [screenplay idea] that unfortunately ended at the discussion stage was Richard Dreyfuss’s excellent idea for a film based on the premise that the American Revolution never happened, thus enabling the most famous private eye, Sir Samuel Spade, to investigate a modern mystery.
— George Macdonald Fraser, The Light’s On at Signpost, Page 284

Which inevitably leads to a Flashman in the North American Union idea . . .