Advise and Consent TL

Darth Darth

Banned
Advise and Consent is a famous political thriller series that won the Pulitzer Prize. How would that timeline workout?

Basically the United States becomes polarized in the Cold War between the hawks and the doves (which includes the KKK and the Black Panthers incidentally) and at the Democratic convention a hawk and dove are nominated respectively for POTUS and VP. There is an assassination and there are actually two divergent TLs-in one the hawk dies and dovish candidates is elected and basically surrenders everywhere and the US becomes a Soviet puppet state. In the other one the dovish candidate dies and the hawk becomes elected President and in a USSR-PRC war intervenes.
 
The "divergent TL" novels are Come Nineveh, Come Tyre, and The Promise of Joy. They aren't at all bad, but the intermediate ones, A Shade of Difference, Capable of Honor and Preserve and Protect are strictly for completists - especially the latter two.
 
My parents got several volumes of that series from a Book-of-the-Month club, and I took "Advise and Consent" with me when I moved out of the house - the others unfortunately were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina. Advise and Consent was awesome and deserving of the Pulitzer Prize, but the sequels got increasingly conservative in their tone - especially regarding Drury's portrayal of press as extremely liberal.

As far as the timeline is concerned, "Advise and Consent", published in 1959, was set in the spring of 1959 i.e. an alternate present-day for the time. As the series progressed, the timeline was moved forward; by "Preserve and Protect", the first book had to have been set in 1987 or 1991. (The reason: the unnamed Speaker of "Advise and Consent", who had been in the House for 40 years, first got elected after the incumbent was appointed to a federal judgeship by Harry Truman.) The six books took up about 18 months in the TL of the first four novels, and then in both parallel timelines went about 6-8 more months, thus ending in the spring of 1989 or 1993.

One final note: Drury used some of his Advise and Consent characters in other novels, none of which fit continuity-wise in either TL from the six novels in the series. Those other books include "Throne of Saturn" and "Anna Hastings".

More than you ever wanted to know? LOL
 
As far as the timeline is concerned, "Advise and Consent", published in 1959, was set in the spring of 1959 i.e. an alternate present-day for the time. As the series progressed, the timeline was moved forward; by "Preserve and Protect", the first book had to have been set in 1987 or 1991. (The reason: the unnamed Speaker of "Advise and Consent", who had been in the House for 40 years, first got elected after the incumbent was appointed to a federal judgeship by Harry Truman.) The six books took up about 18 months in the TL of the first four novels, and then in both parallel timelines went about 6-8 more months, thus ending in the spring of 1989 or 1993.


I don't see how that can be right.

Iirc, President Harley Hudson (who succeeded to the Presidency toward the end of Advise and Consent) was nominated for an elected term in Capable of Honor and killed, during the course of the election campaign, at the beginning of Preserve and Protect. The latter book ends (with another assassination) shortly before the election. The two final books are each set during the next Presidential term.

That seems to cram the whole series into five or six years, apparently during the sixties.
 
I don't see how that can be right.

Iirc, President Harley Hudson (who succeeded to the Presidency toward the end of Advise and Consent) was nominated for an elected term in Capable of Honor and killed, during the course of the election campaign, at the beginning of Preserve and Protect. The latter book ends (with another assassination) shortly before the election. The two final books are each set during the next Presidential term.

That seems to cram the whole series into five or six years, apparently during the sixties.

Let's put aside what precise year it is. Advise and Consent is set in the spring before an election year (like now!), Shade of Difference occurs that fall, Capable of Honor is the spring and early-to-mid summer of that election year, Preserve and Protect is late summer of that same election year, and both Come Niveneh, Come Tyre and Promise of Joy occur during the fall of the election year, the winter after the election, and spring after inaguration of the new President. About two years total :)
 
Top