Below The Beltway

Robert Heinlein qualifies as one of my favorite authors of all time, and certainly my favorite science fiction author. Part of the reason for that is the quality of his writing and depth of his characters — you can’t get any deeper and more complex than Lazarus Long, a man who cannot die — [...]

There is a theory in history called the Great Man Theory, which seeks to explain the events of history principally by looking at the impact of pivotal men and women who played a role in world events. On it’s most simplistic level, the theory does make some sense. It’s hard to imagine the American Revolution [...]

In Final Impact, John Birmingham brings to a conclusion that story that started with Weapons Of Choice when an advanced flotilla of Naval ships was transported back in time from the world of 2021 to 1942 and the eve of the Battle of Midway.
When this final volume opens, two years have passed since the Transition [...]

Today, we celebrate 1776, and more specifically the 4th of July as the birthday of American freedom, the day that the American colonists courageously stood up to the most powerful monarch on the planet and declared the independence of the thirteen British colonies on the Eastern seaboard of North America.
The truth of the matter is [...]

I will admit that, in the beginning, I supported the War in Iraq. Saddam Hussein had demonstrated himself to be an enemy of freedom when he invaded Kuwait without provocation in 1990, he’d used chemical weapons against both Iranians and his own countrymen, and, at least as presented by the people who are supposed to [...]

Somewhere in my reading, I remember someone who said that there is only one name from the 20th Century that is guaranteed to be remembered 1,000 years from now; the name of the first man to step foot on another planet, Neil Armstrong.
I was alive when Apollo 11 landed and Armstrong made his historic step [...]

In the tenth volume of Harry Turtledove’s Timeline-191 series, the United States finally get the chance to turn the tide on Jake Featherston’s Confederate States of America. After being dragged into the Second Great War by a surprise Confederate air attack on Philadelphia followed up by a blitzkrieg-like advance of Confederate armor through Ohio to [...]

This second volume in Harry Turtledove’s Settling Accounts series picks up right where its predecessor left off. The Confederacy has driven through Ohio to Lake Erie and thrown the United States back on its heels. Rebellion is once again stirring up among the Mormons in Utah. And, the President of the United States is dead [...]

As I’ve written in the past, there is sometimes much to criticize about Harry Turtledove’s writing style. As demonstrated most aptly in the Timeline-191 Series, he has a tendancy to repeat himself to the extent that it can become annoying. At other times though, he can write a book that is just extraordinary. Fortunately, the [...]

It’s hard to describe exactly what kind of book Philip K. Dick’s The Man In The High Castle actually is. Part science fiction. Part alternate history. Part meditation on the nature of reality. Whatever you call it, though, it’s easy to see why it won the Hugo Award in 1963 and why it’s considered one [...]