Alternate History of a Different Sort

Norton The Third can be described as an "alternate history" (AH) story. In its world, one tiny thing went wrong somewhere in the past, and as a result, everything is now different than we currently see it.

But wait! Don't click away yet; give me another paragraph! One of my early writing coaches heard I was writing an AH story and warned, "good fiction is about people, characters in conflict, not ideas, or vast civilizations!" I have come to appreciate this shot across my bow, because AH stories often get caught up in exploring the differences for their own sake -- and hence, seem a little dry, or incomplete.

Have you read Phillip K. Dick's The Man In the High Castle (the book, not the TV series) and been tempted to toss it in the wastebasket when it ended, just when it was getting interesting? "What if" short story collections that present an intriguing idea, but never allow real characters to breathe life into it? Me too.

Now that we're off the blog summary page, and we can talk privately, I'll admit that Norton The Third begins on July 2, 1863: the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg. There are many novels out there that posit that "the South won the Civil War", by such notable authors as Harry Turtledove (arguably the dean of American AH authors) and even Newt Gingrich. Does the world really need another one?

IMHO, no. Norton The Third devotes about 1,340 words to what it calls the War of Separation, and then moves on, arriving rather quickly in the early twenty-first century. The novel's spirit animal is clearly Joshua Norton, Emperor of the United States, and Protector of Mexico, but even he shows up in person only three times.

Assuming one small thing did go wrong in 1863, N3 tells a somewhat-tall-tale of political intrigue and espionage, in the world that could have developed maybe 150 years later.

The main characters of N3 are people you have never heard of, yet: Charlie Taylor, Valentine, Joshua Wheat, Theresa Wainwright.

Generals Lee and Grant are long dead, and almost entirely forgotten.