Book review - "Powerless" by Harry Turtledove
"Powerless" by Harry Turtledove is an alternative history novel set in a world dominated by the Soviet Union.
The first two chapters of this full-length novel originally appeared in slightly different form in the September/October 2018 issue of "The magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction." Greg Benford suggested to Harry Turtledove that he extended it into a novel and this is the result.
Like the majority of Turtledove's alternative history novels, the story in this book operates on two levels. On the surface level, it is a work of fiction set on an alternative version of Earth. On a deeper level, it is an account of a real-world series of historical events told from an alternative perspective.
The world of "Powerless" begins to diverge from our own with the Confederate States of America successfully winning independence in the 1860's. By the time in which the novel is set, many years later - and we are never told exactly how much later - the absence of the USA as we know it has enabled the Soviet Union to effectively conquer the world. The area we know as North America, including Canada and Mexico, is split up into a number of socialist "People's democratic republics" run on Stalinist lines and all of which are under the thumb of the most powerful socialist state in the world, the Soviet Union.
The central character, Charlie Simkins, is at the start of the story a grocery shop manager in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, part of the "West Coast People's Democratic Republic."
When the local communist party sends him a poster reading "Workers of the World Unite" to stick in his shop window, Charlie throws it in the bin instead. This starts off a series of events which has more and more serious consequences not just for Charlie but for his family.
But Charlie's act of defiance, and its' consequences, play out while greater events are in motion, for he is not the only person looking to change things. However, even more than Charlie, those people are playing a dangerous game ...
I might have been tempted to criticise the plot on the basis that surely the people running powerful nations could not be so stupid as many of the characters in this novel. I cannot because that plot is based very closely indeed on real political events which took place during the decades while the Soviet Union dominated a significant proportion of the world and acted almost exactly as it does in this book.
I'm not going to state which real events "Powerless" parallels because that would be a spoiler, as it does not become obvious until about a quarter of the way in.
"Powerless" is a well-written, entertaining and thought-provoking novel. It makes me very glad that I don't live in the world like the dystopian one depicted, or indeed, in any country run by a one-party state. There will also be people who think this book points out parallels to dangerous things which are happening in too many countries, including some democratic ones, today.
Here is a link to the Amazon page for the book:
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