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Vote Thrawn - the Chiss Alternative

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The Chiss race from the fictional Star Wars universe don't really do elections: their society is run by a family-based oligarchy.   But if the Chiss did do elections, Grand Admiral Thrawn's bid to lead the galaxy far, far away might have included a manifesto something like the one below. This post is a parody, not an election communication and no attempt to influence any real election on the planet Earth is intended. Fed up with a choice of galactic leaders between psychopathic Imperial mass murderers and utterly ineffective soggy-liberal New Republic wimps? Had enough of politicians who promise you a safe and secure society and then get your entire planet blown up - or even blow it up themselves? Sick to death with incompetent senators who wouldn't know a security threat if it was aiming a turbolaser at them from six feet away? There is an alternative - the Chiss alternative - vote for Admiral Thrawn! My name is Mitth'raw'nuruodo - former Senior Captain in the...
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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 Fictio n."  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 a...
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Book review, "City in Chains" by Harry Turtledove"

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An Alternate History novel of the occupation of Paris "City in Chains" is Harry Turtledove's latest novel exploring the dilemmas of real history through the medium of alternative history.  It opens in a city called "Lutesse" which very, very obviously represents Paris occupied by the Nazis at a time roughly analogous to the winter of 1943/44. It explores the dilemmas posed by foreign occupation to residents of the city through the eyes of two viewpoint characters.  The first viewpoint character is a junk dealer called Malk Malkovici who is a follower of the "Old Gods" and had migrated to Lutesse before the war from "Nistria." In other words, he is analogous to a Jew from Eastern Europe, probably from Romania (though Bulgaria or Finland would also work.) He faces all the horrible choices someone in that position would face in Nazi occupied Europe - he desperately wants the Nazi occupiers (sorry, Chleuh occupants) to lose the war, but has to ma...
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