And The Last Trump Shall Sound: A Future History Of America, Caezik, 2020

    

 This is three linked novellas by that master of alternative universe, Harry Turtledove, author James Morrow and former SFWA president Cat Rambo, who wrote a guest post here on the release of her novel Hearts Of Rabat.

     The premise: in the near future, Trump is dead, from a second wave of COVID 19, and Mike Pence is President. A number of West Coast states have seceded and formed a new country, Pacifica. 

     The first story, “The Breaking Of Nations” by Harry Turtledove, is seen from the viewpoint of Nicole Yoshida, former Governor of California, now leading the group of states seceding from the US, where things have become very bad. It’s the set-up story, so has the heavy lifting to do in this book. But as it is the set-up story, you have to assume that the secession will work out, as it does. 

     James Morrow’s “The Purloined Republic” is a quirky, humorous tale set a couple of years after Pacifica begins. In it, Polly Nightingale, a former porn star, now running an experimental theatre in Los Angeles, is commissioned to carry out a job that might make a huge difference and persuade more states to leave the US.  She is offered enough money to keep her theatre going. 

     The job? To impersonate the President’s spiritual adviser, Walker Lambert, who has been captured and is imprisoned in Pacifica. She resembles him enough that some Hollywood make up and prosthetics will help her pretend to be a man. The plan is to make Pence look crazy enough to sow doubt about him. 

     The story is hilariously over the top, and is my favourite in the book.

     Finally Cat Rambo contributes “Because It Is Bitter”, a story seen from the viewpoint of GoogleSoft tech Ernst, who has been sneaking in his own research during work time, to complete his late grandmother’s project, involving an empathy serum. When all his files and notes are stolen in a break-in at his office, he must follow the woman he believes has stolen them over the border from Pacifica to the US. There, only six years after the split, the situation has become very bad indeed. Pacifica has its problems, but the US is far worse. 

     And Ernst discovers why he was really lured over the border, and it isn’t pretty...

     I enjoyed the book, though it was scary because so many elements were so very believable. The technology in Cat Rambo’s story was more developed than I would have thought possible in the fifteen-odd years between now and the time of this story, but who knows? After all, only a few years ago Skype was a lot more fiddly to access than it is now, and the Internet as we know it has not been around that long. So, why not? 

     I bought my copy on Apple Books, but it should be easily available on the usual web sites, including Amazon and the Book Depository.