I listened to this on the way to Louisiana and mentioned that I loved Opening Atlantis by Harry Turtledove.

Loved it!

But only Part One.

Both morally and politically it all went down hill in Parts Two and Three and in the sequels as far as I can tell.

I realize that there is a problem with judging art on a political basis.  I agree with the objection to it to an extent.  (I’m tempted to throw in some material on Tolkien here from my forthcoming book to establish credibility.)  The bottom line is that it is much easier to write fantasy or futuristic science fiction that leaves the reader free to make his own applications than it is to do so when writing a multi-generational saga about the discovery and colonization of a continent to the West in the Atlantic by Europeans.  It is impossible for readers who identify with one of the present nation-states in North or South America to not read such a story as a political manifesto or inquiry.

So I am unashamed of loving Part One for its political vision.  Or rather, the political vision I thought was embedded in it only to be horribly disappointed.

The premise take ordinary continental drift theory and whatever consensus on paleontology that now exists and changes one factor: the eastern sea board of what is now the United States–the geography of Florida to Maine (though I’m not sure if more or less than Maine was taken)–separated and drifted East into the Atlantic Ocean before the land bridge between the areas now known as Siberia and Alaska was formed.

Let me deal with the “Land of the Lost” element to get that out of the way: There are very few predators on this eighth continent.  (The deadly eagles seem a glitch to me because it seems unlikely that none would ever migrate to another continent.  Perhaps in this world, in addition to the changes that Turtledove records, there is a history of weird deadly birds that appear from time to time before getting killed by wolves or something.)  Mainly there are huge birds that don’t even know enough to be afraid of humans.  You can walk up and knock one dead and eat it for dinner with a drumstick that is huge.  The ecology eventually gets “Europeanized” and there is not much thought about that change on the part of the characters in the story.

What Turtledove seems to have wanted to do and to have accomplished, is to present a slightly different version of the stories of American colonization, American independence, and the American war over slavery (which I suspect in his version may have actually been a war over slavery, rather than one that happily ended it, but without such a motive).  The exotic “lost” element doesn’t do much to add to the story other than making colonization even easier than it was in North America.  And there is no issue of dealing with natives since the land has truly been untouched by humans before discovered by Europeans.

What makes Part One amazing is that colonization has absolutely nothing to do with civil government.  Rather than require an adventurer with royal backing who is ready to claim all new lands (or all lands touching a new ocean!) for a crown, peasants start the new world of Atlantis.  Specifically, a half-century before Columbus fisherman from Breton and then Hastings in England discover there are huge cod to be caught off the coast.

That is all it takes.

A man in the 1400s who lives by fishing is going to have to sail to his market anyway.  Once he has paid out the cost of moving there is very little difference…. except that now all the land around where he lives is free and he doesn’t have to pay taxes anymore (except perhaps at the fish market).  The War of Roses is going on in England.  There is not really universal agreement on who is the rightful monarch.  No one is all that concerned about what happens.  In fact, the war prompts more of the peasant class to find passage on a ship to Atlantic.

Turtledove shows us a credible beginnings of a stateless society.  It is beautiful to behold.  And his portrayal of the eventual arrival of “nobility” who are simply thugs and gangsters with a confidence that they are the Law, is wonderful.  Basically a whole generation seems to live this way, at least in the British settlement of New Hastings and the related colonies, before the nation states that were being spawned in Europe reach their maturity.

And I thought, though I should have known better, that Turtledove was actually going to follow through with changes.

But he doesn’t.  The original stateless society simply disappears without even being noticed by the children of the colonists.  Does Turtledove even notice it?  I can’t say.  It is interesting that the statists who follow from the original colonists also seem to have lower moral standards (not that the original colonists were saints by any means).

Part of what happens seems reasonable.  It is easy to imagine a private law society giving way to a corporate state.  But no one seems to notice it.  At first paying taxes is unthinkable and then in the next story it is happening.  If the transition is explained, I missed it (which is possible driving in the car listening to audio).

By the way, I’m not sure what age should read these because the morality declines and mature subjects are dealt with (both in a mature way and in an immature way, married and unmarried).  I’d say these are books for older people, not kids.

I guess it is unfair for me to judge Turtledove by standards he never adopted.  I assume I misunderstood what he was trying to portray in Part One.  But it started out great and ended up being just the story of a slightly different path to mass democracy.  And I’m too sad about the real history of the nation-state.  I don’t see any point in reliving it in a slightly different form in my fiction.