moving to outside.ofa.dog reviewed Other Covenants by Mark Shainblum
Many futures, some excellent
4 stars
I love the premise of this book, and like any multi author collection the quality of the content is all over the place. Many great stories, some that don't quite work.
I started it excited about having an alternate history collection that wasn't going to be about "what if the Nazis won". It actually doesn't quite meet that bar, though at least there are only a couple of stories that plumb that particular horror, and the more original of the two is perhaps the highlight of the book: a psychological study of the oppressor that I was mentally chewing over for a long time. Meanwhile, the story that mashes up Scottish and Jewish history was an unexpected delight - it started out looking like the whole concept was just going to be a few puns ("Moshe Ben Nevis"; "The Hebraides") but fleshed that out into a genuinely interesting fantasy.
The …
I love the premise of this book, and like any multi author collection the quality of the content is all over the place. Many great stories, some that don't quite work.
I started it excited about having an alternate history collection that wasn't going to be about "what if the Nazis won". It actually doesn't quite meet that bar, though at least there are only a couple of stories that plumb that particular horror, and the more original of the two is perhaps the highlight of the book: a psychological study of the oppressor that I was mentally chewing over for a long time. Meanwhile, the story that mashes up Scottish and Jewish history was an unexpected delight - it started out looking like the whole concept was just going to be a few puns ("Moshe Ben Nevis"; "The Hebraides") but fleshed that out into a genuinely interesting fantasy.
The one real sour note for me was "The Time-Slip Detective", in which the vision of a happier, more prosperous Israel is clearly predicated on 'what if the Palestinians just didn't exist?', which was a chilling and infuriating concept even when I read it a few months ago, before the latest horrors. Some what-ifs are better not entertained at all, and just as I'd love to never read another goy's "what if the Nazis had won", I also never want to see another Jew's "what if we just wished the Palestinians away".
Skip that story, and this collection is a worthwhile read.