This review was written for the Gatehouse Gazette, a steampunk fanzine, along with an interview on the subjects of steampunk and alternative fiction. In this review “Dr Molinarius” continually wrote “Goebbels” when he meant “Goering”. I personally find Goering to be a more interesting character – not devoid of a certain charm, and as an opportunistic climber, more interesting than the single-minded Party fanatics. This interview is written from the point of view of a steampunk audience, and the novel was not really written as a steampunk novel, but it certainly looks in some detail at other aspects of the book. Thanks to Nick and Damon for this.
REVIEW – BENEATH GRAY SKIES
Adventure in a world spared the American Civil War but imperiled by an unholy alliance. By Damon Molinarius.
Beneath Gray Skies is a self-published alternative history novel, set in a world where the American Civil War was not fought, but the United and the Confederate States of America (CSA) exist in uneasy balance.
The author, Hugh Ashton, is a journalist based in Japan, but hails from the United Kingdom. As he himself has stated, he became interested in the “what if’ after starting the book as a “why” in an attempt to make sense of the changes to the United States during the George W. Bush presidency, whereby the country was becoming something dislike able while his American friends were not. By attempting to discover where the aggressive and intolerant tendencies which the Bush Administration brought to the fore came from, Ashton came to understand that the less desirable characteristics of the American national character had their roots in the South, and these values were embedded in the heart of G.W. Bush, and therefore his administration.
None of this is apparent in the book, other than in the brief introduction by the author. Indeed, grand narratives are not the focus. Rather, Ashton concentrates on the minutiae, upon the motives and actions of small people within the bigger social and political machinery. Rather than undertaking the exploration of this alternative world and its development from its diversion point of the siege of Fort Sumter-whereby a decision is made by President Lincoln’s US Secretaries of State and for the Treasury not to engage the forces of the Secessionists and to withdraw Union troops-the author moves forward to the 1920s, and the putsch of the National Socialist Party in Germany. Indeed, events between the secession of the southern states from the Union and this point are rarely alluded to, and the focus of the entire novel, while dealing with world shifting events, is on the small scale, individual, lives and actions of a few characters. The Nazi Putsch unfolds in the background, as the narrative concentrates upon the actions of three individuals within a small group of Nazi Party officials and Confederate soldiers which are blocking German civil servants’ entrance to their workplace, and separating some–who later are discovered by the protagonists to be Jews–from others who are merely turned away. There is no conception of the wider implications of this event until the later analyzing of an official report in Whitehall. Indeed, while the reader may be aware of the enormity of the events as they unfold, the author’s focus keeps the story tight and enclosed through personal, rather than grand, narratives.
This is partly due to the author’s style, whereby events tend to unfold through dialogue and conversation, rather than descriptive passages. The effect is two-fold. Firstly, it creates an empathic connection with the characters, giving the sense of being party to the events as they unfold, and an understanding of the motives for characters’ actions, bringing the reader more closely into the story. Secondly, when the action is presented through descriptive narrative, it has a greater impact. This is most impressively seen in the description of the maiden flight of the inorganic character central to the plot, that of the airship Bismarck. Ashton was not an expert on the mechanisms of airship flight, but his description is illuminating and exhilarating, bringing to life the sensations which those party to flights of these incredible Zeppelins must have felt.
The story itself is relatively simple. After years of isolation, the Confederate States of America is an authoritarian state, with President Davis III operating a corrupt and inefficient government, and an almost bankrupt state premised upon continued slavery. While large, the army is ill equipped, with no machinery to speak of, and there is no air force. Slavery is holding the Confederacy back, being inefficient and preventing innovation, but the costs of abolishing slavery are prohibitive. The CSA is isolated from the world, with no access to technology, and no trade possible for the natural resources which the CSA holds. The border with the USA is tightly controlled, although war is unlikely between the two states. With no way out of this dire situation, President Davis entertains a small, mustachioed leader of a German political party. An agreement is made-in return for providing covert Confederate troops to assist in Hitler’s Putsch, the new Germany will provide technical expertise to enable the CSA to modernize and to extract the natural resources which in turn would be sold to Nazi Germany to allow their militarization. This agreement is made easier given their mutual perception of race.
As well as the prospect of a remilitarized Germany, and of a stronger CSA under Davis, it is this latter issue of race and the risk of spreading slavery to Europe which underpins the motives of the majority of the characters, from the British secret service and their counterparts in Washington to the Confederate officers conspiring against Davis. The characters themselves are well drawn overall, although national stereotypes do tend to underpin them and some of their individual stories are a little unbelievable, and the interplay between fictional and historical characters is well done. Their voices come across clearly through the use of dialogue in driving the plot forward. Whilst most reviews of the book centre upon one character, David Slater, a young Confederate soldier, as the main protagonist, this is a misconception. The plot is driven by a few fictional characters, some of whom are not introduced until midway through the book, despite their importance in the story. The roles of the main characters tend to shift as the story progresses, and one–Brian Finch- Malloy, British spy–disappears from the plot for a while before reappearing to play a key part, and Christopher Pole changes his role at least four times–from slave, to British spy, to American spy, to icon of changing attitudes towards African Americans. Importantly, the geographical character of Cordele–a small town in Georgia–changes throughout, from being a small, dead-end minor settlement where Slater and Pole originate, to the locus of the new relationship between Germany and the CSA.
Unusually, there is no core enemy character. Yes, Davis, Hitler, and Goebbels are present, but they are not central to the story, although Goebbels is more so than the others. Most of the characters tend to be on the “right” side-even the Germans who, other than a very small minority, are not Nazis, and disagree with their ideology. This latter aspect is vital to the climax of the story, which is focused upon the flight of the Nazi hierarchy on the Bismarck to the CSA to meet with Davis and his cabinet in order to concretely recognize relations between the two states. The different threads of the tale-from the directions of the British Cabinet in London, the actions of the joint intelligence services in Washington, the plotting of the various elements in the CSA, and the political position of the captain of the Bismarck- come together inexorably in Cordele, Georgia, where the airship is to land. As the threads come together, the pace and inter-cutting of the action increases, and the novel becomes a real page turner.
From a steampunk perspective, there is not much here to engage the enthusiast of machinery or of alternative technologies, or of the presence of future technologies in an alternative past. Everything present in this alternative world was present in the real one. Its application and exploitation is very different however. Whereas the resources of the southern states were put to good use historically, most effectively during the First World War, this is not the case with the split nation not involved in the European conflict. As a result, the CSA is poor, with no opportunity to exploit its resources, and the USA is weak, meaning the British Empire remains the dominant force on the world stage. There are no great new innovations developed, no pan- continental railways, and powered flight is not widespread from the limited perspective of the novel- the CSA has no aircraft, for instance. Socially, the CSA is rooted in the mid-nineteenth century, and the USA’s population lacks African Americans as most remain in the South.
This is a different novel in terms of approach and style to most alternative history fiction, and to steampunk fiction in general. However, it is engaging and entertaining, and highlights the role of individuals in the outplaying of history, which does lie at the heart of both steampunk and alternative history fiction. Ashton will shortly be publishing a new novel set in Tokyo in 2008, and has just begun research on his third, which will be centered upon an alternative world where Lenin had been killed in the assassination attempt of 1918, with an altered USSR and alternative Communist leadership. This latter novel will feature a steampunk or dieselpunk technology which will drive the plot, and so will be more firmly placed within the steampunk genre, and I, for one, am anticipating it with relish.
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