For many of us , it ’s still Independence Day weekend , and we ’re still grilling hamburgers and celebrating our country ’s freedoms . To immortalise the affair , John T. Ottinger looks at a dozen science fiction books and tale that are unambiguously American .
top off the leaning is , ironically , a book by a Brit . American Gods , by Neil Gaiman , celebrate America ’s beloved of the sometimes weird and wacky with a multiple award make headway novel . Its one of my personal favorites , not least of which is because the final struggle between the Gods , the Ragnarok , takes topographic point not 3 mile from where I bring in my bachelor-at-arms ’s arcdegree , at the iconic Rock City . ( Tangentially , another book in this vein , if you are interested , is Norse Code by Greg Van Eekhout . )
Justin Allen blends the westerly and phantasy together in Year of the Horse . you may read a full review of this Holy Writ , but serve it to say that Allen eloquently blends two very American tradition , the westerly and the tall tale , into a novel that is infused with Americana .
Another Western vogue story is Stephen King ’s seven - part Dark Tower series . King uses all the tropes of the sole fire warden , the serious hombre versus an malevolent one in a fantasy setting that has the flavor of a Western , but also chart its own decided district .
Orson Scott Card ’s Alvin Maker series can not go without comment . The series , set on the American frontier in an alternate 19th 100 , mixes magic and account to with child effect . As Wikipedia tell it : “ In Card ’s world , many people have a limited supernatural ability , or “ knack ” to do some task to almost paragon . Alvin Miller , who is the 7th son of a 7th son , discovers that his knack far outstrip those of everyone else . In picky , he can change both live and nonliving thing only by force of will ( hence the championship “ Maker ” ) . This power comes at a monetary value , however ; not only does Alvin feel a great responsibleness to use his power for estimable , but there are force that actively seek his dying . ”
Andy Duncan ’s writing is populated with people and characters of the American South . “ A Diorama of the Infernal Regions ; or , The Devil ’s Ninth Question ” which appear in the Wizards anthology edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois is part Poe and part Flannery O’Connor ( take my reappraisal here ) . “ ” A Diorama of the Infernal Regions , or The Devil ’s Ninth Question ” by Andy Duncan is a story of the Devil , how wizards become such , and a slicing of time in a U.S. South recently ravaged by internal war . As a reader and Southerner , I always appreciate a author write about the uniqueness that is the South . Duncan knows the South and his story remind me reasonably of Christopher Priest ’s The prestigiousness in its setting . Duncan ’s champion is clever and witty , and overreach even the Devil himself . ”
The classic poor story “ Eastward Ho ! ” by William Tenn research the stem of American expansion and the radical of race sex act by deliver an alternated history in which white people are subject to Native Americans . Seeking to get out from under their yoke , the white man sets off for the fabled land eastward , much as the Native Americans were wedge to due in the westward enlargement of the United States .
S. M. Stirling ’s Conquistadoris , as his web site states it : “ A Parallel Worlds / Alternate account novel , published in 2003 by ROC . The book is put in an substitute mankind where the Europeans never curb the Americas , and there is a “ gate ” between our California and the alternating California . ”
foot any number of novels and unforesightful narrative by Harry Turtledove and you will recover American theme , characters , and preferences running throughout . This master of alternate chronicle set many of his taradiddle in America , both to its trade good and its detriment . The Guns of the South – an alternating U.S. Civil War novel , The Great War serial , or Days of Infamy – fictionalizing the onslaught on Pearl Harbor and America ’s entrance into WWII .
Ray Bradbury ’s Something Wicked This Way come is about two 13 - twelvemonth - sometime male child , Jim Nightshade and William Halloway , who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish traveling carnival that comes to their Midwestern townsfolk one October . The carnival ’s drawing card is the inscrutable “ Mr. Dark ” who bears a tattoo for each person who , tempt by the offer to live out his secret fantasy , has become bound in service to the funfair . Mr. Dark ’s malevolent presence is countered by that of Will ’s Father of the Church , Charles Halloway , who harbors his own hugger-mugger desire to regain his youth . ” ( Wikipedia ) Bradbury ’s oeuvre is the quintessential modest - townspeople - meets - the - wondrous style novel that so many talespinners have emulate since .
In the small - town America venous blood vessel , I do want to mention Pat Frank ’s Alas Babylon . Set in a little Florida township after an apocalypse , Frank captures the closing off and small town character so very , very well . ( Read my reappraisal of the novel , one of my very first . )
And if you wish books that commingle both the paranormal and some period in the story of the United States , you could also gibe out Charles Coleman Finlay ’s Traiter to the Crown trilogy . Publishers Weekly summed up the mental object of the first novel in starred revue as “ … transfix diachronic fantasy , first of a serial publication , takes Proctor Brown , quick minuteman and reluctant enchantress , through the opening battle of the American Revolution . Caught between the demands of a loyalist lady friend and the needs of his aged parents , Proctor is eager to join the American reason and put his hidden abilities to good use . As he learn more about witchery , he finds it employed by both rebels and Royal Marines , and he contend to master his talent without being exposed . ” The subsequent novel come after the eccentric of Proctor Brown as he works in the U. S and Europe during the American Revolutionary War .
And of course , there are the modern extrasensory stories that have an American openhanded urban center graphic symbol . Pick from Jim Butcher , Patricia Briggs , etc . and you will retrieve many of these stories have are set up in towns and cities like New York or Portland , or even Atlanta .
What stories and/or novels have a very “ American ” look , capacity , or motif to you ?
This post by John T. Ottingeroriginally appeared at Grasping For The Wind .
BooksNeil GaimanOrson Scott Card
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