Subgenre: Alternate History
About Sad All Over:
I want to doff my hat in memory of an event that pummeled the nation. I don’t think any of us have any difficulty
remembering the terrible events of Dallas
that day. But shortly thereafter, as Beatlemania was sweeping the
nation in the wake of the Fab Four’s appearance on the Ed Sullivan show,
the dark part of my brain came up with a way that November 22, 1963
could have been even worse.
Excerpt:
New York, NY, 11-23-64
Who doesn't remember November
22, 1963? Walter Cronkite fighting tears on national television, the manhunt in
Dallas, the dazed accounts of those who saw it happen. Our young President
struck down "In the Summer of his Years" just as he was truly making
the office his own. A world stopped for a day, wearing black for a month.
The murder of John F. Kennedy
was the tragedy of our generation, the biggest blow to our nation since Pearl
Harbor. That our freshly elected President Johnson -- a man toward whom Kennedy
often only thinly veiled his contempt -- has carried out the stricken
President's vision without falter, and perhaps with increased vitality, cannot
fully compensate us for our loss. A year after the fact, as the Cold War heats
up again in places like Vietnam, Cuba, and Berlin, I still find myself
wondering "What would Jack do?" and, perhaps more to the point,
"Would he do it better?"
Nevertheless, I want to talk
about the other tragedy that happened that day, one you may not remember or
even have heard about, but whose impact was perhaps just as profound.
Free at Galactic Journey
About Gideon Marcus:
Gideon
Marcus is the founder of the Serling
Award-winning and twice Hugo-nominated historical web project, Galactic
Journey, Gideon Marcus is a science fiction writer and space historian.
His
alternate history story, “Andy and Tina,” is the lead tale in the
Sidewise-nominated anthology, Tales from Alternate Earths 2. He lives in
the San Diego area with his wife and their prodigy daughter as well as a
matched
pair of cats.
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