From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] My review of _And The Last Trump Shall Sound_
Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2022 14:55:31 -0500 (EST)

Here's the review I gave at last night's PRSFS meeting.

I read _And The Last Trump Shall Sound_, a novel by Harry Turtledove,
James Morrow, and Cat Rambo.  The cover shows Trump and Pence in an
"American Gothic" pose.  I bought this trade paperback at the recent
Worldcon.

I think it was $3.  By the end of the con, the dealer was giving them
away for free.  I'm not sure why.  Because it was intended as future
history when it was published in October 2020, but the result of the
election makes it obsolete?  So what, that just means that it's now
alternate history, which is what anyone would expect of a Turtledove
novel anyway.  Alternate history would also excuse historical
mistakes, such as "Nancy Todd Lincoln" where "Mary Todd Lincoln" was
obviously intended, or Tim McVeigh being executed in 2003 rather than
in 2001.

The premise is that Trump wins reeelection in 2020, and dies of covid
in 2024.  The beginning of the novel is set during Pence's third term.
He got around the 22nd amendment's two-term limit by running as vice
president under someone who resigned immediately after being
inaugurated.  That's all backstory.

Turteldove's part of the novel is about the secession of the three
west-coast states as the new nation of Pacifica.  He comes up with a
plausible explanation as to why this doesn't result in a major war.

Turteldove's part is pretty much straight alternate history.  Morrow's
part, by contrast, is rather extreme satire.  At the instigation of
Pacifica, a famous female porn star successfully masquerades as Pence's
male spiritual leader.  She convinces him to do increasingly bizarre
things, such as award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to a school
shooter.  She has him raise Trump from the dead.  This trick is pulled
off by using an animatronic Trump designed by Disney.

Cat Rambo's part, set in 2040, is a dystopia.  Privacy is extinct
in both the US and Pacifica, and almost everyone in both countries
is very poor, as both the economy and the ecology have collapsed.
Pacifica has prison work camps, and conditions are even worse in
the US.  The Pacifican protagonist enters the US to try to recover
something stolen from him, and gets kidnapped into where the
billionares live.  They're so wealthy they even have real coffee.

I enjoyed it.  Trump supporters probably won't.