The Gallatin Divergnce

by L. Neil Smith

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345303830
• ISBN13: 9780345303837
• Release Date: August 1985
• Publisher: Del Rey Books
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Did it happen that way?

In the time line of the North American Confederacy there is no povery, no war, hardly any crime and not much in the way of government. But that can all change if the Hamiltonians get their way. It seems they plan to travel back in time to both crush the Whiskey Rebellion and kill Albert Gallatin. Now it is up to Win Bear, an ex-Denver Cop, Lucille Gallegos Kropotkin, who carries more iron than most armies, and a porpoise to save the universe. The action, for those of you who know nothing of your early American history, can get messy and downright confusing. Add the changes Mr. Smith tossed in and the speed in which the plots move, and some of you may wish to just sit this one out.

For Want of a Word

The Gallatin Divergence is the fifth novel written in the Confederacy series, but the sixth in chronological sequence according to my reckoning, which is subject to change as I re-read the series and Smith turns out new books. Prior to this novel, Edward William Bear (the one from the USA timeline) and Clarissa MacDougal Olson Bear have moved to the Second Asteroid Belt and established a homestead, where they practiced their professions and raised their daughters. Now their daughters are away on the Tom Paine Maru and Clarissa has acquired a fatal disease on a mercy mission to a ravaged timeline. Since the disease was incurable at the time, Win and Clarissa have themselves placed in stasis to wait for a cure. In this novel, Win is awakened by Lucille Gallagos Kropotkin to take on a mission to prevent a Hamiltonian agent from going back in time to kill Albert Gallatin, founding father of the Confederacy timeline. Edna Janof, a staunch Hamiltonian, has somehow survived her presumed death in an aircar crash -- helped by gunfire from Win and friends -- and has commissioned Hirnschlag von Ochskahrt, a competent if not brilliant physicist, to invent a time machine, then stepped into the past, leaving Hirnschlag manacled to a bench with three metric pounds of plastique on time delay. Fortunately, he escaped but the time machine and the laboratory itself were destroyed. Oolorie P'wheet, the theoretical physicist porpoise, determines the space/time coordinates of the time broach and builds another to send back a rescue party -- for Gallatin, not Janof. Clad in faux buckskins over a 22nd century thin-skin suit, carrying an imitation "Kentucky" rifle with a Heller Effect stasis beam, and bearing an anachronistic Bowie knife, Win steps into the 18th century and immediately stumbles over Hirnschlag, dropping pots, pans, powder horns, and knives all over the place. After this auspicious start, Win and friends -- Ed (his Confederacy doppelganger), Lucy and Hirnschlag -- make their way to an observation point on Bower Hill, each loaded with essential supplies and equipment, include Hirnschlag's cello. From there, they watch the crucial events leading to the Whiskey Rebellion and keep watch for Edna Janof. The following chapters portray a version of the actual events of that time, up to a point of divergence at Braddock's Field. Like all reenactments, the minor details are fictional, yet reasonably consistent with written accounts and the customs of that time. Both the Rebels and the Federalists come across as mostly long-winded and indecisive, with some exceptions such as John Baldwin and Alexander Hamilton. The Rebels have meeting after meeting until the critical council where only the (fictional) intervention of Albert Gallatin focuses the issue on the illegal (in the alternate timeline) nature of the Constitution as designed by the Federalists. In the Confederacy timeline, Thomas Jefferson used the phrase "the unanimous consent of the govern

Simply Outstanding!!

The Gallatin Divergence is positively the perfect sequel to the best book of Liberatarian Sci-Fi I have ever read!! If you like "alternate-history" type books, you'll love this one AND it's predecessor, "The Probability Broach".

Excellent sequel to "The Probability Broach"

Detective Win Bear returns in this much-more-SFish sequel to _The_Probability_Broach_ by the same author. More than anything else, this novel gives you an opportunity to see, at the human level, what the author thinks might have led to the anarchistic North American Confederacy of the earlier novel.