THE EDGE magazine | Book reviews | Alternate Kennedys (Edited by Mike Resnick)

Alternate Kennedys
Edited by Mike Resnick
Tor paperback, 398 pages, $4.99 (USA)
Published July 1992
ISBN 0812519558
Review by David Clark (1992)

In his introduction to this collection of SF short stories, Mike Resnick says that the Kennedys weren’t actually a very successful political dynasty. Well, you couldn’t call them failures, but there are a whole heap of might-have-beens. And shadows. That dubious figure Joseph senior, father to President Kennedy, had to resign as ambassador to Britain; Jack was shot, or was he assassinated by means of CIA and/or mob conspiracy; Bobby was an aide to Joseph McCarthy and conducted more wiretaps than any other Attorney General to date before being shot in his turn, or was he assassinated by means of CIA and/or mob conspiracy; and Teddy drove off that bridge in 1969, then failed to get past Jimmy Carter to run for the White House in 1980.

Although Jack was a genuine war hero, and there was the ‛War on Crime’, which upset a lot of mobsters and murderers by greatly increasing the number of American murders solved; the pursuit of Civil Rights, particularly RFK’s commitment to that cause; and sundry positive achievements by various family members. However, let’s not evaluate the dynasty in these pages, we’ll be here forever. Instead, we’ll see what Resnick’s team of experienced science fiction authors can produce to fulfil the mission he’s set them to extrapolate from history and to speculate, to filter what we know from what we think we know, to find some imaginative truth, with their short stories.

And perhaps inevitably, what they produce amounts to an SF collection, generally on the theme of ‛What if the Kennedys hadn’t entered politics?’ Worse, some of the stories are SF Humour. This is what can happen when you choose or invite experienced SF writers. Resnick has selected quite a spread, though one wonders what John Shirley, Harlan Ellison or Norman Spinrad might have done. Or Michael Moorcock (actually, Joe and his sons get a mention in one of the Bastable books) or, indeed, Jello Biafra. However, the resulting stack of stories (plus one poem, which we’ll ignore) do tend to impress.

By accident or design of Resnick, the understandable temptation to use the Dallas disaster as a starting point is largely spurned. Barry N. Malzberg is one of the few who head straight for it: ‛In the Stone House’ is interested in the reasoning behind the shooting. One of the best stories in the book is the very memorable ‛The Winterberry’; Nicholas A. DiChario’s economically-written, bittersweet story trades on a real life conspiracy theory, the one that has Jack surviving Dallas with brain damage.

Several writers are fascinated by Camelot going sour; Laura Resnick’s ‛A Fleeting Wisp of Glory’ has the survivors of some future holocaust possessing an oral history blending the Kennedy Camelot era with Arthurian mythology. The writer happens to be Mike Resnick’s daughter, but this story appears to be included on merit. Nancy Kress’ ‛Eoghan’, a meditation on the Irish-American clan from the time of the Irish famine to the White House, comes in at over 30 pages without becoming boring. Mike Resnick himself gives us a wistful short piece about Norma Jean Baker, a daydreaming waitress with a crush on Jack. And Rick Katze’s ‛Bobbygate’ takes on history, with the Attorney General having to investigate a 1964 burglary; in this timeline it’s the Republican HQ that’s turned over.

In several stories it’s the Kennedy women who provide focus, including the tragic Rosemary, lobotomised at the age of 23. Pat Cadigan’s substantial ‛No Prisoners’ and Martha Soukup’s ‛Rosemary’s Brain’ are the standouts in this group.

Not so good is ‛Siren Song’ by Susan Shwartz, which takes us back to World War 2. Jack Kennedy has to choose between nirvana and destiny. Shwartz overplays the fantastic and the story goes on for too long. The same could be said of Harry Turtledove’s uninteresting ‛A Massachusetts Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’, which tries to do Mark Twain. Despite that, some of the best stories here are probably the more daring and fantastical ones.

‛The Kennedy Enterprise’, by David Gerrold, who wrote that annoying Star Trek episode about hamsters, has Jack as an actor who plays the lead role in hit TV show Star Track and falls victim to a convention-goer. Judith Tarr’s ‛Them Old Hyannis Blues’ has the Kennedys as a clean-cut rock band playing for President Elvis and saving him from an assassination attempt. And Esther M. Friesner’s ‛Told You So’ gets the SF Humour right when it says exactly that about JFK’s famous ‛Ich bin ein Berliner’ utterance. While Jack C Haldeman II’s ‛Short Count in Chicago’ is positively Ballardian.

In one of the best stories in the book, Mark Aronson’s ‛President-Elect’ sees Bobby surviving the assassination attempt, winning in 1972 with Teddy as a running mate, and taking a harder line on policy. Possibly tied with this and the aforementioned ‛The Winterberry’ in first place is ‛Til Death Us Do Part’; Charles Von Rospach’s entry features the Cuban Missile Crisis and Marilyn Monroe, and throws in a crazy, disturbing explanation of Vietnam and a thoroughly mad Dallas incident. If a short story can be certifiable this one is. There’s plenty more than those three to keep us reading though.

It hasn’t been mathematically proven, but it seems likely that no anthology can be 100% perfect. Alternate Kennedys, however, is rather a good one, and as compelling as any alternate history novel. Whether it’ll be published over here I don’t know, but there are few badly-written entries, and it has enough gems to make it worth seeking out as an imported paperback when you want a short story fix. •

Contents:

Introduction by Mike Resnick
Jane Yolen – Camelot Redux (poem)
Laura Resnick – A Fleeting Wisp of Glory
Barry N. Malzberg – In the Stone HouseDavid Gerrold – The Kennedy Enterprise
Kristine Kathryn Rusch – The Best and the Brightest
Jack C. Haldeman II – Short Count in Chicago
Susan Shwartz – Siren Song
Judith Tarr – Them Old Hyannis Blues
Alan Rodgers and James D. Macdonald – Rosemary: Scrambled Eggs on a Blue Plate
Brian M. Thomsen – The Missing 35th President
Barbara Delaplace – Freedom
Harry Turtledove – A Massachusetts Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Mark Aronson – President-Elect
Pat Cadigan – No Prisoners
Mike Resnick – Lady in Waiting
Michael P. Kube-McDowell – The Inga-Binga Affair
Rick Katze – Bobbygate
Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald – Now And in the Hour of Our Death
Nancy Kress – Eoghan
Charles Von Rospach – ‛Til Death Do Us Part
Brian M. Thomsen – Gloria Remembers
Esther M. Friesner – Told You So
Ginjer Buchanan – The End of Summer, by the Great Sea
George Alec Effinger – Prince Pat
Robert Sheckley – The Disorder and Early Sorrow of Edward Moore Kennedy, Homunclus
Martha Soukup – Rosemary’s Brain
Nicholas A. DiChario – The Winterberry

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