When I wrote my alternative history novel, Russian Amerika, I had a specific point in history where everything changed thereafter. In the novel, I drop hints but never pinpoint the event leading to the time of my story, 183 years later.
Some of the reviews it received had readers saying it was a result of the South winning the Civil War, which it did in the story, but in 1850, it was over in a few months, and not the turning point. As the novel was published by Baen Books, I spent some time on Baen’s Bar, where I took some heat for not explaining my historical tweak.
Before I elaborate, which I have done in other venues, I would like to pose the question, Is the author obligated to map it all out for the reader? Part of the fun of reading alternative history (for me, anyway) is to figure out what happened that changed things. Do we need to hold the reader’s hand and walk them through it, or can we just throw them into the prose pool and see if they can swim?
Russian Amerika morphed into a series of four novels, only three of which have been published by Nazca Press thus far. A second alt history series is also in the publishing queue, beginning with Incident in Alaska Prefecture, in which the historical turning point is painfully (for the Allies) obvious.
Both series begin in Alaska and grow from there. Most of my writing is Alaska-centric, as I lived there for 31 years and it has never left me, even though I left the Great Land 27 years ago.
My impetus for writing Russian Amerika was to posit an Athabascan uprising in a backwater of the Russian Empire in 1987. I worked for the Tanana Chiefs Health Authority, a department of the Tanana Chiefs Conference, which is an Alaska Native social services organization and part of the Doyon Corporation. I was a graphics media specialist and initially hired to create a comic book highlighting the need and scope of medical specialists in the villages.
After we finished the comic, I was put on staff. The two and a half years I worked there was an amazing in-depth learning experience about a culture of which I hadn’t been aware. It doesn’t take much to get me talking about Alaska and the Athabascan people. But I’ll save that for another time.
I knew when I wanted my story to take place and where. Figuring out a turning point took a bit of digging. One of my three college majors was history, and I already knew the West Coast of America was firmly in Russian and Spanish hands in the early 1800s, and England changed that somewhat later.
I did some research—which I love!—and discovered an incident that is a near-mythic love story revered in Spain and Mexico. It served perfectly.
A widower, Count Nikolai Rezanov was a diplomat in service to the czar. While in San Francisco, California, discussing trade pacts with the alcalde, he met and fell in love with María de la Concepción Marcela Argüello, the daughter of the commandant of the presidio. He was Russian Orthodox and she was Roman Catholic in a time when religion ruled more firmly than governments.
They agreed to marry. He was in his 40s and she was 17. The union had to be blessed by both the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church. That would take time to transpire. He had to return to St. Petersburg to make his plea to the metropolitan.
When the permission of the church was obtained, he would return to California and they would marry. He took a ship back to Siberia and set out on horseback with others for St. Petersburg. Some articles state he died from pneumonia, other sources claim he was thrown from his horse and kicked in the head in the process. Whatever, he didn’t make it home.
She waited faithfully for five years before learning of his death. She ultimately joined a convent where she stayed for the next 50 years before passing away in 1857.
In my story, he made it back to California, married Concepción, helped create a pact between Russia and Spain, and lived happily ever after. The alliance held.
Stoney Compton has 14 soon-to-be-published novels and a number of shorter works extant. He lives in New Mexico with his very significant other, Colette, Milo the Magnificent (canine), and eight cats. He won Second Place in the Writers of the Future contest once upon a time, and has an enduring affinity for Alaska, where he previously lived for 31 years. He is a Vietnam-era Navy veteran and an artist. He loves readers who leave reviews!
