Welcome to September! And welcome back to my regular first-Friday of the month random burst of words.

This month I wanted to share with you a thought. One of those dark ones that stays with you. I can’t shake it off, and it tastes awful. Perhaps by exploring it with you now, I can put it to rest. Or perhaps you’ll reply a few lines with your (hopefully) much more optimistic perspective, which I will duly buy to sleep better.

I need to be brief. Next month is the release of Book 2 of DREAMWORMS (What?! You haven’t read book 1 yet and need a copy? It is only 99c on Amazon right now, or just ask nicely at author@isaacpetrov.com for a free copy), so you can imagine how busy I am. A big THANK YOU to my beta-readers (many are still hard at work, deadline looming)! Love you! Thanks to your feedback, the story (which was amaaaazingly good already) is coming out even better (and here I was thinking that was utterly impossible!) :D

Where was I? Ah, yes. The other day I was walking down the street, thinking about history, technology and the atomic bomb (yeah, I like to think big). As I was thinking about all this, I could almost imagine myself walking side by side with Professor Miyagi himself (a history ninja of the twenty-sixth century, in case you haven’t read book 1 yet), bouncing my thoughts against his mighty intellect. And… You know what? Let’s do just that!

A MICROSTORY

Isaac turns his baffled eyes at the sudden apparition next to him on the sidewalk, and says, “Oh, wow. Thanks so much for magically showing up, Professor Miyagi. It is a real honor.”

“Please, Isaac,” he chuckles politely. “Call me Kenji. It’s quite the pleasure to meet the guy that created my world—and myself. But don’t let that go to your head!” He says, wagging a warning finger at Isaac.

“No worries, Kenji. You know me. I’m quite the humble type—for a god. Anyway, perhaps you can help me out here.”

“Tell me.” He wets his lips in patient pose.
“Okay. World War Two. Imagine the Nazis beat the Americans to the atomic bomb.”

“Oh, Goah.”

“Exactly my thoughts. That would have been ended the war, right?”

“Of course. That’s actually what happened in the Pacific. After the atomic bomb, an all-out war stops making sense.”

“Okay, but bear with me for a minute here. Imagine the Nazis had made two bombs, all right? Just like the US had at the beginning. What would—?”

“Bye London. Bye Moscow. Or smaller cities first, to scare them shitless, like in Japan.”
“I said, bear with me, please, Kenji. Okay. So I guess the Soviets and the Brits surrender unconditionally. The US signs an armistice with the Third Reich and returns to its hemisphere.”

“There’s still Japan.”

“Ah, hmm. Let’s keep this simple, all right? Let’s say the Nazis force the US to get out of Asia as well. Japan keeps its Empire. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, communism collapse. Now, how would the world look like afterwards, you think?”

Miyagi laughs, shaking his head, like that was a joke. “Cold war, of course. After the development of the atomic Bomb, wars can only be served cold. Eurasia would be solid fascist. The US an isolationist democracy. A bleak world.”

“I assume the US would quickly follow up suit with its own nuclear arsenal, like the Soviet Union did in our own timeline.”

“Of course—and not only the US.”

“Exactly!” Isaac snaps his fingers at Miyagi. “That’s exactly what I was thinking about! It’s like you can almost read my mind, Kenji. It would be a very different world than today. And not just because we swap a type of dictatorship for another. I think the key difference between both worlds is the lessons that history would extract from their respective world wars.”

“The lessons of history… Hmm… You managed to intrigue me, Isaac. And that isn’t easy.”

“Thanks. You see, in our timeline, the Third Reich was destroyed by a multilateral alliance of ideologically opposed powers. The lesson? Collaboration is power.”

“Okay? And in the timeline with the Nazi bombs, the lesson is…?”

“A few, namely,” Isaac pulls up his thumb, “might makes right.” He raises his index, “Victory is absolute, as is defeat.” Another finger goes up. “And whoever develops the next badass apocalyptic weapon and doesn’t hesitate to use it, stays in the game.”

Miyagi whistles loudly. “Not the most stable of worlds… I wouldn’t give it a decade! Two max.”

“That’s my train of thoughts as well,” Isaac purses his lips, his extremely handsome face contracted in concern.

“Okay!” Miyagi smiles. “That was a fun exercise of alternative history. Now, if you excuse me, I have this awesome piece of literature I have to return to.”

“Wait! I need your opinion as a professional historian.”

“All right?” Miyagi smiles politely.

“Could that have happened?”

“What?”

“Could the Nazis have developed the bomb before the Americans?”

Miyagi shrugs. “Sure. They certainly had the capability.”

“So there is no—I don’t know how to put this in words—invisible forces of history that inevitably lead humanity down a stream of ever greater progress and community? Where good eventually prevails over evil? Where we learn to live together in peace without destroying our planet, or ourselves?”

“No.” Miyagi blinks. “Anything else?”

“Uh, thanks. I don’t think so. Bye, I guess.”

“Take care.” Miyagi says, and pops out of existence.

Isaac bites his lower lip and turns a worried gaze at the camera.

WHAT AM I READING?

Let me open up my kindle and get the names (I never remember them!). Okay, so I just read “Stories of your life and Others”, by Ted Chiang. A set of short stories, sci-fi-ish. And they’re good! The imagination and consistency are fantastic. I’m also half-way through “Awaken Online”, by Travis Bagwekk, the first book I ever read on the new Sci-Fi genre known as “lit-rpg” (I guess literature role playing games?). Whatever. Since I like role playing games, I thought I would give it a shot. And I’m actually enjoying it!

What am I working on?

Giving the last touches to Book 2, coming up next month. Thanks again, beta-readers!
As teaser, here are the covers of the three episodes that are part of book 2. Yeah, I know, you want it now! I can feel your thirst, your craving. But, just a month! Be patient, my friend. :)







Happy out-of-this-world reading!
—Isaac, logging out