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Fire on the Mountain
In a South where the Civil War never happened, a successful slave revolution spawns a socialist utopia, and a Black woman grieves for the loss of her astronaut husband on a mission to Mars
167 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
74 people are currently reading
2383 people want to read
About the author
Terry Bisson
214 books177 followersTerry Ballantine Bisson was an American science fiction and fantasy author best known for his short stories, including "Bears Discover Fire" (1990), which which won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, as well as They're Made Out of Meat (1991), which has been adapted for video often.
Adapted from Wikipedia.
Adapted from Wikipedia.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 176 reviews
April 5, 2020
(Second reading, 2020):
Well my appreciation and understanding of this book has certainly deepened dramatically, especially after having immersed myself in the Harpers Ferry raid over the past few years. This book embodies what I mean about dreaming of the future we want, finding ways to express it, and using that art as a jumping-off point to develop a praxis on how to get there. This book sent me through the looking-glass to critique our own world. Sitting as I do now, locked-in from a global pandemic, exacerbated by our unequal class regime and neglected healthcare system, these critiques are much more pointed. If you're capable of some intense self-reflection and -critique, this will guide you.
(First reading, 2012):
This is an alternate history story unlike most I have read- one that focuses on the human story and human problems of a radically changed world, and only glancing at the radically changed history. And it works. I appreciated the structure, told in parallel between a modern narrator, the memoirs of a revolutionary 100 years earlier, and the letters of his contemporary. It was like taking a quick shot of a refreshing drink, and the narrative flowed quickly. Not too bad, and definitely a unique vision of what could have been.
Well my appreciation and understanding of this book has certainly deepened dramatically, especially after having immersed myself in the Harpers Ferry raid over the past few years. This book embodies what I mean about dreaming of the future we want, finding ways to express it, and using that art as a jumping-off point to develop a praxis on how to get there. This book sent me through the looking-glass to critique our own world. Sitting as I do now, locked-in from a global pandemic, exacerbated by our unequal class regime and neglected healthcare system, these critiques are much more pointed. If you're capable of some intense self-reflection and -critique, this will guide you.
(First reading, 2012):
This is an alternate history story unlike most I have read- one that focuses on the human story and human problems of a radically changed world, and only glancing at the radically changed history. And it works. I appreciated the structure, told in parallel between a modern narrator, the memoirs of a revolutionary 100 years earlier, and the letters of his contemporary. It was like taking a quick shot of a refreshing drink, and the narrative flowed quickly. Not too bad, and definitely a unique vision of what could have been.
May 15, 2023
Fire on the Mountain is a short, but interesting alternate history AND science fiction novel. Terry Bisson is an American science fiction writer noted for his Leftist politics, and that is reflected in the socialist utopian nature of his alternate contemporary America. Its point of departure (POD) from true history is that John Brown’s abolitionist raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859 succeeds and gradually inspires a slave rebellion. That slave rebellion grows into a war of independence for the new nation of Nova Africa, composed of southern Blacks allied with socialist Whites with aid from international Socialist forces, versus the United States federal government. I admit that I had a very low awareness of John Brown and Harpers Ferry, and did some reading on the real history before even beginning this alternate history.
In the modern era (1959, the centennial of the raid itself), Yasmin Abraham Martin Odinga drives over the border into the US, delivering her great-grandfather’s papers describing the original events to the historical museum in Harpers Ferry. This is the frame story of the novel, and one of the plot threads concerns her life after the death of her husband on the first Mars expedition, leaving her daughter Harriet to be raised by relatives while she pursues archeology in Olduvai in Mother Africa. The second plot thread is contained in those family papers, written 50 years ago by medical Dr. A. Abraham, describing his experiences as an enslaved local boy during the rebellion. There is a third plot thread as well, contained in the letters of a white family, which are offered to the museum at the same time. Yasmin and Harriet accompany museum curator Grissom on his excursion to obtain the letters. They tell the story of an abolitionist medical Dr. Thomas Hunter, from a pro-slavery family, as the United States sorts itself into violently opposing factions.
Part of the pleasure of this alternate history is in discovering how very different this civil war is from our own history. For example, Lincoln as leader of the federal government is allied with southern pro-slavery Whites. In many alternate histories, there is a tendency for other events after the POD to mimic what happened in real subsequent history. Not here, though; history is quite mutable. Things continue to diverge, with eventually a late 1940s Socialist revolution in the rump USA, and quite a bit of implied but unexplored formation of other nations in North America. I found the two 19th century stories, of Dr. Hunter and of young Ayrab, to be filled with tension on a personal level, with as-far-as-I-can-tell realistic interactions with John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Robert E. Lee, etc. On the other hand, the extreme technological advancement of Africa during the subsequent hundred years up to 1959 seemed highly implausible, and Yasmin’s personal story to be more slice-of-life than captivating.
On a personal note, I live in the Sea Islands of South Carolina, which are occasionally mentioned in Yasmin’s backstory. In real history, Harriet Tubman fought with Union forces here, and her involvement in this alternate history is not at all out of character. I like to think that Sea Islands University would be nearby, maybe on St. Helena Island, where abolitionists established the Penn School during our Civil War.
Fire on the Mountain was first published in 1988 by Arbor House/William Morrow with a paperback from Avon Books. It was out of print for a few years, but then was re-released in trade paperback by PM Press in 2009.
In the modern era (1959, the centennial of the raid itself), Yasmin Abraham Martin Odinga drives over the border into the US, delivering her great-grandfather’s papers describing the original events to the historical museum in Harpers Ferry. This is the frame story of the novel, and one of the plot threads concerns her life after the death of her husband on the first Mars expedition, leaving her daughter Harriet to be raised by relatives while she pursues archeology in Olduvai in Mother Africa. The second plot thread is contained in those family papers, written 50 years ago by medical Dr. A. Abraham, describing his experiences as an enslaved local boy during the rebellion. There is a third plot thread as well, contained in the letters of a white family, which are offered to the museum at the same time. Yasmin and Harriet accompany museum curator Grissom on his excursion to obtain the letters. They tell the story of an abolitionist medical Dr. Thomas Hunter, from a pro-slavery family, as the United States sorts itself into violently opposing factions.
Part of the pleasure of this alternate history is in discovering how very different this civil war is from our own history. For example, Lincoln as leader of the federal government is allied with southern pro-slavery Whites. In many alternate histories, there is a tendency for other events after the POD to mimic what happened in real subsequent history. Not here, though; history is quite mutable. Things continue to diverge, with eventually a late 1940s Socialist revolution in the rump USA, and quite a bit of implied but unexplored formation of other nations in North America. I found the two 19th century stories, of Dr. Hunter and of young Ayrab, to be filled with tension on a personal level, with as-far-as-I-can-tell realistic interactions with John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Robert E. Lee, etc. On the other hand, the extreme technological advancement of Africa during the subsequent hundred years up to 1959 seemed highly implausible, and Yasmin’s personal story to be more slice-of-life than captivating.
On a personal note, I live in the Sea Islands of South Carolina, which are occasionally mentioned in Yasmin’s backstory. In real history, Harriet Tubman fought with Union forces here, and her involvement in this alternate history is not at all out of character. I like to think that Sea Islands University would be nearby, maybe on St. Helena Island, where abolitionists established the Penn School during our Civil War.
Fire on the Mountain was first published in 1988 by Arbor House/William Morrow with a paperback from Avon Books. It was out of print for a few years, but then was re-released in trade paperback by PM Press in 2009.
July 5, 2011
The strength of this book, I felt, was the way it captured the epistolary style of the mid-nineteenth century. Reading about the Civil War recently, it was hard to imagine Abraham Lincoln as the leader of reactionary forces. It would have been wonderful if slavery could have been overthrown sooner, and the nation spared the bloodiest war in its history. At the same time, it's hard to fathom how an international coalition of revolutionaries from Ireland, Italy, Germany, etc., would be able to find common cause with Haitians, Native Americans, Mexicans, African Americans and white abolitionists to take on the Federal Government's armed forces and Southern militias. At least Bisson doesn't try to minimize the horrors of the conflict, including massacres and lynchings of blacks and white sympathizers. I would have liked to see how he described his just society further. It calls for a sequel or two. I'm reminded of Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, coupled with scary alternative histories in the mockumentary "C. S. A." and Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle".
October 26, 2025
Sure, it's thin. It is, largely, simply the narrativization of a family trip to a national park. But much of what makes it an extraordinary alternate history is located precisely in its indifference to “story,” for it is, unlike most of the sub-genre, more concerned with that history than anything else. The rare genre novel, then, that exists to advance a thesis rather than a story (for the two are basically one and the same), and that being: alternate history is not a “what if” but an “if not that”, and from the perspective of Bisson’s trajectory, our own (that being the one in which there WAS a destroyed slaveocracy and WAS a thirteenth amendment and so on) is decidedly the white supremacist timeline. The ways in which the words that MATTERED for our own past (Federalist, rebel, Lincoln) can so easily accrue the opposite meaning in Bisson’s past demonstrate his point, that this was a war “fought to keep a nation together, rather than to free another”. And only confrontation with an extrapolation of the alternative reveals the foolishness of ever conflating the two in the first place.
January 7, 2016
A fantastic blend of two of my favorite genres: Alternate History and Science Fiction. It is set in 1959 in a vastly different world than the one we know. What if, in 1859, the legendary abolitionist, John Brown had partnered with Harriet Tubman and been successful in his raid on Harper's Ferry? This novel imagines an America in which a rebellion of not only black slaves, but sympathetic whites, oppressed Irish workers, and even international Marx supporters rally to do away with slavery against American forces led by Robert E. Lee. The story is told through letters of participants, interspersed with a narrative of contemporary (1959) "Nova Africans" (as those in the former American South are called) living in an advanced society in which technical marvels, radically different national and international borders, and even a successful landing on Mars are possible. May sound strange, but this is beautifully done by Terry Bisson. At only 167 pages, this book is a quick, and, more importantly, fascinating read.
September 8, 2020
John Brown is joined by Harriet Tubman and a host of international fighters to overcome slavery and bring about the independent nation of Nova Africa.
There are 2 big problems with this book for me.
The first, more obvious problem is that the "future" storyline is uninteresting, cliche, and irrelevant. The mother-daughter relationship lacks drama and the repetitive references to the dead space-man are beyond tedious. Add to this the fundamentally outdated Marxist formula that socialism = advanced technology, which not only forms the basis for the entire "future" setting, it also seems to be the only purpose of having a "future" storyline at all, since all the future characters are boring, talk only of the litany of technological wonders they've achieved in the year 1959, and have essentially no connection to John Brown or the struggle against slavery (besides an interest in the subject matter and a relative who was involved 100 years earlier).
The second problem is more devastating for me. In this alternate history, Brown and Tubman's war on slavery succeeds apparently without the active and enthusiastic involvement of large numbers of black people, i.e. the enslaved population of the U.S. South. Instead, the book repeats ad nauseum that the fledgling rebellion is aided externally from international revolutionary columns from such unlikely sources as Italy (by way of Mexico and Texas), Chinese immigrants who conquer California, and Haitians making an amphibious landing. Putting aside the utter lack of believability, the core issue is that the book obscures the actual cause of the end of slavery in reality - the mass rebellion of black Americans against the South and against slavery in particular. The Civil War was a catalyst, but the exodus of millions of fugitives fleeing the plantations is what fundamentally broke that nightmare system and banished it forever. (see Black Reconstruction by W.E.B. Du Bois)
The agent of progressive change in our country - in the 1860s as now - is the black community, and instead of celebrating their leadership, this book wanders into outlandish Marxist fantasies.
That said, I can't dismiss the historical importance of Fire on the Mountain, nor can I say it lacks exciting passages. The showdown between Frederick Douglass and the U.S. Marshals in Philadelphia is perhaps the best scene of the book, and the electrifying effect of the black horsemen arriving at the Virginia farmhouse will be burned in your memory.
It just could have been so much better.
There are 2 big problems with this book for me.
The first, more obvious problem is that the "future" storyline is uninteresting, cliche, and irrelevant. The mother-daughter relationship lacks drama and the repetitive references to the dead space-man are beyond tedious. Add to this the fundamentally outdated Marxist formula that socialism = advanced technology, which not only forms the basis for the entire "future" setting, it also seems to be the only purpose of having a "future" storyline at all, since all the future characters are boring, talk only of the litany of technological wonders they've achieved in the year 1959, and have essentially no connection to John Brown or the struggle against slavery (besides an interest in the subject matter and a relative who was involved 100 years earlier).
The second problem is more devastating for me. In this alternate history, Brown and Tubman's war on slavery succeeds apparently without the active and enthusiastic involvement of large numbers of black people, i.e. the enslaved population of the U.S. South. Instead, the book repeats ad nauseum that the fledgling rebellion is aided externally from international revolutionary columns from such unlikely sources as Italy (by way of Mexico and Texas), Chinese immigrants who conquer California, and Haitians making an amphibious landing. Putting aside the utter lack of believability, the core issue is that the book obscures the actual cause of the end of slavery in reality - the mass rebellion of black Americans against the South and against slavery in particular. The Civil War was a catalyst, but the exodus of millions of fugitives fleeing the plantations is what fundamentally broke that nightmare system and banished it forever. (see Black Reconstruction by W.E.B. Du Bois)
The agent of progressive change in our country - in the 1860s as now - is the black community, and instead of celebrating their leadership, this book wanders into outlandish Marxist fantasies.
That said, I can't dismiss the historical importance of Fire on the Mountain, nor can I say it lacks exciting passages. The showdown between Frederick Douglass and the U.S. Marshals in Philadelphia is perhaps the best scene of the book, and the electrifying effect of the black horsemen arriving at the Virginia farmhouse will be burned in your memory.
It just could have been so much better.
March 30, 2016
I met Terry Bisson at the Locus Awards and sincerely wish I had read this before I sat down to share a meal with him. Unbeknownst to me, his work has often focused on race and social justice. This is an alternate history in which John Brown and Harriet Tubman joined forces on the raid at Harper's Ferry, Virginia and won. In this timeline, it is the 1950s and a black utopia exists in the south. There are black men going on expeditions to Mars. This is interspersed with two accounts from the past with a story in the present of a young widow reconnecting with her daughter. I enjoyed the present tense more. The Mumia Abu Jamal introduction is pretty cool, too.
From intro: "Have you noticed how much of sci-fi is not so much futuristic, as it is a projection of a future where whites are many and people of color are few? Have you ever watched a movie such as Logan's Run, and spent the first two-thirds of the movie wondering where all the black folks are?"
From intro: "Have you noticed how much of sci-fi is not so much futuristic, as it is a projection of a future where whites are many and people of color are few? Have you ever watched a movie such as Logan's Run, and spent the first two-thirds of the movie wondering where all the black folks are?"
September 25, 2016
3.5 stars-I liked this quite a bit but had two minor complaints; first, it could get a bit heavy-handed at times (especially in the allusion to the John Brown's Body speculative fiction novel. I really liked this idea a lot! But idk it was also like "yes we get it") and second the historical narrative by Abraham was occasionally unnecessarily detailed and dragged on a bit too much. Overall a good read though!
July 14, 2023
The premise of this book was so incredibly interesting but the execution was very poor. The multiple writing styles really got everything jumbled and made it feel like you were reading three books at one time. It took me awhile to actually get through it even though it was so short. I so longed for this to be something more than it was.
December 26, 2024
As well as being subtle yet distinct in its political arguments, above all else this is an excellent example of storytelling by Terry Bisson. Characters and plot lines that weave into each other with surprise and without force. I would recommend it again and again and again.
Want to read
December 8, 2015This was discussed on Episode 045 of the Reading Envy Podcast.
May 9, 2019
John Brown DESTROYS slavery with GUNS and LOGIC
October 29, 2014
So this book is a romantic alternate history of the Civil War, written by a white man and dedicated to New Afrikan anarchist Kuwasi Balagoon and the Black Liberation Army. It's really entertaining. I don't think it's as accomplished as "Talking Man" (which is an extraordinarily beautiful book), but for people of a certain political persuasion it's immensely appealing. Yasmin is an utterly believable character, the kind of good person who would be unbelievable (to me, b/c I'm a terrible person) if she hadn't suffered a bit: and she has; her husband died on a Mars mission. We meet her driving through Virginia, replicating the drive I took to and from home every few months while I was at college, and the technologically advanced, semi-pastoral, racially harmonious society she inhabits seems to me like a marked improvement on the one we have now. There's discussion of religious radio: the South is still the South, even after a century of revolutions. I wish we got more of the politics of the utopia, and of the economic mechanisms, but that's because I'm a huge dork. The novel works, and a sound social democracy definitely looks utopian to this contemporary American. The biotech shoes don't impress me enormously, but that's probably because I was raised in a death-worshipping industrial autocracy.
Bisson leaves himself open to the charge that he takes People's War a bit too seriously. I am aware that revolutionary situations sometimes come with remarkable advances in class consciousness on the part of relatively privileged workers, and that examples of astounding interracial solidarity on the part of whites exist throughout the history of white supremacy, but even given the notion that white workers in the South could have overcome white supremacism in the agrarian mid-nineteenth century to rise up against the class enemy, I do not necessarily accept that even an interracial guerrilla insurgency could have defeated the industrial north as they do in this story. We are supposed to infer widespread antiwar insurrection, malingering, and sabotage on the part of workers in northern industrial centers, crippling Lincoln's efforts to crush the uprising, but here too one is tempted to argue that a war against rebellious slaves would have been more popular than one against white planters, especially given that the United States, in this history, remains a capitalist oligarchy even after Nova Africa breaks away. Why wouldn't the more populous northern states overthrow the government in the midst of the brutality of industrialization, given the revolutionary wave that sweeps the world in this history? What's more, why wouldn't the industrializing north exert neocolonial economic hegemony over Nova Africa, backing it up with European-supported trade embargoes &c.? How is it that Nova Africa is able to escape the obstacles to freedom faced by, say, the Republic of the Congo in the real twentieth century?
Ah well. Not the point, really, and my nitpicking could easily be accused of being overly pessimistic. Bisson's descriptions of revolution are effective and involving. They get the blood moving, which is always a good thing. I'm a bit uncomfortable with the way he centers John Brown: the implication is clear that Harriet Tubman is the real strategic genius behind the insurrection (her presence in Harper's Ferry is the Jonbar hinge), but he runs the risk of making Brown yet another white savior. Ultimately, though, it's a quick, engaging read, and a good fictional introduction to some real historical issues.
Bisson leaves himself open to the charge that he takes People's War a bit too seriously. I am aware that revolutionary situations sometimes come with remarkable advances in class consciousness on the part of relatively privileged workers, and that examples of astounding interracial solidarity on the part of whites exist throughout the history of white supremacy, but even given the notion that white workers in the South could have overcome white supremacism in the agrarian mid-nineteenth century to rise up against the class enemy, I do not necessarily accept that even an interracial guerrilla insurgency could have defeated the industrial north as they do in this story. We are supposed to infer widespread antiwar insurrection, malingering, and sabotage on the part of workers in northern industrial centers, crippling Lincoln's efforts to crush the uprising, but here too one is tempted to argue that a war against rebellious slaves would have been more popular than one against white planters, especially given that the United States, in this history, remains a capitalist oligarchy even after Nova Africa breaks away. Why wouldn't the more populous northern states overthrow the government in the midst of the brutality of industrialization, given the revolutionary wave that sweeps the world in this history? What's more, why wouldn't the industrializing north exert neocolonial economic hegemony over Nova Africa, backing it up with European-supported trade embargoes &c.? How is it that Nova Africa is able to escape the obstacles to freedom faced by, say, the Republic of the Congo in the real twentieth century?
Ah well. Not the point, really, and my nitpicking could easily be accused of being overly pessimistic. Bisson's descriptions of revolution are effective and involving. They get the blood moving, which is always a good thing. I'm a bit uncomfortable with the way he centers John Brown: the implication is clear that Harriet Tubman is the real strategic genius behind the insurrection (her presence in Harper's Ferry is the Jonbar hinge), but he runs the risk of making Brown yet another white savior. Ultimately, though, it's a quick, engaging read, and a good fictional introduction to some real historical issues.
September 24, 2025
I love the world this book creates because it fills me with so much hope (Though the sci fi elements get a bit ridiculous lol). My only other problem is how short it because I want to know so much more about the world and characters
September 15, 2018
This has a lot of the problems of Utopian fiction, in that it's a pretty beautiful example of world-building in search of a plot for too long. But somewhere in the second half, Bisson's schematic divide between the 1859 timeline (where John Brown and Harriet Tubman lead a movement that liberates the slaves, tears the US into two countries, and turns the world into a socialist paradise) and the 1959 timeline (where space explorers from "Nova Africa" are landing on Mars) begins to draw various strands of the story together. There's a real depth of feeling in the book's final third, especially when it comes to the 1859 characters.
There's too much cutesiness here and there, especially when it comes to various real-world figures who pop up in the alternate timeline, and it's very clearly a book about black people written by a white author in places (a white author in 1988, also). But its mournfulness for a world that never was carries through, and that it was written at a time when capitalism seemed as if it would never be defeated, much less by socialism, adds to that mournfulness.
Good book, especially for alt-history fans.
There's too much cutesiness here and there, especially when it comes to various real-world figures who pop up in the alternate timeline, and it's very clearly a book about black people written by a white author in places (a white author in 1988, also). But its mournfulness for a world that never was carries through, and that it was written at a time when capitalism seemed as if it would never be defeated, much less by socialism, adds to that mournfulness.
Good book, especially for alt-history fans.
December 23, 2021
I'd seen Jo Walton discuss this book quite a few times, and so it's been on my to-read list for some years; I finally got around to getting it out of the library (not many copies left in circulation!). It was indeed very engaging and readable, though there are certain things about it that feel a little dated these days (considering it was originally published in 1988, I suppose that's not a total surprise).
I very much enjoyed the way the world was filled in both in the "present" of 1959 and in the past through multiple narratives, as well as letters and documents. For such a slim book, there's a lot of worldbuilding. I actually would have liked to hear more about the past characters; I found them a bit more interesting than those in the 1959 narrative. (In fact, it is that part of the book that feels dated at times, while the historical part is all excellent.)
I very much enjoyed the way the world was filled in both in the "present" of 1959 and in the past through multiple narratives, as well as letters and documents. For such a slim book, there's a lot of worldbuilding. I actually would have liked to hear more about the past characters; I found them a bit more interesting than those in the 1959 narrative. (In fact, it is that part of the book that feels dated at times, while the historical part is all excellent.)
October 14, 2009
I like Bisson, but of everything I've read from him, I liked this the least. This wasn't a very satisfying story. I like the supposition of what could have been if the Civil War had come about differently, but I didn't really see the value in that supposition. I didn't feel like I had a chance to get to know the world they lived in or invest enough emotion into the characters to really care. The abrupt ending and lack of resolution for the personal lives of the characters also left me a little cold.
I won't give up on Bisson from a single book, but I would not recommend this to someone just starting to explore his works.
I won't give up on Bisson from a single book, but I would not recommend this to someone just starting to explore his works.
March 29, 2018
This is not a perfect novel: I feel like the parallel between the fire in the belly and the fire on the mountain, and its symbolism, is pointed out a little more than necessary, and the ending feels vaguely incomplete; I kept thinking there had to be a little more. But at the same time it's this book's exact charm; the shoes need to get wet and it takes effort and work, and there's alternative history, and socialism, and flying, and space; it's a cool book and its structure does some very clever things. I'm really happy I could buy and read it.
(And I guess I'd never have come across it without Jo Walton's recommendation.)
(And I guess I'd never have come across it without Jo Walton's recommendation.)
October 30, 2024
This reads so differently to me now than it did the times before when I knew less about the history it is presenting an alternative vision of. I appreciate it even more now than I did then. And I love all the little meta bits
November 5, 2024
Three and a half stars
This was certainly an interesting alternate history doing an excellent job of presenting a differentscenario to our version of reality. I'm not as familiar with the history this is an alternate version of which definitely means I am missing some of what this story is doing, but I appreciated aspects of it.
I thought the epistolary nature of the sections telling us about the past events, the struggles and violence and hope and despair of it all, was very effective and the narrative voices were compelling. The sections showing us how the future of these events turned out are intriguing, but I didn't find the characters and their story as interesting for themselves, and I wanted to know how the socialist revolution came about and what this socialist utopia looks like other than for the scientific advances and the mars landing.
This was certainly an interesting alternate history doing an excellent job of presenting a differentscenario to our version of reality. I'm not as familiar with the history this is an alternate version of which definitely means I am missing some of what this story is doing, but I appreciated aspects of it.
I thought the epistolary nature of the sections telling us about the past events, the struggles and violence and hope and despair of it all, was very effective and the narrative voices were compelling. The sections showing us how the future of these events turned out are intriguing, but I didn't find the characters and their story as interesting for themselves, and I wanted to know how the socialist revolution came about and what this socialist utopia looks like other than for the scientific advances and the mars landing.
March 20, 2019
Really more a 3.5.
The book is good, but elements feel a bit wish-fulfillment-esque (Granted, this is coming from someone who loves Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline). The parts surrounding the successful Harper's Ferry raid are solid. Some of the foreign interventions are a bit unbelievable, however (Garibaldini helping the uprising? Weren't they a bit busy trying to unify Italy?). Overall a fun alternate history though, and one that doesn't take itself too seriously.
The book is good, but elements feel a bit wish-fulfillment-esque (Granted, this is coming from someone who loves Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline). The parts surrounding the successful Harper's Ferry raid are solid. Some of the foreign interventions are a bit unbelievable, however (Garibaldini helping the uprising? Weren't they a bit busy trying to unify Italy?). Overall a fun alternate history though, and one that doesn't take itself too seriously.
September 4, 2021
Dense in some parts, but very interesting world building and history.
May 13, 2023
This was really disappointing. Fire premise but the execution just wasn't there. About a third of the way through I thought about putting it down because it was boring and I generally don't like white authors that write Black characters. But because the author is a socialist I decided to keep reading. It picked up in the final third but by then I was just happy to be almost done.
February 9, 2025
The counterfactual of John Brown’s successful raid on Harper’s Ferry (along with Harriet Tubman in this timeline) is a fascinating and uplifting premise. The best quality of this book is its unflinching optimism in how a liberated nation state fought and won by self-emancipated slaves and radical abolitionists might have changed the trajectory of the world, leading to the flourishing of international socialism and technological progress. The story is told through three perspectives: a present sci-fi plot line featuring the granddaughter of a revolutionary veteran at the centennial of Brown’s raid (circa 1959); the story of that veteran, a preadolescent boy at the time of the raid born into slavery, and told through his memoirs written decades later; and a southern aristocratic abolitionists doctor told through his contemporaneous letters to friends and family in the early days of that war.
As much as I liked the premise, I found the narrative and the writing itself to be a little disappointing. I felt that it took roughly half the book before it hit its groove, but then every time I began to engage with one of the plot lines, it would jump to another. The epistolary style felt a little corny at times and the present perspective seemed only to exist for the purpose of dropping hints at the many great things that followed this second revolution in the next century, but that plot itself wasn’t all that interesting.
There was so much more I wanted to learn about this world, but much of it was only visible through in the background of the stories that were told. I don’t want to be too down on it though. The premise is fascinating. The historical characters had interesting plot lines, especially as they began to intersect. And as a whole, it points to a bright and optimistic future of international cooperation and progress. In some ways, I simply wish the book was longer to capitalize on the slightly tedious beginning. It seemed to end just as I wanted to know more.
As much as I liked the premise, I found the narrative and the writing itself to be a little disappointing. I felt that it took roughly half the book before it hit its groove, but then every time I began to engage with one of the plot lines, it would jump to another. The epistolary style felt a little corny at times and the present perspective seemed only to exist for the purpose of dropping hints at the many great things that followed this second revolution in the next century, but that plot itself wasn’t all that interesting.
There was so much more I wanted to learn about this world, but much of it was only visible through in the background of the stories that were told. I don’t want to be too down on it though. The premise is fascinating. The historical characters had interesting plot lines, especially as they began to intersect. And as a whole, it points to a bright and optimistic future of international cooperation and progress. In some ways, I simply wish the book was longer to capitalize on the slightly tedious beginning. It seemed to end just as I wanted to know more.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 25, 2025
STUNNING. Going in, I was a little worried the book would be politics without poetry, but turns out Bisson can write with the best of 'em. DEVASTATING to put down his reimagined history and return to our own present.
November 17, 2012
"Fire on the Mountain" is an alternative history where the fork in the road of time is that John Brown's raid on the Harper's Ferry armory was an all around success rather than a tragedy of errors. This single unsmashed butterfly leads to a hundred years of alternative history. The war between the states turns into a civil war between the whites and the blacks (I may be wrong - since the history was woven into the narrative and is not a textbook what really happened is obscured).
The following may look like a spoiler, but it really is understated in the book. The main gist is that the success of a revolutionary action by non-state actors unleashes the potential in the world that was allowed to wither after the 1848 "revolutions". Mexico retains California and Texas in a Garibaldian twist, Haiti is a power, Africa is not backward but progressively modern and the rest of the US is broken into two different states.
The story is not about that history though - it is about John Brown's guerrillas and their literal "Fire on the Mountain" that is a beacon to the blacks and abolitionists. As alluded in the paragraph above, this fire on the mountain is also symbolic in how it unleashed progressivism in the rest of the world. Of course it also alludes to Ray Bradbury's title story in A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories where that stepped-on butterfly by time travelers ripples down through the ages.
The most poignant part of the book is when a character in 1959 finds an alternative history book about John Brown's failure (i.e. our history). She finds the resulting story of capitalistic excess and the continuing white power so far-fetched that she throws the book out the window. And I thought, if only we could throw our real history out the window and start from a clean slate as well.
The following may look like a spoiler, but it really is understated in the book. The main gist is that the success of a revolutionary action by non-state actors unleashes the potential in the world that was allowed to wither after the 1848 "revolutions". Mexico retains California and Texas in a Garibaldian twist, Haiti is a power, Africa is not backward but progressively modern and the rest of the US is broken into two different states.
The story is not about that history though - it is about John Brown's guerrillas and their literal "Fire on the Mountain" that is a beacon to the blacks and abolitionists. As alluded in the paragraph above, this fire on the mountain is also symbolic in how it unleashed progressivism in the rest of the world. Of course it also alludes to Ray Bradbury's title story in A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories where that stepped-on butterfly by time travelers ripples down through the ages.
The most poignant part of the book is when a character in 1959 finds an alternative history book about John Brown's failure (i.e. our history). She finds the resulting story of capitalistic excess and the continuing white power so far-fetched that she throws the book out the window. And I thought, if only we could throw our real history out the window and start from a clean slate as well.
December 12, 2017
This book has a few elements I feel are similar to Hard To Be A God by the Strugatsky brothers, in that it takes alternative history and sci-fi from a socialist perspective. Beyond that, it's an interesting lesson in US history and politics. Reading this got me thinking about whether part of why left-wing politics are so derided here is because the white ruling classes know anti-racism and socialism are directly connected together and threaten the position of that ruling class. We can see this in the primary targets of COINTELPRO, rhetoric against any kind of universal healthcare or education, and before that Lincoln's fervent pragmatic nationalism that left too much influence to the quite racist or otherwise too passive population generally and middle-class ("landed" people) specifically. This book seems to propose that while the fight for liberation would be a long one, success would mean great things.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that the US's hundreds of years of slavery and of public executions for those who oppose it, reflects something particularly oppressive in the society and culture that are comparable to and dependent on totalitarianism. Even though Fascism came into being decades after the Confederacy, the system throughout the country (yes, the North included) was brutally upheld in a similar way, leading to resistance and rebellion like that of John Brown's raiding party. This book gives the reader an idea of what could have been, as well as inspiration to reflect on the world today, and really look at the way the US currently fights tooth and nail to sustain a brutal, totalizing prison (and slave labour) system and militarized security forces. While an alternative history, it encourages hope and action for opportunities in the modern system.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that the US's hundreds of years of slavery and of public executions for those who oppose it, reflects something particularly oppressive in the society and culture that are comparable to and dependent on totalitarianism. Even though Fascism came into being decades after the Confederacy, the system throughout the country (yes, the North included) was brutally upheld in a similar way, leading to resistance and rebellion like that of John Brown's raiding party. This book gives the reader an idea of what could have been, as well as inspiration to reflect on the world today, and really look at the way the US currently fights tooth and nail to sustain a brutal, totalizing prison (and slave labour) system and militarized security forces. While an alternative history, it encourages hope and action for opportunities in the modern system.
June 23, 2024
The finest story I’ve read in quite a while, as a fan of alternate history. (I first tried my hand at it about the time this came out.) It’s not perfect, dense even though it’s short, but very readable as it alternates back and forth from present and past. I’m more than clear why I hadn’t heard of it before but I’m glad to have found thanks to a podcast shared on Twitter. I am more sad that it came after Bisson’s passing, though I’m glad to have found the 2023 New Yorker article about him. I’m eager to read more of his work and maybe hope to learn some more lessons from his experience. And after a steady die of dystopia, it’s nice to have at least half a utopian tale. The book’s finest twist was turning our history into a dystopian/mistopian tale. One that I wish at times was fiction indeed …
August 23, 2010
I originally picked this up to table at punk shows, and it looked interesting. Simply put, it speculates what the world would have looked like if the Harper's Ferry uprising had succeeded. The narrative is told from three vantage points: a former slave who witnessed the uprising as a boy and wrote the story years later, his great-granddaughter who lives in the country of Nova Africa with her own somewhat "Mericanized" daughter, and the letters of an abolitionist supporting Brown's cause.
It's a great premise, and I was drawn to the narrative style. My one complaint is that it just wasn't long enough. It's a slim novel and I wanted both more character development in the modern-day story line as well as more adventures told by the former slave.
It's a great premise, and I was drawn to the narrative style. My one complaint is that it just wasn't long enough. It's a slim novel and I wanted both more character development in the modern-day story line as well as more adventures told by the former slave.
July 6, 2024
There are so many beautiful moments in this that you'll miss if you blink. The one that cracked my heart was when the 1960s subjects are describing an alternate history of the Paris Commune, particularly the moment when the international brigades broke the siege and brought the communards to victory.
This book succeeds in many ways. It recognizes that black liberation will be at the head of any revolutionary movement in the so-called USA; it tells the story of Brown and Tubman's army from the margins; it speaks not of a socialism of dull platforms, but a movement that carries its participants well beyond their expectations.
Today it has let me imagine Amerikkka not as a white supremacist hellscape work camp but the future deathbed of capital. Till all are free 🙏🏻
This book succeeds in many ways. It recognizes that black liberation will be at the head of any revolutionary movement in the so-called USA; it tells the story of Brown and Tubman's army from the margins; it speaks not of a socialism of dull platforms, but a movement that carries its participants well beyond their expectations.
Today it has let me imagine Amerikkka not as a white supremacist hellscape work camp but the future deathbed of capital. Till all are free 🙏🏻
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