Bully!

by Mike Resnick

A Theodore Roosevelt story. Hugo Award Nominee, Nebula Award Nominee

Genres: Fiction

108 pages, Unbound

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Michael "Mike" Diamond Resnick, better known by his published name Mike Resnick, was a popular and prolific American science fiction author. He is, according to Locus, the all-time leading award winner, living or dead, for short science fiction. He was the winner of five Hugos, a Nebula, and other major awards in the United States, France, Spain, Japan, Croatia and Poland. and has been short-listed for major awards in England, Italy and Australia. He was the author of 68 novels, over 250 stories, and 2 screenplays, and was the editor of 41 anthologies. His work has been translated into 25 languages. He was the Guest of Honor at the 2012 Worldcon and can be found online as @ResnickMike on Twitter or at www.mikeresnick.com.

Reviews

[Dick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like I got to hang out with Roosevelt while he took on a challenge. I ended up liking and respecting him. Well....a fictional version of him. Another story set in Africa by Resnick where I feel educated when I'm finished. I enjoy how he teaches about the struggles of colonialism in an interesting, fictitious, way. Kind of a scifi James A. Michener.

[Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm behind on my annual goal. Time to get some of the short books off the shelf. This appealed to me as I just finished volume two of Edmund Morris' acclaimed TR biography.

This is not a very good story and certainly shouldn't have been nominated for so many prestigious awards. There are simply no surprises. If I asked you, "What if someone tried to turn the Belgian Congo into a democracy in 1910?" That's this story, but flat and with no flash, no uumph, no AHHA, and no laughs. It is alternate history, but not what one would think of as fantasy or SF, any more than Dr. Zhivago is fantasy.

The short introduction made me think Barry Malzberg is completely unaware of even the most basic history. Oddly, he's not at all shy about sharing his conclusions about historical figures he is willing to admit he knows nothing. Stereotype much? You'd think if one is asked to write the introduction about a story involving TR, the first thing one would do is read a book about TR.