Revolutionists seize Petrograd; Kerensky flees; ministers under arrest . . . Winter Palace is taken after fierce defense by women soldiers—Washington reserves judgment, hoping revolt is only local.
The New York Times, November 9, 1917 Old Universe (page 300)
That’s right. We have another newspaper excerpt! Never change, Rummel. Never change. As you can probably tell, they’re gonna stop the Bolsheviks in this chapter. With only 36 pages left in the book, I believe that this is the last intervention. Yes, we are finally approaching the end of the book.
John says that he and Joy were the happiest they’ve been so far, since they were so unrealistically successful in all their interventions. However, he also says that “inside [their] relationship was a growing cancer.”1 THIS IS FORESHADOWING.2
We learn that while in Europe they spend time on vacation3 instead of, you know, making sure their interventions stick. They return to America in late 1914. Now, this is kind of strange, considering that we all know that their next intervention is going to be in Russia. Why not just stop the communists while they’re there, instead of taking a ship back to America only to take another one back to Europe. Now that there is (supposedly) no war, it should be easier. But of course, I’m using Earth logic instead of Rummel-land logic.
Over the next three years, their business gets ever-larger for no adequately explained reason, and John suddenly has enough leisure time to write a novel. The subject? The history of the twentieth century. The real-life twentieth century, with all its wars and democides and crimes against humanity. Of course, he’s going to present it as fiction, but I still think the idea is stupid. There wasn’t much market for dystopian fiction before World War One, since everyone believed that their progress would be everlasting.4 People usually don’t wish to read stories whose only purpose is to depress them, though of course, that raises the question of why I am reading this book to begin with.
It doesn’t really matter, since no publishing house is willing to publish John’s book, though not for the reasons I described. Evidently they all think the plot is ridiculously implausible, even though that’s the whole point of speculative fiction, and also even though the New Universe is far more implausible, particularly if actual historical processes are allowed to take their course. Not to mention that if John’s ability as a writer is anything like Rummel’s, then his book has no literary merit, yet this has nothing to do with the publishers’ decisions. (Is my Sue-dometer going off?)
Meanwhile, Joy discovers that San Francisco in the 1910s really isn’t that racist, because a missionary named Barbara Atherton founded a home for Chinese girls out of the goodness of her heart, and she certainly isn’t mistreating them, oh no sirree. So Joy, in an uncharacteristic display of charity, donates some money. Sorry Rummel, I still don’t believe she’s a good guy. Why are they picking and choosing which non-profit organizations to fund? John and Joy are so rich they’re almost certainly on the Fiction 500, which contains such characters as Scrooge McDuck and Richie Rich. But I digress.
John also says that Joy has become lethargic again, for reasons which are not explained.5 This is supposed to be foreshadowing for something, but it doesn’t really make sense. John says, but we do not see, that he and Joy have worked out all their relationship problems, and that they know each other better than most couples married for thirty years.
Yep, that’s definitely my Sue-dometer going off.
After a line break, the year is 1917 and they go to Russia. I have already explained why this is stupid. John says how IMPORTANT it is that they don’t screw this up, as though democratic Europe would be utterly unable to stop communist domination or something. If preventing the rise of fascism was as easy as shooting Hitler in the face, then I don’t think they are in any danger of failure here.6
John mentions the tsar’s crushing of the 1905 revolt like it’s a good thing, but at the same time gives money to people like Lvov and Kerensky, who were leaders of the non-communist February Revolution. (Well at least Rummel remembers that Kerensky existed, unlike a certain filmmaker who shall not be named.) I can actually see why they’re doing this. Without the war there would be no catalyst for a revolt, and our protagonists want to ensure that the democrats are better prepared than the Bolsheviks. Of course, they do this by having Lenin and Trotsky assassinated, which I suppose I should expect by now. This is all glossed over in about a sentence.
Now, for an obligatory pedantic note, I must point out that Rummel is abbreviating Russian names incorrectly. Since Russians do not have middle names but patronymics, one must either write out the full name—given, patronymic, and last (e.g. Georgy Yevgenyevich Lvov, Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky), omit the patronymic entirely (e.g. Georgy Lvov, Alexander Kerensky), or use initials for both the given name and the patronymic (e.g. G. Y. Lvov, A. F. Kerensky). Naturally, Rummel abbreviates the names in an American fashion, as Georgi Y. Lvov and Aleksandr F. Kerensky, which is incorrect. I thought this man was supposed to be a scholar.
Though it’s debatable whether Stalin could ever have come to power if not for Lenin and the Soviet Union, he is the next target. Now they’re going for the big guns. Even though Stalin was a known communist calling for the overthrow of any non-communist government whether monarchical or not, for some boneheaded reason the provisional government (which seems to have overthrown the tsar without the readers noticing) decides to release. This is probably just so that our extremely bloodthirsty heroes can kill him, of course. Because it would be such a waste for him to rot in prison!
The exact quote is as follows:
Joseph Stalin was the greatest mass murderer of the twentieth century, perhaps of all time. The new provisional government has released him from exile in Turukhansk, and he would be arriving on March 12 in what was still called St. Petersburg in this new universe. I also planned his assassination without compunction. Agreeing on who was to do it, however, caused one of the biggest fights between Joy and me since our European trips. (page 302)
I actually had to read that paragraph thrice because it looks like Rummel changed tenses on me. Did this book ever see an editor? As for John and Joy arguing on who gets to do the killing, they are sounding less like heroes and more like fanatics. If they were heroes they would kill only reluctantly, or, if Rummel were a really good writer, find a way to prevent Stalin from coming to power without killing anybody. I don’t have a problem with Black and White Morality in fiction, especially if the work is idealistic, but in that case, the author had better be damn sure the characters never do anything morally questionable, or the readers will hate them even when they’re being pragmatic.
In any case, Joy says that she should kill Stalin because John killed Hitler, but John says that killing Hitler was easy so he should get to kill Stalin too, or… something. It doesn’t really support his argument much. Without starting a new paragraph after ending a quotation, John says that Stalin was gaining support among the radicals, even though in real life he wasn’t very high on the succession when Lenin died, and only made it to the top by a combination of deceit and killing all his rivals.7 So John says that it’s too dangerous for Joy to go alone and makes a very inappropriate comparison to the Ku Klux Klan. So much for not being racist, eh?
So our heroes decide not to dirty their hands, and instead pay some monarchist organization ten thousand dollars to kill Stalin, and arrange to acquire his teeth. We will find out why they want the would-be dictators’ teeth, but not in this chapter. It’s not pretty, I’ll tell you that.
While their hired assassins kill Stalin, John and Joy spend some time sightseeing, visiting places unimportant to the plot. I think Rummel got confused for a moment and thought he was writing a travel guide.
Sure enough, our protagonists receive Stalin’s teeth, but attached is a note:
What you gave us is payment enough. Somebody beat us to him, but we got this present for you from the morgue. (page 303)
WHAT A TWEEST!
But seriously, in that case, how do they know they have Stalin’s teeth? Those could be anybody’s teeth. They trust their assassins way too much. Also, why is the note written in English?
John leaps to the conclusion that Joy went off and killed Stalin8, and is pissed that she didn’t tell him. Of course if she had told him, he would probably have vetoed it. Of course, this puts the lie to the claim that they know one another as well as an old married couple. John wonders if smoke came out of the top of his head when he sat fuming in the hotel lobby. He’s not in a cartoon, for crying out loud! So John realizes that he can no longer trust Joy9 but when she returns, he pretends nothing is amiss.
And with the two of them returning to America (and John complaining about the primitiveness of ocean travel) the chapter ends. That’s it. They stop the Bolsheviks just like that. It’s almost as anticlimactic as John killing Hitler. The whole chapter was basically John sightseeing, and standing around while Joy does all the dirty work off-page.
The next chapter is only two pages long, so I’ll spork it now. In it, we will find out why John and Joy have Hitler and Stalin’s teeth.
It is because… (drumroll please) …they are their evil incarnate. I am not making this up. I think it has to do with totalitarian dictators being human monsters, but I think Rummel stretched the metaphor too far.
So they also have Lenin and Mao’s teeth (though I don’t recall those ever being collected) and what do they do with them? They put them in jars and whack them to pieces with a sledgehammer. Both of them go to town on those teeth. They collect the fragments in a bag and throw it in the trash. What will people say when they discover human remains in the garbage? Rummel never addresses this.
And with John and Joy celebrating their revenge for more than a hundred million people from the Old Universe, the chapter ends. The book is still not over.
Footnotes
1 page 300
2 Hey, it’s been a while since I’ve said that, hasn’t it?
3 And engage in some conspicuous consumption along the way.
4 Bearing in mind that the Victorian definition of progress was often not the same as the modern definition of progress.
5 Once again, commenters, she is not pregnant.
6 Which is, of course, a problem.
7 Hmm… that’s a lot like John and Joy. News flash, Rummel, when your heroes remind people of Stalin, that means that your heroes aren’t heroes.
8 Thus triggering my Sue-dometer by being so successful without anyone noticing.
9 He’s just now figuring this out?
lilyWhite on 3 July 2013, 18:58 said:
Wow, they’re squabbling like children over who gets to kill someone. “Awww, you got to kill Hitler, I wanna kill Stalin!” “Hitler was boring, so I should get to kill Stalin!” “I wanna kill Stalin!” “I wanna kill Stalin!”
Not only does that sound incredibly immature, it also sounds incredibly dangerous and quite unbalanced.
Our history-changing heroes are a pair of psychopaths. That’s great.
Maxie on 3 July 2013, 19:52 said:
Not to mention that if John’s ability as a writer is anything like Rummel’s, then his book has no literary merit, yet this has nothing to do with the publishers’ decisions. (Is my Sue-dometer going off?)
Maybe John’s status as a bigshot businessman encourages the publisher to be a little more tactful when giving him the reason why they decline his book.
So while they said to HIM was “We would like to, but the premise is too farfetched for the type of novels we publish,” what they said to each other at the office was something like, “Can you believe this garbage??”
Apep on 3 July 2013, 19:56 said:
Okay, so this is a “new” timeline, except that nothing has changed. Our “heroes” somehow manage to prevent the First World War, and yet there’s still a revolution in Russia. Don’t get me wrong, Russia was ripe for a revolution, but without the war, there’s nothing to stop the tsar from sending in the army to put it down. And why kill Lenin? He was living in exile in 1917 – he only returned to Russia because of the Revolution.
Let’s face it – half the reason Rummel wrote this crap is because he wanted to write about his self-insert and sue girlfriend killing various dictators so he can get some kind of perverse thrill off it.
I’m going to listen to the Complete History of the Soviet Union, Arranged to the Melody of Tetris. At least that doesn’t make my brain hurt.
Lone Wolf on 3 July 2013, 20:45 said:
Yeah, the absence of WWI would’ve probably delayed the Russian revolution somewhat, both the February and the October.
Pryotra on 3 July 2013, 21:13 said:
Er…I hate to say this, but without Lenin, there would be no Bolshevik party. From my limited knowledge, the Bolsheviks were really formed around Lenin, and while the conditions were ripe for him to get a circle of friends, they might not have formed without him, so…why even bother going after Stalin if the Bolsheviks aren’t around to give him a boost. It’s like killing Hitler before he was anyone. Great job, you just killed some obscure person who might have lived out their lives.
Also without the war, the tsar might have had the time to straighten out some of the problems that were only being aided by the war and helped to cause the conditions. That might have even changed the course of if Russia reformed rather than had an upheaval.
Apep on 3 July 2013, 22:43 said:
True, but a bit of wiki-fu tells me that the Bolsheviks split from the Mensheviks in 1903, so they could have existed in alt-1917. They might not have had Lenin to consolidate them, but they there’s no reason someone else couldn’t have become their leader.
Except for the fact that Rummel is a crappy author who’s caught up on the Great Man theory.
Fireshark on 4 July 2013, 01:14 said:
Will this book actually have a climax of any sort
besides John and Joy having sex?Tim on 4 July 2013, 01:46 said:
Actually, yes. It is…well, it is certainly A Thing.
swenson on 4 July 2013, 01:54 said:
Ohhh, she has cancer, right? From time travel or something, or maybe just because it’s DRAMATIC (but pointless because it resets in the next book, doesn’t it?).
Also, what problems do they actually have to “fix” anymore, anyway? Or is the world perfect forever now?
Tim on 4 July 2013, 06:16 said:
No no no, you’re not thinking enough. You need to work hard to appreciate Rummel’s literary vision.
Going to town on your own head with a camping mallet is probably a good start.
Brendan Rizzo on 4 July 2013, 08:44 said:
Trust me, you’ll know what the twist will be when I get to it. My sporting of that part will be epic. But I don’t want to give anything away.
And the sequel will answer your second question. You probably won’t like the answer. I certainly didn’t.
swenson on 4 July 2013, 09:12 said:
She… doesn’t have cancer? Okay, so does she actually have a medical problem at all? Because I’m all out of dramatic medical concerns. And any other ideas.
…the stupid is going to be mind-shatteringly so, isn’t it? Just tell me the twist isn’t that she’s been dead all along or something.
Or is she actually a robot programmed by Hitler and Stalin to kill John?
Or maybe she’s a robot from even farther in the future programmed to kill John for being a worse murderer than his targets?
Yeah, that’s all I got at this point, except for her being an alien.
Fireshark on 4 July 2013, 10:16 said:
Pryotra on 4 July 2013, 14:21 said:
I might actually read the book if that was the ending.
Brendan Rizzo on 4 July 2013, 14:22 said:
She does not have any medical problems.
Your other guesses are hilarious, especially in light of the sequels, but they have nothing to do with Joy.
Asahel on 4 July 2013, 14:38 said:
I tried to think of something stupid yet Rummel might’ve thought was awesome. I came up with something that would just kick causality right where it counts.
Here it is:
Joy is the descendant of one of the tyrants they killed or at the very least her mother never would have had her if not for the actions of some revolutionary that they’ve prevented and, for some reason, time is waiting to erase her from existence until the point when her mother would’ve become pregnant with her.
I eagerly await the final installment to see how close I was.
Edit before I posted: Ok, so it has nothing to do with Joy. Interesting.
Brendan Rizzo on 4 July 2013, 16:18 said:
Actually, it was swenson’s proposed plot twists that do not involve Joy. The actual twist is all about her. I’m sorry for the confusion.
Maxie on 4 July 2013, 22:10 said:
Joy is the descendant of one of the tyrants they killed or at the very least her mother never would have had her if not for the actions of some revolutionary that they’ve prevented and, for some reason, time is waiting to erase her from existence until the point when her mother would’ve become pregnant with her.
Wasn’t it determined that the timeline that spawned John and Joy is separate from the one they are now in? So in their original timeline all of the dictators still lived, so if one of them was an ancestor then it wouldn’t affect anything.
Or maybe she’s a robot from even farther in the future programmed to kill John for being a worse murderer than his targets?
I think this might be it too. Or maybe she’s not a robot, but maybe she decides to blame John for all of the murders that they’ve committed and decides to kill him next. Her motives and behavior are pretty erratic and Brendan Rizzo has already pointed out previously that murder is usually her first solution to conflicts.
lilyWhite on 4 July 2013, 22:29 said:
WMG: Joy gets pregnant. They find out somehow that their baby is going to be worse than Hitler and Stalin.
…see, with a good author, something like that might introduce good conflict with the characters’ prior behaviour towards evil rulers, but in this book, Joy would probably drown her baby in one sentence at the end of a chapter.
Tim on 4 July 2013, 22:55 said:
That said, the weirdest thing to come is in a few paragraphs’ time Rummel is going to manage to type “1920s” with a capital o instead of a 0. How the fuck do you do that?
Pryotra on 4 July 2013, 23:16 said:
Hm, my guess is that Joy gets so sociopathic that she wants to do something that even John can’t stand, and then he, being the ‘noble’ man he is will have to kill her.
It will be quite tragic. At least, Rummel will think so.
Epke on 6 July 2013, 11:29 said:
We talked about this briefly in part 31, where it was speculated that the removal was done to prevent identifying them… but, well! Now we know.
One of the most sickening and horrible sounds I can think of is the crushing of teeth.
Romeo and Juliet is tragic. The death of Joy is a service to humanity.
Chipmunk on 3 November 2013, 14:15 said:
Just wondering but does that set off the implants they have to activate with the code letters “KK”? Or does the author forget that their characters have those?