A World of Difference (Harry Turtledove)
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A World of Difference is a 1990 science fiction novel by Harry Turtledove. The book begins with a space voyage that departed Earth in an alternate 1989. In the universe of the book, the fourth planet from the Sun, in the orbit occupied by Mars in our reality, is named Minerva, which is similar in size and makeup to Earth. Minerva has an atmosphere similar to Earth's and breathable by humans, and liquid water exists in significant quantities on the surface. The planet's mean atmospheric temperature is lower than Earth's due to the greater distance from the sun, although the greenhouse effect of its thicker atmosphere means that it is not as cold as our universe's Mars. The ancient astronomers of the novel name the bright blue/gray planet Minerva after the goddess of wisdom. When the Viking 1 space probe lands on Minerva in 1976 it takes a picture of a native Minervan wielding a primitive tool, thus proving the existence of intelligent life on other worlds.
Minervan animals (including the sentient Minervans) are radially symmetrical and females give birth to litters that consist of one male and five females, and the females always die after reproducing because of torrential bleeding from the places where the six fetuses were attached; this gives a population multiplication of 5 per generation if all females live to adolescence and reproduce. This makes females considered expendable and traded as property. The Minervans live in a neolithic feudal society. The main action of the story involves separate American and Soviet missions, who both pay lip service to non-interference with Minervan society, but in the course of their research, the teams' respective political ideologies inevitably come to the fore. This leads the teams and their commanders back home to use the Minervans in a transparent analogy to Third World/Cold War proxy conflicts on Earth. One of the Americans saves the life of a female Minervan after she gives birth. Eventually Minervans get their hands on high tech items like steel hatchets, rubber rafts, and finally AK-74s, which severely disrupt their way of life.
In addition to the existence of Minerva the book alludes to a variety of subtle differences between its history and ours. Until the 1960's, the fact that the fourth planet was blue rather than red as in our universe, and for a different deity of the classical pantheon, did not significantly change life on Earth. The first difference noted is that in this history the first human to land on the Moon was Buzz Aldrin rather than Neil Armstrong - presumably because the different fourth planet, with more prospects for life, caused different decision-making in the US space program.
However, fundamental differences seem to have started to develop since the mid-1970's. Following the discovery of intelligent life on Minerva, both superpowers engaged energetically on efforts to launch a manned spacecraft there. This evidently had an effect of exacerbating tensions on Earth, with American and Soviet planes engaging three times in direct aerial combat over Beirut - presumably drawn, after the Israeli Invasion of Lebanon in 1982, into a far deeper involvement than in our history.
An escalation into all-out nuclear war was avoided only with difficulty, and though things have calmed down a bit by 1989 when the plot takes place, the Cold War is still very much on, and the Soviet Union is still very much a dictatorship keeping its citizens (even cosmonauts millions of miles from home) on a short leash. Mikhail Gorbachev had led for only nine months, and barely got started on Glasnost, before dying from a stroke (though there are rumors of a secret assassination, which Soviet characters prudently avoid discussing too loudly).
- A small Turtledove joke, understandable only to readers with at least a superficial knowledge of Georgian history and culture, is having the Georgian member of the Soviet crew - who has some frictions with his Russian crewmates due to cultural differences - named "Shota Rustaveli". The 12th Century poet Shota Rustaveli is one of the greatest names in Georgian literature, and having a modern space-farer with that name is the equivalent of having an English one named "William Shakespeare".
