Light but Fun
The House of Daniel by Harry Turtledove
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a fun read, but it's much lighter than the author's major works. Not that it's badly written or cheapened, so much as the stakes being much smaller and more personal. This is not a story of great social upheaval -- that's already come and gone when the Bubble burst and plunged America into the Great Depression, in a world full of magic and vampires and zombies.
It's the story of a man who's down on his luck, who in desperation takes on a job for the local boss-man -- and discovers he can't do it. Like the protagonist of John C. Wright's Metachronopolis stories "Murder in Metachronopolis" and "The Plural of Helen of Troy," his principles may not be great ones, but they're the ones he has. And one of them is that a man doesn't beat up a dame -- so when he's supposed to beat up "Mitch" and discovers that the big guy's spell got it wrong and this person is actually "Mich," as in "Michelle," Jack instead gives her a heads-up to get the heck out of town.
Now he needs to get out of town too -- and it's not like he's got a whole lot of resources to do it. Just a little skill as a center-fielder with the local semi-pro ball team -- and then the House of Daniel comes to town. They're a "barnstormer" team, traveling the country and playing the local teams -- and when an accident incapacitates two of their players, they take Jack on.
Thus begins a travelogue across one after another western state, to cities big and small, playing teams and ballfields now long forgotten, which may or may not have historical equivalents here in the Primary World. It ultimately ends in Los Angeles, in a happy reunion and a hopeful future (and a little historical in-joke in the revelation of the surname of the villain whose machinations started the whole journey).
It's an enjoyable read about an ordinary man with an ordinary talent who gets a once-in-a-lifetime chance to move beyond his circumstances and briefly be extraordinary.
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