I recently read an interesting book by Mark Dunn, published in 2001 - it's called Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters. It's not so much a work of alternate history, per se, as it is a book that takes place in a fictional universe located within the real world - but I feel like this thread best goes under this category.
Anyway - not wanting to spoil too much for those who haven't read the book, here's what Ella Minnow Pea is about. Its title a pun on the letters "LMNOP", the book takes the format of correspondence among the various residents of Nollop, a fictional, autonomous island off the coast of South Carolina near Charleston. The island takes its name from Nevin Nollop, the in-universe creator of the sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", which is well-known for being what's called a pangram - a sentence that contains all 26 letters of the alphabet. The people of Nollop revere Nevin as a god, having built a statue in his honor, with his pangram spelled out in tiles, each bearing one letter.
Trouble arises for the people of Nollop when the letters start falling from the statue. The High Council that rules the island interprets the falling tiles as a divine message from Nevin Nollop, such that whenever a tile falls, that letter is banned from being used in spoken or written communication. Penalties are assessed for the use of banned letters - a warning on first usage, lashes or head-stocks for the second violation, and banishment from the island for the third offense. Given that, as the book takes the form of letters written back and forth among citizens of Nollop, whenever a letter is banned from use in the story, it likewise disappears from the book itself, with obscure synonyms and phonetic misspellings subbing in for the various words that are forbidden as a result. One day, fragments of a fallen tile are smuggled to the mainland, where a chemist analyzes them and concludes that the tiles are falling off the statue due to the glue holding them in place losing effectiveness over time. Presented with this explanation, the Council isn't persuaded to lift the letter bans, but one of the members challenges the populace to come up with a pangram shorter than Nollop's, thus disproving his purported divinity - and to do so within a given amount of time. Thus, the challenge, known as "Enterprise 32", represents the only hope for the people of Nollop, before all the tiles fall from the statue and their ability to communicate is lost forever. Anyway, I absolutely loved that book - but there's something about it that strains credulity. Several of the letters in the book talk about how many people have been banished from the island or left by themselves as their society falls apart around them due to the increasing restrictions on language, and there are also some letters that talk about Nollop trading with the U.S., as well as people on the mainland otherwise being aware of the islanders' plight. Because of that, it seems hard to believe that none of the state or local leaders in South Carolina had said anything about the island off their coast in the grip of a barbaric totalitarian cult - at least insofar as being alluded to in the book.
For reference, the book was written in 2001 and the dates on the letters - which span from July to November - are consistent with those in 2000, given the days of the week, so it seems logical to assume that the book's events take place from July through November of 2000. During that period, the governor of South Carolina was Jim Hodges (D), the state's attorney general was Charlie Condon (R), its two senators were Strom Thurmond (R) and Fritz Hollings (D), the mayor of Charleston was Joe Riley (D), and the congressmen representing the coastal region were Mark Sanford (R) and Jim Clyburn (D). In addition, that period, of course, also aligns with the run-up to the 2000 election; how would candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush, as well as incumbent President Bill Clinton - along with the various state and local leaders I mentioned - have reacted to the "Nollop Crisis" unfolding right off their coast? Whatever it was, I don't think they all would have just sat around doing nothing.
Anyway, I wonder if anyone might be up to the challenge of creating a story or timeline about the reaction of people in South Carolina - and America more broadly - based on the events in the book, and incorporating some or all of the aforementioned figures. By the way, here is the link to purchase the book on Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PEPS8AA?ref=KC_GS_GB_US
Anyway - not wanting to spoil too much for those who haven't read the book, here's what Ella Minnow Pea is about. Its title a pun on the letters "LMNOP", the book takes the format of correspondence among the various residents of Nollop, a fictional, autonomous island off the coast of South Carolina near Charleston. The island takes its name from Nevin Nollop, the in-universe creator of the sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", which is well-known for being what's called a pangram - a sentence that contains all 26 letters of the alphabet. The people of Nollop revere Nevin as a god, having built a statue in his honor, with his pangram spelled out in tiles, each bearing one letter.
Trouble arises for the people of Nollop when the letters start falling from the statue. The High Council that rules the island interprets the falling tiles as a divine message from Nevin Nollop, such that whenever a tile falls, that letter is banned from being used in spoken or written communication. Penalties are assessed for the use of banned letters - a warning on first usage, lashes or head-stocks for the second violation, and banishment from the island for the third offense. Given that, as the book takes the form of letters written back and forth among citizens of Nollop, whenever a letter is banned from use in the story, it likewise disappears from the book itself, with obscure synonyms and phonetic misspellings subbing in for the various words that are forbidden as a result. One day, fragments of a fallen tile are smuggled to the mainland, where a chemist analyzes them and concludes that the tiles are falling off the statue due to the glue holding them in place losing effectiveness over time. Presented with this explanation, the Council isn't persuaded to lift the letter bans, but one of the members challenges the populace to come up with a pangram shorter than Nollop's, thus disproving his purported divinity - and to do so within a given amount of time. Thus, the challenge, known as "Enterprise 32", represents the only hope for the people of Nollop, before all the tiles fall from the statue and their ability to communicate is lost forever. Anyway, I absolutely loved that book - but there's something about it that strains credulity. Several of the letters in the book talk about how many people have been banished from the island or left by themselves as their society falls apart around them due to the increasing restrictions on language, and there are also some letters that talk about Nollop trading with the U.S., as well as people on the mainland otherwise being aware of the islanders' plight. Because of that, it seems hard to believe that none of the state or local leaders in South Carolina had said anything about the island off their coast in the grip of a barbaric totalitarian cult - at least insofar as being alluded to in the book.
For reference, the book was written in 2001 and the dates on the letters - which span from July to November - are consistent with those in 2000, given the days of the week, so it seems logical to assume that the book's events take place from July through November of 2000. During that period, the governor of South Carolina was Jim Hodges (D), the state's attorney general was Charlie Condon (R), its two senators were Strom Thurmond (R) and Fritz Hollings (D), the mayor of Charleston was Joe Riley (D), and the congressmen representing the coastal region were Mark Sanford (R) and Jim Clyburn (D). In addition, that period, of course, also aligns with the run-up to the 2000 election; how would candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush, as well as incumbent President Bill Clinton - along with the various state and local leaders I mentioned - have reacted to the "Nollop Crisis" unfolding right off their coast? Whatever it was, I don't think they all would have just sat around doing nothing.
Anyway, I wonder if anyone might be up to the challenge of creating a story or timeline about the reaction of people in South Carolina - and America more broadly - based on the events in the book, and incorporating some or all of the aforementioned figures. By the way, here is the link to purchase the book on Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PEPS8AA?ref=KC_GS_GB_US
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