Review: The Crossing

[Gary Oswald]

Discuss this article by @SpanishSpy here

 

[Coiler]

I find the statement that the ISOT has declined in western AH particularly interesting. Because in anime/manga/light novels, the very similar "isekai" (someone from our world ends up somewhere else, usually for the sake of a shallow power fantasy) has become a saturated glut in the same time period.

 

[Thande]

One of the weirder things about American-penned ISOTs of this type is (like this one) it's a wish fulfilment ISOT to a war which they already won in the first place. I suppose you could say the same about any WW2 ISOT obviously and you can make arguments in that case about yes but what if we end it early and save millions of lives etc. which keeps it interesting - that maybe even works for an intervention to help the Union in the Americian Civil War - but this? I suppose the gimmick might be more to confront the dilemma between being an American patriot here and now who still identifies with the founding fathers' cause, and having to confront the slaveholding and Indian conquests back then, which I think Alex alludes to - the trouble with a review, of course, is you can't say much more without spoiling the whole thing.

 

[Death's Companion]

One of the weirder things about American-penned ISOTs of this type is (like this one) it's a wish fulfilment ISOT to a war which they already won in the first place. I suppose you could say the same about any WW2 ISOT obviously and you can make arguments in that case about yes but what if we end it early and save millions of lives etc. which keeps it interesting - that maybe even works for an intervention to help the Union in the Americian Civil War - but this? I suppose the gimmick might be more to confront the dilemma between being an American patriot here and now who still identifies with the founding fathers' cause, and having to confront the slaveholding and Indian conquests back then, which I think Alex alludes to - the trouble with a review, of course, is you can't say much more without spoiling the whole thing.

Imagine if you are Polish or something similar and you just immediately have a blue screen moment trying to figure out which exact catastrophe needs fixing first.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

One of the weirder things about American-penned ISOTs of this type is (like this one) it's a wish fulfilment ISOT to a war which they already won in the first place. I suppose you could say the same about any WW2 ISOT obviously and you can make arguments in that case about yes but what if we end it early and save millions of lives etc. which keeps it interesting - that maybe even works for an intervention to help the Union in the Americian Civil War - but this? I suppose the gimmick might be more to confront the dilemma between being an American patriot here and now who still identifies with the founding fathers' cause, and having to confront the slaveholding and Indian conquests back then, which I think Alex alludes to - the trouble with a review, of course, is you can't say much more without spoiling the whole thing.

It does force one to confront the gap between the Founders-as-myth and the Founders-as-real-people.

Chris

 

[ChrisNuttall]

One of the weirder things about American-penned ISOTs of this type is (like this one) it's a wish fulfilment ISOT to a war which they already won in the first place. I suppose you could say the same about any WW2 ISOT obviously and you can make arguments in that case about yes but what if we end it early and save millions of lives etc. which keeps it interesting - that maybe even works for an intervention to help the Union in the Americian Civil War - but this? I suppose the gimmick might be more to confront the dilemma between being an American patriot here and now who still identifies with the founding fathers' cause, and having to confront the slaveholding and Indian conquests back then, which I think Alex alludes to - the trouble with a review, of course, is you can't say much more without spoiling the whole thing.

To expand on my earlier thoughts ...

Americans often have problems grasping that their Founders were flesh and blood and no more perceptive than anyone else; they weren’t gods or anything else along those lines. It can be hard to accept, for example, that George Washington was both a great leader of his nation (he was) AND an utter dick to his slaves (he was). It’s easy to look back at the early years and see all the problems they couldn’t handle, strewing landmines across the path of future generations. Slavery being the obvious example, of course, but other issues like centralised government and gun rights being ones that someone could look at and say ‘we could do better, and create an America without those original sins.’

And they can, because they have 200+ years of hindsight AND a friendly writer. The Founders did not have those advantages. They didn’t know how tech would develop. They didn’t know about steamships, or the telegraph, or aircraft, or the internet ... or, for that matter, how their descendents would view them. They were grasping blindly in the dark and did very well, for their time.

It’s hard to accept your heroes are flesh and blood and the products of their time.

But it is also fun to look back and imagine how history could be changed,