Monday, February 28, 2011

DA V3 and American History

Yes...I know I just said I was done with the second draft. And now, I proudly announce that I'm done with the third draft. I'm putting it down now...giving myself from space from it. If anyone's interested, I have files available for iPad and Kindle. :) I'm always up for more proofreaders!

I've been doing some research this week on a special week in history...April 9-15, 1865. Anyone have an idea what happened during this week? Anyone? Okay fine, I'll tell you.


  • April 9, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant in Appomattox.
  • April 11, President Abraham Lincoln gives the last speech of his presidency, and mentions, among other things, suffrage right for freed blacks.
  • April 11, Lincoln has a dream where he sees his body lying in repose. He is informed by a man in his dream that it is the president who was assassinated.
  • April 14, Lincoln attends a play at the Ford Theater, where he is shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth.
  • April 15, Lincoln passes.


Meanwhile, in the Great Plains, a man named Colonel Chivington was on trial for leading a massacre on native women and children at a place called Sand Creek. A Captain Soule, an abolitionist and by all accounts, a genuinely good human being, testified against him. Soule was assassinated on April 24, 1865, ten days after Lincoln.

So...WTH am I doing looking into American History? Well...I'm building an alternative timeline, which means that I have to change something. So...I'm taking a look at April 1865.

If Lincoln didn't go to the theater...he doesn't get shot. Andrew Johnson doesn't become president and the Reconstruction happens differently. And what if...in the process...Lincoln alive and well on April 15, 1865, (and Soule ten days later) directly results in a very different western US as well.

But don't get too wrapped up in all that. Gossamer is still  a 21st century cyberpunk romance. My new 1865 is intended only to provide the foundation for a world I intend to tear down.

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