Underground Airlines in A Book Walks Into a Bar

May 03, 2017 Travis rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Underground Airlines presents a dark alternate history: the Civil War never happened. Instead, a compromise was reached, and the slave states remained as such. Eventually, most states did outlaw slavery, but four states--Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Carolina (North Carolina and South Carolina merged into one)--persisted into modern times with slavery in force.

The author, Ben Winters, does a great job of depicting how this alternate history would affect the US and the rest of the world--e Underground Airlines presents a dark alternate history: the Civil War never happened. Instead, a compromise was reached, and the slave states remained as such. Eventually, most states did outlaw slavery, but four states--Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Carolina (North Carolina and South Carolina merged into one)--persisted into modern times with slavery in force.

The author, Ben Winters, does a great job of depicting how this alternate history would affect the US and the rest of the world--economically, politically, and sociologically. And it's not a pretty picture. In this alternate America, the bad guys are definitely bad, and even the good guys aren't above using evil means to justify good ends. Our protagonist and narrator (whose real name we never learn) is also himself a morally ambivalent character. To say much more would be to spoil much of the novel, but I will say that never being quite sure on which side the narrator is keeps the reader constantly a bit off balance, and this is also gives the novel an appropriately harsh, realistic feel. Most people, like the narrator and many of the other characters (Father Barton, Cook, Bridge, Maris, William Smith), go through moral struggles, sometimes doing what is right and sometimes not. The only adult character who seems pure of heart is Martha, and even she is not above resorting to thievery and fraud to get what she wants.

I probably would have given this novel 5 stars instead of 4 stars but for a few plot holes:

(view spoiler)

Underground Airlines asks an important question: how valuable is freedom? Would you sell out another human being for your own freedom? Would you resort to violence, even murder, to obtain freedom for yourself or for others? How should we treat states or nations that enslave people? Should we still trade with them or form alliances with them? And these aren't just abstract alternate history questions: many of the goods and agricultural crops that we consume are produced in sweat shops under near slave-labor conditions or even by outright slave labor. (For example, much of the chocolate and coffee that we consume is produced by plantations that utilize slave labor, which is why it's important to always purchase fair trade chocolate and coffee.).

Underground Airlines addresses these difficult questions. It forces us to think. It gives us real, complicated characters with whom we can sympathize but who also, in their moral short-comings, disappoint us. It is brilliantly imaginative. It's also just a flat-out great adventure story. For these reasons, I can without hesitation recommend Underground Airlines. ...more

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May 14, 2017 Becky rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A scary alternate history for the U.S. and the world, but also one I could buy into. I see a sequel coming as way too much was left up in the air, no pun intended.

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