A World of Difference

From Turtledove

A World of Difference 1990 is a science fiction novel by Harry Turtledove. The book begins with a space voyage that departed Earth in an alternate 1989. In the universe of the book, the planet we know as Mars is larger and closer to Earth allowing it to have a breathable atmosphere. The ancient astronomers of the novel name the bright blue/gray planet Minerva after the goddess of wisdom. When the Viking 1 space probe lands on Minerva in 1976 it takes a picture of a native Minervan wielding a primitive tool; proving the existence of intelligent life on other worlds.

Minervan animals (including the sentient Minervans) are radially symmetrical and females give birth to litters and always die after reproducing. This makes females considered expendable and traded as property. The Minervans live in a neolithic feudalist society. The main action of the story involves separate American and Soviet missions, who both pay lip service to non-interference with Minervan society, but in the course of their research, the teams' respective political ideologies inevitably come to the fore. This leads the teams and their commanders back home to use the Minervans in a transparent analogy to Third World Cold War proxy conflicts on Earth. One of the Americans saves the life of a female Minervan after she gives birth. Eventually Minervans get their hands on high tech items like steel hatchets, rubber rafts, and finally AK-74s, which severely disrupt their way of life. In addition to the existence of Minerva the book alludes to a variety of subtle differences between its history and ours. The most significant of these being the antagonism betweeen the U.S. and the Soviet Union in what we would think of as the Glasnost era. In the book's history Mikhail Gorbachev lead for only nine months before dying from a stroke (though there are rumors of a secret assassination).