Fire On The Mountain is a 1988 Alternate History novel by Terry Bisson. It takes as its Point of Divergence the abolitionist John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia in 1859. In reality; Brown's raid on October 16, 1859 failed and most of his group were killed during the raid. Brown and six others were captured and later executed.
In this timeline; General Harriet Tubman joined with John Brown to lead the raid on July 4, 1859. It was successful and sparked a slave revolt in the American south that established the independent socialist state of Nova Africa. The story is set in 1959; with the protagonist Yasmin Abraham visiting Harpers Ferry and the surrounding area. Flashbacks in the form of a series of letters by Yasmin's great-grandfather Abraham, who escaped slavery to fight with Brown and eventually became a physician, and his mentor, an abolitionist doctor named Thomas Hunter, form the rest of the book and detail the divergence from reality.
This work provides examples of the following tropes:
- Alternate Timeline: From July 4, 1859 onwards.
- Artistic License – History: Bisson covered quite a bit of real immediately-antebellum United States history; but some details are incorrect. For example; he has barbed wire fences being widely used in the United States around his point of divergence, when in reality barbed wire was only just being invented in France and was not widely used in America until the 1870s.
- Balkanize Me: Featured for the United States. We also learn that Quebec separated from Canada at some point; that Ireland became independent from the United Kingdom in the 1880s; that Palestine became independent from the Ottoman Empire; and that the 19th century European colonial empires were dissolved by the beginning of the 1900s. Mexico gets the reverse treatment, regaining territory that the United States had claimed.
- Cool Car: In alternate 1959, Yasmin drives a hydrogen-fueled car with magnetic bearings. Played with when it keeps breaking down and we learn that hydrogen-gas burners are being phased out in favor of more reliable electric vehicles. The implied very different history of engine development is not explored in the story.
- Different States of America and Divided States of America: The 1859 United States is split up into Nova Africa across the south from the Atlantic coast to New Orleans and the remnant United States in the north as far west as Chicago. Texas, New Mexico and Arizona (both then the New Mexico Territory), and California are reclaimed by Mexico. The remainder of the current real continental USA is governed by several different Native American nations. In the alternate 1940s, the United States was replaced by a socialist state after another revolution.
- There is no West Virginia in either the United States nor the United Socialist States because the real civil war that split Virginia in half never happened.
- Different World, Different Movies: In reality; John Brown's Body was a Union marching song in the Civil War that has remained popular in various versions in the United States. In this timeline, John Brown's Body is a white nationalist Alternate History novel published in the United States before the Second Revolutionary War. It imagines a world where Brown and Tubman failed, Brown was hanged, and Lincoln became president. It closely resembles real history through the mid-1900s. We never learn how it ends.
- Elvis Lives: Played with. We do not encounter counterparts of any other real people born after 1859; but a hundred years after Tubman and Brown's raid, Yasmin encounters a gas station mechanic and motoring enthusiast named Elvis Presley.
- Fictional United Nations: Something called the UN exists in alternate 1959; but it has quite different members, function, and organizations. It is headquartered in Jerusalem, which is part of a Palestine that acquired independence from the Ottoman Empire under unspecified circumstances.
- In Spite of a Nail: In real July 1959, the first Australopithecus remains were excavated at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. In alternate July 1959; before her visit to Harpers Ferry, Yasmin Abraham was participating in the excavation of Australopithecus remains at Olduvai Gorge. This allowed Bisson to describe the project realistically.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: Abraham Lincoln never ran for president and became a fighter trying to prevent Nova Africa's independence; valuing preserving the union of the United States more than any opposition he had to slavery.
- Mercy Kill: John Brown is eventually shot in the head during a battle and survives, but is in agony and will not recover. Harriet Tubman and Brown's other commanders agree to have Hunter and Abraham give him an overdose to end his suffering. General Tubman takes over leadership of Nova Africa's Army Of The North Star.
- Mexico Called; They Want Texas Back: And also New Mexico, Arizona, and California.
- Multinational Team: In the alternate 1860, Thomas Hunter organizes with an international community of socialists and others to support Brown, Tubman, and Nova Africa. In the alternate 1959, the Pan African Space Program also includes North American nations like Nova Africa and is launching a series of human missions to Mars.
- Point of Divergence: Brown and Tubman's raid on Harper's Ferry on July 4, 1859. In reality; Harriet Tubman was ill and did not take John Brown's invitation to participate in the raid, which was delayed from July to October. In this timeline, Tubman did not get sick and her leadership was crucial to the raid and the success of Brown's army.
- Present Absence: Despite being their raid being the focal point of the divergence from our timeline, Brown and Tubman both only show up briefly in the story and Bisson had characters paraphrase their words rather than giving them dialogue. Averted with Frederick Douglass, the first president of Nova Africa, who gives an extended speech describing his support for Brown and Tubman and convincing northern abolitionists - black and white - to join themnote .
- Racist Grandma: Hunter's letters are provided to Yasmin by her and a historian encountering his considerably younger sister, who opposed his abolitionism and support for Nova Africa. By alternate 1959, she is at least 115 years old and is living her last days in a hospice. She remains a white supremacist and a supporter of the lost cause of Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee having tried to reunite Nova Africa with the United States and maintain slavery & racial capitalism. Played for Horror rather than for laughs.
- Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: Abraham Lincoln is remembered as a former Whig Congressman who tried and failed to reunite Nova Africa with the United States. There is socialism and communism, but no Marxism because Karl Marx did not write any of the books he wrote in reality after 1859. Marx is known for having been a prominent foreign supporter of Nova Africa.
- Second American Civil War: The real American Civil War is replaced by the slave revolt that creates Nova Africa. The remnant United States has a second civil war in the 1940s, called the Second Revolutionary War, which replaces it with the United Socialist States of America.
- Sliding Scale of Alternate History Plausibility: A Hard/Soft mix.
- Zeppelins from Another World: The alternate 1959 has high speed passenger airplanes, but local mass transit is by zeppelins. Unlike real zeppelins, these float by some form of levitation with superconducting magnets.
