It's 1959 in socialist Virginia. The Deep South is an independent Black nation called Nova Africa. The second Mars expedition is about to touch down on the red planet. And a pregnant scientist is climbing the Blue Ridge in search of her great-great grandfather, a teenage slave who fought with John Brown and Harriet Tubman's guerrilla army.
Long unavailable in the U.S., published in France as Nova Africa, Fire on the Mountain is the story of what might have happened if John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry had succeeded--and the Civil War had been started not by the slave owners but the abolitionists.
Terry Bisson, who was for many years a Kentuckian living in New York City, is now a New Yorker living in California. In addition to science fiction, he has written bios of Mumia Abu-Jamal and Nat Turner. He is also the host of a popular San Francisco reading series (SFinSF) and the Editor of PM's Outspoken Authors pocketbook series.
Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1981 murder of a police officer. Prior to his arrest he was a Black Panther Party activist, cab driver, and journalist. Since his conviction, his case has received international attention and he has become a controversial cultural icon. During his imprisonment he has published several books including Live from Death Row.
Edward Ongweso Jr is a tech writer.
On the 163rd anniversary of John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, why not read FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN by Terry Bisson, a fascinating alternative history book that in 1959—100 years after a SUCCESSFUL raid sparks a slave revolt https://t.co/baFMKL9sek
Posting publicly at @leighhoneywell these days. Elsewhere – Mastodon: https://t.co/TMIfn7zNf6 IG: https://t.co/yGGABCchnw Bluesky: @hypatia.bsky.social she/her
On John Brown's birthday, I'm reminded of Terry Bisson's wonderful alternate history Fire on the Mountain: https://t.co/SuyCR81bUJ
sometimes I remember I once got Brendan O'Neill's massive forehead in Wire magazine
@peter_fishbeast Other than those mentioned (and I'd very much second the Le Guins): Everything for Everyone by M. E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi, which is forthcoming on Common Notions; Greg Egan's Distress; Delaney's Trouble on Triton; Fire on the Mountain by Terry Bisson; Chana Porter's...
"History revisioned, turned inside out... Bisson's wild and wonderful imagination has taken some strange turns to arrive at such a destination."
--Madison Smartt Bell, Anisfield-Wolf Award winner and author of Devil's Dream
"You don't forget Bisson's characters, even well after you've finished his books. His Fire on the Mountain does for the Civil War what Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle did for World War Two."
̦George Alec Effinger, winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards for Shrödinger's Kitten, and author of the Marîd Audran trilogy.
"A talent for evoking the joyful, vertiginous experiences of a world at fundamental turning points."
--Publishers Weekly
"Few works have moved me as deeply, as thoroughly, as Terry Bisson's Fire on the Mountain... With this single poignant story, Bisson molds a world as sweet as banana cream pies, and as briny as hot tears."
--Mumia Abu-Jamal, death row prisoner and author of Live From Death Row, from the Introduction.