She began to imagine an alternate world where the astonishing innovations of Verne’s imagined futures had been distributed more evenly around the globe. An 1872 took shape where “the automaton armies of the Zulu Federation turn away the depredations of European colonists scrambling for Africa—where the technology that built the British Raj is being used to dismantle its foundations—where the Panama Canal is dug using Haitian ingenuity, tipping the balance of power away from the United States—and where the stories usually told in the margins spill over into the text.”
Meg Jayanth on developing the world of 80 Days.
Alternate histories empowering the colonized are fascinating. My imagination has been routinely going there ever since I worked on a video game that featured a campaign in which Mesoamerican powers resisted colonization by Europeans and formed their own technologically advanced governments.
