DON'T BREATHE

Reviewed by Steven H Silver

Don't Breathe may be the most subtle alternate history Harry Turtledove has written. Focusing on the lives of historical fiction author Ishmael Weinberg and his daughter, Sarah, who is a reporter for CNN and they live through the first year of the COVID 19 pandemic. In this world, the pandemic is more deadly, as evidenced early when Turtledove name drops people who survived in our world, but died in his world. The numbers of dead also roll up much higher than in our world.

Living in suburban Los Angeles with his wife, Deborah, Ishmael provides a reminder of what life was like in 2020 for many people, remaining at home and not seeing any other people, except occasionally through Zoom. Chance encounters on the street when walking in the early morning leave Ishmael concerned for his safety and even visits from relatives were carefully planned and usually outdoors. Little happens to the characters, but their reading and watching the news allows Turtledove to provide a picture of what is happening in the world at large. Set only six years in the past, the novel's readers will be able to relate to the characters, having gone through, to some extent, the same experiences Ishmael and Deborah are going through, whether worrying about their own safety and their loved ones' health, the sense of isolation, and the anger at the world and politicians for the predicament. Ishmael is clearly not a fan of Donald Trump, which may turn off some of Turtledove's more right-wing readers.

Turtledove also follows Sarah Weinberg, who happened to be in Japan when COVID broke out and CNN sent her to cover a story about a cruise ship that was struck by the disease. Unable to dock, it is clear that the mortality rate on the ship was much higher than the mortality rate in the real world, which helps set the stage for the rest of Sarah's storyline. Upon her return to the U.S., she is seen as an expert on the pandemic, at least from a reporting point of view, and CNN sends her wherever there are outbreaks, from New York to South Dakota. This means that Sarah meets and interacts with a wider range of people, from her crews to doctors to people who don't take the pandemic seriously. While Ishmael's story presents a very specific point of view and experience, Sarah's story allows Turtledove to include a variety of reactions to the pandemic.

Despite the increased mortality rate in Don't Breathe, the history of the novel pretty closely follows the history of our own timeline until shortly after Amy Coney Barrett's appointment to the Supreme Court, when Turtledove begins to play with the political landscape. Even then, with numerous ways to take the story, Turtledove limits the initial changes to explore how things can escalate quickly while keeping the same general outline of history. The catalyst for everything remains Trump and the hold he has on his followers. The results in the story are a warning that doing nothing or taking the path of least resistance may have serious and dire consequences for people who think they are doing the advantageous thing, although the characters in the novel don't always seem to learn that lesson.

The novel ends a little abruptly. Turtledove hints and the continuing outcome of the changes he made, mainting the less is more response to changes throughout th ebook, but doesn't follow up on them. Since the various Weinbergs are carrying on with their lives, the novel could easily have continued following them as they deal with the continuation of COVID in a post-vaccine world and the new political reality that came out of the changes made to the 2020 election. Instead, the novel ends with a focus on the slow return to normalcy regarding COVID that was beginning to happen in 2021 as people became vaccinated and achieving a level of immunity.

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