Book review: A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! by Harry Harrison

Some books don't fall comfortably into genres, and A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! by Harry Harrison (Tor/ Pinnacle, New York, c. 1972) is one of those. It was marketed as science fiction, which it is - in the early, true sense of the term, which is to say that much of it is based on solid science, with mind-stretching guesses about the possibilities of technology not yet invented. But it's also an alternate history book, and a rip-roaring adventure book, with sometimes drop-down-funny jabs at popular culture in the 1960s and 1970s, but with sad and solemn places, too. And, oh, yeah, there's a romance woven in as well, from the guy's point of view.

In short, although fans of classic science fiction might like it, I suspect that many people who wouldn't be caught dead in the sf/fantasy section of a bookstore would like it, too.

Harrison takes a world in which a shepherd who (in our world) saved the day at a key battle between Muslim and Christian armies back in 1212 got captured, tortured and killed instead. As a result, the Muslim troops won the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa and went on to capture the Iberian peninsula. From here the world's history veers - or, rather, some of it does.

Harrison starts us off in this familiar-yet-strange world in 1973 and carries us through many years, everything a bit off-kilter. There are atomic subs, but their courses are charted by "Brabbage engines" [sic] (see: Charles Babbage). There are telephones, but not the design we know. The rich show off by driving massive steam vehicles down gas-lit streets. England colonized the New World, but it wasn't in the wake of Christopher Columbus or the Conquistadors (if Spain doesn't arise, neither does Spanish-sponsored exploration or colonization), so the relations with the Indians are different. And so on and so on.

In this world, the American colonists lost the Battle of Lexington, and George Washington was shot by a firing squad for treason. All these years later, Augustine Washington is trying to restore the family name, and therein lies the main plot.

Gus (as he is known to his friends) intends, in fact, to restore his family name and make America proud of itself at the same time. While other former colonies have gained their independence from England, America is still colonial, and it rankles. His pathway to personal and national honor is as an engineer. Not just any engineer, though. He's going to help design and build a train tunnel under the Atlantic. He is faced not only with technical obstacles to overcome, but political and financial ones as well, as well as the occasional spot of sabotage and several would-be assassins. This is not to mention that he is up against just about the world's most cantankerous and stubborn potential father-in-law.

It's an odd book - sort of Jules Verne meets Dick Tracy meets David McCullough meets James Bond meets NASA meets British sit-coms meets Victoria Holt meets Agatha Christie meets MacGyver - with wild and abrupt changes of pace and style. Even given the occasional bout of mental whiplash, overall I had a blast reading it. I guess I should note that I really enjoyed the history and technology inside jokes and the Baby Boomer inside jokes: it's a good read for Baby Boomer geeks, in other words. But, then too, it's got some just plain wild adventure, that might carry the day for teen boys just hoping for action. And it's almost entirely clean fun, too. (Yay!) There's some violence and several deaths (industrial accidents as well as hand to hand combat), but the bad stuff is kept reined in remarkably well, especially given that many of the characters are navvies and much of the action takes place in isolated but bustling seaports and given all those would-be saboteurs and assassins running around.

According to this Harry Harrison bibliography, this book was also sold under the title Tunnel Through the Deeps. It's out of print now, but there are still some used copies floating around for sale. My Tor paperback copy (second printing, September 1981) suffers from a significant number of typos, which was annoying. I have no idea if other printings had better proofreading, but I hope so.

But even with the typos, it was an unusual and intriguing read. I mean, hey, how many times are you going to find an engineer portrayed fictionally as dashing, brave, formidable and heroic as well as smarter, more loyal, and better-mannered than the average fellow? Gus Washington is a guy it's fun to root for.