You see, among my jobs for Queen Anya is overseeing the repair of the planetwide canal system, which was neglected by the Ares dynasty of tyrants. Well, Martin Berman-Gorvine has sent us a story, "How Israel Beat the Drought," about a massive desalination project on early 21st century Earth-his "alternate history" version of Earth, of course. With his usual subtlety, Martin sneaks in hints to the (nightmarish) political situation he has imagined, one of conflict between nearly 200 independent countries, and especially nasty conflict in the region of Earth known as the Middle East. Without getting into too much detail, my Earth readers should try to imagine a world where, instead of Israel and the neighboring Levantine League leading efforts to bring the Middle East into the United States in the mid-twentieth century, there was a series of bloody conflicts that led to the "Terror Wars."
Martin does well to remind us of the history of war that the United States of Earth has managed to escape. And the story had an unexpected benefit: I had the Queen read it last night, and she agreed with me that we should start studying whether it would be possible to desalinate the Mariner Sea, where rising salt content has become a threat to marine life.
This story's rating: 3 Phoboses for creativity
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