Cowboy Angels

Paul McAuley

Three for the price of one! You get a solid thriller complete with secret agents, double and triple crossing and lots of action, including some graphic violence. But this is also science-fiction territory with alternate histories and time travel. And this world of many Americas is an invitation to think about the rights and wrongs of a contemporary topic: the interventionist policies of the western world.

Extract

'It stinks, Adam. Jimmy fucking Carter is going to let Baines's men go back through the mirror and commit suicide because that's easier than finding some way of standing down and repatriating five thousand soldiers. You know what this reminds me of? The Bay of Pigs.'
'I don't know it.'
'It's part of the same history as 'funky', and this particular doppel of Bobby Dylan. Look it up. One thing I'll tell you now, the only thing we've learnt from all the different Americas we found through the mirror is that we haven't learnt anything at all.'

Parallels