By John C.A. Manley
Charlie Simpkins is no philosopher. He’s just another “comrade” in the West Coast People’s Democratic Republic, operating a vegetable shop in Los Angeles. He smokes the government-issued Progress cigarettes, he drinks the rationed rotgut at the local class-four tavern and, generally, lives a life of silent compliance.
Until, one day, the government asks him to put up a communist propaganda poster, with the words “WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!” Instead of taping it to the window of his shop, he tosses it in the garbage.
That’s how Harry Turtledove’s Powerless opens: With one man finally saying no, even though the consequences could easily involve time breaking rocks in a concentration camp.
Charlie understood all that. He didn’t feel particularly heroic about chucking WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! into the trash can. He was just sick and tired of giving lies a helping hand. The lies, no doubt, would go on all the same, but they could go on without him.
This alternative historical fiction is set in a parallel universe where Soviet ideology has spread around the world — forming individual “democratic republics” on “the path to true communism.”
Powerless caught my attention because of the many parallels to my own novel, Much Ado About Corona. In its opening pages, the owner of a bakery (rather than a vegetable shop) has put up a sign (rather than taken one down) that opposes the COVID mask mandates (“No face, no service”). In both novels, refusal to parrot the state’s ideology escalates to life-threatening consequences.
As the publisher’s synopsis of Powerless puts it: “Powerless is a haunting dystopian tale of how even the smallest act of defiance can spiral into disaster in a society that demands total conformity. It serves as a chilling reminder of how easily standing up for one’s principles can lead to crushing consequences… even in societies that claim to uphold freedom.”
GUMMING UP THE GEARS
The novel isn’t so much about rebellion as it is about irritation. It’s not about overthrowing the machine of government, merely gumming up the gears.
For example, Charlie starts by refusing to hang a poster in his shop window. This leads to him losing not only his store but also the right to be employed. Forced into the black market, he soon finds himself being mentored by a senior member of the underground, a balding chainsmoker named Ervin.
Here is some of Ervin’s dissident advice for toppling a totalitarian regime:
“So be as difficult as you can. Ask questions in public, where they’ve got to give you some kind of answer. If you get a chance, check the laws. A lot of time, they sound good — it’s just how the bastards use ’em that screws ordinary people. If you quote what they really say, you scare the crap out of the apparatchiks.”
“Isn’t that stuff, like, secret?”
“Nah.” Ervin waved his hand. “Any library has the MCPDR law codes. They’re in with the collected works of the past Party chairmen and General Secretaries, so they’ll have half an inch of dust on ’em, but they’re there. It’s boring shit, but it helps you play the game.”
Hence, most of Charlie’s acts of defiance are subtle enough to avoid a one-way ticket to the Long Island labour camp, while disruptive enough to put a speedbump on “the road to true communism.”
THE SURPRISING STRENGTH OF A MIDDLE-GROUND APPROACH
It’s this middle ground approach that I really appreciated about the novel: No one man has to martyr themselves for freedom. Instead, if enough people consistently push back against tyranny in small ways, then…
Well, I’ll let Ervin explain:
Before Charlie left, he asked, “Think there’s any chance?”
“For my druthers? Maybe one day, but I don’t think soon,” Ervin answered. “For some wiggle room? Mostly you lose. Once in a while, though, you don’t. Trying’s better than not trying, or that’s how I see it.”
Powerless was a compelling read, as each time Charlie tries to disrupt the West Coast People’s Democratic Republic, I kept turning the pages to find out what the consequences would be. Most of the consequences were negative. Yet, concomitant with the punishment, Charlie finds himself meeting and building friendships with wise old freedom fighters like Ervin.
But, make no mistake, Powerless is deliberately unsensational. The wins are small and the pushback harsh. As Ervin wisely warns:
“It’s hard. It’s the hardest thing in the whole damn world. You want to know what’s easy, Louie? I’ll tell you what’s easy. Going along is easy. Doing what they want you to do, doing what they tell you to do, that’s easy. The hard part comes when you say no and try and make it stick. Then you find out what trying to hold back the tide is all about.”
Despite the hard subject matter, I found Powerless easy to read — a genuine page turner.
As the excerpts above demonstrate, Harry Turtledove’s narrative style is as natural as talking to Charlie Simpkins over a mug of rotgut at the novel’s class-four tavern, the Valley Relic.
Likewise, the gritty realism of the story is quite pronounced, and the storyline, while never sensational, makes it hard to resist knowing what will happen next to Charlie Simpkins’ family as he, per Ervin’s counsel, tries to be as difficult as possible.
Harry Turtledove’s writing is a clear example of why tyrants hate books. Or, as he says in his novel, why they hate typewriters:
“You had to be in good order with the authorities to have a phone, the same way you did to own a typewriter. Governments naturally distrusted gadgets that made it easier for ordinary people to exchange ideas with one another. In the Mexican Soviet Socialist Republic, a typewriter license was much harder to get than one for driving a car, and the authorities took type samples from every machine before releasing it to the licensee.”
No doubt, Turtledove never would have been issued a license.
WHY CHARACTER MATTERS
So far, I’ve had nothing but praise and admiration for his dystopian tale set in an alternative reality where the Soviets rule the world.
Now, I’d like to talk about what I didn’t like about the novel…
To start, I had issues with the main character, Charlie Simpkins. Despite his many acts of civil disobedience — ranging from failing to hang a communist propaganda poster, disrupting government meetings, working too efficiently and purchasing produce on the black market — I couldn’t help but wish the character would try a little bit harder and drink a little less. His default to most problems was the Daily Relic (a class-four tavern), where he eventually got himself so drunk it’s a miracle he found his way home to his wife and kids.
But Charlie’s sense of “powerlessness” is further enhanced by the character of Alex Eichenlode.
Alex Eichenlode is a sort of Ron Paul character in the story. He’s a libertarian-leaning politician who manages to become the leader of the West Coast Democratic Republic — somehow convincing the Russians that loosening the leash a little would help productivity and quell opposition.
Despite Charlie’s own small acts of defiance, I couldn’t help but feel that too much of the novel was Charlie with his ear to the radio or reading every line of the state-controlled newspaper, waiting to see what Eichenlode’s next move to save the people would be.
I actually spent most of the novel wondering if Eichenlode would turn out to be just another leader promising freedom who slowly turns on the people. As Charlie’s wife says: “The Russians’ll tell him what he has to do, and they’ll stick a gun to his head to make sure he does it.”
I won’t spoil whether Eichenlode lives up to his Ron Paul vibe or not, but I will say that I might have enjoyed the novel more if he’d been absent (no matter how much I admired his character). Most of the progress towards freedom comes as a result of this saviour politician, leaving Charlie as a passive bystander. The story leans too much towards political hopium rather than grassroots resistance.
All that said, the final chapter, in which Charlie Simpkins and Alex Eichenlode finally meet, offers an emotionally moving and satisfying end to the novel.
ALTERNATE-REALITY HISTORY
Another issue I had with Powerless — given that it is set within an “alternative history” — was that it contained very little history of its alternative reality.
Not much is said to explain how the nations of the world have adopted the Soviet-enforced communism. When exactly the transition in America took place, and how it unfolded, is also unclear. Even the year of the story itself is never stated. It appears to be set in the 60s or 70s based on the level of technology (but it could have easily been 2040, considering how inefficient “the path to true communism” was proving to be).
Lastly, my one issue with Turtledove’s writing style was the belated attribution tags. I was often unclear which character was talking, or assumed it was another character, only to find at the end of the paragraph that it wasn’t Charlie but his wife Lucille who had made the comment (as in the above excerpt).
Despite these issues, Powerless was a four-star read for sure.
Possibly four-and-a-half (I rarely give five-star ratings).
The novel demonstrates the power of the typewriter (or word processor) so well that it is a finalist for this year’s Prometheus Award for Best Novel.
Note: The reviewer, John C.A. Manley will discuss Powerless with James Corbett as the “pro-freedom SF read of the month” in the May 2026 episode of the Film, Literature and the New World Order (FLNWO) podcast.
Manley offers Powerless, and other Prometheus finalists, for sale on his Blazing Pine Cone website.
“Support the authors you want to see in the world,” he writes, “before the government requires they get a word processing license.”
OTHER REVIEWS
Reviews of all five 2026 Best Novel finalists have now been posted on this blog. That includes last year’s review of Powerless by LFS member Max More.
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