On the subject of Turtledove's Sims [1] and the Colombian Exchange, I read a while back (in a book on the history of bread, of all things) that British settlers became dependent on corn early on: it turns out that much of Eastern North America was a bad place for wheat, which a variety of local molds and rusts found very tasty.
Yeah. The dependence of early colonists on buildings, clearings, and species created by the Native Americans is greatly underestimated. In the Sims universe we have a North America without maize in its useful form, without empty buildings and already cleared fields for the Pilgrims to take over, and without friendly people to adopt the survivors of failed colonies like Roanoke.
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james_davis_nicoll) wrote2020-11-04 08:40 am
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I remember you on rec.arts.sf.written but have no recollection of Tom Maddox.
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On the subject of Turtledove's Sims [1] and the Colombian Exchange, I read a while back (in a book on the history of bread, of all things) that British settlers became dependent on corn early on: it turns out that much of Eastern North America was a bad place for wheat, which a variety of local molds and rusts found very tasty.
[1] A word now with odd associations
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(Anonymous) 2020-11-06 01:42 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
https://web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/bookofmyenemy.html