Alternate History, Dystopian Science Fiction A day or two after he had been introduced to me I invited him to dinner and on this occasion we found much to talk about-chiefly European politics. At length, after we had finished a bottle of wine and a liqueur or two, he remarked that of all the countries he had visited in Western Europe he had been most impressed by Meccania. (He pronounced the word 'Mek-kah-nia.') My knowledge of Geography is not complete, I admit, but I thought I knew all the countries of Western Europe (the war has helped wonderfully to fill up certain gaps). I replied that I had never heard of such a country. "Probably not," he answered. "But it exists. And the proof of it is that I spent some five months there in 1970, and kept a journal of my experiences." "You mean 1870," I said. "No, 1970," he replied...