The Wages of Sin

The Sidewise Awards for Alternate History were established in 1995 to recognize the best alternate history stories and novels of the year. A terrifying tale about HIV spreading in the early sixteenth century by an author, Publisher Weekly calls “The Master of Alternate History.” What if HIV started spreading in the early 1500s rather than the late 1900s? Without modern medicine, anybody who catches HIV is going to die. A patriarchal society reacts to this devastating disease in the only way it knows how: it sequesters women as much as possible, limiting contacts between the sexes except for married couples. While imperfect, such drastic actions do limit the spread of the disease. The ‘Wasting’ (HIV) has caused devasting destruction throughout the known world and severely limited the development of technology as well, creating a mid-nineteenth century England and London almost unrecognizable to us. This is the world Viola is born into. Extremely