What if slavery had never been abolished? What if, instead of the Civil War, the slave states and free states came to an uneasy but workable agreement between them? In the world of Ben Winters's Underground Airlines, that is exactly what happened. In the "Hard Four" states, slaves work in factories, mines, textile mills, and, of course, on farms. It's all very bureaucratized and industrialized, with strict rules and regulations for the humane and safe treatment of slaves. But they are still slaves.
Victor is a freed slave himself, but he works as a U.S. Marshall, tracking down escaped slaves. His freedom is tenuous, and he longs to be rid of the tracking chip and supervision of his mysterious boss. His latest assignment, and the white woman he meets, point him to an option for getting out of his obligations and fleeing to Canada. It turns out the his target isn't a slave after all, and he stumbles across a grand conspiracy that could threaten the structure of society, such as it is.
While it may seem absurd to try to imagine a modern United States in which slavery could still exist, Winters manages to describe parts of it in ways that fit our own society. The deep racism, police brutality, and third-world living conditions in black ghettos don't seem much different in Winter's world as in our own.
Only the most hard-headed, racist, and ignorant readers would look at Winter's economy, in which slaves are cogs in the industrial machine, as acceptable. He demonstrates the reliance that our nation had on slavery, and presents a future in which, if we had continued to tolerate, would ultimately have dragged us down as a nation.
The story bogs down a bit in this alternative history. It's worth reading, but the plot ended up winding around, directionless.
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