Peace is Better

"Peace is Better" is the second of two short works by Harry Turtledove, published in Thirty Days Later: Steaming Forward: 30 Adventures in Time (A.J. Sikes, B.J. Sikes, and Dover Whitecliff, ed., Thinking Ink Press 2016). It is the second of three works to feature Bill Williamson, the Sasquatch governor of the state of Jefferson. The story is essentially a vignette, set in September, 1979, thirty days after the first story, "Visitor from the East" (published in the same volume). The story depictss Governor Williamson's meeting/photo-op with the historical Nobuo Fujita, the Japanese pilot who conducted the only air raid on the continental United States in OTL, dropping incendiary bombs near Brookings, Oregon. Within Turtledove's timeline, the attack came on Port Orford, which is a city located in the fictional state of Jefferson. Moreover, after the war, this version of Fujita actually immigrated to Jefferson and opened a successful Datsun dealership in Port Orford.

Much like the previous work, the story gives a quick sketch of Jefferson's history and comparatively open culture, giving a summary of the history of Jefferson during the 1930s and 1940s during the governorship of Gilbert Gable, the historical mayor of Port Orford, who proposed the idea of Jefferson in OTL in 1941. The vignette also illustrates the open culture of Jefferson, as Fujita is quite well liked and respected within the community he attacked decades before.