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''Back in the USSA'' is a collection of short stories by Creator/EugeneByrne and Creator/KimNewman, published in 1997.

The stories are set in an AlternateHistory in which the United States has a communist revolution led by prominent RealLife American Socialist UsefulNotes/EugeneDebs[[note]]The real life Debs hated [[UsefulNotes/JosefStalin Stalinism]] and the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Soviet Union]] that this series is based on[[/note]] in 1917, with subsequent events parallelling the real-life history of the USSR. (Russia, in this history, remains an empire but evolves into a constitutional monarchy, and allies with the UK against the USSA in the Cold War.) They feature Newman's trademark MassiveMultiplayerCrossover style, with fictional characters rubbing shoulders with historical figures in surprising new contexts.

The stories are:

* "In the Air"
* "Ten Days That Shook the World"
* "Tom Joad"
* "Teddy Bears' Picnic"
* "Citizen Ed"
* "Abdication Street"
* "On the Road"

"On the Road" is original to the collection; the other stories had previously been published in ''Magazine/{{Interzone}}''. "Teddy Bears' Picnic" was also reprinted in Newman's collection ''Unforgivable Stories''.

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!!These stories provide examples of:

* AllohistoricalAllusion:
** A character comments that something was as strange as finding [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge_(Lake_Havasu_City) London Bridge in the Arizona desert]].
** In "Teddy Bears' Picnic", Bob objects to William Hartnell being cast as Sgt. Grimshaw in TheFilmOfTheBook due to Hartnell being more well known as [[Series/DoctorWho the Doctor]], and recommends Patrick Troughton instead, because Troughton comes off as a more sinister and threatening actor. [[note]]There's a triple whammy here; both Hartnell ''and'' Troughton played the Doctor in the actual world, Troughton's version of the Doctor was actually a lot friendlier and nicer than Hartnell's version, and Hartnell actually ''did'' play Grimshaw in the movie he originally appeared in ''Film/CarryOnSergeant''.[[/note]]
* AsianHookerStereotype: In "The Teddy Bear's Picnic" there is a Vietnamese prostitute nicknamed Vitmo Vingh who services the British troops and who embodies the stereotypes and dialogue of Asian hookers seen in films like ''Film/FullMetalJacket''.
* CelebrityParadox: Fictional characters will often appear alongside the people who played them. In one instance, "Teddy Bears' Picnic" includes the actor Creator/WilliamHartnell and fictional characters from the [[Film/CarryOnSergeant movie]] and [[Series/DoctorWho TV show]] he's most famous for starring in.
* DrillSergeantNasty: "Teddy Bears' Picnic" features a truly psychotic version of Sergeant Grimshaw, the drill sergeant from ''Film/CarryOnSergeant'', mixed with a large helping of the TropeCodifier from ''Film/FullMetalJacket''.
%%* DullSurprise: At the climax of "Abdication Street".
* EvilColonialist: Basil Fotherington-Thomas in "Teddy Bears' Picnic", where he has become his world's equivalent of [[Film/ApocalypseNow Colonel Kurtz]].
* GoingNative: [[Literature/{{Molesworth}} Basil Fotherington-Thomas]] is a ColonelKurtzCopy in "Teddy Bears' Picnic", a bizarre AlternateHistory retelling of ''Film/ApocalypseNow''. [[Literature/JustWilliam William Brown]] also fits as the soldier sent to kill Fotherington-Thomas who ends up joining him.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: UsefulNotes/EugeneDebs plays an important role, as the Revolutionary that started it all. Significant liberties are taken about his personality.
* InSpiteOfANail: The American government and capitalism collapse in 1917 and Eugene Debs leads a Socialist revolution. After that things go much as in the USSR in our timeline, but with American figures. Al Capone fills the role of Stalin, J. Edgar Hoover is the equivalent of Lavrentiy Beria, and Eliot Ness is an agent of the Federal Bureau of Ideology.
* IWillPunishYourFriendForYourFailure: Sergeant Grimshawe in "Teddy Bears' Picnic", being the setting's version of Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann, does this by punishing the rest of the platoon whenever Frank Spencer screws up.
* MaliciousMisnaming: In "Teddy Bears' Picnic", film director Michael Powell makes a deliberate decision to refer to the government censor Putnam as "Putt-man", and instructs all of his staff to do the same.
* MassiveMultiplayerCrossover: For one example, "Teddy Bears' Picnic" is about Terry and Bob of ''Series/TheLikelyLads'' fighting in the Vietnam war with William of Richmal Crompton's ''Literature/JustWilliam'' stories and other fictional characters.
%%* TheNeidermeyer: Captain Fisher, a.k.a. "Film/BillyLiar", in "Teddy Bears' Picnic".
* PeelingPotatoes: Done by the DrillSergeantNasty to the trainees in "Teddy Bears' Picnic". In a particularly sadistic twist, he then changes his mind and orders the recruits to glue the skins back on.
* RedplicaBaron: The novel features the Red Baron assisting Mexican forces invading Texas, during a communist revolution in the United States led by Eugene Debs.
* RichardNixonTheUsedCarSalesman: All over the place, with both real and fictional people. Al Capone is the American Stalin, Creator/KurtVonnegut is the American Gorbachev, and Trotsky's granddaughter is a commoner who marries the British Crown Prince. [[Creator/LRonHubbard Lafayette Hubbard]], [[Creator/JohnWayne Mitch Morrison]], Charles Lindbergh and UsefulNotes/JosephMcCarthy appear as a propagandistic "troupe of war heroes" in the 1950s Communist America.
* SendInTheSearchTeam: "Teddy Bears' Picnic", which is essentially a retelling of ''Film/ApocalypseNow'' with British characters and a few nasty surprises.
* UnfriendlyFire: The final fate of Captain Fisher in "Teddy Bears' Picnic". He gets fragged by his own troops using a white phosphorus grenade.
* WholePlotReference: Several of the stories:
** "Teddy Bear's Picnic" borrows liberally from many Vietnam War movies, most particularly ''Film/FullMetalJacket'', ''Film/ApocalypseNow'' and ''Film/TheDeerHunter''.
** "Abdication Street" is a pretty straight retelling of ''Cinderella'', if you ignore the alternate history royal wedding in a 1970s Tsarist Russia where "Cinzia" is a TV make-up artist, Prince Charming is Prince Charles, and the "Fairy Godfather" is Creator/PeterSellers.
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