Maybe it's better never to dream. Then you don't have to live with failure.

Each behemoth that screams by overhead is a mile wide, blotting out the sky in all directions.

What I've identified as the "it could have happened here!" fearmongering agenda explains one possible motive for strengthening the Native Americans in an alternate history: it makes them more dangerous and more credible opponents, and thus makes the victory over them seem the greater. One story, "In the Circle of Nowhere", does indeed feature Native American war canoes enslaving the European mainland. Other stories feature tough Aztecs battling Vikings, or Crazy Horse leading a unified army out of the hills to battle a weak Irish confederation. The threat of a real Indian war looms.

Great city, fabled isle, were you at the far end / Of the world, across the starry ocean, / As some aver? Or Krete's sister, / Now only a dead volcano's crater?