The Stonewall Massacre (Unabridged‪)‬

The Stonewall Massacre is one of the most entertaining and provocative fictional works of alternate history ever written. This gripping story asks the politically explosive question, "What if the gay movement had been completely destroyed at its moment of birth in 1969?" 

The visionary tale is told from the perspective of a gay waiter who happens to leave the famous Stonewall Inn, a gay bar located in Greenwich Village, just minutes before a police raid on a hot night in June. What happens in this imagined version of the Stonewall riots is a terrifying nightmare of violence and repression which results in the gay community permanently retreating into the shadows without any hopes of ever achieving any form of civil rights. 

Ortleb captures perfectly the sinister glee of the conservative forces in psychology, religion, and the media who are only too willing to collaborate in the permanent suppression of a hated and feared sexual minority. 

The second part of The Stonewall Massacre is where things get really wild. Set in 1982, at a time when the world is completely free of out-of-the-closet homosexuals, it describes the outbreak of a strange illness which first strikes women who are feminists. The disease is first perceived to be a kind of chronic fatigue syndrome, but as doctors study the women more, they describe it as "acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)." As AIDS begins to break out in women who are not feminists and in men and children, they realize that AIDS is not just a feminist disease. All the forces in government and science are quickly marshalled to deal with what was initially thought to be a form of chronic fatigue. 

This visionary tale could open a debate about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and AIDS that will turn both epidemics upside down.