Major Themes
The stories explore what makes someone "human". As time passes humans' view of sims generally shifts from seeing them as beasts into seeing them being close to humans and deserving of some rights. Without anthropomorphizing the sims, Turtledove makes clear that although they cannot become humans and enjoy all the freedoms that humans have, they still deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.
When asked whether the point of divergence of A Different Flesh being set before human history makes the novel a proper alternate history or some sort of "alternative natural history", Turtledove responded: "They seem like alternate history to me, but I haven't really spent a whole lot of time worrying about how to classify them, I'm afraid."
Read more about this topic: A Different Flesh
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