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Least favorite alt-history story?

Also I feel like I dropped the ball by not mentioning that he had the French franchise lead by a man literally called Jean-Luc Picard. Because why the fuck not.

I feel like the only vaguely realistic part is that Hillary lost to a man pretending to be a Starfleet admiral with a bodyguard of Cardassians.
As much as I hate to say it that bit wasn't him. The administrator of othertimelines tossed up about 100 or so one post timelines when he started the site. Jean-Luc forming the federation party in France is about par for the course with those.

The fact that Admiral Sir John was inspired by that post to create everything else is kind of terrifying though.
 
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I would pay good money for a west wing parody of that TL.
Also I feel like I dropped the ball by not mentioning that he had the French franchise lead by a man literally called Jean-Luc Picard. Because why the fuck not.
I've not read the original Federation timeline (due to not having enough brain bleach on hand). But this discussion tempts me to write the kind of Jasper Fforde-esque parody where fictional characters are crossing over into real life for some reason, and so we do end up with things like Jean-Luc Picard as President of France, but the actual fictional character who doesn't know that they're fictional, and is trying to make sense of the world.

(Of course, that would also probably mean I would need to watch Star Trek too, but I digress.)
 
I've not read the original Federation timeline (due to not having enough brain bleach on hand). But this discussion tempts me to write the kind of Jasper Fforde-esque parody where fictional characters are crossing over into real life for some reason, and so we do end up with things like Jean-Luc Picard as President of France, but the actual fictional character who doesn't know that they're fictional, and is trying to make sense of the world.

(Of course, that would also probably mean I would need to watch Star Trek too, but I digress.)
Please do this. I will beg and beg and beg until you write it.
 
Please do this. I will beg and beg and beg until you write it.

Picard was actually named after the famous family of balloonists and aventurers (Auguste Piccard, with two C, and many others). Except they are not French but Swiss. Of course France has Savoy, so there are French Piccards, but they are ski champions, not balloonists.
And to make maters ever more complicated, Aguste Piccard was the inspiration for Hergé Professor Calculus. And Hergé was from Belgium.

Auguste Piccard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Piccard
Piccard's twin brother Jean Felix Piccard is also a notable figure in the annals of science and exploration, as are a number of their relatives, including Jacques Piccard, Bertrand Piccard, Jeannette Piccard and Don Piccard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franck_Piccard
His father gave him the name Franck in tribute to Frank Sinatra.[2]Piccard's siblings Leila Piccard, Ian Piccard and Jeff Piccard also competed as alpine skiers,[2] as does his daughter Lucie.[3] Another brother, Ted Piccard, has competed in both alpine skiing and skiercross.[4]
 
There’s Lone Star Republic. At the Alamo, Davy Crockett kills Santa Anna, and the Mexican ranks immediately collapse, resulting in a Texan victory. Somehow, this results in a Texas encompassing almost the entirety of the Mexican Cession, and Mexico gets partitioned between the Rio Grande Republic (which somehow also gets a bit of the Mexican Cession as a panhandle), and the Yucatan Republic (which goes all Maya nationalist despite the fact that it was founded by whites who were terrified about the Caste Wars). Oh, and the US has a war with Britain over Oregon which somehow results in it conquering all of the OTL Canadian province of Quebec, giving it independence as a single nation, and anachronistically naming it “Quebec”. Also, the Pope gets a vision of the future (which is implied to be an actual vision from God, and the author justifies bringing God into his TL by saying, “I’m Catholic”) which results in him supporting the revolutionaries in 1848 and Italy being a Pope-led federation. As well, the French exiles from the Second French Empire all move to Texas, including the Bourbons, and a Bourbon will be President of Texas in the future of the TL.
 
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There’s Lone Star Republic. At the Alamo, Davy Crockett kills Santa Anna, and the Mexican ranks immediately collapse, resulting in a Texan victory. Somehow, this results in a Texas encompassing almost the entirety of the Mexican Cession, and Mexico gets partitioned between the Rio Grande Republic (which somehow also gets a bit of the Mexican Cession as a panhandle), and the Yucatan Republic (which goes all Maya nationalist despite the fact that it was founded by whites who were terrified about the Caste Wars). Oh, and the US has a war with Britain over Oregon which somehow results in it conquering all of the OTL Canadian province of Quebec, giving it independence as a single nation, and anachronistically naming it “Quebec”. Also, the Pope gets a vision of the future (which is implied to be an actual vision from God, and the author justifies bringing God into his TL by saying, “I’m Catholic”) which results in him supporting the revolutionaries in 1848 and Italy being a Pope-led federation. As well, the French exiles from the Second French Empire all move to Texas, including the Bourbons, and a Bourbon will be President of Texas in the future of the TL.

Also no racism, or the fact that the OTL Texan Republic was already pretty unstable and those problems would be made worse with a Texas of that size.
 
Also no racism, or the fact that the OTL Texan Republic was already pretty unstable and those problems would be made worse with a Texas of that size.

As well as the fact that a “Texas” including California would begin to see California overshadow the actual Texas, as well as all the tensions this would be likely to cause. That would have been an interesting dynamic to cover, the “New Texas” rising above the “Old Texas”.

Instead, we get the main characters from the Titanic movie settling in Texas.
 
Are there any AH stories that aren't too bad plausibility-wise but are still terrible from a narrative perspective? Outright blatant pseudo-textbooks that for better or worse use that style wholeheartedly don't count.
 
Are there any AH stories that aren't too bad plausibility-wise but are still terrible from a narrative perspective? Outright blatant pseudo-textbooks that for better or worse use that style wholeheartedly don't count.

I've got nothing against pseudo-textbooks, in fact I like them so much that I wrote one, but my problems with Into The Caucasus by John H. Gill aren't stylistic in the same way they're not to do with plausibility. "Terrible" is a strong word and I wouldn't use it to describe his short story about Turkey joining the Axis in 1942, it's an interesting premise and he goes out of his way to try and qualify everything that goes on in great detail. The problem is it's way too much detail that fits jarringly into the prose and at times leaves it as a work consisting of several pages of differently numbered units moving around with little sense of what's actually going on. The time period is also really short, basically covering four months in the latter half of 1942 and whilst that usually wouldn't be a problem here it does make the whole feel of the story even more indulgent, as if this is part of a much bigger work and you're only getting a random bit of it. It's not nearly as bad as some of the "this is a wargaming scenario I did and now you will read it" works you come across but I just wish he'd spent more time constructing a story and maybe considering a few more implications of it rather than just shoehorning half of one into his research.
 
I enjoy pseudo-textbooks- EdT's Fight and Be Right is a fine example of the form.

Something about World War II timelines, though, does tend to bring out the inner spreadsheet fetishist in many writers.
The unsuspecting reader enters the thread thinking they're going to be hearing about the wider social and political ramifications of a POD, or at least enjoy a good yarn. Then the doors slam shut and you realise you're trapped in a metaphorical basement with a captor who wants nothing more than to spend hours describing the cannon diameter of the second turret on a Japanese cruiser and all your fellow hostages have strong opinions on this too.
 
I enjoy pseudo-textbooks- EdT's Fight and Be Right is a fine example of the form.

Something about World War II timelines, though, does tend to bring out the inner spreadsheet fetishist in many writers.
The unsuspecting reader enters the thread thinking they're going to be hearing about the wider social and political ramifications of a POD, or at least enjoy a good yarn. Then the doors slam shut and you realise you're trapped in a metaphorical basement with a captor who wants nothing more than to spend hours describing the cannon diameter of the second turret on a Japanese cruiser and all your fellow hostages have strong opinions on this too.
100% this.
 
I enjoy pseudo-textbooks- EdT's Fight and Be Right is a fine example of the form.

Something about World War II timelines, though, does tend to bring out the inner spreadsheet fetishist in many writers.
The unsuspecting reader enters the thread thinking they're going to be hearing about the wider social and political ramifications of a POD, or at least enjoy a good yarn. Then the doors slam shut and you realise you're trapped in a metaphorical basement with a captor who wants nothing more than to spend hours describing the cannon diameter of the second turret on a Japanese cruiser and all your fellow hostages have strong opinions on this too.

May I just say that you are an excellent addition to this forum?
 
I enjoy pseudo-textbooks- EdT's Fight and Be Right is a fine example of the form.

Something about World War II timelines, though, does tend to bring out the inner spreadsheet fetishist in many writers.
The unsuspecting reader enters the thread thinking they're going to be hearing about the wider social and political ramifications of a POD, or at least enjoy a good yarn. Then the doors slam shut and you realise you're trapped in a metaphorical basement with a captor who wants nothing more than to spend hours describing the cannon diameter of the second turret on a Japanese cruiser and all your fellow hostages have strong opinions on this too.
Sadly, too many authors think that counting rivets means you have a riveted audience.
 
Anglo-American/Nazi War. I know that's a bit of a sacred cow, given that the publishing house this forum is an appendage of published it, but I read it, and I cannot, in my heart of hearts, call it good. It's not good. It's really, really not good. It's so dry it sucks the moisture out my body and leaves an desiccated husk. And don't get me wrong, I like dry stuff- the Stuart Sequence is very dry, but I love it to bits because it's just so charming in how it was written. But no, AANW is just this... thing that tries to hard to be edgy, and values raw data over being actually compelling, and the end result is is an AH that is just unreadable at points because it bores me to tears, and is often just an internally inconsistent mess that makes me give up trying to keep track of what little meat is on the bones when it can't keep track itself.
 
May I just say that you are an excellent addition to this forum?

Thank you kindly.

As to the thread, I think the problem with discussing bad alternate history is that most bad fiction is merely boring; the truly awful stuff is rather sad.
I'm thinking of that bloke on ah.com who used to do lists of alternate presidents that would, no matter how early the POD, end with Barack Obama. Which would be merely bad writing if it weren't for the fact that his little timelines eventually began to hinge on him and Obama becoming best friends, so that he could give Barack REALLY GOOD ADVICE and help him become EVEN COOLER.

It just became a bit depressing after a while.
 
Speaking of The Churchill Memorandum, while it remains a hot mess in regards to the themes, the underlying ideology, the Jews paying Churchill to start the war etc., it can't be denied that Gabb is actually a good writer; even the insanity of the plot wouldn't have drawn me in if he couldn't spin a good yarn and keep the pacing even.
 
Speaking of The Churchill Memorandum, while it remains a hot mess in regards to the themes, the underlying ideology, the Jews paying Churchill to start the war etc., it can't be denied that Gabb is actually a good writer; even the insanity of the plot wouldn't have drawn me in if he couldn't spin a good yarn and keep the pacing even.

There is a decent timeline in a scenario where the Second World War just never happens, and there's a slow burn cold war in which Germany, the UK, France, USA, Italy, Soviet Union etc. very slowly develop nuclear weapons, there's jockeying for influence in the other states of Europe, and then decolonisation starts happening...
 
Thank you kindly.

As to the thread, I think the problem with discussing bad alternate history is that most bad fiction is merely boring; the truly awful stuff is rather sad.
I'm thinking of that bloke on ah.com who used to do lists of alternate presidents that would, no matter how early the POD, end with Barack Obama. Which would be merely bad writing if it weren't for the fact that his little timelines eventually began to hinge on him and Obama becoming best friends, so that he could give Barack REALLY GOOD ADVICE and help him become EVEN COOLER.

It just became a bit depressing after a while.

Paul V. McNutt. He also thought he was close to marrying Gary Hart's daughter.

But yeah. Post-1900 is filled with stuff which is basically awful and sometimes unreadable but is juvenilia. So it's unfair to treat it as you would published works or the like. (I was going to do a thread a while back on here about 'Tropes In AH you really dislike', but I realised that 80% of it would have been the consensus opinions of 15 year olds on Post-1900)
 
I enjoy pseudo-textbooks- EdT's Fight and Be Right is a fine example of the form.

Something about World War II timelines, though, does tend to bring out the inner spreadsheet fetishist in many writers.
The unsuspecting reader enters the thread thinking they're going to be hearing about the wider social and political ramifications of a POD, or at least enjoy a good yarn. Then the doors slam shut and you realise you're trapped in a metaphorical basement with a captor who wants nothing more than to spend hours describing the cannon diameter of the second turret on a Japanese cruiser and all your fellow hostages have strong opinions on this too.

This post went places, and those places are amazing.
 
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