Alternate History General Discussion

[Elektronaut]

One of the things I’ve noticed is a lack of LGBT+ alternate history. Not only in terms of characters but also looking at changes to LGBT+ history.

OTOH there's quite a lot of LGBT non-alternate historical fiction out there.

 

[Time Enough]

OTOH there's quite a lot of LGBT non-alternate historical fiction out there.

Indeed, I was actually just thinking on the walk back from town, the fact that for example the South Korean film
The Handmaiden is an adaptation of British The Fingersmith does show how malleable and intriguing LGBT+ historical fiction can be and thus how malleable and intriguing LGBT+ alternate history could be.

(I’m not saying folks do a version of the Fingersmith where the German Empire never ended or something but my point still stands).

 

[Charles EP M.]

That does seem odd. There's a bunch of LGBT fans and writers, so is it that it doesn't feel to writers like the audience will show up?

(I am planning a LGBT History theme for the vignettes in Feb)

 

[OwenM]

My rule of thumb is that Nazi Victory AH is bad [exhales cigarette smoke slowly] not because the alternate history itself is unrealistic, though it is, but because I’ve never seen one that managed to justify being set then as opposed to the actual twelve years that the Nazis held the levers of power in Berlin. Want to write something about the Holocaust? Write something about the Holocaust. No story has shown me what specifying that the Nazis completely won and got everything they ever wanted really adds, except for a layer of sadism. And I don’t think “Nazis but they are at the Brooklyn Bridge” is a ticket that merits the price of admission. Certainly don’t think Dick’s pomo spin on it is.

I think the original In the Presence of Mine Enemies short story does to an extent, in that from memory it's much more tightly focused on how even in a more successful Third Reich there are still Jews who survive.

 

[morbidteaparty]

I've always found the lack (and I will admit this may just be me looking in the wrong places) of AH around the Cold War's periphery slightly odd - like there are so many interesting PODs and potential timelines in postcolonial Africa, Latin America, Asia etc (if Nkrumah isn't overthrown, what would be the impact on the Pan-African movement for example) that it's always felt slightly strange to me that it seems such an overlooked source.

Long and short, I'd like more stuff about Haile Selassie and less about Hubert Humphrey.

 

[Jared]

Long and short, I'd like more stuff about Haile Selassie and less about Hubert Humphrey.

Scribbles notes for a scenario where Hubert Humphrey seeks asylum in Haile Selassie's Ethiopia.

 

[Gary Oswald]

British and American writers are primarily going to write about the countries they grew up in, speak the language of and know the most about. Not sure its exactly a mystery.

 

[Time Enough]

That does seem odd. There's a bunch of LGBT fans and writers, so is it that it doesn't feel to writers like the audience will show up?

(I am planning a LGBT History theme for the vignettes in Feb)

That may be the case. Also yay an LGBT history theme month, I’ll have to tell my boyfriend and maybe do some planning.

I've always found the lack (and I will admit this may just be me looking in the wrong places) of AH around the Cold War's periphery slightly odd - like there are so many interesting PODs and potential timelines in postcolonial Africa, Latin America, Asia etc (if Nkrumah isn't overthrown, what would be the impact on the Pan-African movement for example) that it's always felt slightly strange to me that it seems such an overlooked source.

Long and short, I'd like more stuff about Haile Selassie and less about Hubert Humphrey.

That does remind me that maybe I should try and turn some of my Singapore leaders lists into possible timelines (with @Tom Colton approval).

I have seen someone start an interesting timeline about the King of Afghanistan not being couped in 1973, sadly he didn’t get far. Shame, it sounded good.

 

[Coiler]

British and American writers are primarily going to write about the countries they grew up in, speak the language of and know the most about. Not sure its exactly a mystery.

On a slightly related note, I've wondered if American geography has contributed to making space filling empires. Writers from there live on a continent that truly is dominated by three gigantic sprawling countries, and so something like that feels more natural to them.

 

[TR1996]

Not only in terms of characters but also looking at changes to LGBT+ history.

That's arguably a subset of much AH being more interested in ''King does X'' or ''Y wins war'' rather than diving deep down into sociocultural changes.

 

[Time Enough]

That's arguably a subset of much AH being more interested in ''King does X'' or ''Y wins war'' rather than diving deep down into sociocultural changes.

True, I’m thinking of discussing sociocultural changes a bit in the story I’m writing at the moment.

But would really like to write a story about how a different Soviet Union means a different LGBT+ Culture both there and worldwide or similar stories like that.

 

[MAC161]

The use of actual British Fascists just hammers the point even further.

Didn't become aware of that until a while after I'd seen the movie, and while the BUF men are described as and likely were ex-members, for whatever reasons, the calm, pat way they detailed Fascist arguments in the film was chilling, and made me wonder how ex- they actually were. A mark of appropriate casting, maybe, but still...

 

[Time Enough]

Didn't become aware of that until a while after I'd seen the movie, and while the BUF men are described as and likely were ex-members, for whatever reasons, the calm, pat way they detailed Fascist arguments in the film was chilling, and made me wonder how ex- they actually were. A mark of appropriate casting, maybe, but still...

I’m pretty sure most whilst not active members of organisations were friends with folks like Colin Jordon which explains why there really comfortable explaining why disabled babies should euthanised, and why Pauline Murray looks genuinely uncomfortable.

 

[Death's Companion]

I'm trying to wean myself off the need to justify everything through worldbuilding in AH - not in LTTW where that's the point, but in another project I want to do set in a different Cold War. I'm just going to imply vague and early divergences and not get into why Romania is divided three ways between American, Anglo-French and Soviet blocs.

They threatened nuclear war if the other side's dared stick them with the whole thing.

 

[Death's Companion]

"The Man in the High Castle" is not a great example because it's more about Philip K. Dick and drugs than it is about either storytelling or worldbuilding.

It had a story?

I have to admit the TV adaption was about a hundred times better. It was very weird and without fail whenever something interesting was happening it would randomly break away and do something else weird and boring.

 

[Coiler]

After doing so many book reviews, I think TL-style AH is very hard to critique well. This isn't to say it's impossible or that a reader shouldn't do it. But it's definitely harder than for narrative fiction. I think it's because since there's less to work with, a lot of even well-intended and well-done AH criticism can come across as one of two things.

1. Nitpicking of specific details.
2. Fundamental opposition to the premise.

At least with regards to conventional narratives, these aren't the most helpful or fun.

 

[SpanishSpy]

After doing so many book reviews, I think TL-style AH is very hard to critique well. This isn't to say it's impossible or that a reader shouldn't do it. But it's definitely harder than for narrative fiction. I think it's because since there's less to work with, a lot of even well-intended and well-done AH criticism can come across as one of two things.

1. Nitpicking of specific details.
2. Fundamental opposition to the premise.

At least with regards to conventional narratives, these aren't the most helpful or fun.

I think that a lot of discussion of the 'story vs. timeline' dichotomy in AH circles is somewhat reductive. We never refer to epistolary novels as being something other than novels. There's a reason why we refer to history books as being 'narrative history' - read any traditional history book, as opposed to the more data-driven sort of historical work that doesn't have much influence in AH circles (for a not strictly AH but still fictional treatment of this, see Michael Flynn's Eifelheim), and you'll see that there very much is a story being told with a beginning, a middle, and an end. There has to be, because historical work exists in linear time among a species that loves storytelling.

An AH timeline is a story; none would deny that Festung Europa is at its core a war story. Here, the language does admittedly get confusing. We talk of 'narrative' AH like Turtledove's work, but the faux-textbook style of AH fora are still very much stories, and very much fiction. I do believe we need a better language to make these distinctions. It's also worth bringing up that science fiction does have a history of textbook-style work; see H. G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come or Jeff Vandermeer's City of Saints and Madmen or parts of various Kim Stanley Robinson novels.

From there, an AH timeline can be critiqued on literary grounds. Does its plotting flow well? Is the prose well-crafted? Does it make you care about what's going on? Ultimately, is it readable? This applies for traditional narratives and textbook-style stories equally.

 

[Avian Overlord]

That's arguably a subset of much AH being more interested in ''King does X'' or ''Y wins war'' rather than diving deep down into sociocultural changes.

I think another factor is that dystopias get a better reception than utopias. If you have things turn out better than OTL it can often feel either naive or wanking the author's politics.

 

[Coiler]

If you have things turn out better than OTL it can often feel either naive or wanking the author's politics.

Of course, dystopias can also be that, especially the latter.

 

[Jared]

I think that a lot of discussion of the 'story vs. timeline' dichotomy in AH circles is somewhat reductive. We never refer to epistolary novels as being something other than novels. There's a reason why we refer to history books as being 'narrative history' - read any traditional history book, as opposed to the more data-driven sort of historical work that doesn't have much influence in AH circles (for a not strictly AH but still fictional treatment of this, see Michael Flynn's Eifelheim), and you'll see that there very much is a story being told with a beginning, a middle, and an end. There has to be, because historical work exists in linear time among a species that loves storytelling.

When categorising "timelines" versus "story", it helps to consider that these things exist on a continuum. On one end, there are things like the venerable form of the timeline which gave the format its name, which was essentially just a list of dates and events ("In Year X, Y happened") - less common these days, but occasionally seen. Somewhere nearby to that end is the wikibox format (whatever one may think of that as a format). On the other end of the continuum, there are alternate histories which are just the settings for novels or shorter fiction. (Agent Lavender from SLP, for instance.) Somewhere in the middle exists many of the creations called timelines but which are really scrapbook stories, comprising a variety of writing styles from straight narrative scenes to pseudo-textbooks to "data extraction" and the like. (My own timelines tend to be of this style).

The question when critiquing timelines is what basic premises should be applied to judge the work by. If it's in the style of a more traditional narrative, you can still treat it as a story and apply the traditional framework of plot, characters, setting, pacing etc. If it's a ye old venerable date-and-event timeline format, it's possible to critique that too, but the framework that one applies is rather different. One can talk about pacing to an extent, but prose quality should be judged on different standards, and while readability is still important, the standard by which readability is judged is not the same as for a work which is more at the narrative end of the spectrum.