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For All Time

Looking back, that Venezuelan sub-plot didn't have much pay-off after all that build-up, I guess because finding a replacement for Super-Delgado* wasn't possible. It doesn't even say who nuked them in the post-script updates, although the implication would be Haig.

Also, Asia must be really empty.



*Then again, haven't we all been guilty of stacking the deck in favor of an obscure historical character just because it's Our Guy or Our Find?
 
Looking back, that Venezuelan sub-plot didn't have much pay-off after all that build-up, I guess because finding a replacement for Super-Delgado* wasn't possible. It doesn't even say who nuked them in the post-script updates, although the implication would be Haig.
Yeah, it does feel kind of disappointing that Venezuela became so prosperous and wealthy only to be nuked to oblivion off-screen. I would have at least thought it would be an emerging superpower in the alt-21st century, perhaps projecting the same kind of power over South America the U.S. does over, say, Europe in OTL.

Also, Asia must be really empty.
I don't know—China, Korea, and Asian Russia may be rather desolate, but things certainly seem rather lively on the Subcontinent.

*Then again, haven't we all been guilty of stacking the deck in favor of an obscure historical character just because it's Our Guy or Our Find?
If you can't use AH to make awesome and obscure people both awesome and not-obscure, what is it even good for? :)
 
Would I recommend it as a first read? Maybe if you know the historical figures in it, some of whom are very obscure.

As for the story itself, I think there's two things that make it stand out from the descendants. There's a sense of sort of "snowballing dominoes" that comes across very well in the early installments as one bad thing after another happens, and it actually feels like a logical (by the story standards) progression. Then the later total nightmare, while gratuitous, is at least a "payoff". In later TLs in contrast it's more often just "A bunch of stuff happens on the author's whim, and it feels like the author's whim" and then "WHAM! Dystopia! "

This sums up my feeling well. The snowballing dominoes was what I liked about it.

This site has a very British politics bias, seeing as the kernel of grit at the center of this pearl was a story about Harold Wilson, and most posters here take it for granted that stories like Thaxted and Gordon Banks are interesting because they're full of 70's-80's British politicians. FaT has a similar rogue's gallery appeal for 60's and 70's global figures, not necessarily all American or all political, and half the fun of thinking about it is wondering where X would have ended up. The story makes sense ending where it does because the majority of people really affecting the plot after 1980 are so were either born post PoD or were very young at the time and likely to have ended up differently (I know a few people like Bill Clinton pop up in the 70's but not many).
 
This sums up my feeling well. The snowballing dominoes was what I liked about it.

This site has a very British politics bias, seeing as the kernel of grit at the center of this pearl was a story about Harold Wilson, and most posters here take it for granted that stories like Thaxted and Gordon Banks are interesting because they're full of 70's-80's British politicians. FaT has a similar rogue's gallery appeal for 60's and 70's global figures, not necessarily all American or all political, and half the fun of thinking about it is wondering where X would have ended up. The story makes sense ending where it does because the majority of people really affecting the plot after 1980 are so were either born post PoD or were very young at the time and likely to have ended up differently (I know a few people like Bill Clinton pop up in the 70's but not many).
I think toward the end, Chet couldn't decide whether to replace OTL people born after the POD with doppelgangers or just have them exist as normal, so he did both. A few OTL figures from the 1990s have their names changed (John Travolta is Joe Travolta, Martha Stewart is Marge Stewart, Robert Torricelli is Roger Torricelli), but for the most part they are the same.

Was For All Time one of the first timelines to try the whole "where are they now" thing? It's kind of an obvious thing to include when writing a timeline, but so far none of the early TLs I've encountered have it, other than a few OTL politicians mentioned in passing. For example, I'm currently re-reading Gordon Banks and I just came across two little snippets detailing the respective early deaths of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, as well as an update concerning a 15-year-old William Hague being interviewed on TV by ex-Prime Minister Wilson. But For All Time is the earliest timeline I've come across that applies this treatment to hundreds of figures.
 
Ed Thomas' 'A Shot Heard Around the World' had two short 'Where are They Know' segments acting as interludes half way through the story, but only included half a dozen people each.

That one also had its own site, which might be partially recoverable through the wayback machine, if memory serves me right.

Not sure which is older, though. Probably FAT.
 
Ed Thomas' 'A Shot Heard Around the World' had two short 'Where are They Know' segments acting as interludes half way through the story, but only included half a dozen people each.

That one also had its own site, which might be partially recoverable through the wayback machine, if memory serves me right.
Do you know where "A Shot Heard Around the World" might be hosted, by any chance? I tried finding it, even PM'd EdT on AH.com to see if he could link it to me, but to no avail.

Oh, I just remembered: Johnny Pez's Drowned Baby Timeline, which evidently was finished in January of 2001 (a bit before For All Time was written) had two "Where Are They Now" updates, one covering around 30 people and the other covering around 50. So FAT wasn't the first, but it still dwarfs DBTL in scope.
 
My reply to this thread needs to be long-thought-over, well-considered, taking in to account historical figures and unknown-before historical events encountered in the reading, and personal actions taken.
 
I take it, then, that this is your first time reading For All Time?
Not at all, Roberto, I have read it once and re-reading it in chunks. One of my future art projects is drawing and colouring with ink Lord Roem's rendition of "We Didn't Start The Fire", sung by a Mr. Springsteen at the end of his "Well Enough Alone" thread. I want to make sure all the information concerning the people, events, and countries is accurate, and I cannot wait to begin it.
 
Not at all, Roberto, I have read it once and re-reading it in chunks. One of my future art projects is drawing and colouring with ink Lord Roem's rendition of "We Didn't Start The Fire", sung by a Mr. Springsteen at the end of his "Well Enough Alone" thread. I want to make sure all the information concerning the people, events, and countries is accurate, and I cannot wait to begin it.
When you complete it, please post it here. I'd love to see the finished product!
 
There will be a lot of red in the picture. In the second version, I hope to take out some of the U.S. flags.

"For All Time" certainly taught me about people I had never heard of before: Francoise Darlan, Raoul Salan, Pat Boone, Lyndsey LaRouche, Maurice Challe etc. I never knew about the "Blair House plot", or the assassination attempt on Harry Truman. I never guessed that Harry Dexter White, Harry Kaiser, Guy Burgess (head of the Foreign and Colonies Office) were Communist spies.

Also, if you remember, Charles Manson died last year at the age of 83 years. In "For All Time", he is killed when Al Haig's U.S. Army storms his house in California, in 1983. Now what do you say to that?

Anyone know what happened to the men who would have made up Queen? Farouk Bulsaro, John Deacon, Brian May, and Roger Taylor.
 
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