Interview: Alex Richards

[Gary Oswald]

Discuss this interview with @Alex Richards here

 

[Turquoise Blue]

I will have to note on the subject of photo manipulation that I've noticed a good few people I've worked with, uses FaceApp as a basis for alternate looking people, like a JFK who just looks that bit older, etc. The access entry for using something like FaceApp is really just simple, can do it on your phone.

There's other comparable software out there, mostly on phones and all. Not for scenes, though, primarily pictures of people.

Will software like this lead to rapid growth of more elaborate photo manipulation in AH? I'm not sure myself, but all I can say is that I've noticed software like those being turned to for creating AH pictures.

And of course AI photo generation is getting quite scarily good. I once told an AI to make me a picture of St. Petersburg under siege, and I will say that it was a terrifyingly good result. AI photo generation could be a very useful tool for people who don't regard themselves skilled enough to make entire scenes themselves for bits in their AH projects.

 

[Alex Richards]

I will have to note on the subject of photo manipulation that I've noticed a good few people I've worked with, uses FaceApp as a basis for alternate looking people, like a JFK who just looks that bit older, etc. The access entry for using something like FaceApp is really just simple, can do it on your phone.

There's other comparable software out there, mostly on phones and all. Not for scenes, though, primarily pictures of people.

Will software like this lead to rapid growth of more elaborate photo manipulation in AH? I'm not sure myself, but all I can say is that I've noticed software like those being turned to for creating AH pictures.

And of course AI photo generation is getting quite scarily good. I once told an AI to make me a picture of St. Petersburg under siege, and I will say that it was a terrifyingly good result. AI photo generation could be a very useful tool for people who don't regard themselves skilled enough to make entire scenes themselves for bits in their AH projects.

It's fair to say that AI photo generation has moved so swiftly recently that this is literally a 'pre-empted by the gap between writing the interview and publishing' in some ways.

 

[Charles EP M.]

This interview told me Jour J exists, now I have to learn French, Alex this is your fault

 

[Thande]

Interesting to read how one way you got into AH was through the Reader's Digest. While I never saw any AH content in it, it did alert me to some history I wasn't aware of at the time, like lesser-discussed fronts of WW2 - the style used in their war fiction was one of the inspirations for the upcoming LTTW Volume VI, as well as Turtledove of course.

This interview told me Jour J exists, now I have to learn French, Alex this is your fault

I believe @Hendryk has posted about it in the past (and possibly @Redolegna but not sure). My main memory of it is that one which showed a Cold War with Paris divided by a Berlin Wall equivalent, and the Soviet side has a French flag with a much larger red stripe and a hammer and sickle on it.

 

[Alex Richards]

Interesting to read how one way you got into AH was through the Reader's Digest. While I never saw any AH content in it, it did alert me to some history I wasn't aware of at the time, like lesser-discussed fronts of WW2 - the style used in their war fiction was one of the inspirations for the upcoming LTTW Volume VI, as well as Turtledove of course.

It was the bound extracts of the actual stories rather than the digest itself to be fair.

 

[Thande]

It was the bound extracts of the actual stories rather than the digest itself to be fair.

Which is exactly what LTTW Volume VI is supposed to be taken from!

 

[Hendryk]

This interview told me Jour J exists, now I have to learn French, Alex this is your fault

I believe @Hendryk has posted about it in the past (and possibly @Redolegna but not sure). My main memory of it is that one which showed a Cold War with Paris divided by a Berlin Wall equivalent, and the Soviet side has a French flag with a much larger red stripe and a hammer and sickle on it.

I have indeed mentioned the series here and at the other place. This thread is about my favorite story so far, the one where De Gaulle's death at the height of the May 68 unrest causes a civil war that ends with a left-utopian Neo-Commune in power.

 

[RyanF]

Great point on comics offering the ability to sneak in background world building that's especially fun in an AH setting. Some of the fun in Scarlet Traces or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is going back over the panels trying to spot these.