• Hi Guest!

    The costs of running this forum are covered by Sea Lion Press. If you'd like to help support the company and the forum, visit patreon.com/sealionpress

Interview: Jack Tindale

I am sure if you asked people to imagine the cover of an alternate history book, they'd come up with the sort of pulp imagery that's dominated it since as far back as I can remember - swastikas on the Statue of Liberty, steampunk horses at Gettysburg, that sort of thing. We decided we wanted to push back against that
Click to expand...
It was a very good idea to subvert the expectations of what an AH book is supposed to look like right from the start. Not only did it help establish SLP's brand identity, but it also lets the public know that there's more to AH than the lurid stuff the genre tends to be associated with.
 
All the more poignant that George Kearton is no longer with us, when you mention his take on Thatcher's presentation in Agent Lavender.

When time and commitments permit, we would like to see more of your AH fiction as well as your fantastic covers, @Lord Roem . In particular, you can get on my bandwagon problem of how to write about Russia without looking like you're glorifying Putin.
 
The part about being a lonely teenager finding cool circles online speaks to me.

The cover 'house style' really does stand out in the kindle stacks, even if it's trading in the same iconography. Lots of Nazi Britain covers in AH but The Boy in the Storm is starker, harsher, that image of a figure reduced to silhouette under the flag except for that armband. There's a different mood than, say, a photoshop of Nazi flags on Nelson's Column.
 
Have we actually had any two interviews where the "How did you get into alternate history?" question is answered along similar lines?

For the most part seems to be very different roads leading to the same destination, and it's been interesting to read the different paths taken.
 
RyanF said:
Have we actually had any two interviews where the "How did you get into alternate history?" question is answered along similar lines?
Click to expand...

Back in 2020, when I started doing this, it felt like I was getting 'read Turtledove, grew from there' every single time, but the more recent interviews have been less of that.

I'm now slightly tempted to graph it, in terms of which websites and authors get mentioned in answers to that question, but I have a lot of other things that are more important to do, so don't let me actually come back to this with a pie chart.
 
Gary Oswald said:
Back in 2020, when I started doing this, it felt like I was getting 'read Turtledove, grew from there' every single time, but the more recent interviews have been less of that.

I'm now slightly tempted to graph it, in terms of which websites and authors get mentioned in answers to that question, but I have a lot of other things that are more important to do, so don't let me actually come back to this with a pie chart.
Click to expand...

I won't let you do that. I hate pie charts, would accept a tree map like the GDP of a country most Americans don't know about on Wiki.
 
Gary Oswald said:
Back in 2020, when I started doing this, it felt like I was getting 'read Turtledove, grew from there' every single time, but the more recent interviews have been less of that.

I'm now slightly tempted to graph it, in terms of which websites and authors get mentioned in answers to that question, but I have a lot of other things that are more important to do, so don't let me actually come back to this with a pie chart.
Click to expand...

1664890864875.jpeg
 
Gary Oswald said:
Back in 2020, when I started doing this, it felt like I was getting 'read Turtledove, grew from there' every single time, but the more recent interviews have been less of that.
Click to expand...

This may be a sign of Turtledove getting less mainstream at least in the UK, or other mainstream tales (Red Alert, Sliders, High Castle etc.), or both
 
Charles EP M. said:
This may be a sign of Turtledove getting less mainstream at least in the UK
Click to expand...
This has crept up on me overnight - his books used to be well represented in the sci-fi section (especially Worldwar, less so the pure AH) and now it's rare to see even one from him.
 
Thande said:
This has crept up on me overnight - his books used to be well represented in the sci-fi section (especially Worldwar, less so the pure AH) and now it's rare to see even one from him.
Click to expand...

Perhaps the crossover appeal of Worldwar may have given him a leg up.
 
Ok so having skimmed through all 55 completed interviews I've done (and also jesus, I didn't realise it was that many), I have to agree with @RyanF, it's astonishing how few similar answers I got.

Turtledove was mentioned as the gateway 7 times, 4 of which were the World War books, 3 his other work. Genuinely thought it was more than that, which shows how unreliable human memory is.

But no other author or work gets mentioned so much as 3 times.

Four are mentioned twice: 'Sliders', 'Pavane' by Keith Roberts, 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' and 'Command and Conquer: Red Alert'. But everything else is unique.

Websites are a little less diverse, ah.com comes up 5 times, but it's mostly first encountered it through some other source, then googled it and got into online stuff. My favourite story is from an interview that is yet to go up where the writer found AH when his book was reviewed on the SLP blog and he then went 'oh that's a genre!'.
 
Gary Oswald said:
Back in 2020, when I started doing this, it felt like I was getting 'read Turtledove, grew from there' every single time, but the more recent interviews have been less of that.
Click to expand...
I've never read any Turtledove myself, or any Stirling for that matter. My first exposure to commercial AH was Harry Harrison, and I very quickly grew tired of his style.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top