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Least favorite alt-history story?

The Red said:
I've never been one to say "you can stop now" as that would almost certainly send the wrong message but it does seem sometimes that the TL is continuing long past it's had any need to just so that we can compare the present day to our own.
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This is also the reason I found Festung Europa become steadily more disappointing the further Jon kept going after the final Allied victory. He's so intent on playing up the dystopian aspects of his TL that for no reason at all he has Nationalist China turn into a super-North Korea, complete with a bioweapons programs specifically intended to exterminate the entire human race except for the Han Chinese. I know it's the SLP best-seller, so he must have done something right, but I personally have my doubts about the geopolitical aftermath of the TL as depicted in the AH.com version.
 
The further you get from a POD, the more a story basically loses its grounding and becomes something approaching a fantasy scenario. Knowing when to stop is a pretty integral thing to good timelines to my mind. I know EdT holds to this too, and I've always been a fan of his tightly held main timeline, then broad brush epilogue a few decades on approach.

I haven't investigated the Clinton's Korean War thing too closely, but I have looked over it, and I get the impression it's another outing for the military buffs who are good in that field but hopelessly adrift in politics and the like.
 
Elektronaut said:
The further you get from a POD, the more a story basically loses its grounding and becomes something approaching a fantasy scenario.
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I agree. I've seen aspiring AH writers be advised to keep their TL going to the present day, but I don't think that's necessarily a good thing. Sometimes it's best to wrap it up and if necessary add an epilogue.
 
Elektronaut said:
The further you get from a POD, the more a story basically loses its grounding and becomes something approaching a fantasy scenario. Knowing when to stop is a pretty integral thing to good timelines to my mind. I know EdT holds to this too, and I've always been a fan of his tightly held main timeline, then broad brush epilogue a few decades on approach.

I haven't investigated the Clinton's Korean War thing too closely, but I have looked over it, and I get the impression it's another outing for the military buffs who are good in that field but hopelessly adrift in politics and the like.
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EdT is especially good for this - and the style you cite is in my mind the "gold standard" for keeping a timeline/story grounded to its POD.

"Stop when the characters were born after the POD" is a related generally good rule for 'harder' AH.

There's no harm in longer/ongoing timelines, but its difficult to avoid losing focus, or to lose track of where any story arc is actually going. And as you say, longer term the setting inevitably drifts towards 'soft' AH/fantasy world-building territory. Again, not a bad thing, but a very different style better suited to a different style of timeline.
 
Elektronaut said:
I haven't investigated the Clinton's Korean War thing too closely, but I have looked over it, and I get the impression it's another outing for the military buffs who are good in that field but hopelessly adrift in politics and the like.
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It's not even that good from there. Not only is the outcome not surprising in the least, but (and I know I'm applying literary criticism to a pseduo-historical timeline), the most dramatic part of the war is skipped over in a single few-paragraph update, and some of that update was nothing but order of battle infodumps. It's "infodump DPRK OOB-mention the invasion-mention explicitly the invasion stalled out at the end of the update." So much for a cliffhanger.

I agree on the problems with long timelines in general, and Clinton's Korean War is certainly not the only one to fall into that pit.
 
Decades of Darkness is sort of my standard for acceptable divergence. The timeline 120 years after the PoD is filled with allohistorical 'genetic cousins' who aren't matches but rhymes of their OTL counterparts. But to be fair it's hard to think of many timeliness where that sort of thing is well done.
 
Clinton's Korean War had a POD close enough to 2018 that it can be excusable for it to continue on. IMO 1960 should be the cutoff point for TLs whose PODs are far enough that continuing it into 2018 makes it boring.
 
lerk said:
Clinton's Korean War had a POD close enough to 2018 that it can be excusable for it to continue on. IMO 1960 should be the cutoff point for TLs whose PODs are far enough that continuing it into 2018 makes it boring.
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Got a link for this?
 
This is mild necroing, but:
Burton K Wheeler said:
My feeling about Turtledove sex scenes is that he puts them in because real, well-rounded people have sex and sexual urges, but he's really terrible at writing sex. Someone should tell him that everyone shits too, but we don't need a page and a half describing grunting and straining plus a detailed breakdown of wiping technique to feel connected to a character.
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There is at least one Turtledove-winning story that explicitly describes someone describing Benito Mussolini defecating on his own head.
 
The Red said:
The first part of The Salvation War seemed decent enough when I first read it and I think I read it on that forum although I can't remember if I signed up.
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I suppose this would not be the best moment to mention that I wrote some of that story? :D
I've always liked Stu's writing, which I think probably puts me in a minority of one here. I've also always been greatful for him giving me a home for TLW.
 
JN1 said:
I suppose this would not be the best moment to mention that I wrote some of that story? :D
I've always liked Stu's writing, which I think probably puts me in a minority of one here. I've also always been greatful for him giving me a home for TLW.
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Wich i can count together with a other World War III timeline as the best i know.
 
Elektronaut said:
I read the first part of the Federation timeline yesterday. I liked the part where the secret service dressed up as Star Trek alien races (Because of course) and the fact that the main domestic and international issue of the guy's presidency was his relationship with Linda Park.
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I would pay good money for a West Wing parody of that TL.
 
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