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- Albany, NY
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- She/Her
Glad somebody said it
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Least favorite alt-history story?
- Thread starter Resurgam
- Start date
- Location
- Over the rainbow
I've never actually read it.
- Pronouns
- he/him
Really, I should have had this idea a few days back when I could have entered it for the 'Horror' vignettes.
- Location
- Coventry
Oh that's finished now? Damm, I had started writing for it!
I'd recommend it. It's a sober retelling of Nazi Germany's rendezvous with gravity after the laws of nature were put on hold for a far longer time than in OTL (I blame Welteislehre) and the inevitable downfall that was always going to be far bloodier than in reality. It's dry (and admittedly torrid on occasion) but it does have a certain thematic charm to it and whilst the gearhead stuff largely flies over my head I never found it to be grating. It's not without it's faults and @moth makes some valid points, I'd challenge a few of them but I realise that these things are subjective, and being the sort of WW2 buff that would rather watch Cross of Iron rather than Saving Private Ryan I realise I'm not without bias when it comes to something like AANW.
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- Location
- Albany, NY
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- She/Her
Not going to lie Cross of Iron is pretty awesome.
Massively Multiplayer (and probably its predecessor, Player Two Start, though I may have rose colored glasses), is the single biggest example I know (maybe because I was a small contributor and thus got a behind-the-scenes-at-the-sausage-factory look at it) of how After 1900's culture can knock something down. It also helps that it's not otherwise the outright worst, nor does it really have that much objectionable besides nerd wish fulfillment.
The POD was the Nintendo-Sony deal not falling through. it started as an alternate console war TL with a good enough stopping point (a better one would have been stopping when Sega bowed out of consoles) and had some kind of narrative. Since then it's become little but a showcase of fictional video games (including their entire plots) that everyone oohs and ahhs over, along with lots of "What happened to ______ [this person, this company, this game?]?" And that relentless questioning, not to mention opening it up to fan content, kind of co-opted it in a bad way.
Zachanassian
*pedantic gay sounds*
- Location
- Crabtown USA
This is probably stretching the definition of "published AH" a bit, but the essay collection "What If?" is pretty bad.
It's a promising premise; professional historians discussing where well-known (and some lesser-known) historical events might've gone differently. But in practice, half the essays are just pure historical essays, discussing the importance of the essay's subject, with the alt-historical elements often crammed into a single paragraph or even sentence at the end of the essay. Most of the essays have very little interest in exploring alternate scenarios, which seems like a huge waste.
And even when the author deigns to engage in a bit of alt-historical speculation, it's lazy and half-assed. Most of the historians seem to subscribe strongly to the "great man" school of history, with major events depending on the moods and health of single individuals. And even if they're not engaging in full-on great man nonesense, they all tend to overestimate the impact of "Big Events", such as individual battles, on the broad course of history.
For example, the essay "Bismark's Empire Stillborn" by historian James Chace argues that, if Napoleon III had not been suffering from depression and ill-health, France would have defeated Prussia in 1871, which would have resulted in
A lot to unpack there, even ignoring putting France's defeat in 1871 squarely on Nappy III's shoulders (Great Man theory strikes again!), Chace makes so many assumptions about pretty much everything. Prussia was in an ascendant position even in 1871 that, even a defeat in the Franco-Prussian war would have seen a Prussia/semi-unified Germany as a major Great Power and rival of France. No reason why there still wouldn't be a major continental war some time in the early 20th century, and no reason why, even if WWI is fully avoided, why the 20th century wouldn't be one of ideologies and total war.
And the last sentence is troubling in the sense that it feels like Chace believes the world would be better if we still had "European Primacy". :|
It's a promising premise; professional historians discussing where well-known (and some lesser-known) historical events might've gone differently. But in practice, half the essays are just pure historical essays, discussing the importance of the essay's subject, with the alt-historical elements often crammed into a single paragraph or even sentence at the end of the essay. Most of the essays have very little interest in exploring alternate scenarios, which seems like a huge waste.
And even when the author deigns to engage in a bit of alt-historical speculation, it's lazy and half-assed. Most of the historians seem to subscribe strongly to the "great man" school of history, with major events depending on the moods and health of single individuals. And even if they're not engaging in full-on great man nonesense, they all tend to overestimate the impact of "Big Events", such as individual battles, on the broad course of history.
For example, the essay "Bismark's Empire Stillborn" by historian James Chace argues that, if Napoleon III had not been suffering from depression and ill-health, France would have defeated Prussia in 1871, which would have resulted in
A lot to unpack there, even ignoring putting France's defeat in 1871 squarely on Nappy III's shoulders (Great Man theory strikes again!), Chace makes so many assumptions about pretty much everything. Prussia was in an ascendant position even in 1871 that, even a defeat in the Franco-Prussian war would have seen a Prussia/semi-unified Germany as a major Great Power and rival of France. No reason why there still wouldn't be a major continental war some time in the early 20th century, and no reason why, even if WWI is fully avoided, why the 20th century wouldn't be one of ideologies and total war.
And the last sentence is troubling in the sense that it feels like Chace believes the world would be better if we still had "European Primacy". :|
I want to print this out and frame it.
napoleon IV
Sheer Animal Cunning of the Groundhog
- Location
- Washington, Douglass Commonwealth
- Pronouns
- he/him
In the same vein, Niall Ferguson's Virtual History. All of the essays are pure historical essays. Then at the end Ferguson (apparently realizing at the last minute that he had to include some alternate history) writes an alternate history piece that squashes every single essay's topics together. Which leads to a scenario where the American Revolution fails, but a century and a half later the Nazis manage to defeat the Soviet Union and Prime Minister JFK (who survives being shot at by Lee Harvey Oswald) leads the nation into the quagmire of Vietnam.
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You know, I've seen a lot of overlap "worst AH" discussions, including here, and to be honest, two of the big sources, even if the criticism towards the individual works is valid, feels like the critic is often punching down at too easy a target when I see something from there slammed.
The first is mainstream/pop-AH, especially if the criticisms are from a pure plausibility standpoint. The paradigm is totally different-there just isn't a mainstream market for an alternate history work that reads like the internal official history of the New York State Transportation Department and that talks about how a divergence involving an event most non-history nerds wouldn't know about with people most non-history nerds wouldn't know about brings about changes most non-history nerds wouldn't care about. It has to be flashy and spectacular, and most of the target audience either wouldn't know it was "implausible" (more on that later) or would just go "eh, it's implausible" but read/watch/play it anyway.
The second is works from "that place", especially After 1900. Yes, Sturgeon is in full force and then some, and yes, I could list the complaints I have about the board culture there constantly. But now, looking back, it feels like criticizing fantasy fiction in general, or even urban fantasy, by looking at one Harry Potter fanfiction site. I could not agree more with what @Elektronaut said above-yes, most of it is bad, but it's a too-easy, unfair target.
The first is mainstream/pop-AH, especially if the criticisms are from a pure plausibility standpoint. The paradigm is totally different-there just isn't a mainstream market for an alternate history work that reads like the internal official history of the New York State Transportation Department and that talks about how a divergence involving an event most non-history nerds wouldn't know about with people most non-history nerds wouldn't know about brings about changes most non-history nerds wouldn't care about. It has to be flashy and spectacular, and most of the target audience either wouldn't know it was "implausible" (more on that later) or would just go "eh, it's implausible" but read/watch/play it anyway.
The second is works from "that place", especially After 1900. Yes, Sturgeon is in full force and then some, and yes, I could list the complaints I have about the board culture there constantly. But now, looking back, it feels like criticizing fantasy fiction in general, or even urban fantasy, by looking at one Harry Potter fanfiction site. I could not agree more with what @Elektronaut said above-yes, most of it is bad, but it's a too-easy, unfair target.
Of course Calbear monumental ego did not helped. At least here we can mention that without being at risk of being banned just because we criticized a sacred cow.
Meh.
In a less resentful tone - dystopia for the sake of dystopia is boring.
Of course Calbear monumental ego did not helped. At least here we can mention that without being at risk of being banned just because we criticized a sacred cow.
Meh.
In a less resentful tone - dystopia for the sake of dystopia is boring.
Could you not just avoid the resentful tone entirely?
It's a shame when this happens and it is unfortunately rather pervasive (although I do think this thread is a bit more measured, the "least favourite" distinction arguably helps) when it comes to negative reviews of AH. Going after easy targets generally puts me off but what I find particularly grating is that the easy targets are often the ones involving someone writing their first TL, people who are often rather young and whose efforts may be terrible but might improve some day if given some positive support, when instead you get a bunch of people making fun of their effort to the extent it becomes a weird sort of self-validation. "By the way, it is Kennedy" was the most egregious example IMO.
The problem isn't the same for AH in popular media as those producing the content are usually established artists/developers/writers before a foray into AH and don't have to really care about what people think of them in a relatively niche community but, that said, we can be a bit gatekeep-y. As you say, the limits of what people will take in popular media is limited and the more obscure the genre the more dumbed down it's going to come across for AH enthusiasts. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing to talk about, the way that capital smothers artistic expression is a serious issue, but that doesn't mean there's some sort of conspiracy to subvert AH in popular media either, it just means that people still haven't had enough of talking about Nazis winning the war.
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- Albany, NY
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- She/Her
I'm just going to come out and say, even disliking the work and having had a very rough time with Calbear on the Other Place, please don't think for a moment I agree with this sentiment or "Me too" onto my comment.Of course Calbear monumental ego did not helped. At least here we can mention that without being at risk of being banned just because we criticized a sacred cow.
Meh.
In a less resentful tone - dystopia for the sake of dystopia is boring.
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What happened there?
To me the key here is least favourite - and like if we said it about beer/ale it's in the eye of the beer-holder. Some writing is not very good*, some is wish-fulfillment** but beyond that it is often about what you actually enjoy (duh):
Ultimately what I enjoy is about tickles my cockles, not yours...
*I will bookmark this for when I finally write at least a vignette
** One reason I haven't written up my head-story of routing mercenaries on Biyogo
***Hence some of the comments on the original thread
- Agent Lavender tended to do well with people on the PMQs thread because (apart from being well-written) it covered historical (and current) figures the people knew - if the only person you'd heard of in the story was Gerald Ford, then it wouldn't have been so enjoyable ***
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appeals to me in the same way, plus wish fulfillment with the fate of Thatcher
- I haven't read Festung, but from comments above it appears to be more appealing to those who enjoy the mechanics of military history rather than the characters?
- What If is more about the mechanics (often military) of the PODs than the actual AH that follows, but if you enjoy that it's a good read
- High Aztech is surreal, plus third world dominant wish-fulfillment - if you don't enjoy surreal stuff then don't even open it
- I struggle with the Scandinavian timelines because my ignorance interferes with my enjoyment - I spend more time on Wikipedia than on the timeline
Ultimately what I enjoy is about tickles my cockles, not yours...
*I will bookmark this for when I finally write at least a vignette
** One reason I haven't written up my head-story of routing mercenaries on Biyogo
***Hence some of the comments on the original thread
whatever, all the "cult" by members around what amounted to a dry and boring story was rather annoying. A lot of it related to the author status as forum founder and moderator - some kind of rampant servility... sickening. And the author did nothing against that of course.
- Pronouns
- he/him
The author's also published over here, so even if you don't like the story or some of its fans @Archibald, it surely wouldn't hurt to be a little civil.
Some of the cultural ones on AH could get a bit "here's how the guy I didn't like sucks more/the stuff I like could happen earlier and be EVEN BETTER". That got a bit too fannish, less an alternate history and more like forum essays about How I Would Fix Spider-Man - and sometimes I'd like an essay like that, so I'm not criticising the approach, just that calling it an alternate history & not If I Did A Blakes' 7 Series 5 rubs me the wrong way.
In "this person got paid for that" territory, there's Dominic Sandbrooks' "what if" essays in the Mail and New Statesman. Where he twice has it that if former Pilot Officer Tony Benn was Labour leader after the Falklands, he'd show up at the bloody Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday wearing CND badges and an Argentine flag one. What.
And in book form, Turtledove's Ruled Britannia is a book I half-enjoyed but you could surely cut a quarter from it. The fake Shakespeare plays that use slightly rewritten real Shakespeare quotes is a gimmick you have to do if you're doing an AH Shakespeare, you're not going to try making a whole new one up and pretending you're the bard, but it did get a bit wonky at times.
The much missed Carlos Ezquerra once joked about getting a huge amount of period tank details to draw from Garth Ennis and having to gently remind him "I don't know what half this is, Garth."
In "this person got paid for that" territory, there's Dominic Sandbrooks' "what if" essays in the Mail and New Statesman. Where he twice has it that if former Pilot Officer Tony Benn was Labour leader after the Falklands, he'd show up at the bloody Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday wearing CND badges and an Argentine flag one. What.
And in book form, Turtledove's Ruled Britannia is a book I half-enjoyed but you could surely cut a quarter from it. The fake Shakespeare plays that use slightly rewritten real Shakespeare quotes is a gimmick you have to do if you're doing an AH Shakespeare, you're not going to try making a whole new one up and pretending you're the bard, but it did get a bit wonky at times.
The much missed Carlos Ezquerra once joked about getting a huge amount of period tank details to draw from Garth Ennis and having to gently remind him "I don't know what half this is, Garth."
Tovarich
a sinking dumpling. He/Him.
- Location
- Norwich North, UK
I really enjoyed AANW. I usually find AH military history impenetrable, because I don't have the appropriate background knowledge, but that one was a real page-turner for me.
I could even forget the butterfly-murders allowing the RAF V-Bombers to exist (warplanes being the only relevant area where I have some slight knowledge) precisely because that helped accessibility.
Although thinking about it, I read that WWIII by Hackett in one go when it first came out, and I wouldn't have expected to enjoy that at all.
Heh, maybe it's more that I am an outlier rather than either of those books.
I could even forget the butterfly-murders allowing the RAF V-Bombers to exist (warplanes being the only relevant area where I have some slight knowledge) precisely because that helped accessibility.
Although thinking about it, I read that WWIII by Hackett in one go when it first came out, and I wouldn't have expected to enjoy that at all.
Heh, maybe it's more that I am an outlier rather than either of those books.