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Least favorite alt-history story?

The Red said:
The comparison to NDCR isn't fair.
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This. Even if you have the most jaded perspective against Rumsfeldia it's not fair to put it on the same level of NDCR. At the very least Drew is an engaging writer, despite logical flaws and inconsistencies, and he can at least create an entertaining narrative. I've never even gotten anything close to that impression from NDCR.
 
I said specifically btw how the timeline executes Rumsfeld's characterisation is NDCR-level stuff, and having reviewed the evidence, I'd fully stand by that. Just as NDCR basically uses a historical name and then writes a wholly fictional characterisation emerging out of nowhere, that's pretty much what you get with both Rumsfeld's politics and persona. When you're foundationally basing one half of your entire oeuvre and its focus around this approach, it's not exactly easy for me to just put it to one side and focus on China or whatever. Rumsfeld being an Objectivist-Fascist psycho out of nowhere obviously isn't going to rouse people's indignation as much as Mandela getting in bed with Apartheid, but it's from the same broad stable of poor writing quality.
 
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Matt said:
To be fair, I thought he died during during the Spike TV Video Game Awards Presidential Bachelor Party part of his presidency.
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In all seriousness I'm at least glad he is alive. I hope he's at least happy. Not politically but in his personal life. That opening and closing lines on his Amazon Page doesn't give me much hope.
 
Heavy said:
The worst alternate histories are those which are all plot and no story. Most Wikibox TLs are like this. Unfortunately it's the predominant style of writing alternate history online.
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Who do you think are the worst offenders of this?
 
Yokai Man said:
Who do you think are the worst offenders of this?
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Anything that's just a sequence of events, really. That's why I mentioned Wikibox TLs, because that's what they often end up being. There's more to spinning a tale than setting out the sequence of events: that's the plot, but if you don't have a story, you have nothing, and the story arises from the characters, the interactions, the themes, the ideas and the concepts it explores, the author's voice etc.

I realised that this was how I wrote my few contributions to alternate history writing and concomitantly realised that I was incapable of producing anything better, which is why I haven't written anything else. I can't tell a story; I can only describe things, and in my eyes that is worthless writing.
 
Heavy said:
Anything that's just a sequence of events, really. That's why I mentioned Wikibox TLs, because that's what they often end up being. There's more to spinning a tale than setting out the sequence of events: that's the plot, but if you don't have a story, you have nothing, and the story arises from the characters, the interactions, the themes, the ideas and the concepts it explores, the author's voice etc.

I realised that this was how I wrote my few contributions to alternate history writing and concomitantly realised that I was incapable of producing anything better, which is why I haven't written anything else. I can't tell a story; I can only describe things, and in my eyes that is worthless writing.
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Would say that Gonzo is exempt from this or that he is part of the problem?If the latter,is it wrong that I like his work?
 
Heavy said:
The worst alternate histories are those which are all plot and no story. Most Wikibox TLs are like this. Unfortunately it's the predominant style of writing alternate history online.
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This is a very good point. It's one thing I've become cognisant of, and when-if I do my next serious timeline, it's something I'm going to work in. Too many people just wander when they write. For me a timeline should be interesting and informative, but it should also be an entertainment and a pleasure to read, and with a structure to it. Perhaps the most depressing timeline for me is one in which the writer has the knowledge and nous to write about the subject well, but in which they make the timeline basically a limitless infodump.
 
Heavy said:
The worst alternate histories are those which are all plot and no story. Most Wikibox TLs are like this. Unfortunately it's the predominant style of writing alternate history online.
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It's especially worse (and sadly too common) if there's not much detail and/or knowledge of the subject matter. I can tolerate it more (even if I personally don't prefer it) if there is a lot of detail and it seems plausible. But have a lack of detail and it just feels like a lazy shortcut.
 
Heavy said:
If I had the knowledge, I'd really like to write this highly-detailed story about the Weimar Republic and the Nazis just drop in a line somewhere saying, "1935: Hitler finally realises what a piece of shit he is and kills himself. The end."
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I can't actually recall anyone doing anything where Hitler ends up being just That Bloke In The Pub, which is actually the most likely outcome, given he was a complete nobody for the first thirty plus years of his life. He always has to end up as a somebody. The nearest thing I can recall is his fate in Fight and Be Right, and even then he ends up as a famed revolutionary martyr.

Has anyone ever done anything where he just ends up living out his Vienna years of marginal subsistence existence permanently?
 
Yokai Man said:
HOW THE FUCK IS HE A PUBLISHED WRITER

HOW
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This guy's work, The Probability Approach, was actually the first Alternate History work I ever discovered on my own (before even Turtledove or Stirling). The thing that stopped me from reading though was 13 year old me found the POD to be kind of stupid.
 
Elektronaut said:
The whole thing is just one endless sequence of derivative hackery. From Rumsfeldia to FAT to President Ted Bundy to probably lots of weird Alt Right fantasy tropes I'm and we're not aware of. The copypasta'ing was actually directly invoked by the author to support the plausibility of it at some points. It's why I'm trying to be scrupulous about how Rumsfeldia is pretty awful as well but from the other wing of political tendentiousness.
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Rumsfeldia is an awful political screed, but well-written with gems shining in the sewage of even the most awful parts.

The Queen Nixon series is well, just awful. The Congressman's writing is dull, plodding, and unengaging, which only highlights the improbability of what happens, and the petty spite that seems to fuel it.

And its fans are terrible, so their "expansion" of the TL gets you things like Pinochet dying while pushing a "communist" out of an airplane.

...

Yeah.
 
Space Oddity said:
Rumsfeldia is an awful political screed, but well-written with gems shining in the sewage of even the most awful parts.
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I suppose it depends on what you mean by "well-written". It's like describing an otherwise bad movie as "well-shot". I think that's a bit mealy-mouthed as criticism goes, because it turns something which honestly ought to be a baseline into something that's somehow exceptionally praiseworthy.

I'm probably being horribly unfair. I've read and enjoyed plenty of professionally-published fiction which I'd say have inferior prose. Maybe it is another factor comparable to the balance between story and plot that I mentioned earlier. It's certainly something I have to think about.
 
Elektronaut said:
Paul your reply prompted me to make absolutely sure I knew what I was talking about, so I went back and re-read parts of Gumbo, and honestly Rumsfeld's development is even weaker than I thought when I was writing above, and I can see why I felt your reply at first viewing was a bit headcanon-ish.

There's basically no reason given that I can see for why Rumsfeld becomes, eh, whatever it is he becomes politically in the timeline, and certainly no psychological prep or anything. No, I think you're meant to believe that the Rumsfeld of the timeline is more or less the unvarnished OTL Rumsfeld. It's clear in linking him, Cheney, Bork et al to Agnew as soon as Agnew comes to power that you're meant to believe these are immediately The Bad Guys. It's also worth noting that it's clear from the portrayals of side-characters like eg Bork that Drew regards so much of the US right as basically chomping at the bit of crypto-extremism. There's not a hell of a lot of nuance.

Rumsfeld's political revival isn't well-detailed either because he's apparently having troubles distancing himself from Agnew - reasonable, considering the taint of even OTL Nixon finished off or nearly finished off several careers - one minute and then he's governor of Illinois the next. You could forgive this if it was a C-tier character but given it's the main focus of the second part of the timeline it's not good.
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I probably am filling in the gaps a bit although I do still think it’s clear that there is some build-up for what Rumsfeld becomes, even if more development would have been better.

Although it’s true there’s attacks aplenty on certain elements of the US right I wouldn’t describe it as a uniform demonisation, Ron ends up as a major figure in the overseas opposition when you’d think he’d be one of the main targets if this was the case. There’s also the rather unique way Wallace is handled which jerks from negative to broadly positive and then back and forth which isn’t what you might expect from a TL which is overbearingly lefty or liberal.
 
Heavy said:
I suppose it depends on what you mean by "well-written". It's like describing an otherwise bad movie as "well-shot". I think that's a bit mealy-mouthed as criticism goes, because it turns something which honestly ought to be a baseline into something that's somehow exceptionally praiseworthy.

I'm probably being horribly unfair. I've read and enjoyed plenty of professionally-published fiction which I'd say have inferior prose. Maybe it is another factor comparable to the balance between story and plot that I mentioned earlier. It's certainly something I have to think about.
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I'd say it's fair to give even the worst work credit where credit is due. William Lind's Victoria, for instance, actually has a few decently-written passages and its pacing is smooth, certainly smoother than some other (and otherwise far better and far less creepy) books. Compare this with say, Tom Kratman and his clunkfests (his first book had to be broken into two giant volumes because it was too big to print as a paperback and I was able to skip a full-length Carrera novel without missing anything in the overall plot).

Sometimes it makes it disappointing instead of just bad (ie "they can write well, so why are they writing this slop?" . Sometimes, as with Lind and Victoria, that one strength amplifies the rest of the issues (ie, you get this constant parade of crazy as opposed to having to wallow through five inane chapters to find one crazy one). And sometimes, especially in stories that don't have any political baggage, it can just be a redeeming quality in an otherwise dubious tale.
 
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