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Alternate History General Discussion

I can't help thinking of the way that most (US-made and US-financed) sci-fi films featuring 'alien invasions' or 'monsters on the rampage' or 'robots from the future on a killer mission' seems to imagine that the 'outside threats' are bound to concentrate their targets on the US, and usually on California rather than Washington and New York- preferably near the film-companies' bases around LA or San Francisco. So that shooting the film is cheaper and the Californian teenage audience feel that it's all more relevant to them? Trying out a film set somewhere else on the planet would be a change: put plausibility or experimenting with something new ahead of the revenue statistics for once.

To be fair, the greater the gap between the actors and the viewers, the harder it can be to draw attention.

Chris
 
But I will end this post on a brighter note and will say that I find it very heartening that more SLP and stuff like @MAC161 's independent AH has gone more to the Axis/Confederate victory well and has been well-received instead of shouted down with "NO THIS IS IMPLAUSIBLE AND OVERDONE!"

Ah, but of course here's one of the few places where Axis/Confed victories are not overdone AH (and different things are the stereotype)
 
Ah, but of course here's one of the few places where Axis/Confed victories are not overdone AH (and different things are the stereotype)

Is this actually true, though? I reckon if you were to count up all the sea lion press books/timelines/vignettes axis victory would still be the most used single scenario with confed victory as 2nd.

In vignettes in particular it has an advantage of being immediately understandable when you don't have a huge amount of room for exposition.
 
I will say, if we ever have more Axis Victory stuff I would hope there like It Happened Here, which feels almost like a reaction to those generic ‘And then Hitler did Sealion and WoN’ stories and ends with Britain being liberated by a combined American-Free British-Communist Partisans.
 
I will say, if we ever have more Axis Victory stuff I would hope there like It Happened Here, which feels almost like a reaction to those generic ‘And then Hitler did Sealion and WoN’ stories and ends with Britain being liberated by a combined American-Free British-Communist Partisans.

Meet the New Boss by @Meadow is about a post war soviet dominated britain based on the idea that if the UK fell, that just means a red europe when Barbarossa happens and fails. Powell and various other troops from India fight with the soviet as the free british army and cross the channel after taking Berlin.

It's one of many axis 'victory' books we've done, but yes in most of them the axis powers are more successful but still lose overall. The flipside of that one would be Festung Europa where the soviets lose and then the Americans and Brits nuke Europe into the stone age. Even Drakes Drum has a more successful germany in ww2, though they're not winning overall.

Some of it is a full out victory but even 'In and out of the reich' is about what a decaying broken nazi europe will look like after decades of misrule by genocidal maniacs.

Like I said, we've published a ton of nazis doing better stuff. It's just it's 20% of our content rather than 90% and that in itself is notable.
 
Is this actually true, though? I reckon if you were to count up all the sea lion press books/timelines/vignettes axis victory would still be the most used single scenario with confed victory as 2nd.

Double-checking the books, we've got:

- One where the Germans took over Britain but still lose to the Red Army (as backstory)

- Three (two in the same series) where the Germans win on the continent but a few years later, Britain and America go to war again and win

- One where the Nazis have outright won and own America

- One where Britain's occupied in the 50s

- One where they rule Europe

and two Confederate victories, one 19th century and one early 20th. This is a massive difference to what's also on the market. (You're right the vignettes and timelines do it more)
 
Double-checking the books, we've got:

- One where the Germans took over Britain but still lose to the Red Army (as backstory)

- Three (two in the same series) where the Germans win on the continent but a few years later, Britain and America go to war again and win

- One where the Nazis have outright won and own America

- One where Britain's occupied in the 50s

- One where they rule Europe

and two Confederate victories, one 19th century and one early 20th. This is a massive difference to what's also on the market. (You're right the vignettes and timelines do it more)

7 almost certainly makes it the single most used scenario as most books have a unique scenario but fair play, thats less than I thought.
 
Seriously, how many times are people going to say: "What about this neat idea" when I've got a book right there, in print, doing exactly that thing?

I know I'm not the most popular person on this forum (he said, with understatement), but this is starting to get silly.

Just reading it - I was thinking something larger, but never mind.
 
I will say, if we ever have more Axis Victory stuff I would hope there like It Happened Here, which feels almost like a reaction to those generic ‘And then Hitler did Sealion and WoN’ stories and ends with Britain being liberated by a combined American-Free British-Communist Partisans.

That would be fun - US invasion of Britain in 1943, rather than North Africa, and Europe in 1945? Or nukes ending the war instead?

Chris
 
So re: this larger discussion.

Axis of the Andes by D.G. Valdron has just come out and I bought and read it, as I really liked that timeline. First of all, it's part 1 of a two part series so it isn't a complete story, something that isn't mentioned anywhere and is worth noting.

But I remain taken by the ambition and imagination of the premise (massive war in latin america breaks out in 1940 when the rest of the world is too distracted to do anything about it).

It very much shows the good side to the amateur AH community. Imaginative premises, genuine historical knowledge about more obscure areas of the world and the audacity to create genuinely new things (anyone who remembers the ending of the timeline will know it's not afraid to really mix things up).

And Valdron can write, he creates vivid characters, has a keen eye for dialogue and has a strong narrative voice. He also knows what he's talking about the research is palpable.

But that's kind of the problem. There is a narrative here but it's like 20% of the book, the other 80% is the writer explaining his workings. It reminds me of the worst kind of old school sci-fi where the writer is desperate to get ahead of criticism by spending 10 pages showing how his engine could work and honestly, I'm just happy to assume it does.

There is something just quite weird about a narrative scene, followed by the writer going 'so you may wonder if this is plausible, but given what happened in otl at this date and this date it is', it comes off as insecure frankly, something written by someone who has been nitpicked to death. And thus shows the bad side of these writing communities.

Like around about 40% of this book is just valdron talking about otl south American history, and he's a witty historian, it's interesting, I like reading history books. But you'd wish that he'd tried to get that background into the narrative instead.

It's a narrative story which has no faith in its narrative and constantly falls back to essay writing instead. And again Valdron's a good essay writer as well as a good writer of dialogue but it's a book that's neither one thing or the other, it's not a story and its not really an essay.

It feels like two very good books awkwardly stitched together into a book that's not quite as good as either a full on pulp mens war story about the Ecuadorian army or a full on faux historical book would be.
 
I will say, if we ever have more Axis Victory stuff I would hope there like It Happened Here, which feels almost like a reaction to those generic ‘And then Hitler did Sealion and WoN’ stories and ends with Britain being liberated by a combined American-Free British-Communist Partisans.

I've wanted to do semi serious sims of an American/Canadian/Free British counter-invasion of the British Isles.
 
It very much shows the good side to the amateur AH community. Imaginative premises, genuine historical knowledge about more obscure areas of the world and the audacity to create genuinely new things (anyone who remembers the ending of the timeline will know it's not afraid to really mix things up).

That is one of the strengths of AH being a niche-within-niche and full of dorks going "seen it", there's a lot of very odd little stuff nobody else would think about. Like, Three Days in Yangon, "so what about a noir story about tough detectives from the wrong side of town in an alternate 19th century Myanmar that's undergoing industrial reform and also the main religion is Lovecraft"; or Walking Through Dreams, "here's a massive history book where different plants meant the aboriginals had developed a very different civilisation(s) when Europe arrived"; Alternate Tastes of London, "so how does everyone eat in these worlds"; Who Will Speak For England, kitchen-sink lesbian drama and romance for English Parliament staffers with the shadow of the far-right growing like a fungus.
 
That is one of the strengths of AH being a niche-within-niche and full of dorks going "seen it", there's a lot of very odd little stuff nobody else would think about. Like, Three Days in Yangon, "so what about a noir story about tough detectives from the wrong side of town in an alternate 19th century Myanmar that's undergoing industrial reform and also the main religion is Lovecraft"

wait what

why does no-one tell the resident horror Reviewer these things?
 
I think one of the weaknesses of the "just lists" style is that it makes it hard to distinguish between what is the result of good research and what isn't. I guess my example is a sports one (since those are the absolute most vulnerable to trinketization), where I have a World Cup final and results.

Say the score is Mexico 1 Italy 0, and all you get is a wikibox.

It's basically impossible to tell just from that if the writer went...

"Ok, I want the final between a perennial contender and a country that's a longshot, but not TOO big of one. The former-Italy. The latter, let's see, lets look at past results and futures odds, a-ha, Mexico, who was a 60-1 underdog last time. Now I want the underdog to win without overtime or penalty kicks, but I don't want it to be a blowout, so I'll make the score 1-0 and have the one goal be something of a lucky fluke."

Or:

"Let me look at the wiki entry for the last World Cup, and I'll just grab Mexico and Italy, and make the score 1-0 because that's a common score."

(Hope this makes sense)
 
I think one of the weaknesses of the "just lists" style is that it makes it hard to distinguish between what is the result of good research and what isn't. I guess my example is a sports one (since those are the absolute most vulnerable to trinketization), where I have a World Cup final and results.

Say the score is Mexico 1 Italy 0, and all you get is a wikibox.

It's basically impossible to tell just from that if the writer went...

"Ok, I want the final between a perennial contender and a country that's a longshot, but not TOO big of one. The former-Italy. The latter, let's see, lets look at past results and futures odds, a-ha, Mexico, who was a 60-1 underdog last time. Now I want the underdog to win without overtime or penalty kicks, but I don't want it to be a blowout, so I'll make the score 1-0 and have the one goal be something of a lucky fluke."

Or:

"Let me look at the wiki entry for the last World Cup, and I'll just grab Mexico and Italy, and make the score 1-0 because that's a common score."

(Hope this makes sense)

Like i don't hate wikiboxes per say but wouldn't an alt sports history thing be better served with like a narrative? like writing about the players in the match or a fan watching it.
 
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