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Recent content by Alexander Rooksmoor

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    The Grand Colonel Effect

    Advance Towelmaster ... and be recognised.
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    The Grand Colonel Effect

    Fascinating read as I am currently writing a novel featuring Imperial Russian ranks. There is a Shtabs-kapitan which equates to Captain in many armies and then a Kapitan, the next rank up. At times Russia had a rank of Maior but in the period I am writing about Kapitan is a major. To try to give...
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    Fiction Friction: Beloved Characters That Nearly Weren't

    Ah, you see I only send off to publishers once I have completed the book, so by then there are no surprises for me or the publisher, though it does not mean they will not ask for alterations. They seem particularly ambivalent about what they feel is excessive/inadequate world building.
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    Fiction Friction: Beloved Characters That Nearly Weren't

    David, that is very interesting, thank you for sharing. I have always evolved my work and while sales have not been phenomenal, they have been decent, especially back in the mid-2010s, so I did not feel a need to change my approach. On one hand I do like the unpredictability of characters...
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    Fiction Friction: Beloved Characters That Nearly Weren't

    More of a general point, as an evolver writer (aka pantser) I wonder if writers like me are more liable to create characters as they are needed or augment them beyond their original purpose, than plotter writers. Thus, if we know if an author is an evolver than we could expect this more.
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    Writing AH. Anachronisms Part 5: Fly Me to the Moon

    As a writer it does make you think of how different Earth cultures would be if we had more moons. Seeing this: https://www.space.com/new-moons-discovered-uranus-neptune now Neptune is seen to have (at least) 16 and Uranus 28, how a larger number would have been viewed from Earth. We might not...
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    Non-SLP Writing Opportunities

    Interesting the focus of 'It Takes A Village'. Back in the 2000s I worked for a large organisation that did encourage people to undertake community activities during working hours. I opted to go to a local primary school, along with other male colleagues, for two hours once per week to hear boys...
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    Queen Victoria dies in 1835

    The interesting thing for me has always been if King George V (or indeed any of the male candidates) whether the British reaction to Bismarck before and in 1866 would have been different. Han ( n )over was entirely assimilated into Prussia after the 1866 war. Maybe King George would have yielded...
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    Queen Victoria dies in 1835

    Prince George of Cumberland was entirely blind by 1838. It would be interesting the impact on disabled people in the UK and Hanover if those countries had a blind King from 1851.
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    This website is banned in Malaysia

    Is this connected with the PRC's banning of time travel/alternate history media? Is that cultural attitude spreading in East Asia?
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    Alternate History General Discussion

    Has anyone yet read: The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History: A Handbook on Craft, Art, and History by Jack Dann? It came out in August (2023). It has a 3* rating on English-language Amazon off the back of just 1 review. I know Dann has written a lot, but even so the synopsis does come...
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    Book Nook: In the Presence of Mine Enemies

    Yes, the 'mundane' evil is often the worst. There is an interesting bit in Schindler's List (1993) after Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) looks to try to convince the camp commandant Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes) that there is power in not taking a life. However, Goeth is unconvinced as we see when he...
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    Book Nook: In the Presence of Mine Enemies

    I think this is a challenge for AH authors and one I have reflected upon more as I have aged and found that the divergence in the culture now often interests me more than different maps or different victors in a battle. It can be a real challenge to say 'look here is this different culture...
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    Alternate History General Discussion

    Dominion (2012) by C.J. Sansom unfortunately making some basic errors and anachronisms, and especially becomes unnecessarily obsessed with Sansom's strong opposition to Scottish nationalism. However, follows the hoary chestnut of Halifax rather than Churchill becoming PM in May 1940 and Britain...
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    Alternate History General Discussion

    Have a look at The Separation (2002) by Christopher Priest. It encompasses two parallel stories each seen through the eyes of one of a pair of twins. In one of these strands a peace treaty is negotiated in 1941 in which Hess is involved for the German side. It has been twenty years since I read...
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