Alternate History General Discussion

[Japhy]

Can't think of a subject I'd less want him writing about.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

I mean, that's also fair.

 

[Time Enough]

It seems Harry Turtledove took the wrong lessons from the criticism of his sex scenes.

Haha, yeah, I’m here all night folks.

 

[Warthog]

Turtledove’s next book is due out in November.

Henry VIII has even more to answer for in this timeline

 

[Stateless]

I think there could be interesting, if grim, stories written about an earlier jump to humans by HIV. Given the social history of HIV, I think it would need to be done quite sensitively. I haven't read any Turtledove, so I can't say if that's within his wheelhouse. I suspect not.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

I think there could be interesting, if grim, stories written about an earlier jump to humans by HIV. Given the social history of HIV, I think it would need to be done quite sensitively. I haven't read any Turtledove, so I can't say if that's within his wheelhouse. I suspect not.

I'm not sure it would be so easy to detect before modern medicine. HIV isn't the common cold - IIRC, it doesn't manifest in a hurry. Doctors might not know what is really going wrong, at least not at first. They may not recognise the underlying cause of the problem.

 

[Stateless]

I'm not sure it would be so easy to detect before modern medicine. HIV isn't the common cold - IIRC, it doesn't manifest in a hurry. Doctors might not know what is really going wrong, at least not at first. They may not recognise the underlying cause of the problem.

If it was apparent, I think it would be through deaths from pneumonia, with other ADOIs present, particularly clustered in sex workers/those who use sex workers. In the time period of Turteldove's book (1500-1850) they're not going to be able to identify the cause as viral, but clustering around sex workers (and maybe around MSM as per OTL - I don't know enough about homosexual sexual patterns in the period to be able to comment at all) would allow them to connect it to 'degenerate sexual practice', much as was the case with syphilis.

Actually, given the time period, I suspect Turtledove is intending to do something of a find and replace with syphilis and HIV.

 

[Coiler]

Turtledoves not the ideal author for a book with this kind of divergence, but credit to him for going with an out there (by AH standards) concept.

 

[Coiler]

Also the cover shown in the tweet is very much like the minimalist ones of the old classic Sheldon/Wouk/Michener "Pop epics". Which is fitting as Turtledove does often write in that style

 

[Thande]

Turtledove has written about HIV before - the last part of his "A Different Flesh" (Americas inhabited by Homo erectus "sims" and Ice Age animals) has a plot point where people with 90s technology have nonetheless found an effective treatment years earlier than OTL because they were able to experiment on the sims (much closer to Homo sapiens than OTL experiments with chimpanzees), and there's a moral quandary about it and activists gunning for the scientists.

 

[monroe]

"HIV in the 16th century" is maybe one of his more implausible PoDs, aside from the outright magical/extraterrestrial

 

[Japhy]

"HIV in the 16th century" is maybe one of his more implausible PoDs, aside from the outright magical/extraterrestrial

He should have stuck with the magic. House of Daniel was good. This is gross.

 

[monroe]

He should have stuck with the magic. House of Daniel was good. This is gross.

an important thing I think a lot of writers need to ask themselves sometimes is "should I be writing this?" and Turtledove is nothing if not a man who has never asked himself that

 

[Callan]

an important thing I think a lot of writers need to ask themselves sometimes is "should I be writing this?" and Turtledove is nothing if not a man who has never asked himself that

While I think writers should ask themselves questions like this, I’m always leery of the idea that writers should stay in their lane in regards to subject matters. If you’re looking for a reason not to do something you’ll always find one, after all. What I think matters more is how they go about writing it, and not the yes or no answer but what comes after “yes, because-“

Do I think Turtledove of all people is going to write a well-researched, sensitive and illuminating novel on this subject matter? Not holding my breath. Could anyone on a premise like this? Maybe.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

While I think writers should ask themselves questions like this, I’m always leery of the idea that writers should stay in their lane in regards to subject matters. If you’re looking for a reason not to do something you’ll always find one, after all. What I think matters more is how they go about writing it, and not the yes or no answer but what comes after “yes, because-“

Do I think Turtledove of all people is going to write a well-researched, sensitive and illuminating novel on this subject matter? Not holding my breath. Could anyone on a premise like this? Maybe.

I agree - I’m very leery of the idea that authors should “stay in their lane.” It is true that a person in a particular lane would have greater insights than someone looking from the outside, but that doesn’t mean the outsider would necessarily do a bad job and indeed many outsiders would have a degree of dispassion that insiders often lack. It also sets a terrible precedent for restricting the scope of artistic expression - a great deal of fiction is about exploring other lives, often more exciting lives, and a number of great books would vanish if their authors chose to stay in their lanes.

Quite frankly, if someone thinks they can do better … they can try. <grin>.

There’s also the simple fact that someone has to blaze a trail. The person who writes an updated “The Guns of the South” or a book addressing and/or answering issues raised by “Harry Potter” is following in the footsteps of the original author - something they couldn’t do if the original author hadn’t gone first. I think there are many older books that could be updated, and concepts that could be explored in a better way, yet this would be impossible without the original books. If you want to write a version of GOTS in which the AK-47s are given to Frederick Douglass instead, you could do so - but you would still owe a debt to Turtledove.

I can’t say I like the idea of this book, and it isn’t normally the sort of thing I would be interested in reading, but it might lay the groundwork for more interesting works to come.

Chris

 

[monroe]

There’s also the simple fact that someone has to blaze a trail. The person who writes an updated “The Guns of the South” or a book addressing and/or answering issues raised by “Harry Potter” is following in the footsteps of the original author - something they couldn’t do if the original author hadn’t gone first. I think there are many older books that could be updated, and concepts that could be explored in a better way, yet this would be impossible without the original books. If you want to write a version of GOTS in which the AK-47s are given to Frederick Douglass instead, you could do so - but you would still owe a debt to Turtledove.

Guns of the South is a niche out of print novel, and the idea of 'time travelling racists give the Confederates modern weapons to win the war' is not something Turtledove originated, considering the earlier A Rebel in Time, which even itself isn't really the origin of that trope, a trope that is- independent of both of those sources- currently a meme online.

If a work is written explicitly in response to Turtledove, then yes there may be some argument for 'authorial debt', but really no more than Turtledove is 'indebted' to The Marble Man.

 

[monroe]

Also "if someone thinks they can do better … they can try" is just crude and dismissive- it's a gauntlet being thrown about as a way to silence criticism. Consider: people's issue with someone writing an alternate history in which one of the most devastating viral epidemics of the 20th century, which was used by Governments worldwide to eradicate gay populations they deemed undesirables and because they believed that the diseases was some act of god against sodomites, evolves a few centuries earlier isn't because they personally think they could do the premise justice, but because they find it tasteless and exploitative and don't have confidence that the writer can navigate the sensitivity of that topic.

 

[Elektronaut]

I don't think people have to rigidly stay in their lane but there are an awful lot of writers out there who are fuel for thinking otherwise. I suspect this offering by Turtledove is going to fall into that sort of territory.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

Guns of the South is a niche out of print novel, and the idea of 'time travelling racists give the Confederates modern weapons to win the war' is not something Turtledove originated, considering the earlier A Rebel in Time, which even itself isn't really the origin of that trope, a trope that is- independent of both of those sources- currently a meme online.

If a work is written explicitly in response to Turtledove, then yes there may be some argument for 'authorial debt', but really no more than Turtledove is 'indebted' to The Marble Man.

True enough, although my point is that if someone reads GTOS or HP and writes something in response there would be a debt. There's nothing wrong with taking an good idea done (in your opinion) poorly and trying to put your own spin on it, or point out unspoken issues in the text (in a way 'Carry On' does for Harry Potter).

 

[ChrisNuttall]

Also "if someone thinks they can do better … they can try" is just crude and dismissive- it's a gauntlet being thrown about as a way to silence criticism. Consider: people's issue with someone writing an alternate history in which one of the most devastating viral epidemics of the 20th century, which was used by Governments worldwide to eradicate gay populations they deemed undesirables and because they believed that the diseases was some act of god against sodomites, evolves a few centuries earlier isn't because they personally think they could do the premise justice, but because they find it tasteless and exploitative and don't have confidence that the writer can navigate the sensitivity of that topic.

I'm not sure how to respond to this, to be honest.

There's a bit of me that thinks the whole concept is a bad one, for all sorts of reasons. I'm not convinced, like i said above, that anyone would realize HIV/AIDS existed earlier than OTL, if only because medical science wasn't advanced enough to detect it. There's also no way anyone could approach this issue without offending someone - probably a whole lot of someones.

On the other hand, I feel very strongly that a writer who thinks he can do the concept justice shouldn't be discouraged from trying. There's plenty of books I don't read because I don't like the concept - just because they're not my cup of tea doesn't mean someone else won't like them. <shrug>

Chris