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Alternate History General Discussion

On a semi-related note, I've found that both outright World War IIIs and Larry Bond-style "big war thriller" novels in general almost always have to be either around World War II or contemporary in some fashion to attract any kind of mainstream audience whatsoever.

Walt Gragg's The Red Line is what I've brought up a lot of times before as my go-to example with its clumsily shoehorning a Cold War gone hot into a "contemporary" setting. It's fairly easy to make a missile-age war a contemporary one, particularly if you know the audience won't mind/will overlook the technical inaccuracies.
 
I remember reading a t.l. j.f.k lives everly president that succeeded j.f.k. was a realistic possibility then almost towards the end Elvis Presley becomes president of the united states.
If Reagan a actor can become president, why not Elvis.
 
One of my divergences has Alien being made in the TL under its original working title, Starbeast, and (as could easily have happened) being just a throwaway monster movie. Giger didn't participate in making the (much less memorable) monster because he was too busy designing the interior of a bizarre Atlantic City casino[1].

[1]One of my Smithtown concepts was setting the thriller inside such a weird casino, and I still want to use that location for something. How could you not?
 
One of my divergences has Alien being made in the TL under its original working title, Starbeast, and (as could easily have happened) being just a throwaway monster movie. Giger didn't participate in making the (much less memorable) monster because he was too busy designing the interior of a bizarre Atlantic City casino[1].

[1]One of my Smithtown concepts was setting the thriller inside such a weird casino, and I still want to use that location for something. How could you not?
Only partially related but I see the original draft of Alien being set in a universe where Eric Varley or Peter Shore becomes Prime Minister and after leaving the EEC a trade deal between Britain and Japan eventually leads to the merger of Leyland and Toyota.
 
A weird sports example of "how the pop-culture Great Man Decision comes apart when the more complex truth involving wider economic factors is shown" comes from the sale of Babe Ruth. The story of "Frazee wanted to do a play, so he tossed Ruth to the Yankees, cue mega-title drought[1]" is misleading. As this article shows, the owner had legitimate money problems and Ruth wasn't the only player he sold/traded off in that way. The bulk of the first Yankees championship team in 1923 was made up of ex-Red Sox.


[1]Of course, that narrative would also have been stopped if the Red Sox had actually won any of their four World Series that went the distance..
 
Re-reading the (only slightly AH) essay in What If? about the Kokoda Trail campaign, I was reminded of this work, and was wondering if anyone had recommendations for or against it, as well as on any other works dealing with Australia/Oceania in WWII or in general.

I mean, I would remiss at this point to not point you to Sea Lion Press's anthology of AH stories about Australia, though the only story set in wwII is set in europe.
 
A lot of Axis victory settings have the Germans and Japanese falling out, with their alliance being one of convenience that gives way to rivalry postwar. It's one of those things where you can see varying sensible reasons. Genuine plausibility (at the very least you can easily see it happening), the opportunity for more storyline drama, and paralleling the Soviet-western split that started the Cold War.
 
I remember @Skinny87 reviewing a book where Nazi/Japan split is the backdrop to z "travel in time to change WW2" story (so the protagonists are themselves nasty bastards)

oh god that was a rough one - no good guys to root for at all, and unrelentingly grim. Well-written, but not something to read lightly
 
Has anyone ever heard of the timeline An Age of Miracles? It’s practically one of the gold standard stories about a resurgent Byzantine Empire. I really like it, but I feel somewhat uncomfortable in that it seems kind of pro-imperialist and the reader base seems to cheer on them conquering large swathes of land.
 
Has anyone ever heard of the timeline An Age of Miracles? It’s practically one of the gold standard stories about a resurgent Byzantine Empire. I really like it, but I feel somewhat uncomfortable in that it seems kind of pro-imperialist and the reader base seems to cheer on them conquering large swathes of land.

One of the first timelines I read.

It's basically mary sue fanfiction with byzantine being the prettiest coolest girl to ever live and getting to dunk on all the canon empires.

But you know that's what people reading a story about a resurgent Byzantine Empire want. It knows its audience.
 
One of the first timelines I read.

It's basically mary sue fanfiction with byzantine being the prettiest coolest girl to ever live and getting to dunk on all the canon empires.

But you know that's what people reading a story about a resurgent Byzantine Empire want. It knows its audience.
I do feel that there is kind of a double standard sometimes, but it doesn't seem to shy away from depicting the atrocities of empires. I mean, the author himself has stated many times about his absolute hatred of the British Empire after reading so much about them, depicting the Triune Kingdom, which is a combination of Ireland, Northern France and England into one nation, as the bad guys, so I guess it doesn't mindlessly glorify empires.
 
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