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Fight and Be Right

Fight and Be Right would be interesting for a Post Mortem at some point, because I think a lot of the good stuff from Online Alternate History can find it’s origin points there.
Iirc, even the idea that the tale would stop, as there was nothing more to be told, rather than going to the present day, was relatively revolutionary.
 
Iirc, even the idea that the tale would stop, as there was nothing more to be told, rather than going to the present day, was relatively revolutionary.
Not particularly. Other timelines had announced stops before the present day, including my own Decades of Darkness. It's been long enough that I don't rightly recall whether DoD actually finished before FabR, but its nominated end-point was announced years before that, and DoD wasn't the first timeline to do so either.
 
Not particularly. Other timelines had announced stops before the present day, including my own Decades of Darkness. It's been long enough that I don't rightly recall whether DoD actually finished before FabR, but its nominated end-point was announced years before that, and DoD wasn't the first timeline to do so either.
It seems that I did not, in fact, recall correctly. I wonder where I got that idea from?
 
It comes down to whether you're interested in depicting an alternate present as a setting or not. I generally subscribe to that view because I was influenced by Tony Jones, who was mainly developing backgrounds for RPG settings - the alternate present is the whole point of the exercise, and the question is how much detail you choose to put into the historical background.

Ed by contrast was more interested in looking at the immediate consequences of different historical decisions as a drama in themselves, giving an epilogue fifty years later to suggest the ballooning corrolaries impacting from that, and then leave it there; he argued that going further takes you into a realm closer to fantasy, as the world is so different it's no longer 'history, but'. I agree with this, but feel that's paradoxically the most interesting part; a setting which is so radically different to ours, yet places and references to history and culture beyond a certain point are recognisable to us, so it's not like a fantasy world lacking any connection to us at all. In fact it's arguably the opposite of allegorical fantasy.
 
I was just pondering, it’s interesting to point out how a lot of the points brought up in the book are now being explored more frequently, hell the fact that Syndicalism becomes the Dominant Authoritarian Socialist ideology is a good example what with Kaiserreich and all that.

In many ways, Fight and Be Right feels like a precursor to some of the later Alternate History stories and all that.
 
Ed by contrast was more interested in looking at the immediate consequences of different historical decisions as a drama in themselves, giving an epilogue fifty years later to suggest the ballooning corrolaries impacting from that, and then leave it there; he argued that going further takes you into a realm closer to fantasy, as the world is so different it's no longer 'history, but'. I agree with this, but feel that's paradoxically the most interesting part; a setting which is so radically different to ours, yet places and references to history and culture beyond a certain point are recognisable to us, so it's not like a fantasy world lacking any connection to us at all. In fact it's arguably the opposite of allegorical fantasy.

Of course, in EdT's case taking it up to the present would mean you'd gradually lose one of the great charms of his writing- the bizarre plot twist and strange character that a footnote informs you is 'Per OTL.'
 
Of course, in EdT's case taking it up to the present would mean you'd gradually lose one of the great charms of his writing- the bizarre plot twist and strange character that a footnote informs you is 'Per OTL.'
Hah, indeed, we couldn't let a discussion of this go without that!

The weird part was that certain historical "per OTL" quirks of EdT's work became so idiosyncratically associated with it that it felt like you were ripping him off if you featured them in your own work, even if, again, it's OTL. (I remember @Lord Roem 's "Use Your Loaf" having the same incident with a Hindu prince stabbing a footman who kept bringing him beef at (I think) the Golden Jubilee, for example).
 
Of course, in EdT's case taking it up to the present would mean you'd gradually lose one of the great charms of his writing- the bizarre plot twist and strange character that a footnote informs you is 'Per OTL.'

I agree that it’s not always necessary to take a timeline to the present day, but I do think that FaBR should have be taken to 1940 and maybe even that AGB should have been taken to 1976. FaBR was supposed to be longer; the prologue had a reference to Churchill being PM in 1902, and especially if the point of the timeline was to have a Syndicalist Oceania (I think I’ve heard that somewhere) I really do feel like we missed out on a fascinating tale; FaBR just doesn’t feel as complete as say DoD does.

Of course, the fact that A Bloody Man was never finished is rather tragic too, and the same applies to all of the great timelines that were never finished for various reasons.
 
So just finished rereading the book, It’s still excellent and love how Ed Thomas both uses footnotes, appendices and butterflies to make a compelling and freshly inventive world. Realising that due to different circumstances and livelihoods some folks will live longer and go places whilst others will succumb and die is refreshing to see in an environment where often there is a belief that death is an inventible fixed point.

I feel Fight and Be Right has also aged better than A Greater Britain* mainly because Fight and Be Right feels more cautionary than A Greater Britain, as Randolph Churchill’s Populist Nationalist Radical Reformist Coalition is only held together by the man himself and not long afterwards the whole thing falls apart into reaction and demagogues as the last few Radical Reformists are turfed for John Bull types. A Syndicalist revolution does seem like an inevitable outcome in that environment.

The World feels alive and kicking and it’s a shame there’s only the World of Fight and Be Right and that novella that I should try and read at some point. I feel like you could easily do a series of anthology short stories about the World ranging from Oliver Baldwin defecting to South Africa after outliving his usefulness to a Yiddish Policemen’s Union: Down Under etc.


*In hindsight a story about Tony Blairesque Radical Mosley allying with Mussolini to defeat Hitler feels...unfortunate even if the end results present it as a bad thing.
 
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