Least favorite alt-history story?

[Coiler]

We get people and whole countries punted through time; how about random areas that include a chunk of country A, a slice of country B, and a big ship from country X?

You just basically described Kirov, which will have a nuke from the 1950s, a 2010s armored brigade, and the titular missile cruiser all in one place.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

I have read it. Well, the first 100 or so pages of it.

I don't know which is worse, the god-awful writing or the fact that it is basically a paean of praise to the titular character.

Jesus wept.

Chris

 

[David Flin]

Jesus wept.

Chris

It is not a book that I would recommend.

 

[Talwar]

You just basically described Kirov, which will have a nuke from the 1950s, a 2010s armored brigade, and the titular missile cruiser all in one place.

Maybe I shouldn't have said "random". An example of what I mean might be 1998 Corsica, Sardinia and some foreign ships that happen to be close by; or a chunk of 2018 Mongolia with slices of Russia and China.

Basically a non-specific circle cut out of the Earth, not conforming to human boundaries.

 

[Geordie]

Maybe I shouldn't have said "random". An example of what I mean might be 1998 Corsica, Sardinia and some foreign ships that happen to be close by; or a chunk of 2018 Mongolia with slices of Russia and China.

Basically a non-specific circle cut out of the Earth, not conforming to human boundaries.

Something like "the area between 50°N and 55°N, from 22°E to 25°E"?

Note, I haven't looked up the area I've just mentioned, so apologies if this specific example is just open tundra.

 

[Talwar]

Something like "the area between 50°N and 55°N, from 22°E to 25°E"?

Note, I haven't looked up the area I've just mentioned, so apologies if this specific example is just open tundra.

Indeed.

 

[Matt]

I haven't read The Footprint of Mussolini, which is frequently mentioned as a cringe-show. And I no longer doubt it looking at the cover art:

Super Street Fighter II Hyper Fascist Fighting is the strangest of the mid-90s Capcom fighters, but critics do love a good historically accurate throw down on their Super Nintendos and PlayStations.

 

[Skaven]

I have read it. Well, the first 100 or so pages of it.

I don't know which is worse, the god-awful writing or the fact that it is basically a paean of praise to the titular character.

Ah more fool you for tapping out, only another five hundred pages of drek until you'd have gotten to the authors crowning masterpiece, restaging the Nuremberg Trials with the right people in the dock (the perfidious bolsheviks). Drawing any conclusions about the author and his politics from this is violence and slander, btw.

 

[Md139115]

Something like "the area between 50°N and 55°N, from 22°E to 25°E"?

Note, I haven't looked up the area I've just mentioned, so apologies if this specific example is just open tundra.

Not quite: it’s actually almost the entire border area between Kaliningrad and Poland on the east and Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine on the west, with the contemporary borders running almost right down the center.

Major population centers include Kaunas, Lublin, Grodno, and Brest, but narrowly excluding Lviv.

 

[kratostatic]

We get people and whole countries punted through time; how about random areas that include a chunk of country A, a slice of country B, and a big ship from country X?

There's Arthur C Clarke and Stephen Baxter's Time's Eye where ASBs stitch together a "greatest hits" of human populated Earth with a series of strips of latitude from different times. So you've got Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, a 2030s UN peacekeeping helicopter plus the Soyuz that was orbiting above them having just left an ISS, a UK border guard post on the North East frontier including a young Rudyard Kipling, and 19th century Chicago including Thomas Edison.

 

[David Flin]

Ah more fool you for tapping out, only another five hundred pages of drek until you'd have gotten to the authors crowning masterpiece, restaging the Nuremberg Trials with the right people in the dock (the perfidious bolsheviks). Drawing any conclusions about the author and his politics from this is violence and slander, btw.

The more fool me for tapping out because, if I had reached the end - I would have been paid.

This, however, was a book that even the prospect of being paid to read it wasn't enough to overcome the pain reading it caused me.

 

[Hendryk]

The more fool me for tapping out because, if I had reached the end - I would have been paid.

This, however, was a book that even the prospect of being paid to read it wasn't enough to overcome the pain reading it caused me.

Like NDCR it has very vocal fans at the other place.

 

[David Flin]

Like NDCR it has very vocal fans at the other place.

I am not 100% convinced that said vocal fans at the other place have tastes similar to mine.

 

[Gary Oswald]

I remember discussing The Footprint of Mussolini with @The Red once and saying, I feel bad for Vargas cos he was a fascist dictator who did fight the nazis in otl but is never wanked over by the same people who wank over mussolini doing it.

And paul interrupted me half through that sentence to go 'You feel bad for Vargas!?!?, The Fascist dictator!?!?'.

 

[Ricardolindo]

I remember discussing The Footprint of Mussolini with @The Red once and saying, I feel bad for Vargas cos he was a fascist dictator who did fight the nazis in otl but is never wanked over by the same people who wank over mussolini doing it.

And paul interrupted me half through that sentence to go 'You feel bad for Vargas!?!?, The Fascist dictator!?!?'.

It's pretty debatable whether Vagas was a fascist. He was authoritarian and nationalist but that doesn't make him a fascist. When he became President of Brazil again in 1951, he was a member of centre-left party.

 

[Warthog]

Not quite: it’s actually almost the entire border area between Kaliningrad and Poland on the east and Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine on the west, with the contemporary borders running almost right down the center.

Major population centers include Kaunas, Lublin, Grodno, and Brest, but narrowly excluding Lviv.

Would be an interesting ISOT, especially now

 

[Md139115]

Would be an interesting ISOT, especially now

Oh absolutely.

 

[Warthog]

I haven't read The Footprint of Mussolini, which is frequently mentioned as a cringe-show. And I no longer doubt it looking at the cover art:

I have read it. Well, the first 100 or so pages of it.

I don't know which is worse, the god-awful writing or the fact that it is basically a paean of praise to the titular character.

So this and the other work by the same author that has a big following on the other place are published on Amazon, who told me this for some reason. When I followed the link out of morbid curiosity there was this

 

[David Flin]

So this and the other work by the same author that has a big following on the other place are published on Amazon, who told me this for some reason. When I followed the link out of morbid curiosity there was this

My view is that the boom in self-publishing has magnified Sturgeon's Law dramatically. Sturgeon's 90% easily tops 99% with regard to self-published titles.

 

[Jared]

My view is that the boom in self-publishing has magnified Sturgeon's Law dramatically. Sturgeon's 90% easily tops 99% with regard to self-published titles.

Many self-published titles are dross, for many reasons, though the single biggest flaw in them I've seen is that so many don't seem to have troubled themselves to find a proofreader - or even just got someone else to read over their work - before hitting the publish button. I certainly don't expect any book to be flawless in grammar and spelling - even traditionally published titles have errors, and they usually go through several rounds of editing and proofing. But a typo per paragraph, sometimes per sentence, gets a bit much.