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Least favorite alt-history story?

With regards to Reds, Jello did mention that she had, in hindsight, overestimated the FBU's survivability. She said that if she were to do the timeline again from scratch, world war two would just turn into a massive world revolutionary war, making the entire timeline one of conflict until you get world communism in like the 1960s, at which point the timeline ends.

However she didn't want to do that because:
a) she'd already started her timeline
b) it would probably be a very boring timeline because it would just be a series of military campaigns.
c) it let her explore new ideas in a Cold War setting
And also because writing the Utopia that comes afterwards would be both hard and have tendency to relapse into "end of history" rhetoric like Mal@ Rising does
 
And also because writing the Utopia that comes afterwards would be both hard and have tendency to relapse into "end of history" rhetoric like Mal@ Rising does

She did state she thought it would be impossible to write it because it would be too different from our own world.

Tbh one of my gripes was that the reason for US entry into WW1 wasn't covered with enough detail - the treaty that prompts it is mentioned in the post where the US enters. It's a critical part of the timeline but only barely detailed.
 
She did state she thought it would be impossible to write it because it would be too different from our own world.

Tbh one of my gripes was that the reason for US entry into WW1 wasn't covered with enough detail - the treaty that prompts it is mentioned in the post where the US enters. It's a critical part of the timeline but only barely detailed.
Also the British Kurdistan and French "Assyria" that appear in the newest version on SV make little to no sense
1627140660378.png

As in *Kurdistan is a separate colony for plot reasons only - it should be merged into Iraq. Also most Assyrians did not live in the area marked Assyriia
1627141236820.png

Also the whole Axis (NeoOttomanist/Islamist) Turkey (and Axis Sweden) shtick makes zero sense. Fascist Brazil makes sense with a red America but the rest dont.

It's literal blackwashing with little to no understanding of why these countries didn't turn fash IOTL.
It's literally wanking the axis
 
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You can't have any sort of Assyrian state or sensible Kurdistan if you support Armenian revanchism, since Greater Armenia includes any place where any Armenians might have lived ever. I'd much rather see rump Ottoman empires in AH with late 19th/early 20th century PODs than more giant ridiculous Armenias and Megali Greeces, just for a change of pace from the usual absurd Wilsonian fantasies.
The idea of a Armenian-Kurdish-Pontic-Assyrian state with a different Ottoman endgame would be an alternative
 
Also a US entring the war in 1914 should at least impact Soviet Administrative borders so maybe Koba decides to just draw SSRs based on economics
 
With regards to Reds, Jello did mention that she had, in hindsight, overestimated the FBU's survivability. She said that if she were to do the timeline again from scratch, world war two would just turn into a massive world revolutionary war, making the entire timeline one of conflict until you get world communism in like the 1960s, at which point the timeline ends.

However she didn't want to do that because:
a) she'd already started her timeline
b) it would probably be a very boring timeline because it would just be a series of military campaigns.
c) it let her explore new ideas in a Cold War setting
From what I remember the FBU also had significantly more allies in earlier versions, I've never been entirely sure how that intersects.
 
From what I remember the FBU also had significantly more allies in earlier versions, I've never been entirely sure how that intersects.

Not sure how much that changed. They actually "gained" allies in the form of the Arab League (who was kinda of in limbo earlier but has more solidly come down in the capitalist sphere as time went on), which itself turns into a sort of confederal setup later on, kind of like the EU I think. I think they lost a bit more of Europe.
 
This isn't related to the current discussion, but if I'm being honest, I've kinda grown tired of excessive criticism or lambasting of alternate history works by the online community. It's somewhat ironic of me to say, considering I'm the first one to call out stuff that's exceedingly stupid and makes no sense, but lately it just feels unnecessary and not conducive to helping people get better at writing most of the time.
 
That's just the Ottoman Empire with extra steps, though, like bizarro Ataturkism. I'm also not really sure how that would happen when the whole point of carving up the Ottoman Empire was to give different European states pieces of the pie.
A Pakistan-style "opposition state" whose existence is militarized defense is better than being genocided by the turks (and later arabs)
 
I draw two different standards. Stuff that is published professionally, where I am expected to pay to read it gets judged (by me) to a much higher standard than amateur stuff on a fan website, which is roughly what these forums are.

If I make money from a piece, the customer is entitled to express an opinion and if I don't like it, that's just too bad. For example, someone reviewed Six East End Boys as being "zany humour", which puzzles me. If that's what they got from it, well, so be it.

If they expressed that same view when it was in the drafting stage on the Writers' Forum, then my attitude would have been slightly different.

I have mixed feelings.

Critical analysis is very useful, although - as the writer - I have the final say. Trolling is pretty much the exact opposite of useful.

Chris
 
I had a similar experience as well in which barely anyone responded to my TLs, to the point where even just trolling would've been better than that.
 
Having said that I don't care for too detailed criticism of amateur TLs on forums, I have to say that one has some interesting election results from a 1983 UK General Election following no Falklands and a Tory breakaway group forming in 1981.

As we now know, the Alliance won a landslide 423 seats, Labour held 169 and the Conservatives just 35. Margaret Thatcher lost her own seat of Finchley by over 5,000 to the Alliance and most of her Cabinet also lost their seats.

I'm no political expert, but I rather think that even under the worst conceivable conditions, the Tories might get a touch more than 35 seats. With a POD just two years before.
That sort of result would require half of the cabinet being caught in bed with a dead boy and a pair of goats, followed by Thatcher standing by them. Even in such ridiculously ASB cases, 35 might be a bit pessimistic.
 
It might be an interesting challenge to set the political experts here. What changes from 1981 onwards could plausibly lead to that result in a 1983 general election.

Lib/SDP Alliance 423
Labour 169
Tory 35.

Any takers to suggest how this might be done?

I recall @Cevolian did a list on the other site where Thatcher is force into a coalition with Cyril Smith-led Liberal Party in 1979. Of course when all of the pedophilia scandals come out about both Smith and others within the Tory Party, along with a defeat in the Falklands, the Tories end up getting reduced to 8 seats. Here it is
 
From an AH author who had a less-than-stellar reputation, I think my least favorite Robert Conroy book is Himmler's War. I reviewed it in depth here, but in short:

-Just not that good in literary terms, even by the standards of a cheap thriller.
-Instead of coming up with a goofy way to have the US be invaded, Conroy just plays WW2 AH Cliche Bingo.
 
It might be an interesting challenge to set the political experts here. What changes from 1981 onwards could plausibly lead to that result in a 1983 general election.

Lib/SDP Alliance 423
Labour 169
Tory 35.
A nuclear reactor in Cumbria goes tits up, the clean up leads to the Falklands being abandoned and the Alliance comes in on a Anti-Nuclear power/‘Green’ agenda as the Tory’s collapse into infighting and defections to Ecology.

Not the best scenario but I think any ‘Alliance Victory’ scenario requires them to either be in a coalition with someone, or a Majority of like 5 etc.
 
From an AH author who had a less-than-stellar reputation, I think my least favorite Robert Conroy book is Himmler's War. I reviewed it in depth here, but in short:

-Just not that good in literary terms, even by the standards of a cheap thriller.
-Instead of coming up with a goofy way to have the US be invaded, Conroy just plays WW2 AH Cliche Bingo.

I'm conscious that I haven't read any of Conroy, and I'm also conscious that the poor fellar is dead, but isn't this sort of, as you allude to, par for the course for his works?
 
I'm conscious that I haven't read any of Conroy, and I'm also conscious that the poor fellar is dead, but isn't this sort of, as you allude to, par for the course for his works?

It is, and it's a fair point. However, I think Himmler's War falls into the category of what I call "Captain Beefheart playing normal music", where something that had quirkiness (in this case the ridiculous excess of his American invasions) is replaced by something mundane, causing it to keep the weaknesses but not the strengths.
 
can believe in an Alliance victory, with enough tweaks, possibly even with a narrow majority. But a majority of nigh on 200 for the Alliance? And yet this is being defended as "realistic".
Even when me and @Oppo had a ‘Alliance Victory’ in a timeline it was because Thatcher was persuaded to do a snappy in 81’ and even then it was an Alliance-Gilmour Tories coalition against Foot’s Labour. Even then there’s problems with it.

It easier for Kinnock to become PM in 87’ than a 200 Majority for Alliance.
 
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