Alternative History Books You Have Read

[Wycoff]

So no one else here liked "Man in the High Castle?" It's probably the most critically acclaimed alternate history book.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by lord of the mark Draka, by teh eevil Steve Stirling. Ive skimmed it at Borders. On the one hand, from the SHWI discussion, it sounds implausible, but OTOH its sounds deliciously eevil. Hopefully not to much of Stirlings pet topics. I also dont want a novel with lesbian SM scenes lying around the house

I also skipped the Draka books, mostly because they sounded ridiculously implausible. I didn't know about the lesbian scenes... Stirling seems to love including them. His Nantucket series sure had enough of them.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by VetLegion


Usenet is as in it is not dead yet

Wiglaf, here is SHWI via Google Groups web interface:
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.h...what-if/topics

No, I didn't really know what usenet was before this. I only had a vague idea.

By the way, I'm Wycoff, not Wiglaf. Wiglaf is someone else.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Wycoff


I also skipped the Draka books, mostly because they sounded ridiculously implausible. I didn't know about the lesbian scenes... Stirling seems to love including them. His Nantucket series sure had enough of them.

ive only browsed one of the Draka books, but my understanding that theres similar stuff to what was in the Nantucket series, with the added touch of an entire slave society not just the privileges for Walkers gf (of course on the island lesbianism is NICE, not all S&M )

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by lord of the mark ive only browsed one of the Draka books, but my understanding that theres similar stuff to what was in the Nantucket series, with the added touch of an entire slave society not just the privileges for Walkers gf (of course on the island lesbianism is NICE, not all S&M )

Didn't Walker's mistress have some lesbian S&M scenes?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Wycoff


No, I didn't really know what usenet was before this. I only had a vague idea.

usenet is one of the original uses of the internet. A usenet newsgroup is technically different from a web message board - it doesnt live on one server, but everyone posts to their own news server (which CAN be your ISP) and the news servers then propogate the message, to other news servers. Any given news server may not get all news groups, but you can receive or post via a web based service like google groups (heir to dejanews) Theres no mods, except in moderated news groups - sys admins of a given news server can choose not to accept messages from some other news server - but thats rare except with blatant commercial spam -well actually its rare for that,and virtually unheard of for anything else.

this makes it a rather wild and woolly place, where such order as is kept is done by self appointed net cops who flame mercilessly anyone who violates the newsgroup "rules".

IIUC there is different newsreader software available.

IIUC USENET began as a few mainly academic groups. It then expanded to thousands of alt groups, about all kinds of hobbies and interests. In the last 7 or 8 years its been in decline, for technical and content reasons. SHWI was one of the last holdouts, and last I looked most of the best regulars were gone, although folks are still posting on topic there.

In its peak it was brilliant place, full of erudition on a wide range of topics. Think 50 different molly blooms, each experts on a different countrys history, or an alternate subject matter, like chemistry or pop culture, but at least half with shall we say, a lighter touch than molly, an analytic perspective, and a devotion to AH/WI's. From a rigorous POV. It was like a graduate seminar on history, but always in the context of what ifs. Really its worth going into google (which keeps an archive) and searching for any particular historical topic.

Overall, for both technical and group behavior reasons, USENET has been dying for several years

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Wycoff


Didn't Walker's mistress have some lesbian S&M scenes?

Thats what I meant, walkers GF, and what was it, the Hecuba society or something.

[Wycoff]

That sounds great!

I never really got the chance to use the internet until 1998, and that was only sparingly and with a 14.4 modem. I didn't start using it internet extensively until I started undergrad (August 2000).

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by VetLegion


Usenet is as in it is not dead yet

Wiglaf, here is SHWI via Google Groups web interface:
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.h...what-if/topics

I see theyve got the remnants of a POD flood.

Wycoff, as I mentioned its wild and woolly.

All kinds of cranks, such as holocaust deniers, UFO fans, etc are all over USENET. For fairly obvious reasons they are drawn to SHWI. It is impossible to flame them off, and their obsessive posting can easily disrupt a NG. On SHWI they counter with a POD flood - filling the NG with on topic postings, even ones where the POD is so poorly thought out that usually it would get a negative response.

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Wycoff


No, I didn't really know what usenet was before this. I only had a vague idea.

It's one of the forms of communication via a network and has been around for the longest time, since 1979 I think.

By the way, I'm Wycoff, not Wiglaf. Wiglaf is someone else.

Sorry, no offense meant.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by VetLegion

Sorry, no offense meant.

No offense taken. You're not the first person here to confuse the two of us. Both of us have 6 letter names beginning in W and ending in F, and both of us live in the D.C. area.

[molly bloom]

'Bring The Jubilee' by Ward Moore. Still the best 'What if the Confederates Won ?' novel in my opinion.

'A Transatlantic Tunnel Hurrah!' by Harry Harrison. A greater British Empire because the American Revolution failed.

'Pavane' by Keith Roberts. Elizabeth I dies at an assassin's hands in Greenwich, and Philip II's Armada takes advantage of Catholic risings in the North. Europe's history without Protestant powers...

'Gypsies' by Robert Charles Wilson. Centres on a family from an alternate future, where they were bred for time travelling capabilities to serve a powerful Catholic Church battling united Muslim powers.

So no one else here liked "Man in the High Castle?" It's probably the most critically acclaimed alternate history book.

Wycoff

No, I like it too, but Dick is remarkably easy on the Japanese. They come across as almost a benign occupation power in the novel, which as the destruction of Manila and Nanking and medical experiments on Chinese civilians and P.O.W.s attest, was very much not the case.

I've read Amis's 'The Alteration' and 'Russian' whatever it was. Don't like Amis pere ou fils so 'nuff said.

Good WWII alternates are : 'The Moscow Option' by David Downing (the Nazis occupy Moscow) and John Vader's 'The Battle of Sydney' which sees the Japanese attack the U.S. West Coast rather than Midway and ultimately succeed in invading Australia's East Coast.


I'd heartily recommend the short story collections 'What If ? ' and 'More What If ?' as they're mostly all well-written and well-considered explorations.

There's even a collection devoted entirely to alternate British/American futures...with Queen Elizabeth II outside the White House on the cover. It's edited by Robert Cowley.

[Adrian Hon]

Originally posted by molly bloom
'Gypsies' by Robert Charles Wilson. Centres on a family from an alternate future, where they were bred for time travelling capabilities to serve a powerful Catholic Church battling united Muslim powers.

Is this good? Robert Charles Wilson is one of my favourite authors - Spin and Chronoliths were excellent - but I haven't tried any of his other stuff.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Adrian Hon


Is this good? Robert Charles Wilson is one of my favourite authors - Spin and Chronoliths were excellent - but I haven't tried any of his other stuff.

It's slightly soapy, but I did enjoy the different ways the members of the family reacted to their unwanted 'gift'.

It's certainly better than Turtledove if you're looking for a diverting read.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Anybody read "Idlewild" by Mark Lawson? It's a British alernative history written in the mid-90s (and not published in the US as far as I can tell), with the premise that JFK survived the assassination only to become a failed president who was vilified for Vietnam (and, coincidently, Marilyn Monroe survived her suicide attemt to become a failed actress, occasionally seen later in life on episodes of "Murder She Wrote"). Doesn't really work as a novel (like most AH, in my opinion), but the speculation is fun -- particularly the fact that assassination buffs are still with us, but now they're assasination-attempt buffs. Anyway, anybody read it? I'd be curious to hear other opinions.