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Alternate History (Fictional; Literary)

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I was just reading Harry Turtledoves World War series about an alien invasion in the middle of World War 2. Very good books and wide ranging in their scope. Does anybody have any other good alternate history ideas? The stranger new histories the better!
 
I'm 99.99% sure there is a thread (possibly multiple ones) on this topic... but I can't find it right now... the board will only show threads from a few minutes ago!
Fatherland and The Man in the High Castle stand out in my memory as novels with this premise, tho there are many more.
 
Believe it or not I've just started reading the next series in the set when the colonisation fleet arrives :)

Very, very good series IMO, and I believe that theres a final 8th book entitled something like "homeward bound" when I assume us Big Uglies are off to the lizards homeworld!

I also understand Turtledove has written another series set in a theoritical second US civil war, and another series when WW1 concides with a third US civil war

I'd suggest Turtledove is the king of alternative contemporary history, but there must be some more doing back a bit forther :)
 
OK, it's set a bit before the 20th century, but how about West of Eden by Harry Harrison - the dinosaurs don't get wiped out, but develop intelligence and civilisation, while Neanderthal ape-creatures struggle to rise above slavery. Has some good ideas - the dinos don't like fire, so they have biological-based technology instead of metal-based technology.
Then there's Pavane by Keith Roberts, in which Elizabeth I is assasinated on the eve of the Spanish Armarda invasion, so that the Spaniards conquer England.
And there's lots, lots more. Theres even an online Alternate History website with stories, links and a newsletter.
 
Just remembered this one..
"The Number of the Beast" By Robert Heinlein.
Wherein the heroes discover they can enter alternate realities, including fictional ones (The possible number of alternate histories is so big in this novel that every possibility is played out)
The crew even decide to avoid the universe with Captain Kirk in it, just in case they appear near the neutral zone!
 
Fatherland by Robert Harris - set in Nazi Germany in 1964, as Hitler approaches his 75th birthday. Joseph Kennedy is president of the US, the Russians have been fighting a guerilla war against the Germans for 20 years
 
I really like Kim Newman's Anno Dracula novels, which portrays a very different world where Dracula won. In the first book, we find that Drac has married Queen Victoria and stuck Van Helsing's head on a spike at Buckingham Palace. Vampirism is the height of fashion and celebrities of the day, such as Oscar Wilde and Gilbert and Sullivan have eagerly been "turned". Newman throws in a lot of references from literature and films, with everyone from Doctor Jeckyll to a Chinese hopping vampire (from those bonkers oriental horror films) putting in an appearance.

Subsequent books take the story through the 20th Century, and the last one I read, Dracula Cha Cha Cha, set in the late 50s, has a neat reference to a new vampire pop singer, Cliff Richard, who'll remain eternally youthful!
 
Also Harry Harrison's Stars And Sripes trilogy: an alternate history where the UK gets involved directly with the US Civil War, prompting the US to invade Ireland once the war's over. triggering all-out war between the US and the UK. Not Harrison's best work, IMO, but I mention it for the sake of completeness.
 
ghostdog mentions "It Happened Here" which is one of the most amazing
movies you are ever likely to see. It was filmed between 1960 and 67
(some sources say 61 - 68) by Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo, using
a cast of volunteers. It uses a semi-documentary story to describe the
physical and psychological journey of the Irish nurse through a Nazified
England. In one of the most chilling scenes, she is seen administering
euthanasia injections to sick children in a cottage hospital.

It tended to be screened mainly in film societies and in art-house cinemas
and even then had been trimmed by the distributors to remove a scene
where an anti-semitic speech is delivered by a spokesman. This rôle was
played by a man (called, I think, Arthur Hammond) who was a real member
of one of the fringe rightist parties in the 1960s. During the 1990s, Brownlow
bought back the rights to his movie and it resurfaced in a complete print on
Channel Four on 30th August 1999. It can now be found complete on video.

Even though it all sounds rather unpromising, the film has a nightmarish
atmosphere which is quite unforgettable. It also lays bare some of the darker
currents of the British mindset, which suggest it would have been well-
suited to Nazism. Brownlow went on to make a film about the radical
Civil War figure Winstanley but afterwards went on to direct the bfi and
occupy himself with restoration of silent movies.
 
There's Pixies In The Woods!

I can recommend Pavane, by Keith Roberts (1968). Set in a world here Queen Elizabeth I. was assassinated just before the Armada invaded, England has remained a Roman Catholic country under strict rule and sanction from Rome.

Technological development has been severly curtailed and the landscape has remained largely pastoral. The ordinary folk are not allowed to travel freely. Technology mostly consists of steam engines and giant semaphore towers are seen as a big advance.

It'r a well written, atmospheric book that gives lots to think about! Here's a review.
 
Another Harry Harrison one "A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!"

The American colonies have lost the War of Independance, Benedict Arnold became Governer General, The family of that notorious traitor, George Washington, try to live down the shame.

Steam technology reaches it's true peak, a man with a broad Westcountry accent is in the Royal Mail Rocket service, opperating a Babage engine that calculates trajectories.
 
James Whitehead said:
In one of the most chilling scenes, she is seen administering
euthanasia injections to sick children in a cottage hospital.
That film must have been shown on TV much earlier than 1999 - I distinctly remember that scene. It really was chilling - the nurse had been told that the stuff she was injecting the children with was a flu vaccine. She didn't realise the truth until she walked through the ward the next morning and saw all the empty beds - awful.
 
There's a novel by Stephen Fry called 'Making History' which involves time travel and the hero of the tale ending up in an alternative mid-nineties America.
The time machine that takes him there has already been used to ensure that Hitler is never born and yet there are still world wars and the US has become almost as facistic and intorlerant as Nazi Germany - and so on. Computers are better though....

It's not the most original idea in literature, and to be honest it's all pretty daft, there are holes in the plot and in the internal logic of the story you could drive a tank through, as many reviews pointed out at the time.
 
Yes, Anasdottir, it had indeed been shown on telly in the 1980s
and had stuck in my mind as it did in yours. The 1999 date was
however the first time it was shown uncut and I knew that date
because I caught it on video then. I was aware the running
time was - unusually for telly - longer than the Film Guides suggested
but only found the detail about what had been restored when I
looked on the web. So far as I know, the film was never censored
for being horrific - though it is. Just for this racist speech, which was
not a rant but very low key and ordinary. Most films never capture
the banality of real evil. :eek:
 
It Happened Here is one of the 2 amateur made films I heard of, years ago, and would really like to see.

The other's Equinox (1971). Apparently it's a special effects, horror film based on the Cthullu mythos. It's also supposed to be terrible.
 
I enjoyed Harry Turtledove's WorldWar Series, even if it is unnecessarily long. Three books would have been better than four. His series set in the first world war is more of the same, over long and repetative. <emphatic cough>.

One book I would recommend is "The Proteus Operation" by James P. Hogan. In this, time travellers from a world where the Nazis won travel back in time to change course of history, only to find other time travellers from another future supporting the Nazis.
 
James Whitehead said:
Most films never capture
the banality of real evil. :eek:
Exactly. Real evil isn't a drooling goon with a chainsaw - it's Adolph Eichmann sitting in a back room with a pile of account books and a calculator.......
 
James Whitehead said:
Yes, Anasdottir, it had indeed been shown on telly in the 1980s
and had stuck in my mind as it did in yours. The 1999 date was
however the first time it was shown uncut and I knew that date
because I caught it on video then. I was aware the running
time was - unusually for telly - longer than the Film Guides suggested
but only found the detail about what had been restored when I
looked on the web. So far as I know, the film was never censored
for being horrific - though it is. Just for this racist speech, which was
not a rant but very low key and ordinary. Most films never capture
the banality of real evil. :eek:

I can remember seeing it too, James and it was really gripping . . . it was the documentary type filming that added to the horror.

There's the second part of a documentary on C5 tomorrow night, speculating what would have happened had Operation Sealion been successful. Very interesting. And rather disturbing.

The example of the Channel Islands during WWII was cited, but the situation over there was different than it would have been on the mainland, as the opportunity for resistance was severely restricted due to the smallness of the islands. But it is fascinating stuff and we can sit smugly in our armchairs and wonder what it would be like. The reality would have no doubt been very grim indeed. Although we would, of course, not know about what our parents and grandparents suffered during the invasion . . .

I enjoyed the film (and book) of 'Fatherland', the film effectively portrayed a Germany in the 1960s that had won the war.

Carole
 
Mike P said:
Three books would have been better than four....<emphatic cough>

heh ;)

The complete series is actually 8 books! 4 set in WW2 with a further 3 when the colonisation fleet arrives set in the 60's (with more or less the same characters, Sam Yeager, Mordechai Anielevicz (sp?) Molotov, Lui Han, etc but a few new characters), with the 8th and final book being due for completion in a few years time, but yes he should have written them as a set, instead of spending half the next book rehashing who is who, what happened in the previous book and why the lizards like ginger so much, etc, etc, etc, :eek:

He's actually written a very different book ("A different world" I think) set in the near future but in a more contrasting US/Russian space race when probes find signs of intelligent life on an imagined twin of earth called Minerva - a very different read to his others and well worth a buy actually :)

*casts down eyes at the mention of Turtledove* :p
 
Worth a look are the books that were compiled into "Nomad of the Timestreams" by Michael Moorcock. He's kind of patchy as a whole but that one is really good.
 
Another alternate World War 2 book is "The Burning Mountain" by Alfred Coppel. The Trinity A-bomb test fails (due to the tower being struck by lightning, which almost actually happened) and the Allies launch a conventional invasion of Japan. It's mostly about military tactics rather than social and political aspects.
 
Where's My Needle Gun, Miss Brunner?

Breakfast said:
Worth a look are the books that were compiled into "Nomad of the Timestreams" by Michael Moorcock. He's kind of patchy as a whole but that one is really good.
Then there's the Jerry Cornelius series. He ravels so many alternative time streams in those it gets quite confusing. Fun, mind.;)

Several of Moorcock's books and series deal with alternative realities and histories, as part of a Moorcockian Multiverse.
 
Just adding to my thread. I just bought a copy of the Final Countdown with Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen. The flying scenes are excellent, F14 Tomcats vs Mitsubishi Zeros! Interesting subject, crap time travel effects. For those of you who haven't heard of it, and I hadn't, which is strange for any sort of movie, its about the USS Nimitz getting zapped back in time from December 6th 1980 to December 6th 1941. Their problem is, interfere in the course of history as they know it OR as a ship of the US Navy they have the duty, power and the knowledge to stop an enemy force... perform their duty to country or try not to change the world as they know it. They also get to rescue a damsel and shoot a couple of Zeros down along the way.
 
I only bought it today. I'm sitting with the DVD of it beside me right this minute. It's in Widesrceen by Hollywood DVD.

It's blurb is "out of the future and into the past- A nuclear force faces the challenge that could change all our tomorrows, Nothing in history has prepared you for THE FINAL COUNTDOWN".

If you don't believe me get round to HMV tomorrow, they had it in the £4.99 rack(i did get it at their big shop in Belfast and thats got an entire floor for flims so I don't know if you'll get it in any of the smaller ones). Thank god for HMV sales.
 
Damn it, this time paradox thing really messes with the head. I just can't deal with the concept of whether we should or can muck about with time. Sometimes I don't think its possible to change the course of history as we probably would wipe us out originally going back to change it cos there would be no need to do it so we would never go back to change the past and if we keep doing that and changing the past would we ever get past the time we left at cos the point of us leaving is the time that things change or is it the time we go back to that we don't get past cos if we change it there no need for time travel to change it and we get stuck in a time loop, the whole universe stuck in a loop cos we want to make sure someone doesnt get killed, think about that, if we stop time that means we stop it universe wide and not just on earth cos time part of the entire fabric of the universe. I need to go lie down now cos that only a small part of the way I was thinking there and time paradoxes give me a big sore head.
 
Wowbagger said:
Damn it, this time paradox thing really messes with the head. I just can't deal with the concept of whether we should or can muck about with time. Sometimes I don't think its possible to change the course of history as we probably would wipe us out originally going back to change it cos there would be no need to do it so we would never go back to change the past and if we keep doing that and changing the past would we ever get past the time we left at cos the point of us leaving is the time that things change or is it the time we go back to that we don't get past cos if we change it there no need for time travel to change it and we get stuck in a time loop, the whole universe stuck in a loop cos we want to make sure someone doesnt get killed, think about that, if we stop time that means we stop it universe wide and not just on earth cos time part of the entire fabric of the universe. I need to go lie down now cos that only a small part of the way I was thinking there and time paradoxes give me a big sore head.

I think changing the past is impossible.If you go back in time and try to kill your grandmother you're pre-destined to fail since you exist.Let's say you go back to 1935 and try to kill her.This means back when 1935 happened you were there.
 
Interesting thing. We can't change the past. If you go back to change something, are you in a place where everything is in place and is like a video recording, it can only be observed andnot changed, but since you are there interacting with it you must be changing things, I believe scientists say nothing can be observed without the observer changing it. Thus is the past fixed?, surely the smallest changes will echo in time and result in big changes along the way, negating your life, the creation of time travel or you not wanting to go back in the first place, but then you wouldn't be in the past to cause the changes that may not make you available to go. Or something like that!
 
I think you've been playing Civilization one time too many, Eburacum45. :D

Also, I seem to recall reading that when Stephen Baxter was working on his alternate history Anti-Ice (Victorians discover a chunk of anti-matter bounded by magnetic ores frozen at the South Pole, and figure out how to use bits of it as a power source and a weapon, resulting in giant land-liners and a Victorian spacecraft.), his original idea had involved the Phoenicians, but he ran into logic problems trying to solve some of the plot points and switched to Victorians instead.

Speaking of Baxter, a lot of his novels are alternate histories: Titan (IIRC) for example envisages a timeline where Kennedy survived the assassination, stayed in power in a wheelchair, and the US Space program didn't get sidetracked down the road of shuttles and lower budgets in the 70s, and we end up with a man on Mars by 1984. His Manifold sequence (Space, Time and Origin) are all alternate histories as well.
 
Yep, Stephen Baxter is also a good author, although I find the sequences going through space pretty boring :eek: although his manifold series are very good :)
 
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