A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far,
away...
Well, actually it was Manchester 2002, but
why let accuracy spoil such a dramatic line?
Christopher Nuttall, a young student in
Manchester, spent large amounts of his time hunting the Internet for alternate
history. Rumours that this was due to
strict university cyber control policies are lies, all lies, I deny it all...
Anyway, Chris noted that one thing the
Internet didn't really have was a site where different AH writers could post
their essays and get feedback. After
some careful research, Chris created the first version of Changing the Times,
with an original membership of some 30 people.
CTT was originally hosted on Geocities, but moved to a better web server
shortly thereafter. Chris intended to
post an issue once per month and convince readers to give feedback. He was better at the first one than the
latter, as not everyone could be convinced to post feedback. Later, the original PDF format gave way to a
dedicated website.
Everything hummed along smoothly until
Chris discovered that the twin demands of work and writing (see his website: http://www.chrishanger.net/) took time
away from alternate history. Worse was
to come; a band of ruthless pornographers took control of the CTT domain name
and tried to force Chris to shell out cash to get it back. Reader feedback, on the other hand, went
through the roof, with Chris regarded as a cool guy for knowing so many porno
models. He didn't know any of them, but
he was glad to pocket the cash for introductions...
...Wait, I meant to say that he was glad to
sign the pornographers up for every spam email service I could find. Bastards.
Anyway – gee, I love that word – David
Atwell stepped forward in CTT’s hour of need and volunteered to take over the
running of the site. Chris handed
creative control over to him and that is where the story really starts...
* * *
Chris Nuttall blogs at The Chrishanger and has a website by the same name. His books can be found on Amazon Kindle.
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