Book Review: The IX by Andrew P. Weston

I really wanted to enjoy The IX by Andrew P. Weston. It had a really cool concept. Humans on the verge of death are pulled from different eras of the past by a powerful alien entity to fight an army of seemingly endless murder machines, all the while having to overcome the cultural and language barriers to become an effective fighting force. Sounds like a fun action romp with a level of sophistication. Its in the execution, however, that the book lost me.

We learn that an alien race, called the Ardenese, which are described as really tall humanoids with large foreheards (sort of like the aliens from This Island Earth) are on the verge of extinction. Another alien race of energy beings who feed off the bio-electrical fields generated by other organic beings (sort of like the aliens from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within), known as the Horde, are winning their war against the Ardenese, who are holed up in their last city. The Ardenese, however, have a plan. They will upload their minds into an incredibly advanced super-computer, called the Architect, that will scour space and time to discover an alien race that can fight for them until the Horde is defeated and they can repopulate their plant.

Of course, that race is humanity, and at first the Architect only pulls humans from our distant future, but their advanced energy weapons have no effect on the Horde. A lucky break happens, however, when it is discovered that the Horde are obliterated by contact with iron. Thus when the ninth wave of human draftees are brought in, they come from eras of time where iron is still used in their weapons. These include, the Ninth Legion of Rome from 120 AD, a US Calvary Regiment from 1860 and a special forces squad from the mid-21st century.

Even with the time travel, alternate history content is minimal or non-existent depending on how you perceive the history being presented by Weston. Let me explain: the characters from 1860 include a US Cavalry company and several Native Americans on their way to negotiate a peace treaty for Senator Lincoln with an alliance of the Cree, Lakota, Sioux and Apache. They are prevented from doing so after rogue members of the company lead them into a trap because there is grand conspiracy involving the aforementioned tribes and several southern states (due to Sam Houston's involvement) who want to overthrow the US government.

Where do I begin? First off, Lincoln was never a senator. Second, those tribes are scattered between Canada and Northern Mexico and all speak different languages, so the chances of them forming some alliance like the one described in the book is implausible. Plus, the Lakota are actually a sub-group of the Sioux, but the author makes it very clear throughout the book that they are a separate tribe. Third, Sam Houston as governor of Texas actually opposed his state's secession from the Union during the American Civil War so the idea of him being part of some coup attempt seems far-fetched. Finally, Weston seems to imply to real reason the Civil War began was because the Southerners and Great Plains Indians were just trying to overthrow a central government they didn't believe in anymore, which is a troublesome theory about that period of history for someone to have in my opinion.

Now this may be the alternate history, but there really is no clear point of divergence and they do come from the same timeline as the Ninth Legion. To be fair Weston did a better job of presenting the history of the Legion. There are some historians who believe they disappeared in modern-day Scotland, even if there is evidence that the whole or portions of the legion survived on the continent. Problems occur with his description of the Caledonians they were fighting before being taken to Arden. One tribe is called the Iceni, which is actually the name of tribe that inhabited modern-day Norfolk during the Roman occupation of England, and while my preliminary research does show they occasionally practiced cannibalism, the description in the book of groups of them stopping to feast on wounded Roman soldiers like zombies from The Walking Dead was just too silly to take seriously. They also referred to themselves as Caledonians, which is wrong since "Caledonia" was the name the Greeks/Romans gave to modern-day Scotland and the native inhabitants would have called themselves something else.

Besides the bad history, how was the rest of the book? Well, not good. The book is poorly written with too much tell and not enough show. There was also a lot of "As You Know, Bob" moments where one character explains to another character some aspect of the story that both should already know. This is done to provide important exposition to the reader, but it is also not how people normally talk to each other. In fact, most of the dialogue is stilted. This wouldn't be so bad if the book was heavier on the action, which Weston writes pretty well, but most of The IX is just talking about things that are just boring. Even the inner thoughts of the characters are uninteresting and, to be frank, it was hard to tell when they were doing that. Sometimes the inner monologues were in italics, as is traditional in most books, but other times they weren't in italics or highlighted in any way to differentiate them from the rest of the text.

The characters from the future are bland and indistinguishable from each other, despite many coming from time periods centuries apart. Even the characters from the past come off more like stereotypes instead of well researched characters, although they are amazingly smart and are somehow able to point out obvious things about the enemy that the future humans, who have been fighting them for much longer than the new arrivals. Also everyone seemed to have taken the fact that they will never see their homes or loved ones again fairly well and drop old animosities almost instantly so they can fight in a war they've never asked for. Ignoring the psychological impact of what the Ardenese did to the humans it dragged into their war was a grave omission in my opinion. Instead what we do get is overused tropes like ancient aliens and hand-waving issues such as language barriers thanks to magical technology.

To be completely honest, I didn't finish this book. I gave up on it after I was more than halfway done. What was the last straw for me was when I was forced to read a five page memo on how an iron ore mining operation was going. From the context of the book, the memo was being proofread by a character before he sent it to his superiors. I'm sorry, but that is just lame. I know background info is both important and difficult to express to readers in an entertaining way, but their are ways to do it. Take a “Hot Night at the Hopping Toad" by SM Stirling. Although not my favorite story in The Change, it still presented what life was like in a post-apocalyptic college town through the eyes of two likable and interesting characters who were catching up with each other over dinner and drinks at a local bar. Then, just to keep things interesting, there is bar fight, someone dies and a murderer needs to be uncovered. Stirling added conflict to make his story interesting and I never saw the conflict in The IX. The Horde never seemed like a real threat and from what I did read, I never even saw them kill a single human. Without real conflict, it is hard to have a good story.

Despite what I said above, I'm once again the lone voice of dissent in a sea of praise. The IX has a ton of good reviews on both Amazon and Goodreads that I just don't understand. Maybe the book picks up in the second half, but if a book can't hold my attention after 300 pages, I don't see any reason to continue with it. I will admit that when there is action happening the book can be enjoyable and Weston certainly praises the work of soldiers in this novel, so if you like that then go ahead and pick up a copy. Otherwise, I can't recommend The IX. I can, recommend, The Misplaced Legion and its sequels by Harry Turtledove, which has similar themes to The IX and is better written.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger on Amazing Stories and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Timeline Thursday: Winged Hands of the Reich by SpanishSpy

"Winged Hands of the Reich" is a silly, but enjoyably meta timeline that you can read on the AltHistory Wiki. Created by SpanishSpy, its point of divergence happened in 1940 when the Zheronians ("a fierce batlike species") arrive on Earth using their ships equipped with ISOT drives and ally themselves with Nazi Germany as part of their plan to conquer humanity. With the help of the Zheronians, the Axis powers defeat the Allies and divide the planet between themselves. With the planet under the heel of fascism, humanity begins to colonize the Solar System.

So...do you see what I meant when I said it was silly? Trust me, it gets even weirder the deeper you go into this timeline. For example, Adolf Hitler gets cybernetic enhancements and personally kills Joseph Stalin, while Charles de Gaulle becomes a space pirate. This is one of those timelines, however, that is not meant to be taken seriously. References to ASB, ISOT and other popular alternate history tropes are prevalent throughout the timeline. Take Operation Sealion, which only succeeded in this timeline because the Germans had the help of the bat-like Zheronians (and if you don't understand why that is funny then turn over your alternate historian card this instance!). In fact, discovering them all is half the fun of reading "Winged Hands of the Reich".

You can really tell SpanishSpy is a true fan of alternate history, not only from what I mentioned above, but also because of all the cameos by famous alternate historians in the timeline. Harry Turtledove, L. Sprague de Camp and Philip K. Dick are all leaders of the dissident literature movement of Pluto, a dumping ground of the Reich for undesirables (which includes not only John Birmingham, but also real life Jewish partisan Mordechai Anielewicz, who was made famous as a POV character in Turtledove's Worldwar series). S. M. Stirling, sadly, never made it to the relative safety of Pluto and was eventually captured by the Reich (a reference to his banning from AlternateHistory.com perhaps?).

To be fair, "Winged Hands of the Reich" is not without its flaws. The articles associated with the timeline are rather bare and not much work has been done since 2013. Additionally, I couldn't find any maps, flags, photos or any other original graphical content associated with the timeline, just stock images (hence why I used the image above that I found through Google instead of pulling it from the timeline). With a dedicated crew of contributors, this could become a first class ASB scenario that will make readers both laugh and think critically of the genre they love. As for now, its just junk food, which should always be consumed in moderation.

If there are any other web original timelines you would like me to review, please share in the comments below or email me at ahwupdate at gmail dot com.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger on Amazing Stories and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Interview: Bruce Munro

Bruce Munro is someone I featured or given a honorable mention to on countless Map Mondays. His maps aren't just detailed and imaginative, they are also funny. He is perhaps one of the most influential alternate cartographers on AlternateHistory.com and I was very happy to ask him some questions:

Who is Bruce Munro?

Bruce Munro is a middle-aged person a bit shocked to find himself so thoroughly middle-aged, a man with too much education and too little regular career, an artistic dilettante and devoted bibliophile, someone with more books than dollars and more imagination than practical sense, more George Costanza than Rock Hudson by looks but more easygoing than either, a man who roots for the mad scientists and furnishes his brain with far more weird junk than Sherlock Holmes would have approved of.

What got you interested in alternate history?

It arises from my general interest in science fiction, encounters with early Turtledove works such as Agent of Byzantium and A Different Flesh, stimulated by Sliders (and my certainty that AH could do better than some of their crappy episodes) and the lists of alternate history novels and alternate history sites on Uchronia when it was still skatecity, and burst into full fervent fixation with my encounter with the soc.history.what-if Google group in the late 90s. (Alas, for it has fallen on hard times).

You are known for taking "implausible" fiction and creating your own realistic and highly-detailed scenario. What inspired you to make these?

That’s an old habit of mine – back in the early 80s I was already rewriting episodes of Justice League in my head (or was it Justice Friends?) to make them less lame and fancier, with more colorful detail, bigger giants, fancier machines, cooler uses of the character’s powers. I suppose I am a touch Annie Wilkes obsessive, too – I dislike a story with big logical holes in it or weak worldbuilding and I want to fix it. In some ways it also, I am afraid, plays to a weakness of mine – I fear failure in being genuinely original, so I find it easier to pimp out other people’s works than create something entirely my own.

When did you start creating alternate history maps?

Back in the 1990s. I first started with making Xerox copies of blank world maps obtained from the UNM bookstore, and drawing new worlds atop of them. I didn’t start doing digital maps until the 2000s, I think – my memory of these things is a bit iffy, and the oldest thing I have on my computer dates to 2005.

Many people have tried to imitate your style of map-making. How would you describe your style of map-making to someone who may not be familiar with it?

I prefer starting with a blank PNG map of the world, usually with existing national borders and sometimes rivers or states to act as guides so I know where things are, and gradually modifying them. I hand-draw lines with the map magnification at least 400%, erasing or modifying as I go, occasionally using patches from other maps or sometimes basemaps for a certain year created by others. I tend to provide a full color key of all important countries, and I add descriptive detail with a mass of notes. Said notes and country descriptions are often victims of my at times annoying sense of humor, although I understand there are people who like it. I often add autonomous regions, internal borders, etc. but I rarely do it for all countries since I find that not just time-consuming but overly fussy looking.

“Too talky” probably describes my maps as briefly as possible: they are often as much “travel guides” as maps.

Why do you think people like maps of alternate worlds?

I think people have varied reasons for enjoying alternate history maps. Some who are interested in history are very often conscious of how history depends on many often fine turning points, and no doubt enjoy the working out of things visually. Some are more appreciators of maps as art and creative efforts rather than as plausible historical speculation. Others have regrets about the way history turned out and how some countries have been screwed over by the course of history, and enjoy seeing a good Ireland Victorious or American Indian Nations or Surviving Ottoman Empire scenario portrayed. Others treat it more as an amusing form of fantasy that is still rooted in actual history.

What programs do you use to create your maps?

Basic Microsoft Paint. I keep telling myself I need to learn photoshop or gimp, but I have a peculiar aversion to taking up intellectual challenges which might make me feel stupid, and the user interface for Gimp baffled me so badly that I fled in terror two years ago and have yet to reexamine it.

Where can people go if they wanted you to commission a map from you?

If they don’t hang out on AlternateHistory.com, I hang out on Deviantart under the handle QuantumBranching.

Which of all the maps you have created do you consider your favorite?

My favorite? I have a number of ones I like, but it’s hard to pick just one. I do like the one I did for the GURPS Aeolus scenario, my French Canada wank, my map of Kamandi’s world, my map for Mumby’s “Broken America”, my cover of “Strong West Wind”… I’ll need to think about it to narrow it down.

Any other map makers you would like to recommend?

Iainfluff (unfortunately a lot of his stuff went bye-bye with Imageshack), Rvbomally, ToixStory, ReagentAH, SRegan, ImDeadPanda, 1Blomma, Sapiento, edthomasten, Laiqua-lasse and MarcosCeia. Less technically brilliant, but extremely productive and creative: RoyalPsycho and Silas-Coldwine.

(There are others I like, but I could just go on and on… )

Any other projects that you are working on now?

I am currently working on a map/scenario for the aftermath of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s Footfall SF novel. After that, I have a commission for a cover of one of the maps/scenarios on the alternate history wiki.

What books are you reading?

I am currently reading the retro-SF collection Old Venus, Alan Smale’s Romans-meet-tech-wanked native Americans AH Clash of Eagles, and a book by Simon Winchester called The Professor and the Madman, about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary and one of its major (and majorly odd) contributors.

Any advice for aspiring alternate cartographers?

My advice? Get some good books of historical geography (the Penguin atlas series is great for Europe, for the world the Times Concise Atlas and the Haywood Atlas are both useful, and if you can get a used copy of the old William Shepherd atlas there are some quite fine maps for the middle ages and early modern era), know your history, draw your lines one pixel thick (unless you are using a vector program where that doesn’t matter) find good basemaps (AH.com has some useful resources) and make sure to save your maps to the right format, or you’re in deep doody.

Timeline Thursday: Great White South

A while back I was an active contributor on the Alternate History Wiki. Some of you might remember my work on the collaborative timeline, "1983: Doomsday", but there was another timeline I also contributed a lot of my time and energy. It was called "Great White South". Check out the map below to get an idea about what this timeline was about:

As you can probably guess, "Great White South" features a warmer Antarctica that can support human colonization. Originally created by user NuclearVacuum (aka Devon Moore), the point of divergence happens in the far past where Antarctica becomes mysteriously warmer without raising the world's sea levels. Alien space bats are certainly in play as this warming event is never explained.

Humans eventually discover the cold continent and the written history of the timeline begins. First members of the Fuegian culture expand across the continent, later followed by Europeans. Colonization by Europeans are minor affairs due to the distance and harsh terrain. Russians tend to dominate these early efforts, but colonization picks up in the late 19th century with the British, Germans, Danish and Chileans all carve out their own enclave. Following World War I, the political map of Antarctica changes drastically after the Russian empire collapses into new independent colonial and native states, with the Americans even grabbing a piece. Antarctica continues to be involved in global affairs although decolonization does not happen until the late 20th century.

"Great White South" tends to parallel our timeline's history, unlike the horrifying "Green Antarctica", but it was still a neat collaborative timeline to work on. It lacked the scope of "1983: Doomsday", but still allowed for some world building as different cultures who usually wouldn't live near each other interact. Sadly it doesn't look like much has been added to this timeline since 2011, but perhaps one day a new contributor will pick up where we last left off.

As always, if there are any timelines you would like for me to check out or ones you would like to recommend to our readers, please contact me at ahwupdate at gmail dot com.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update and a blogger on Amazing Stories. Check out his short fiction. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.

Body Impolitic by Thespitron 6000

I knew things were getting out of hand when my nose declared war on my lower intestine. Both were major industrial areas, and also significant cultural centers--the intestinals had been producing some truly stunning artwork, particularly sculpture--but the recent outbreak of civil war between my two lungs had destabilized the entire torso, so that essentially my entire internal civilization was falling apart.

We'd started breeding the "smartgels" six years ago. Progress was slow, but the idea was simple. Silicon-based processors were reaching the limits of what could be done in terms of electrical computing. The prospect of constant overheating meant that the supercomputers of the future would require some other method of information exchange besides the electrical. The guys over at Caltech were working on optical--light used to transmit data--but we hit upon the idea of chemical exchange. After all, that is fundamentally how the brain works, through chemical exchange--specifically, electrochemical exchange.

The smartgels were genetically modified amoeba, designed to be less amoeba-like and more neuron-like. Their growth and communicability were intended to be limited; our concept was that one could spread out a growth medium of sufficient mass to support the processing power of billions of interlinked "neuroebas"--the smartgel. This organic computer would produce waste heat through metabolism, just like any other microorganisms, but unlike a computer, that waste heat wouldn't affect their processing ability. Plus, the smartgels could adapt and learn new tasks without the need to be programmed. True neural nets. The initial tests were promising--the smartgels we developed could, within a few months, do quite complicated math. Calculus, factoring primes, you get the idea. We congratulated each other, backs were slapped, bottles of champagne opened. Our adaptive smartgels seemed to be meeting every expectation.

Then they went rogue.

I first noticed the signs of infection when I came down with what appeared to be a late summer cold. I thought nothing of it at the time, but the symptoms worsened. My doctor took a look inside my ears and screeched, "There's something growing in there!" At that point, they had only begun to develop agriculture; writing was still whole days in the future.

Apparently, our containment procedures were not as rigorous as we would have liked. Some of the neuroebas had escaped; later I learned they'd gained access to my body through a cut on my thumb. In what would later be mythologized as the "Great Arm Trek", they had migrated upwards through my bloodstream, jumping into my respiratory system via the lungs. When they reached the inner ear, they settled, regarding it as something of a promised land.

I learned this later, after they'd developed radio. At the time, however, I nearly committed genocide by embarking on a course of antibiotics. The neuroebas, not having invented the scientific method, were left to consult their medicine "men" for an explanation. In what would leave an enigmatic legacy ringing down the weeks, the medicine men (or "itch doctors", as I came to call them) guided their followers in constructing the first obvious signs of microbial intelligence that we became aware of: Dermhenge. The raised welts on my legs and arms itched unbelievably at first, but their straight lines and giant portrayals of microscopic fauna indicated that I was no longer alone inside myself. The antibiotics stopped.

From there, progress was rapid. On Sunday, they developed currency, trading vacuoles in exchange for food and the pelts of bacilli from deep in the bowels of my bowels. By Friday, a bodywide civilization had developed, helped in part by the creation of a chain of crude semaphore towers lining my veins and arteries. In the rich and warm regions of my sinuses, ears, bladder, and gut, mighty cultures began to grow. On Tuesday, we first made mutual contact, with a small group of monks living in a distant monastery in the harsh recesses of my stomach lining. One of them had discovered radio waves; they had their first transmitter constructed only after minutes of agonizing work.

Wednesday was when the trouble started. Decadence had set in; radical ideologies and nationalism had taken root, and when my left lung was seized by a band of radical Ukaryians, who wished to found a perfect society there, my respiratory system quickly fell into civil war. The conflict spread, and by late afternoon it was clear that the bodywide civilization was doomed.

Their rapid technological growth had not ceased: that night as I lay in bed I could hear the tiny whine of infinitesimal prop aircraft, and then felt pinpricks as the Nosons carpet-bombed my jejunum, which was a disputed zone. I was extremely gassy that night.

In the morning I decided I had had enough. Going to the lab, I found the radio transmitter we used to communicate with their leadership, and I threatened to drop the Big One: enough quinine and penicillin to turn the Dannon Company into a raw-milk wholesaler.

To my relief, they came to the bargaining table rather than risk total destruction. My intestine was dismembered into its constituent states, the Gastro-Intestinal Empire finally coming to an end. My nose agreed to disarm, and inspectors were sent from the eyes to ensure compliance with the treaty. My brain and my gonads were declared neutral zones (the last at my own insistence). My appendix and my tonsils both fell from "superpower" status down into the ranks of the has-beens. A "League of Organs" was founded to keep the peace, although I remain skeptical about its efficacy.

Peace seems to have broken out, and I--and the physiopolitical situation--seem much healthier. I made some major concessions to make my body safe for germocracy, but it was well worth it.

I'd recently gotten intelligence that they were beginning research into nuclear fission.

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Thespitron 6000 is a contributor (or poster or whatever) on alternatehistory.com and the author of A More Personal Union.

Review: Iron Sky

Guest post by Sean Korsgaard.

Long ago, I mentioned a Finnish crowd-sourced movie project by the name of Iron Sky. A sci-fi comedy about of all things, Nazi’s that escaped Earth at the end of WWII reinvading Earth in 2018 after forming a society on the dark side of the moon, it piqued my interest at the time for being both an interesting bit of B-movie gold, and an intriguing homage to classic cornball sci-fi. Plus, if you’re anything like me, you can’t help but grin like a maniac at the thought of space zeppelins.

So imagine my surprise when I found out a few months ago that not only had the film been completed, but had been showcased with mostly positive reviews at a number of film festivals. My excitement at finally getting to see Space Nazis in action was stunted by a major problem: despite getting released in Europe, distribution of the film in the English speaking world was an uphill battle, especially in the US, where it only got a number of requested screenings after months of feuding between the fans and filmmakers against the distributor. So, after many moons, I finally managed to snag a ticket to a recent showing, and see if the years of waiting were worth it.

So does Iron Sky live up to its potential or is this a cinematic Barbarossa? Get ready for an invasion my dear readers, as I take aim at Iron Sky.

In 1945, on the eve of losing WWII, Nazi scientists manage to make a major breakthrough in anti-gravity research [Editor's Note: See our review of SecondWorld by Jeremy Robinson for a similar, but more serious use of anti-gravity]. With the discovery too late to turn the tide of the war, it is instead used to evacuate a number of Nazis to the moon, where they build a base in exile, plotting their return to Earth. This comes in 2018, when an American mission to the moon stumbles on the base, forcing them to launch their long plotted Meteorblitzkrieg, with a thinly veiled President Sarah Palin all too happy to fight them, in hopes becoming a war-time President will see her reelected.

The story and script are outlandish, ridiculous, and I wouldn’t have a movie about space Nazis be any other way. As expected, the film is a solid homage/parody of B-movies and Naziploitation films. If you have a sardonic or European sense of humor, or are a fan of B-movies, this film will delight you with its sense of humor. There are a number of jokes in the film that are so audacious they may well get a chuckle from you that the filmmakers had the audacity to make them. This is most notable with the films political satire subplot, which in addition to never being too heavy handed, does touch on a number of issues a Hollywood film would never have the cajones to touch – two in particular involving Nazi-style warmongering and propaganda use by world leaders to retain power. They are also even handed in their skewering, taking aim at any and all targets equally, yet always in the nature of good humor.

At the same time, there is some sold science fiction here – in addition to the alternate history elements, the movie touches on little details like how the Nazi lunar base had to arrange marriages to avoid inbreeding, and how one of the astronauts’ iPhones has more computational power than the entire base – you can tell some serious thought went into the details, and it adds to the film greatly. Though the script could have used some more polish certainly, the result is a gloriously hammy satire that is one part SNL, one part South Park, one part Doctor Strangelove, and I couldn’t help but love it.

A large part of this is thanks to the cast, who are all too happy to patch the cornball premise with some magnificently cheesy performances from all members involved. This ranges from the President of the USA, a Sarah Palin parody that puts Tina Fey to shame, takes a few swipes at Obama as well (his ‘Yes We Can’ posters are skewered in the film), to Gotz Otto as the slimy leader of the Nazi invasion fleet, Commander Klaus Adler. The highlights however are Christopher Kirby, as black Astronaut James Washington, and Udo Kier, whom as Nazi leader Wolfgang Kortzfleisch, steals the scene anytime he’s on screen, and you can tell he had some real fun with his performance.

Worth special note are the special effects, which outclass a number of the summer blockbusters I’ve seen this year (Battleship and Total Recall, I’m looking at you!). Filmed for something in the range of eight million dollars, it’s worth noting that the movie’s visuals are on par with Hollywood films with twenty times the budget. Ranging from the sets the admittedly stunning space battles, largely thanks to some excellent art direction and dedicated cast and development of the film, it is a textbook example that millions of dollars spent of special effects can’t replace putting actual effort into a movie, something the makers of a number of Hollywood blockbusters would do well to learn.

Overall, Iron Sky manages to meet, surpass and fail expectations all at the same time. It is without a doubt, both a far cry from being decent cinema and may well be the guiltiest pleasure to be had at the movies all year. You can tell the movie was a labor of love for all parts involved in its production, one they certainly had a lot of fun with, and you can’t help but join them. Was it worth six years of development? Who can tell, but I enjoyed it, and it is better than a great many bigger movies I’ve seen this year. While it’s not a movie for everyone, if you get a grin at the mention of space Zeppelins, or are looking for a solid B-movie, this movie is worth seeing and I whole heartedly recommend it.

In the end, what is perhaps most notable about the movie however, and what may prove to be its true legacy is that along with movies like Chronicle or WOTW: Goliath, Iron Sky proves there is some serious potential and a bright future in high concept crowd sourced movies. We may well be at the advent of a golden age for independent cinema, and if the battle this movie had with distributors is a sign, that scares the hell out of Hollywood, and it should – Iron Sky is better than about half the movies churned out by Hollywood this year, and had it gotten a wide release, it would have made waves. As far as I’m concerned, it still will – as I said two years ago, lunar Nazis kick the crap out of sparkly vampires, the Navy fighting aliens and half-assed remakes any day of the week.

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Soldier, scholar, writer and web-voyeur, Sean CW Korsgaard has been active in the alternate history community since 2006, and was recently elected to succeed Mitro as President of the Alternate History Online Facebook group. In addition to his contributions at the Alternate History Weekly Update, he writes for several websites, including his own, which can be found here.

Review: Alfheim by J.A. Schultz

Guest post by Sebastian Breit

It was a dark time. With the start of the second World War Elven-kind once again found themselves in the middle of a human conflict. With their glory days behind them the Huldufolk must either flee or fight to survive in the clash of nations. But can the elves do more than just survive? Or can Alfheim rise again?

How about history where WW2 happened - and a race of Elves lived in the same world as we did? Sounds interesting, I'd say. Unfortunately, Alfheim is a decidedly weak novel squandering a potentially interesting concept. Be it certain problems with German names - never a good thing if half you story takes place in Germany - or the glaringly obvious fact that the novel did not even receive the most basic editing Alfheim is sadly ripe with problems. Let's not mince words here: Alfheim isn't a good book. I didn't even make it fully through it. What you're getting in this review is just what put me off in the part I did read.

One jarring problem the novel has that jumps right out is its formatting. There are no breaks between paragraphs within a chapter dedicated to different locations and characters. One paragraph may deal with a character in a refugee camp in the USA, the next line will deal with an elf in the woods in Germany. No story will get brownie points from me for having me bash my head against my keyboard in a futile attempt to figure out what's going on! This isn't a small issue: it's damn annoying, and it could've been easily avoided!

If you start a new POV or switch locations hit ENTER twice in your writing program.

Or divide the sections with a set of centered asterisks, like this: * * *

Or give it a location header: dau'Beljaw Clanhouse, near Nordlichstadt, Germany

You see, that's really not that hard and is mighty convenient for the people reading your book. Combined with the already existing massive editing problems and other issues of Alfheim this is a game breaker for me.

Secondly: a map of the world as the Elves see it would've been a nice touch to actually make sense of what Alfheim and all the other countries (?) were supposed to be. Because all the human countries are there and apparently evolved just as they did IRL: socially, territorially, technologically.

And yet the Germany Schultz sets his story in is a comparably deserted area filled with houses emptied by Nazis who are about as incompetent as the ones in Hogan's Heroes. There's also absolutely no distinction between the different branches of the German security apparatus he's talking about. They're just Nazis. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitching about that label. My gripe is that there's zero consistency.

Which is unwittingly amusing once one tries to piece it all together. The guy tasked with rounding up and killing the Elves is obviously part of the SS. The men he uses for his work inside Germany are first described as experienced soldiers, so it's likely they are Waffen-SS. The convoy etc. that are being attacked must be Wehrmacht. And right before he gets the order to round all the Elves up he was contemplating asking to be transferred to Afrika to Rommel... which would mean he's Army? Wouldn't rounding up Elves in Germany be something the Gestapo would preside over while the SA does the legwork? If our Nazi POV could ask to be transferred to Rommel's command, wouldn't that make him Wehrmacht himself? But why would a Wehrmacht officer be tasked with... You see what I mean. If you write alternate history the least I expect of you is that you have an idea about history itself!

Another thing is that it's never explained how exactly the Elves have been able to keep up in that world?! One character mentions early in the story how they were once able to fight the Vikings and the Saxons. Really? The author never describes Elvenkind as a numerous bunch, and he tells us how elves look like: as tall as eight year olds, with sharp teeth and pointy ears. Allow me to point out that - as someone who has worn shield, armor and sword - I will call bullshit on the notion that someone with the body of an eight year old could go mano-a-mano with a Viking raider in full "Hello, I'm here to burn, rape and pillage and not necessarily in that order"-attire.

And they hunt with longbows and rifles. Few grown men can draw a longbow, and firing hunting rifles certainly isn't something optimized for the equivalent of the body of a preteen! And yet somehow they can out of the blue start at guerrilla warfare campaign within Germany in 1941, a densely populated and fully mapped nation crawling with paramilitary and military forces and a massive state security apparatus. They attack convoys and patrols and even bases with ease while the higher ups of the man tasked with "dealing with the vermin" consider them to be no threat. I'm certain open partisan warfare in Germany proper in 1941 wouldn't have bothered anyone in the NSDAP...

It's even more ridiculous that a people as bureaucratically pedantic and scholarly obsessed as the Germans of the 19th and 20th century would know so extremely little about another sapient race living in their very midst. They've got no idea about Elven culture, and only a handful of people know their language (which brings me to the question why all Elves do have the same language?). I could understand this if the setting was the Middle Ages or some other era of the far away past, but this? I mean, you don't think German universities - for a long time considered the best of the world, with German being the language of science in many fields for a time -  wouldn't be all over the pint-sized intelligent species living in their own backyard? You don't think that the Kaiser or the regional rulers before him would've had a census done on them, taxed them, forced them to integrate? If there's one thing you'll never see me doubt it's the pervasive nature of Prussian (and German) bureaucracy!

The biggest - for the narrative's internal sense of weight - is the choice of using the Elves as an armed and dangerous addition to the Jews as a group that's persecuted and being exterminated. For Schultz's Elves make for really bad replacements as his choice shows a distinct lack of understanding for the reasons of the pervasiveness of Nazi antisemitism and its reach on the part of the author. True enough, making the Elves into another persecuted group helps Schultz to set them up as a guerrilla fighting force in Germany and occupied France. But the shoe just doesn't fit.

Jews were highly integrated into society (nearly indistinguishable, really). They made for good scapegoats precisely because their numbers were large enough for them to be considered a known quantity and yet small enough to not pose a problem once persecution started. Base public sentiment could be brought in position against them with coordinated propaganda because an above average number of German Jews inhabited higher socio-economic strata and was therefor susceptible to public jealousy. The Jews playing a large role in the international system of finance and trying to wreck Germany was also an idea touted easily because it was plain and simple for the Reichspropagandaministerium to point to, say, the Rothschild family. Prior prejudices could also be rehashed and exploited: the Jews as cowards sitting at the base while "real Germans" fought in the trenches of WW1, "parliamentarism" (and the leftwing parties with their comparably prominent Jewish-German members) stabbing the Reich in the back and so on... The Jews were a relatable factor. With the "right" propaganda it was possible to get a critical mass of people thinking about them as the enemy in their midst. The Nazis went to great lengths regarding conspiracy theories and (pseudo-) science as to why Jews were a threat.

The Elves don't offer these "convenient" treats. They are loners hiding away in their enclaves, they don't compete for resources, they generally don't interact with human societies. They are not technologically sophisticated, not internationally organized, hell, they don't even speak the language of the country they're living in. They offer very little of the "advantages" of the Jews for propaganda. Most people in 1940s Germany probably would pay them as much heed as an exotic jungle tribe or, indeed, a fairytale.

A skip forward in the book shows the the intervention of the Elves - by the way, why did the USA accept scores of Elvish refugees but historically was a miser when it came to accepting Jewish refugees? - takes WW2 into a vastly different direction, with Elvish nations arising after it concludes. I somehow doubt that comes about more plausibly than what I did read of Alfheim.

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Final Verdict: F. Reading Alfheim I'm left with the feeling that J.A. Schultz just doesn't know that much about Germany, the Nazis or WW2 in general except for the more well-known dates. Which is bad if these are the things your story's resting on PLUS Elves! The point is, after slugging through a typo-riddled sixth of the novel and its mushed-together chapters my suspension of disbelief simply said "To hell with this, I'll go play DEFCON".

As someone who has self-published a novel I can only comment that Alfheim is one of the examples that give self-pubbers a bad name. I'm sure Schultz thinks he cares a great deal about the story he's created. But it's obvious that nobody else has proofread this story, and that he did seek little if any input from people who know a bit about WW2 and history surrounding it. And, well, no editing, at all. Had the author given his manuscript these necessary finishing touches I believe Alfheim could have been a passable novel. As it is, all I can credit Schultz for is having a nice idea. That's the only positive thing I can say about Alfheim. Do yourselves a favor and don't buy it.

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Sebastian P. Breit is the author of the alternate history novel Wolf Hunt. You can find news, reviews, and commentary on all matters regarding WW2 on his blog, The War Blog, and follow his writing progress on his personal website.

Dissecting Worlds Series 6 Episode 4: The American Civil War

Well it is finally here, my guest spot on the Dissecting Worlds podcast, my first ever podcast appearance.  I join Kehaar and Matt Farr as we look at that popular alternate history setting of the American Civil War. Topics covered during the podcast include:

• Harry Harrison’s Star and Stripes series, the Trent Affair and options for European intervention.
• Harry Turtledove’s TL-191 and the romanticism of both sides of the ACW.
• The appeal (and consequences) of a Balkanized North America and an Anglo-American Union.
• Everyone's favorite winged extraterrestrials and South African Nazis.
• One of my favorite comic books: Captain Confederacy!
• Race in America and its legacy in fiction and reality. I'm calling you out H.P. Lovecraft!

Special thanks to Chris Nuttall, Richard Small and Roger L. Ransom for giving me food for thought while preparing for the podcast.

I hope you enjoy our discussion and remember: feedback is appreciated.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a volunteer editor for Alt Hist and a contributor to Just Below the Law. His fiction can be found at Echelon Press, Jake's Monthly and his own writing blog. When not writing he works as an attorney and enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana.

Review: "A New Birth of Freedom: The Visitor" by Robert G. Pielke

Grade: B

Would you believe someone if they told you they were a time traveler?  Probably not, you are not that trusting of a soul.  You would require some proof.  What could they say or do to convince you that they are the real deal?  But wait, why is it so important that you believe them?  What do they want from you?

A New Birth of Freedom: The Visitor by Robert G. Pielke begins when a stranger carrying a shiny, metallic valise steps aboard a train carrying a young Abraham Lincoln going home from a two year stint in Congress.  He is dressed oddly and has an unusual request of Lincoln.  He asks Lincoln to be his attorney and to remain on retainer...for 14 years.  Time flies by and Lincoln, now President of a divided nation, meets the stranger again who goes by the name of Edwin Blair.

He proceeds to inform Lincoln and his closest advisers that he is a time traveler and he is here to save the world.  He does not need much, just the Army of the Potomac, on the verge of fighting Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia at Gettysburg, to be in a certain place at a certain time to fight one of the greatest threats to humanity.

Oops, I almost forgot.  He also needs Lee and the Confederates to cooperate as well.  Piece of cake really.

A New Birth of Freedom was a good read.  The book is definitely dialogue driven, much like The Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell.  The period dialogue and Edwin's clumsy attempts to emulate it were fun to read.  Pielke also does a good job of making a plausible presentation of Civil War America and more importantly avoids common time travel tropes that are found in alternate history.

How so? First, Blair isn't some bumbling fool who got sent back in time by accident.  He has a well-thought out plan that has been carried out over a period of decades and will come to fruition on the bloody fields of Gettysburg.  Second, and most refreshing, is the fact that the historical characters that Blair meets are not dumb barbarians overly-impressed by Blair's "magic".  They have imaginations too and sometimes prove morally superior when Blair succumbs to his darker aspects.

Of course there is the issue of the butterfly effect, which seems to have been suspended.  I will withhold judgment, however, since how time travel works in the novel is not sufficiently explained and will likely be expanded upon in the sequels.  I am starting to learn that you should not always assume the author screwed up and there could be more to the story in later volumes.  Sometimes you need to sit back and give the author the benefit of the doubt.

Nevertheless there were three major issues which prevented me from giving this novel a better grade. One, the length.  The novel is just over 200 pages long, including a few sketches.  It is a very short read.  Two, you can only buy the novel in paperback, which is annoying for e-book fans like me.  Three, typos.  At first I was worried when I started reading this book and noticed there was an error in the first sentence of the introduction. Thankfully, however, there were not enough errors to completely ruin the novel.

A New Birth of Freedom: The Visitor is a worthwhile read.  Hopefully the sequels will correct the flaws of the original and create an excellent time travel series.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a volunteer editor for the Alt Hist magazine and a contributor to Just Below the Law. One of his short stories will be published in the upcoming Echelon Press anthology, Once Upon a Clockwork Tale (2013). When not writing he works as an attorney in the state of Illinois and enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana.

Preview: "A New Birth of Freedom: The Visitor" by Robert G. Pielke

How do you get two warring factions to put aside their differences and unite against a common enemy?  If you are Harry Harrison, you get the British to attack the Confederates after going to war on their side to fight the Union.  If you are Harry Turtledove, you have aliens invade the Earth at the height of World War II.  Take the influences of both authors and you get A New Birth of Freedom: The Visitor by Robert G. Pielke, the first in a planned trilogy, with the last two books to be published by Whiskey Creek Press.  Here is the description from  Amazon:

It has taken centuries to recognize that all humans possess certain unalienable rights. There will come a time when we have to consider whether others deserve those rights as well. That time will come on July 3rd 1863. 

When a stranger carrying a shiny, metallic valise steps aboard a train carrying Abraham Lincoln home from a 2 year stint in Congress, everyone stares, wondering about the stranger's odd clothing and strange footwear with the word Nike emblazoned on them. 

When the strange man shows up in Lincoln's office at the White House 14 years later, still wearing the same clothes, carrying the same valise and looking not a day older, the president and his staff know something is odd. 

But when Edwin Blair opens his valise and projects a 3D image of the Earth on Lincoln's wall, then proceeds to tell a fanciful tale about time traveling aliens preparing to land at Gettysburg on July 3rd, they are sure they've met a lunatic.  

Unfortunately for them, they're wrong. 

Robert has been kind enough to send me a review copy to read. Though you will have to wait for my review next week, in the meantime you can check out reviews done by other critics.  Lynn McMonigal said that she "LOVED this book" and also liked the "attention to detail. Historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee are described just as history books portray them."  Chew & Digest Books also complimented Pielke on how he portrayed historical figures saying "[w]hen Lincoln talks, it sounds like what I think Lincoln would say. When Robert E. Lee interacts with Blair, it feels real, not like total poppycock." Kirkus Reviews said that A New Birth of Freedom was "[a]n exciting, enticing first entry in a planned series."

One of the cons of the novel that a couple of the reviews agreed about was the presence of the sci-fi elements in the story.  Yet as alternate historians, a little ASB is unlikely to scare us away.  I look forward to reading and reviewing the story, so stay tuned.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a volunteer editor for the Alt Hist magazine and a contributor to Just Below the Law. One of his short stories will be published in the upcoming Echelon Press anthology, Once Upon a Clockwork Tale (2013). When not writing he works as an attorney in the state of Illinois and enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana.

Review: "The Division of the Damned" by Richard Rhys Jones

Guest post by Sebastian Breit.

The genre-mixing of the Second World War with the realm of the mystical and supernatural has always had me in its thrall, ever since I watched Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc as a teenage boy. Seldom tried and even less often successfully so, it has remained a niche genre with limited overall commercial appeal outside two of the Indiana Jones movies. The first Hellboy movie incorporated some of the occult links to the Third Reich and, in my opinion, would have been better all around had it concentrated on such a setting. Not that a Rasputin eldritch abomination wasn't nice, too, don't get me wrong... The last good installment of a WW2/Supernatural mix I know of was the 2008 horror movie Outpost (the less said about the sequel the better). And as far as books go: in case they exist they've done their very best to avoid my attention.

That is until now.

Richard Rhys Jones' novel took me by complete surprise.

The tide of war has turned against the once unstoppable German armies, and Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, is approached by a Romanian count claiming to be part of the ethnic German minority of the Siebenbürger Sachsen who promises him an army of soldiers able to fight during the night. Enamored by the occult and by the obvious advantages of such a deal he sends newly promoted Eastern Front veteran Markus von Struck and a select band of trusted Waffen-SS soldiers into Romania to escort his envoy Dr. Rasch to finalize the deal.

At the same time the British are approached by the same count and decide to send Major James Smith onto a commando operation, dropping him via parachute into the Carparthians.

What starts ordinary enough for the peak of WW2 soon branches out into the fields of legend, religious myths reaching back four thousand years and horror. The lines between ally and enemy begin to blurr, and soon a motley crew of the most unlikely heroes are all that stand between survival and an all-consuming darkness.

Jones' human characters, even the secondary ones, are all well-rounded, three dimensional people with strengths and weaknesses and they, even more so than the extremely well-paced story, are what carries the novel to its action-packed climax. This is even more stunning since a large part of the protagonists we follow are German Waffen-SS soldiers, a group not commonly attributed with positive traits. But over the course of the narrative Jones manages to turn them into layered, likeable individuals, and while they share the limelight with a handful of other characters like a pair of Jewish KZ inmates who turn into unlikely - and ultimately really satisfying - heroes, they are the true protagonists of The Division of the Damned.

What's at stake and who are the heroes? Well this quote narrows it down more succinctly than I ever could:

"Who'd have thought it would come to this?" Michael asked nobody in particular. 

"What?" Rohleder asked without looking up from scrubbing his barrel. "That the final fight for mankind would be fought by a couple of modern-day knights, German SS, an Englishman, a Communist, a Jewish woman and a Jewish werewolf?"

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is The Division of the Damned in all its glory - and it is a glorious read indeed - condensed into half a dozen sentences. If you haven't figured it out by now: I'm totally enamored by this book. If you can even remotely get into the WW2/Horror combination this is a read you must not pass by. I highly recommend you purchase a copy for yourself, and I for my part welcome a new author I'll definitely keep an eye on in the future: Richard Rhys Jones.

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Sebastian P. Breit is the author of the alternate history novel Wolf Hunt. You can find news, reviews, and commentary on all matters regarding WW2 on his blog, The War Blog, and follow his writing progress on his personal website.

Showcase: William Dellinger's For All The Marbles

My dear readers, you are in for a treat today. Of all the showcases I have done for all of you, it is no small thing when I say that what you're reading today may very well be for the next big story of the entire Alternate History. those are not words I use lightly, believe me, and I know everybody and their little brother who have ever penned a work in the genre tend to blanket their work in that claim. For All The Marbles has earned every word of that oft tossed about phrase.

Because For All The Marbles is unlike any other work of alternate history you or I have ever read or seen.

Don't take my word for it though! Please, enjoy the trailer I have prepared for you prior to the main showcase:

INT to a view of paintings, statues and such of various historical figures. Nelson's Column, The Bayeux Tapestry, Washington Crossing the Delaware.

Throughout human history, only a lucky few, through reputation or great deeds, have earned for themselves a name and legacy to withstand the test of time.

You now see brief glimpses of the likes of Thomas Jefferson, Queen Elizabeth I, Julius Caesar and a few other historical figures.

Only the best and brightest of the manifold millions of men escape mortality to live forever as legend. Question is, of these lucky few...

You now see those same faces again, as the camera reveals them all to be standing alongside each other, a hundred fold or more all filled with some of the most recognizable figures in history.

Can they do it twice?

You see before them stands a figure who somewhat resembles Mark Harmon, though shinning with an otherworldly glint in his eyes, who then says 'You may call me Marvin, and let me tell you about the Myox..."

AH.com and William Dellinger present histories greatest figures, together again at last.

Our most refined statesmen

A brief glimpse of what is clearly a cabinet meeting with several figures gathered around a table. We get to see Thomas Jefferson reading off a list of proposals at one end of the table, as the camera pans over we see members include the likes of Otto von Bismark, Winston Churchill, Henry Clay, Adam Smith, Marcus Cicero and a number of others. Rubbing his chin at the head of the table is Charlemagne, along with his wife, Elizabeth Tudor.

Our most cunning strategists

We are given a glimpse into what looks like a general staff meeting, with Dwight Eisenhower pouring over maps with the likes of Julius Caesar, Robert E Lee, Hannibal Barca, and a number of others. In the corner we see a chess match between Niccolo Machiavelli and Sun Tzu, as a figure immediately recognizable as Cardinal Richelieu approaches Machiavelli and whispers something in his ear. A faint smile creeps on his face as the camera pans away.

Our most brilliant minds

We now see a room with a massive chalkboard with Steven Hawking walking up and down correcting various figures before turning to face his colleagues, which for the moment, includes Issac Newton, Robert Goddard, Wilbur Wright, Archimedes, Werner von Braun and Albert Einstein, the latter of whom smiles and says 'Faster than light travel... wondurbar...'

Our most cultured artists

We see a few books on a table, with unrecognizable titles, but authored by Hemingway, Milton, and a few by Shakespeare, as the camera pans up to see Leonardo de Vinci moving a brush across a wide canvas as Michelangelo looks onward as a vaguely familiar classical tune comes out of a radio. Michelangelo asks 'I can't tell, is that, Mozart or Beethoven?'. Leonardo stops painting long enough to look back and say 'Both'.

Our most courageous soldiers

We see George Patton on Horseback alongside Colin Powell as he unfolds a telegram handed to him by a messenger. We see it reads 'First one to flank the enemy buys the drinks tonight - Erwin Rommel'. A mixture of a smile and a scowl breaks out on his face as he says 'Looks like the drinks are on you tonight, you magnificent bastard', then riding off to rally his troops.

Against our most brutal foes

We get a glimpse from behind of a figure speaking from a balcony in a very fascistic manner, and though we never see his face, we see the seemingly endless formation of black uniformed soldiers before him as they all let loose a deafening war cry as the man thrusts his arm out in an all too familiar salute.

FOR ALL THE MARBLES

Humanity's greatest leaders against humanity's greatest foes.

If you haven't guessed by now, the concept is one both elegant in its simplicity and brilliant in its execution. A cosmic figure (some might call him an alien space bat) known as Marvin is part of an interstellar game with fellow members of his ilk, known as Myox. This game consists of the player taking a number of figures to use as pieces to form an entire civilization from scratch, and then proceed to wage war until control of the planet belongs to one side, with all other players eliminated. While we have yet to see what pieces the other sides had picked, Marvin alone picked out a list of figures that would make almost any history buff drool.

Here, lies one of the biggest draws and strengths of the story. One of the big charms of alternate history has been to allow a writer to write a fictional story from the eyes and perspective of various historical figures, and for the reader to have a familiar window to gaze at an unfamiliar world. It goes without saying that a story like For All The Marbles, which provides us with a story that revolves around the Dream Team of human history would be all the more enticing, let along when written with such skill and passion as it is here. Little details of the figures here and there provide a great deal of both drama and humor in the story - Alexander the Great as he struggles to embrace humility, Steven Hawking's joy to being able to use his legs again, Benedict Arnold tearfully begging forgiveness from George Washington for his treason, Mozart's disgusted reaction to bubblegum pop - all are as wonderful as the tensions and struggles of the group as they establish control over their portion of the planet, and ready for a war that will see them make a play for the rest.

Plus, in addition to the many historical viewpoints, the original characters are just as great, and it is interspersed with references to alternate history culture, AH.com and cameos for various figures and members - Marvin's ship is named the Thande, the various other Myox players are named after the site's Mods, and among the thirty or so cameos, your humble narrator has a role as Shakespeare's apprentice, and I'm very proud of the spot on portrayal of my personality.

While the story itself has advanced only to a little after planet fall, rest assured, you are getting plenty of value. Every update pulls you in fully into the story, and leaves you wanting more with every update. This is a testament to both Dellinger's writing and narrative style, which are both superb and seem to get even better with every posted update. The later updates are each well over 10,000 words, so there's plenty to read, which is one reason for the recent reboot, to beef up the earlier updates.

Overall, it's like I said during my coverage of the Turtledoves - this was the best work of fiction I read last year. Not posts on alternatehistory.com, not alternate history, but fiction period - and given what I read, I hope that says something. It's concept is one of the most brilliant I've come across, and Dellinger's writing abilities are more than enough to handle the story. There is a reason this story has taken AH.com by storm and won at the Turtledove's in landslides. This is the rare kind of TL on AH.com I would pay to read, and in the event this story gets finished and traditionally published, I fully plan on buying a copy. Until then, I will be following devotedly on AH.com has he updates it, and if you haven't read it yet, you need to. The rebooted version is here, but the original is well worth a read too, and not just to tide you over until the next updates.

You heard it hear first folks: For All The Marbles is a masterpiece in the making. Read it now to see for yourself.

Soldier, scholar, writer and web-voyeur, Sean CW Korsgaard has been active in the alternate history community since 2006, and was recently elected to succeed Mitro as President of the Alternate History Online Facebook group. In addition to his contributions at the Alternate History Weekly Update, he writes for several websites, including his own, which can be found here. He is also apprenticed to William Shakespeare, and is playing Macbeth in the latest performance of the play.

Problems with American Civil War Alternate Histories

According to Uchronia, American Civil War alternate histories are one of the two most written about alternate histories in the English language. It is easy to see why when you consider that the United States accounts for over 300 million of the English speaking world. Meanwhile, the war itself was a significant period of history.  It was one of the first examples of industrial war and one of the deadliest in American history. The legacy of the war is still felt in American culture as politicians and scholars endlessly debate the war.

Nevertheless, I fear that the topic in general often leads to bad alternate history.  A combination of factors often make these timelines implausible, whether they be misinterpretations of history or the personal bias of the author.  This article will explain some of the inherent issues with American Civil War alternate histories that authors should recognize before attempting to write their own alternate history based on the "War Between the States".

There are many potential points of divergence involving the war.  Four of the most popular PODs include the Battle of Gettysburg, the Trent Affair/British intervention, Lincoln surviving his assassination and time travel.  Other popular PODs include a harsher Reconstruction, the Battle of Shiloh, General Grant dying during the war, slave rebellions, the South being allowed to peacefully secede and Lincoln being assassinated earlier.  These PODs often create independent Confederacies, but not always.  Sometimes the South is peacefully allowed to secede, sometimes the North and South will reunite or sometimes the war will never end.  For the rest of the article, however, we will focus on the four most popular PODs and some of the issues inherent in each one.

First, the Battle of Gettysburg, which is by far the most popular of the American Civil War PODs.  Not only did it have the single largest number of casualties during the war, the battle is also described as a turning point of the war by historians.  Alternate history tends to accept that distinction by the sheer numbers of works that use an alternate outcome for the battle as the divergence point.  Yet is it a plausible POD?  William Forstchen, who wrote the Civil War Trilogy with Newt Gingrich and Albert Hanser, disagrees.  In his short story "Lee's Victory at Gettysburg… and Then What?", Forstchen speculates that even if the Confederates were victorious at the Battle of Gettysburg, weather, logistics, and the defenses of Washington would have combined to prevent any immediate Confederate victory in the American Civil War. 

This sheds doubt on whether the Battle of Gettysburg was an actual turning point of the war.  If it was a true jonbar hinge, the entire outcome of the war should be reversed if General Lee and his army were victorious.  In fact there is debate about whether Gettysburg was even a turning point.  Several historians have put forth other battles or events that are more significant to the outcome of the war.  This blogger feels that Battle of Gettysburg PODs reflect the human nature to pick a specific battle as being more important than others when deciding the outcome of the war, even if it means ignoring the other theaters of the conflict.

The next popular PODs are intervention by foreign powers (usually by the British after the Trent Affair) or time travellers.  I am combining these two divergences because they both equate to the same thing: outside intervention into the war.  Usually when someone else gets involved in the war, whether it is having British and French regiments at Gettysburg or time travellers handing General Lee an AK-47s, the Confederacy wins its independence. 

This reflects a major OTL concern of the Confederacy: that they pinned their hope of survival on military intervention by Britain and/or France.  If the Confederacy were desperate for international (or temporal) recognition and aid to win their independence, writing an alternate history where the Confederacy wins their independence without it may be implausible.  Since this includes such ASB elements as time travel, it should be a warning sign to any alternate historian interested in speculating on a Confederate victory.  You should tread carefully because it is very difficult to create a plausible alternate history involving the war without some sort of outside intervention.

Finally we get to President Lincoln surviving his assassination.  Abraham Lincoln led the country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis.  He successfully preserved the Union, while ending slavery, and promoting economic and financial modernization.  Lincoln has been consistently ranked by scholars as one of the greatest U.S. presidents, so there is no doubt why so many alternate historians speculate on what would happen had he lived.  This POD, however, often reflect the wishful thinking on the part of the author.  This is very apparent in Superman: A Nation Divided where the rocket from Krypton landed in Kansas in 1844 and Superman becomes an abolitionist superhero who got involved in the American Civil War.  Superman will go on to prevent Lincoln's assassination and afterwards Lincoln goes on to serve two full terms and becomes the most popular American president in history. 

Seeing Lincoln as national martyr and endowing him with a recognition of mythic proportions is very poor history, which makes even worse alternate history.  He was assailed by Radical Republicans for his moderate views on Reconstruction, War Democrats who desired more compromise and Copperheads who wanted peace with the South.  Modern historians have cast doubt to his credentials as the "Great Emancipator" and his pro-business and nationalist views make him more likable to modern American conservatives than liberals.  Alternate historians cannot get caught up in wishful thinking about Lincoln.  He was a politician who was just as capable of failing to make the right decision.  He was not a superhero and alternate historians should not paint him as such.

That brings me to my next point: the bias of the author is more often reflected in American Civil War alternate histories then in any other alternate history.  Thus we tend to see American Civil War alternate histories being categorized under two extremes: wanks and grimdarks.

Let us begin with the wanks.  For those who do not know, wanks are when a single country is always successful, steadily expands and generally does better than is plausible.  Cofenderate States of America wanks are not difficult to spot.  Often the CSA steps into the shoes of the OTL USA, becoming the world's sole superpower while easily handling the issues of slavery, emancipation and race relations (often better than OTL).  These types of alternate history often fall under the Lost Cause theory of the American Civil War. 

This movement tended to portray the Confederacy's cause as noble and most of its leaders as exemplars of old-fashioned chivalry, defeated by the Union armies through overwhelming force rather than martial skill. Proponents of the Lost Cause movement also condemned the Reconstruction that followed the Civil War, claiming that it had been a deliberate attempt by Northern politicians and speculators to destroy the traditional Southern way of life.  It is not difficult to find examples of Confederate wanks, especially on the Internet.

Many have criticized this movement, saying it gives a false view of history and even going as far as to say it promotes racism.  Nevertheless, being overly infatuated with the South makes for a poor alternate historian.  Wanks are rarely, if ever, plausible (unless you subscribe to the idea that we exist in an American wank).  In the case of the Confederacy, alternate historians often ignore major issues inherent with Confederacy, such as their economy which attributed to the Confederacy's defeat in the Civil War.  Alternate historians should not allow romantic notions of any culture to replace good, old-fashioned research.

This applies to the other extreme as well.  Grimdarks where the Confederacy is used as a historical villain can be just as implausible as wanks that paint the Confederacy as shining beacon of civilization in the altered timeline.   It is this blogger's personal opinion that history is rarely black and white.  While the Confederacy stood for things that are abhorrent to many people in modern day society, it is truly difficult to vilify them when you consider the number of people in slavery today is higher than in any point in history.  It is often hypocritical of a modern-day alternate historian to paint a picture of a grimdark Confederacy, when our own world can be pretty grimdark for millions of people under the bonds of slavery.

Yet it still happens.  Probably the most notable example is Harry Turtledove's Great War multi-series.  This eleven-volume series has an independent Confederacy transformed into a Nazi-analogue, complete with their very own Hitler and Holocaust.  I understand that Turtledove was trying to tell us that "it can happen here", but one still wonders whether it was plausible.  While I realize that every culture has the capacity to commit horrible atrocities on others, the long centuries of anti-Semitism that eventually brought about the OTL Holocaust do not translate well into how the South would deal with its black population, even after a major loss in a war.

This brings me to my last major point about American Civil War alternate histories: do your research.  It is possible to create a timeline that gives the reader a realistic portrayal of an independent Confederacy, especially in the Information Age where you have access to virtually infinite amounts of content on the war, along with the opinions of scholars with varying viewpoints. Do not allow your bias or the myths on the Civil War (many of which are still taught in American schools) to cause you to sacrifice the hard work necessary to make a plausible timeline.

Nevertheless, whether your American Civil War timeline leans to the implausible extremes or tries to be as realistic as possible, it is still likely to be controversial regardless of where you publish it. Many Americans are still fighting the Civil War in the public arena. Some of the worst arguments I have witnessed between alternate historians involved the American Civil War. Lost Cause enthusiasts, militant Lincoln advocates and plaid old Internet trolls will tear apart whatever you create.  So be warned when writing an American Civil War alternate history, a hard skin and cool demeanor is a must.

In conclusion, American Civil War alternate histories are very difficult to write.  The most common PODs tend to be implausible and should be avoided.  Do not allow your personal bias to replace good research and be ready to deal with intense criticism from every side.  I do not mean to discourage would be alternate historians who wish to tackle this significant period of history, just be warned that to do it right is a lot harder then it looks.

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Mitro is founder, editor and contributor of Alternate History Weekly Update. When he is not busy writing about his passion for alternate history, he spends his time working as a licensed attorney in the state of Illinois and dreams of being a published author himself one day.