Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he 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, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.
This year mark the 15th anniversary of 9/11 terrorist attacks. An event that changed the world for many, but for the 2016 Freshmen class, its just history. So as alternate historians, we must ask: what if 9/11 Didn't Happen?
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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he 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, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.
Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, a powerful isolationist organization attempted to keep the United States out of World War II. The Alternate Historian asks: what if they succeeded?
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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he 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, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.
Editor's Note
Ugh, I had a rough week. A combination of working a couple nights, a financial emergency and one painful headache later meant I had little time to actually commit to working on anything, especially my next video. It also didn't help that the sudden interest in the "alt-right" has led to many people on Twitter confusing the movement with, you guessed it, alternate history. Sigh, I may have to address that issue eventually.
In case you missed it, last week I posted a short video discussing a new series suggested to me by CountPeter on AlternateHistory.com that I am calling: Let's Read.
Here’s how it works: if you are a writer (aspiring or otherwise) who wants to draw attention to your alternate history, you can submit an excerpt of it to me and I will read it on my channel and include sound effects and music for atmosphere. It’s a great way to promote your alternate history by introducing potential readers to stories they may have overlooked.
Excerpts should be no longer than 3500 words. They can be from web originals that are posted on sites like AlternateHistory.com or from published or soon to be published works. Excerpts should be interesting to listen to or, to put it another way, after listening to it a person should want to read the full piece to find out what happens next. If you need help making an excerpt, check out Choosing a Book Excerpt at Indies Unlimited or 5 Tips For Creating A Strong Excerpt From Your Novel Or Memoir at Writer's Relief.
And, of course, excerpts should be alternate histories, but I will accept related genres, like steampunk, historical fantasies, time travel, etc. I also reserve the right to reject any submissions I don’t feel meet the standards of what I am looking for. If you have any other questions or would like to submit an excerpt, send it to ahwupdate at gmail dot com.
And good news everyone! We already got our first submission from Alison Morton, who sent an excerpt of her novel: Perfiditas. Thanks Alison and I look forward to reading more excerpts. If this proves successful I may find guest readers or create entire radio plays. Also Let's Read doesn't have to be a series devoted to just my channel. Anyone and everyone can join in, but don't forget to try The Alternate Historian first.
What David Peterson, the creator of Dothraki and Valyrian on Game Of Thrones, and Dr. Paul Frommer, the creator of Na'vi in James Cameron's Avatar have to say about conlags and Hollywood with Cracked.
The video where the world largest butt-shaped aircraft...crashes (via Gizmodo).
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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he 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, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.
We are introducing a new video series called Let’s Read. Get excerpts of your works read and promoted on The Alternate Historian channel. Learn more watching by the below video:
Send submission to: ahwupdate at gmail dot com. If you need help making an excerpt, check out these articles:
Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he 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, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.
Did you ever wonder what Africa would look like if it was never colonized by Europeans? Well Swedish artist Nikolaj Cyon took a shot at it and The Alternate Historian is going to review his map.
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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he 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, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.
I got new bookcases, which means I also got a new set for my videos.
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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he 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, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.
Matt and Alana discuss Stranger Things, Netflix's awesomely weird homage to the the 1980s.
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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he 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, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.
Why does Hollywood love destroying California? We'll find out in this Patreon sponsored Trope Talk.
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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he 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, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.
Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans. Due to the holiday, I won't be posting a Weekly Update or a Map Monday today, but I got something even better. Check out my top 5 American Revolution what ifs that could have changed the outcome of the war.
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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he 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, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.
I've seen another alternate history map shared around the Internet in response to Brexit...but for absolutely the wrong reasons. Learn what I am talking about below:
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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he 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, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.
I today's video, I am joined by a special guest, Alex "SpanishSpy" Wallace, to talk about why alternate historians love George Orwell's dystopia classic: 1984. Enjoy (and sorry ahead of time for the audio issues):
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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he 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, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.
Alana and Matt discuss what they thought of Hulu's 11.22.63. Was it as good as the book for Matt? Was it able to stand on its own with Alana? Watch and find out:
Learn more about our adoption journey on our blog and GoFundMe page.
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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he 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, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.
Twitter spoke and I listened. Here is my video review of Terry Bisson's Fire on the Mountain:
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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he 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, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.
My old nemesis has returned, so I made this short video as a call to action to prevent it from happening again.
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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.
Sorry for not covering all the episodes as we promised, but we are going to do better for 11.22.63.
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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.
I've been reading SF Signal before I even started blogging myself, so you can imagine how cool it is to see them following my own work. Thanks John and the rest of the SF Signal staff!
And now the news...
SM Stirling Writing New Alternate History Novel: And Carry A Big Stick
SM Stirling announced on Facebook that he has written the first few chapters of a new novel tentatively titled And Carry a Big Stick. Here is the direct quote:
Am doing up the first few chapters for AND CARRY A BIG STICK, the working title for my AH novel where Taft dies of a heart attack in 1912 and Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressives take over the Republican party, then crush Wilson in November. Teddy is a character, but not the central one. The plot involves the Black Chamber, which in this timeline is a sort of proto-CIA founded in 1914, and retaliation for the sinking of the Mauretania by a U-boat. There are airships!
This is kind of a big deal because while I do consider the Emberverse series to be alternate history (in a "what if alien space bats did X to Earth" sort of way) Stirling hasn't published any alternate history books outside of that series since 2008 when he published the In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, the second and last book in The Lords of Creation series. That is eight years ago, so I'm excited to see him delve into a new world.
Plus Theodore Roosevelt is one of those patron saints of the Internet (along with Tesla and Deadpool) so its cool seeing another alternate history story involving him. I'm looking forward to And Carry a Big Stick and will keep you posted on anything else I learn about it.
Video(s) of the Week (Plus A Fair Use Rant)
I already mentioned this earlier, but I posted a new video on my channel where I discussed how plausible Stephen King's 11/22/63 is. Check it out below:
Sorry for the long wait between videos. My plan to have a video up once a week didn't work out as I imagined, even with my new emphasis on guest posts for this blog. I'm going to aim for an every other week schedule for now and see how I do. I plan to do another Plausibility Review of Dick's The Man in the High Castle and post a final thoughts episode with Alana on the Amazon adaptation that will cover the remaining episodes and what we thought of the series as a whole. Plus I plan more Trope Talks and I want the next one to cover space filling empires.
Currently I don't monetize my videos on YouTube, but that could always change. If I make more money I can invest in better equipment and software. I would love to even use clips for the shows and films I plan to review...but that runs the risk of running afoul of YouTube's copyright claims system, which doesn't tend to take Fair Use into account at all. I could talk more about it, but I think the Nostalgia Critic and other YouTubers can explain it better:
Now blogging and making videos isn't my career. I have a day job, but I would love one day for this to be what I do for a living. That being said, I can sympathize with those who do make content for the Internet and how their livelihoods are threatened by it. Part of the problem stems from how difficult it is just to talk to someone at YouTube, as Cody Franklin of the AlternateHistoryHub found out when he was unable to monetize his videos for several weeks.
We all know that expressing criticism is an important part of living in a free society, and while I do not condone stealing someone else's copyrighted material, using said material in a review is excepted under Fair Use. YouTube and other sites that rely on producers like the Nostalgia Critic and Cody to draw in audiences to watch their ads need to know that such unfair treatment is not to be tolerated.
I'm not sure how to wrap up this rant (my original plan was just to tell you to check out the Critic's video, but things sort of spiraled out of control) so I will just end by saying that if you don't like it when videos from your favorite channels are taken down, spread the #WTFU hashtag and let Google know you are not happy.
The 10 people who almost became President of the United States (via Yahoo).
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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.
Stay tuned for another review...next year! Enjoy the last Monday of 2015 everyone.
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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.
Dale Cozort, author and Point of DivergenceAPA editor, and I talked about whether alternate history is science fiction or not at this year's WindyCon. Find out the results of our little debate below:
Don't forget to check out Dale's most recent book, Char.
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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.
The Alternate Historian gets a new book and has something to say about a genre related to alternate history:
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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.
