How to Make Your Parallel Universe, Time Travel or Steampunk Story Stand Out

Last week Charlie Jane Anders posted on io9 an article on the ten SF&F stories that editors are tired of seeing. Although there were a few types that I would agree with (i.e. zombies) I was taken aback by the inclusion of parallel universe, time travel and steampunk stories.

Now I am obviously a bit biased since those stories often come under the umbrella of alternate history. That being said, I can understand how their proliferation can be annoying to editors who act as the gatekeepers between readers and bad fiction (well, most of the time anyway). So if you are planning to write one of the three types of stories mentioned and want to be able to stand out, below are my suggestions.

Parallel Universes: Sheila Williams of Asimov probably summed it the best in the article by saying she would like to see more exploration of current theories. The multiverse theory has been in vogue as of late, but there aren't many works out there that have tried explaining it in terms a lay person can understand. Fiction is a good way to do that. On the other hand, you can also play around with some of the speculation scientist's have been making about the multiverse, for example, the different laws that govern the parallel universe. There is already precedent for this in Martinez' Daedalus series (which has a timeline where alchemy works) and Piper's Paratime series (which has a timeline where reincarnation has been scientifically proven). Some might dismiss those ideas as fantasy, but you can still have your own fun with physics in your universe.

Time travel: At Capricon I was on or attended several panels that discussed time travel in fiction. Of the many topics we discussed, one that stuck with me is that you rarely see an analytically look at what happens when a regular person goes back in time. Too many time travelers have it too easy going back to the past, quickly fitting in after only a few "fish out of water" moments. To survive permanently, however, in the real past and not Hollywood's misconceived notion of it, now that would be an interesting story to read. One that uses real historical data and what a regular person the present could realistically accomplish in the past. Also, don't treat people of the past as country bumpkins. For one thing it is insulting (they are your ancestors too) and for another it just doesn't make sense. Sure the Wright brothers probably won't know what to make of your iPhone, but when was the last time you built an airplane from scratch (or an iPhone for that matter)?

Steampunk: I have gotten a lot of criticism for the amount of steampunk I include on this blog, but suck it up, it is related to alternate history. There are, however, some ways to make it more palatable for alternate historians and editors alike. For one thing, why not mash up the genre with military SF? Not all military SF needs to take place in the future on some distant planet. Why not write a story on an old war where the combatants have more advanced weapons. I am not talking about Guns of the South by Turtledove, but steampunk inspired weapons that could have actually been built with some tweaking in the past. Take the American Civil War in a world where the Analytical Engine was completed and came into widespread use, igniting an earlier information age and fast technological growth, like what happened in The Difference Engine. Could the Confederacy have broken the Union blockade with advanced submersibles or would they be stymied by Union airship patrols? What would masters of modern warfare like Jackson and Sherman do with steam-powered war cars and clockwork artillery?

These are just a few suggestions from myself. How would you make the above story ideas stand out for picky editors?

* * *

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.

Review: "East Wind Returns" by William Peter Grasso

Review - East Wind Returns

What if the Trinity test explosion fails because of a design failure of the implosion device? What if through accidents and negligence the available enriched uranium of the US nuclear bomb program has been destroyed, forcing the United States to go ahead with its planned invasion of the Japanese home islands? And worse, what if the Japanese themselves have built their own nuclear device, using the enriched German uranium?

Set against the impending - and later, unfolding - events of Operation Downfall (specifically: Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu), Grasso spins a very convincing story. With the American uranium stores destroyed in a fire - with both scientists and army guards blaming one another - and the initial plutonium-based device not working, President Truman sees no alternative other than to go ahead with putting American boots on Japanese ground. Unbeknownst to the him, the Japanese have successfully tested an atom bomb of their own off the coast of Korea and are now planning to put their remaining weapon to good use. The Navy opts for a suicide run against either San Francisco or the invasion fleet. The Imperial Army wants to use the weapon on a key invasion beach to inflict horrible casualties on MacArthur's task force and break the US spearheads in two. And the new prime minister secretly prays for common sense to prevail and a peace deal to be reached.

Like much the Japanese Navy proposed during the latter days of WW II, their suicide run turns out to be impractical. The weapon is too large to be carried inside even their bigger submarines, and to be activated they would have to surface and manually prime it - in the middle of enemy forces. Thus the task of putting the bomb to good use is awarded to the army. The author also explains quite vividly why a delivery by airplane would be impossible for the Japanese.

In an already strong novel, these are the strongest parts. It clearly shows that Grasso knows his trade, filling the flight scenes with just the right mix of technical knowhow and lively imagery. It is here where the danger of flying lurks just beneath the surface: mechanical and human failure can turn even straight flights in good weather into deadly events. It only gets worse when its cold, you're flying through anti-aircraft fire, and you've got Japanese fighters on your tail.

I've got to commend Grasso for his choice of tense and point of view. The author employs a strange mix of past and present tense narration, but at no point in the novel was I put off by that. In fact, it immersed me deeper into the story, making it actually feeling closer, more personal.

The main POV character of East Wind Returns is Cpt. John Worth, a recon pilot operating from an airfield on Okinawa. He's an expert flyer, and we witness most of the story through his eyes as he experiences the uncertainties and dangers of war: new comrades appear, only to never return from a mission; the Japanese adapt their tactics to ever more deadly ones; trouble brews back on the base with a pampered fighter jock; and true love blossoms between him and Lt. Marjorie Braden. Grasso writes a believable love story in the face of war without it being cheesy or overbearing, and quite unlike what I thought when I began reading the novel, it adds to it more than I thought it would detract (let's face it: most people can't write good romance).

There's not a single character in it without a certain depth to him or her; even the secondary ones are more than fleshed out. If I sound as if I'm heaping praise on East Wind Returns... well, I am, deservedly so. Without it feeling rushed or shortened, Grasso manages in barely 90,000 words to feature a love story, the story surrounding an American invasion of Kyushu, a nuclear plot, personal rivalry and - something I criticized as severely lacking in my last fiction review, Hitler's War - a look on the macro-perspective, showing the discussions and decision-making of the Japanese and American leadership.

Final Verdict: A. This is the hallmark of a well-structured novel. It's got everything: alternate history, adventure, drama, and a love story. And even better, you can get East Wind Returns on Amazon or Smashwords for only $0.99, and the paperback is also reasonably priced. I highly recommend you get this gem.

Points of Divergence 4: Different Rules

In earlier installments of this series, I talked about common factors in alternate histories, how the long tail of divergence can also create an alternative setting, and the implications of the butterfly effect.

In this post I want to look at the factor that may lead to the most far-out alternatives of all: changes in the fundamental laws of physics or properties we believe are “givens.” When they are different from those in our own timeline, where do they take us?

First, though, it is necessary to distinguish between parallel and alternate realities.

Parallel Versus Alternate Realities

Alternate histories stem from some kind of divergence from OTL. Whether that is a singular point, or the cumulative impact of many factors, these divergences can be identified. Prior to the first, the world was the same as we know it.


In a parallel history, there is no comparable POD. Rather, the world – although it may look similar to ours – is fundamentally different in some significant manner. Its earlier history was never an exact analog of OTL to begin with. Example of this are worlds and setting where, say, the speed of light is different than our own, the gravitational constant is different (see Raft, by Stephen Baxter), or sentient biology has always been ammonia-breathing or silicon based. This parallel world may exist alongside our and be reachable from ours, but it is not a divergence from ours.



Where the Two Meet

And yet, there are some cases where the basic principles of how the universe works can be different than we think, and yet result in a world that is an an alternate, not a parallel, to our own.

The crucial factor here is that the core difference between worlds must be a constant that we haven't yet defined in OTL. We must hold that element for an “unknown” or a “doubtful.”It is something we have not (yet) quantified, and cannot – in this timeline – state how, or even if, it functions.

If this is the case, then this leaves open the possibility that that very same factor may actually exist in our own world as well. In that case, we then experience our world and the other as two alternatives, not two parallels.

Da Vinci

To make this more clear, let me give a hypothetical historical example. If Leonardo da Vinci had walked through a portal into 2011, he may have thought he entered a parallel universe: a world that has evolved different from his own because its laws of nature are different. People talk to each other at far distances, send messages and pictures through the air, fly overhead.

If he does not explain these things as magic, he will at least believe they rely upon principles unknown in his time. At the most extreme, he may wonder if the laws of gravity and sound function differently here.

If Leonardo were right on the last point, he would be in a parallel universe. But as it happens, he is right on the second: these are principles not yet known or identified in his time, that shape the world he is visiting. Aerodynamcs, telecommunications, electromagnetic theory and more: these are things we have quantified after Leonardo's time. They existed then too: but untested, unquantifed and effectively unknown.

When Leonardo goes home, he may attempt to invent a flying machine. Although he won't nail the theory of it, he is fumbling towards principles that will alter future events and lives in his timeline.



“The Rules Are Different”

When the underlying rules appear different between World A and World B, then either you have a parallel universe (where they are different), or you have an alternate world where folks have not yet figured out how those rules work.

This latter fact can lead to wildly divergent worlds in alternate histories.

Let's say, for instance, that in World A “psychic powers” are poo-pooed. Some people believe in them, some do not; the scientific evidence is inconclusive. But in World B, such powers have always been with mankind. Instead of doubting and disbelieving early psychic experiences, people took them for granted and wished to cultivate them. Because of this concentrated interest, principles and properties of these abilities began to be identified in the Classical Age; by the Middle Ages, some universities concentrated studies in this area. By the Age of Reason, focused research began to uncover scientific principles that explained the what and how of these abilities and made it possible for them to be more readily developed and used.

The societies and cultures that evolve in a world like this will be potentially very different from those in World A, where science and the public do not generally believe such powers even exist.

To make this a more plausible fictional scenario, there might also be a genetic reason why people on World B are more actively and consistently psionic than those on World A. In this case, a genetic mutation would be one long-tail point of divergence that contributes to the other changes described here. But the path of “psionics as applied art and science” could be developed simply by uncovering its principles far earlier than has occurred in OTL.

Magic

Another example of the “rules are different” approach is when magic is assumed to be real. Quite often stories of this sort are classified as fantasy because of the presence of magic, but depending on the historicity of the rest of the tale, some of these might be better classified as alternate histories.

Unlike psychic abilities, which at least have been scientifically studied in OTL, magic as a practice has received little examination by western science. At the same time – as with those who claim psychic experiences – those who practice magic believe in its efficacy. It is possible that there is a set of principles in World A (as yet undiscovered by the mainstream) that account for the what and how of magic.

In World B, where these principles were discovered long ago, and have been refined ever since, the existence of magic will not be questioned. Indeed, its practice and use will be a known aspect of “how the world works.” Its overall impact will be a function of how common the phenomenon is, and constraints on its use, but its existence alone is sufficient to cause some divergence in timelines.

Some books that have strong history-based settings and include magic could be deemed alternate histories, although they are not typically classified that way in book marketing. One example is Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy series, in which royal investigator Darcy uses magic and detective skills to investigate crimes in an analog to 19th century England. (Except that in this Plantagenet England, the Plantagenets have never left the throne.)

Another interesting example is Poul Anderson's classic Operation Chaos, marketed as “science fiction” (again, presumably because he describes a world unlike any we know, as I wrote about earlier). The premise of this book is a fascinating use of magic and alternate history:

In an alternate world, where the existence of God has been scientifically proven and magic has been harnessed for the practical needs of the adept by the degaussing of cold iron, the United States is part of an alternate Second World War in which the enemy is not Germany but a resurgent Islamic Caliphate, which has invaded the United States. Werewolf Steven Matuchek and witch Virginia meet on a military mission to stop the invading Islamic army from unleashing a secret superweapon, a genie released from a bottle in which it had been sealed by King Solomon. Together, they fight against the demon and incidentally fall in love with each other.

Rules may be different because of scientifically documented principles, or simply because an author has declared that things have been this way since the misty past. Much of the writing in paranormal genres falls into this category, with the premise that this is just like our world except that ghosts/vampires/demons/[fill in the blank] are real. Most of these stories do not concern themselves with historical events in the way that alternate histories do. Some, though, are noteworthy for that very reason: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Count St Germain series features an undying vampire who time and again is close to the heart of power and intrigue in many different eras of historical events – many of which are impacted by his actions.

The more believable alt histories seem to depict societies and events with a strong resemblance to OTL. So even where “the rules are different”, events and plausibility may not stray too far afield from known history. Ultimately, though, if a story depends on “rules being different” for its kick-off into divergence, this permits a great deal of variance at the actual point of story telling. No matter how far out the tale may seem, if its divergence stems from “different rules”, this too qualifies as an alternate history.


Deborah Teramis Christian is a science fiction and fantasy novelist with an alternate history work in progress. You can read more blog posts about this and related subjects at her website, Notes From the Lizard Lair.

Points of Divergence 3: The Butterfly Effect

In previous posts in this series, I talked about the common elements of what we think of as alternate history, and how divergence extended over a long period of time can cause the story to be regarded as science fiction instead.

There is another type of setup for alternate timelines that relies on yet a different dynamic. Although the end result is technically a diverged (alternate) history, the way we arrive at it is along a path considered very science-fictional. I am speaking here of the random causality known in the vernacular as “the butterfly effect.”

Stories that use this technique to develop an alternate history are almost without exception thought of as strictly science fiction. 'Alternate history' is a label usually denied them, although in terms of end point achieved, that is precisely what they are.

Let's pick the butterfly apart a little, shall we?

Butterfly Effect Defined

This term refers to something in chaos theory called sensitive dependence on initial conditions. This means that what a later state looks like depends on how things were at the start. Making a small change in those initial conditions can result in a big change later on.

The term “butterfly effect” comes from the meteorological work of Edward Lorenz: if a butterfly flaps its wings here, the consequences of that initial breeze might snowball to alter the path of a tornado elsewhere, or trigger a storm later somewhere else. A more practical example might be to imagine placing a ball at the top of a grassy hill. The ball might roll off in any one of many directions, depending on slight differences in its initial position. It's not as evocative to call this “the rolling ball effect”, though, so we'll stick with Butterfly Effect (BE) for now.

Time Travel and the BE

In fiction, the BE is most often associated with the concept of time travel. Someone, usually the protagonist, will go back in time to attempt to alter something in the present. The result is that they change some relatively tiny thing in the past, and this results in some huge (and usually unwanted) change in the present. This has been portrayed very effectively in the movie The Butterfly Effect (Ashton Kutcher, 2004), in which the protagonist tries to “redo” parts of his past but keeps creating unintended consequences. We see this again in Run Lola Run, where tiny events like bumping into someone instead of passing them by have major consequences for the future.


A variation on this theme is that the person goes back in time and accidentally alters something that affects their future. One of the earliest short stories to play with this concept was Ray Bradbury's A Sound of Thunder, in which a time traveler on safari kills a butterfly, which creates undesirable consequences in his future. A fascinating read, and you can view the story online here.

And yet here we must note that time travel and the BE variations on it are traditionally thought of as being science fiction. If the story contains time travel, any alternate histories that come into play become overshadowed by the sci-fi umbrella that covers the whole tale. This may be a common way to classify such stories, but it completely obscures the presence of alternate history in the story itself – and that, to my thinking, is often one of the most intriguing parts of these “time travel” narratives.

“What If” and the BE

The alt-history connection becomes more clear when the story focuses on the “what if” of a minor event simply causing significantly different outcomes down the line. Here, the Butterfly Effect offers a lot of possibilities simply as a background dynamic leading to variant futures.

This kind of BE does not need someone from a future timeline to intervene and alter events. Individual agency is not an essential condition to create this alternity. Rather, events simply “randomly” evolve into this consequence or that one, based on chance and a near-infinite number of variables. The entire process rests on slight variations at “starting point A,” which is the necessary precursor to “end point Z”.

We can picture the results of this kind of small-cause, big-consequence causality with one intriguing example. Take, if you will, a world that looks very much like our own up until, oh, let's say the time the dinosaurs died out. Let's say that world-changing event occurred as it did in OTL. After that, as we know, primitive man evolved into the dominant species on this globe.

For that evolution to succeed, countless details came together in ways that promoted that possibility: from natural selection in reproduction, to a certain level of fertility, the ability to cope with environmental challenges, and much much more.

But what if tiny points of causality conspired against the evolution of homo sapiens? What if Australopithicines were disadvantaged in some way, and some bird was smarter than historically was the case: could small proto-human populations, large intelligent bird populations, and other environmental factors (disease, climate, whathaveyou) lead to a world where an avian species became the dominant race? In this timeline, half-intelligent ape-men might have been banished to the jungles and eventually hunted to extinction by tool-using bird-men.

Change enough of the variables along the way and you change the outcomes. And anyone would call our example science fiction. But is it?


Events Unfolding From Causes

The BE suggests that the proper definition of an alternate history is a history told about the big consequences unfolding from small, identifiable causes. It doesn't matter if time travel is involved, or if the large consequences that result are "key historical events" (per earlier discussion) or not. The result is nonetheless alternate history. In fact, it is probably more that than it is science fiction, and certainly has nothing to do with science, technology, or man in the future, if you consider those elements important to your sci-fi.

At the heart of the BE-type story is causality unfolding chaotically (as it always does) in a way that leads to different results than those we are familiar with. This “organically evolving” world can carry us down any one of a million merry paths, to a timeline and world that is Not The World As We Know It. Unequivocally, an alternate history.

Because of the sense of “improbability” here (for this process does not heed the momentum of known historical events), such stories are often classified into the “could be sf” camp, where anything speculative goes. But what, exactly, is improbable about the scenario I just described? Given enough supporting detail, a good author could spin you a perfectly convincing tale that illustrates the demise of proto-man and the rise of avis sapiens. Or any other outcome, really, given a miniscule point of divergence and enough time to see random, chaotic consequences unfold.

This Butterfly Effect, with a long time-frame divergence, is, I think, the third major way in which alternate timelines evolve: through the “natural” outcomes of myriad tiny shifts in causation.

In my next and last post in this series, I'll look at one last approach to creating alternate history. It is a method that has little to do with event outcomes or causality as we normally think of them, and can produce the most far-fetched worlds of all.




Deborah Teramis Christian is a science fiction and fantasy novelist with an alternate history work in progress. You can read more blog posts about this and related subjects at her website, Notes From the Lizard Lair.