Holy crap! I created a new alternate history YouTube channel. I made a teaser trailer to celebrate:
Well that was a disturbing adventure into my psyche. I hope you guys enjoy further trips through the multiverse with me. Fans of The Update will be the first to know that my premier episode is going to be a dissection of the popular Deseret trope and I already have some ideas for an episode on airships.
Don't forget to subscribe and let me know in the comments or at ahwupdate at gmail dot com about what topics you would like me to cover next.
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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.
Why hire mercenaries to kill an innocent family just to obtain one little key? That question haunts Jacquie Renairre for six years as she hunts down the people responsible for murdering her parents. Not even accepting an assignment to investigate a conspiracy that aims to start a war can keep her from searching for the key. Armed with her father’s guns and socialite Clay Baneport, she continues her quest for answers abroad. With the world edging closer to disaster, Jacquie is running out of time to figure out how the war, the key, and ancient legend are intertwined. The fate of the world hinges on her ability to unravel both mysteries before it’s too late.
R.S. Hunter fell in love with science fiction when he watched Star Wars with his grandmother as a small child. From then on there was no turning back. To escape suburban life he turned to stories that took him on wild adventures through time, space, worlds both real and imagined. While he knows space combat won’t work the same way as it does in the movies, he still hopes that someday he’ll get his own X-Wing or TARDIS.
His short fiction has appeared in anthologies like Abaculus III, Growing Dread: Biopunk Visions, and the forthcoming In Situ. One reviewer commented that his story “Strike Breakers” from 20,001 A Steampunk Odyssey gave “an unsettling but profoundly necessary foundation to the prettier ideas of steampunk […] because it shows us that it’s not just gleaming brass.” Hunter’s tales love to answer the question “What if?” and they rarely end well for the protagonist.
He lives in San Diego and can be found on Twitter @RSHunter88 or reached via email at rshunter (at) rshunter-author (dot) com. Check out his Amazon profile as well.
Hunter was kind enough to send Weekly Update a review copy, which will be read by friend of the blog Matthew Quinn. Stay tuned in the next couple of weeks to learn what Matt thinks of The Exile's Violin.
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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.
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.
Some technical problems stopped me from posting yesterday, but that will not stop the airships from soaring (or maybe not). Now more wonderful news from those whales of the skies...
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.
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.
Airship Ventures flight attendant Anthony Dizon enjoys the breeze by sticking his head out the rear window of the Eureka, a commercial zeppelin run that gives tours to paying passengers.
The airship used by Lei Xiang on December 4 to fly 577 meters above the ground to beat the world record set by the BX-2.
The Germany Society for Air and Space Travel held an airship workshop in Aachen, Germany last month. To coincide with the event, a group of European airship modelers held an "Airship Regatta" at the same time. Thanks to Up Ship! for informing me us about this event.
The above is a trailer for the steampunk, MMO airship co-op game by Muse Games called Guns of Icarus. So even if you cannot get your hands on a real airship, there is a digital one waiting for you.
The Argus One, an unmanned drone "sky worm" that has the flexibility to quickly change its flight path as it slinks through sky and can carry 30 pounds of surveillance sensors or cameras. Recent test flights of this strange looking airship were successfully completed without air fish trying to eat the bait...I mean airship.
Granted it is a hybrid vehicle, but if this trend in airships continue, it is very unlikely we are going to see airship pilots using Victorian lingo. This blogger wonders when we will see a sci-fi sub-culture based off of green energy technology. Solarpunk anyone?
Yet that record does not seem so impressive when John Powell and his team sent their unmanned airship 95,085 feet in the air, making it the highest airship in the world. Sadly, the airship itself does not look that impressive:
The MZ-3A is the first Navy airship commissioned in over 50 years. It will act as a flying laboratory and it is one of many military blimps currently being produced and tested by the American armed forces. You can find out more about this historical event here.
The Army has their own version, called the LEMV (Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle). The mission of the LEMV is to hover over the battlefield with a mess of sensors for up to three weeks. However, when this football field sized airship will take its first flight is currently unknown.
In the current economic climate, however, the American government may feel the costs of military airships may outweigh their potential. The Congressional Budget Office has released a report detailing some of the issues inherent with airships that may put the kibosh on current and future projects.
Airship Fans Wanted
Know a few things about airships and want to share them with Alternate History Weekly Update? We are currently looking for contributors to author future Airship Updates. Contact Mitro at ahwupdate@gmail.com, if you are interested.
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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.
Airships are those wonderful flying inventions that tend to dominate alternate history and steampunk. If you, however, thought they only belonged in the imagination of the writers who craft fictional timelines, you would be wrong. These majestic whales of the sky may be appearing over the horizon as you read this blog.
For example, did you know that there are organizations out there dedicated to promoting the use of airships? One group is the Naval Airships Association, Inc., which promotes the history, education, applications, and technology of lighter-than-air (LTA) vehicles including balloons, blimps, dirigibles, zeppelins, and other airships. Despite its name, membership in the Naval Airship Association requires no naval affiliation and is open to anyone. Membership includes full website access and a subscription to their publication, The Noon Balloon.
Of course, what arguments could organizations like the NAA possibly make to get everyone to forget this:
Furthermore, what possible use could airships have in the modern world of heavier-than-air flight?
How cool does that look? The future airships, however, is unlikely to look like the classic cigar shape we are familiar with. In reality it is going to look like the Seymourpowell Aircruise, a proposed luxury cruise ship that sails the skies instead of the seas. Check out the official video below:
So perhaps those guys you see dressed up like futuristic Victorians at sci-fi conventions know something we do not. Airships are likely to come back in a big and unexpected way and Alternate History Weekly Update will make sure you stay informed.
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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.
Alternate History Weekly Update must be getting popular because I just had to ban my first spammer from the Facebook fan page. Now if I can only get an Internet troll to comment on one of the posts I will know that the blog has reached critical mass. O well, one can dream.
Still I should be happy that we got our first readers from the United Arab Emirates, Slovakia and Georgia (that is the nation not the state). Welcome to you all!
Got some good stuff coming up this week. Our newest contributor Henry Martin will be posting a series of diary entries based off his interview set in the 1983: Doomsday universe. Meanwhile, as part of our "Porfiles of Terrifying Alternate Worlds" theme this month, Korsgaard will be showcasing the Images of 1984 timeline and I will also be reviewing Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith and Jane Austen. Finally, War Blogger will be reviewing Hitler's War by Harry Turtledove.
And now the news...
Are Airships Best Suited Only For Alternate History?
If you thought that you could only find an airship in an alternate history/steampunk setting, you would have been dead wrong. Check out the Blue Devil 2:
This 370 feet long floating surveilance plaform will be hovering over Afghanistan by the middle of next year. Wide-area cameras and eavesdropping equipment, all connected to an onboard supercomputer, will be spying for the good guys, providing friendly forces with up to date intelligence. Hopefully the other drones do not make fun of him for how fat he looks.
This article has convinced me that I have not been keeping you updated on airships. They are one of the most important tropes in alternate history, besides the multiverse theory. In the future I will report more often on these whales of the skies, you have my word.
Coming Soon: Resistance
No I am not talking about the video game series of the same name. I am talking about the film that is coming out on November 25, 2011 in the United Kingdom. This alternate history film, titled Resistance, stars Michael Sheen, Andrea Riseborough and Tom Wlaschiha. You can check out the trailer below:
Now I know what you are thinking: "The Nazis would not have been able to invade Britain just because D-Day failed! This is Spike TV all over again!"
Lucky for us, this film is actually based on an actual alternate history novel, published in 2008 by Owen Sheers and also called Resistance! According to Uchronia, the point of divergence (POD) is in 1941. The Germans managed to capture Moscow and defeat the Soviet Union. Then a few years later the D-Day landings turned into a major disaster for the Allies (why they still invaded I have no idea), leading to an eventual German invasion of Britain. While the trailer does not acknowledge much of this backstory, one can only hope the writers had enough sense to at least mention the POD to avoid the inevitable "this is ASB" outcry from alternate historians.
As far as I know there is no plans to bring this film to the States, which is a damn shame. Nevertheless, if you would like to stay updated on how the film is progressing you can follow them on Facebook.
Steampunk Week Recap
As I mentioned before, last week was Steampunk Week at Tor.com. Probably the best thing to come out of that week was this article by author Ekaterina Sedia. The article is titled: Challenges of Writing Alternate History Set in Other Cultures. In it she discusses various ways authors can address the problem with setting their alternate history in a culture that most western readers are not familiar with. For her own alternate history/steampunk novel, Heart of Iron, she created an online appendix that you can check out here. I highly reccomend that you read the article, especially if you yourself are having problems writing your own alternate history.
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.
