Weekly Update #91

Editor's Note

Woot! Another mention on SF Signal for my work on Amazing Stories. Okay that is enough shameless self-promotion.

Don't forget everyone, we are still accepting original fiction, essays and reviews dealing with the Balkanize Me trope of alternate history. I will be posting the next entry later this week so stay tuned. Also there is still time to send in your submissions for the steampunk writing contest in March. I look forward to reading your submissions.

New reader from the Bahamas, welcome! Why is there terrible weather in Chicago every time I have to welcome a new reader from a tropical country?

And now the news...

Star Trek & Dr. Who Fans Might Collide with a Bang! Theoretically of Course

Remember when I said I was through with the shameless self-promotion? Yeah not exactly.

Amazing Stories is pleased to announce their first piece of new fiction, and a graphic story to boot!  But wait, it gets even better!

Several weeks ago David Gerrold (yes, the Tribbles guy*) announced on Facebook that he’d written a comic book script that had become orphaned through no fault of its own.  Amazing Stories jumped on this potential opportunity and obtained a copy of the script for review.

Unbelievably hilarious.  Totally nerdy.

From the opening panel to the very last David Gerrold has spun a tale of historic, inside jokiness and has extended that joke to encompass contemporary fare.

Arrangements were made for Amazing Stories to publish the story and, in conjunction with David’s DG Publishing imprint, produce a limited dead-tree edition. Several comic artists were approached for the honor and Troy Boyle has been given the go-ahead.  Troy has already begun preliminary character sketches and page layouts.

Amazing Stories will be publishing a few teaser excerpts from the script, as well as some of Troy’s preliminary artwork here over the next few weeks.

What is it about?  Let’s just say that Star Trek fans and Dr. Who fans (or should that be Dr. Who fans and Star Trek fans?) are going to have something to talk about for at least the next century.  And yes, there are Tribbles in there too.  Soft Tribbles.  Warm Tribbles.  Tribbles no one would want to Exterminate.

This Friday Amazing Stories will be releasing a few of Troy’s illustrations and a few scenes from David’s script, so mark it on your calendars and don’t miss a single reveal as we all work our way towards publication!

The script will appear here exclusively on Amazing Stories and will also be made available in a limited print edition that will be available from the Experimenter Publishing Company and DG Publishing.

So if you guys liked Assimilation, I highly recommend you check out what Amazing Stories has in stores for you this Friday. Plus you never know if another major franchise might make an appearance...

Update: The Queen is Dead by Kate Locke

The newest edition to the Immortal Empire series was released last week, but here is the description in case you missed it:

When her brother Val gets in over his head in an investigation of Half-Blood disappearances and goes missing himself, it's up to Xandra, newly crowned Goblin Queen, to get him back and bring the atrocities to light. Xandra must frequent the seediest parts of London, while also coping with what she is, the political factions vying for her favor, and the all too-close scrutiny of Queen Victoria, who wants her head. Add this to a being a suspect in a murder investigation, a werewolf boyfriend with demands of his own, and a mother hell bent on destroying the monarchy, and Xandra barely knows which way is up. One thing she does know is that she's already lost one sibling, she's not about to lose another. 

Xandra Varden is the newly crowned Goblin Queen of England. But her complicated life is by no means over. 

There are the political factions vying for her favor, and the all too-close scrutiny of Queen Victoria, who for some reason wants her head. Not to mention her werewolf boyfriend with demands of his own, and a mother hell bent on destroying the monarchy. Now she's the suspect in a murder investigation --- and Xandra barely knows which way is up. 

What she does know is that nothing lasts forever---and immortality isn't all its cracked up to be.

If you want to get more background information on the Immortal Empire universe check out Locke's description of the world on RT Book Reviews and see a brief timeline of important events she posted at Orbit Books.

Update: Lavie Tidhar

Do you know who Lavie Tidhar is? Well you should. This award-winning, alternate history author has made quite a name from himself. Here is a brief bio:

Lavie Tidhar grew up on a kibbutz in Israel and has since lived in South Africa, the UK, Vanuatu and Laos. He is currently residing back in London. He won the World Fantasy Award in 2012 for Best Novel, for Osama, and the British Fantasy Award 2012 for Best Novella, for Gorel & The Pot-Bellied God. He was nominated, variously, a BSFA Award, a Sidewise Award, Israel’s Geffen Award, the Airship Award, and the Sturgeon and Campbell Awards.

That bio is from Every Read Thing where you can also check out their interview with Lavie where they discuss his series The Bookman Histories and winning the World Fantasy Award for Osama. You can also check out his interview on SF Signal where Lavie is promoting the World SF Travel Fund.

Paradox News

Got a whole heaping helping of news for grand strategy gamers. Let's start with the unstoppable pagan armies!

Paradox Interactive and Paradox Development Studio, announced the new expansion to the world of Crusader Kings II titled Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods. The new expansion will add a number of widely requested features to the game, including the ability to play as a Pagan or Zoroastrian ruler, expanding empires through war, pillaging, and ruthless brutality. Players will also be able to begin their in-game reign as far back as the year 867 AD, making The Old Gods officially the Paradox title that spans the longest period in history.

Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods lets players step into the boots of a pagan chieftain, approaching the brutal backstabbing world of Crusader Kings through invasion, adventure, and holy war. Other features include rebels being led by defined characters with specific agendas, adventurers, heathens, prepared invasion and a new AI.

Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods is scheduled to release in Q2 2013. Watch the announcement teaser trailer below:

Next we have Heart of Darkness, the second expansion for Paradox Development Studios’ Victoria II, a detailed political/economic simulation of the Victorian Age, an era of rapid transformation of technology, politics and business.

Heart of Darkness, as its name suggests, focuses on the Scramble for Africa, the late 19th century rush for newly discovered wealth and land in a continent whose interior had been mostly free from European domination.

The upcoming expansion also introduces a new diplomatic event, International Crises, where the colliding desires of rival empires get settled by Great Power mediation and where smaller powers can manipulate their friends to support their own local ambitions. Other features include a new naval system with greater detail in battles, including gun ranges and positioning, and more types of ships to bridge the gap between ironclads and dreadnoughts. There will also be a newspaper system will allow you to track all the most important events in your world instead of relying on the game log.

Victoria II: Heart of Darkness is scheduled for release in March 2013. Finally we end this segment with a host of new trailers starting with March of Eagles:

And Europa Universalis IV:

Try to get some sunlight guys.

Submissions Wanted

Need more opportunities to get published?

First, I have two publishers looking for flash fiction submissions. Fan of our favorite cephalopod should check out Whispers From the Abyss, a Lovecraftian flash fiction anthology open for submission until May 30. Stories should not be longer than 2500 words.

Next we have the Teleport Us writing contest over at Lit Reactor. They are looking for stories between 1500-4000 words with a dystopic/utopian setting and featuring plausible technology and non-human characters. You will have to hurry, however, as the submission period ends at the end of February.

Those with longer works should check out Farther Books. This SF publisher is looking for completed manuscripts. Full guidelines can be found here.

As always, good luck.

Things to do

Remind me when I get the time to sit down and make a calender for all of these events I mention. In the meantime, here are some more alternate history inspired things to do:

March 4: CON NOOGA, Chattanooga's first and only Multi-Fandom (Multiple Genre) Convention.

March 8-10: FOGcon, a literary-themed SF/F con in the San Francisco Bay Area.

March 9: Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill will be at Gosh! Comics to promote the new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book.

August 23: NecronomiCon. the Lovecraft convention, in Providence, RI. Tickets are now on sale.

If you need more idea check out the SF Signal Podcast where Patrick Hester talks about upcoming SF conventions with a panel of prominent female SF authors.

Links to the Multiverse

Articles

Five Ways an Automaton Gunslinger Can Improve Your Quality of Life by Heather Massey at SF Signal.

6 Scrumptious Steampunk Romance Heroes by Suzanne Lazear at Steamed!

1984: George Orwell's road to dystopia by David Aaronovitch at BBC.

Jules Verne’s Love of Adventure Took Us From the Center of the Earth to the Surface of the Moon at Tor.

Pulp Heroes now on Kindle at Alchemy Press.

Steampunk Update, Part 1 - Following Up by John DeNardo at Kirkus.

Time Travel Novels Worth Reading by John DeNardo at SF Signal.

When I Want Time Travel by Michael A. Burstein at Mabfan's Musings.

Book Reviews

The Aylesford Skull by James P. Blaylock at Dab of Darkness.

A Collection of Steampunk Reviews, Part II: Gears Engaged by James Floyd Kelly at Wired.

A Conspiracy of Alchemists by Liesel Schwartz at Falcata Times.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde at Wilder's Book Review.

The Friday Society by Adrienne Kress at Steampunk Scholar.

The Warlord of the Air by Michael Moorcock at TG Daily.

Films

Laika Plan Stop-Motion And CG For “Dickens Meets Monty Python” Steampunk Fantasy, The Boxtrolls by Brendon Connelly at Bleeding Cool.

Review of Midnight in Paris done by Paul Levinson.

Interviews

Gail Carriger at My Bookish Ways.

Ian Tregillis in conversation with Charlie Stross on The Laundry Files at Orbit.

Kim Harrison at BookPeople's Blog.

Robert G. Pielke at The Bibliophilic Book Blog.

Cherie Priest (plus an excerpt from The Inexplicables) at Tor.

Jeff Provine at School of Ages.

Podcasts

Dissecting Worlds Series 7: Alternative Histories Conclusions at Geek Syndicate.

The SF Signal Podcast (Episode 176): Interview with Mary Robinette Kowal at SF Signal.

Television

Key Art for Starz’s Upcoming Da Vinci’s Demons Revealed by Sharlene Mousfar at Geek Syndicate.

Review of Elementary: Season 1, Episode 14. The Deductionist at Thinking about books.

Supernatural Sixth Gun headed to NBC by CB Droege at TG Daily.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger on Amazing Stories and a volunteer editor for Alt Hist magazine. His fiction can be found at Echelon Press, Jake's Monthly and The Were-Traveler. 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: Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who: Assimilation 2

Guest post by Chris Nuttall.

The concept of a crossover between radically different universes is a tricky one to make work, although countless fan-fiction writers have tried.  As I see it, the problem is that the two universes may be very different technologically – say, Babylon 5 and Star Trek – or that there are political differences between them that make relationships between them difficult to handle.  Would the Culture be able to cope with encountering the Galactic Patrol?  How would BSG ‘s society handle an introduction to the Earth Alliance?

Star Trek: The Next Generation is my favourite Star Trek.  Certainly, it has its fair share of crappy episodes, but I feel that it showcases the promise of humanity.  Captain Picard is a deeply humane man, maybe the only Star Trek Captain who can say that.  (No wonder Q is so fascinated with him.)  And Doctor Who is my favourite television show, full stop.  An encounter between the two universes would be either great or disastrous.

Captain Picard believes strongly in the Prime Directive – thou shall not interfere in developing cultures; the Doctor has no regard for any such law (which was at least partly why his own people considered him a criminal, before they died in the Time War).  Now, I have little regard for the concept myself – one of the reasons I like the Doctor is that he plunges into the fray without worrying about the legal aspects – and I think that this is the flaw in Picard’s armour.  If the two of them met, sparks would fly.

The writer, however, decided to focus on an alliance between the Borg and the Cybermen.  That is actually a little piece of fridge brilliance; the Cybermen effectively inspired the Borg, although the process for converting humans into Cybermen is rather more cumbersome than the Borg nanites.  As the story opens, the alliance is descending on Federation planets, suggesting a formidable new enemy.  The two sets of television heroes are forced to combine to fight the bad guys.

One problem starts almost at once.  The first two issues focus more on the separate teams, rather than on the actual alliance.  There are some nice moments here, including a handful of references that might slip past the casual readers.  The STING backstory, in particular, deals with an ethically-questionable deal with an alien race, a deal that is quite like many of the other deals made by humanity in the Doctor’s universe.  But there are also some nice moments of humour as the two teams meet.

Watching these characters interact is fun, although I think that the writer missed some interesting possibilities.  (For example, wouldn't anyone think of Q when they thought of the Doctor? (Doctor Q?))  In many ways, the STING crew come off as bland when compared to the Doctor, Amy and Rory.  On the other hand, the encounter between Guinin and the Doctor is hilarious; they’re both time-sensitive entities and they know when someone has been messing with time.  There’s also a brief cameo of the Fourth Doctor as he meets Captain Kirk and solves another Cybermen-related problem for them.

The plot rapidly moves on after that, with the Cybermen turning on the Borg and our heroes forced into a semi-alliance with the Borg to defeat the Cybermen before they can destroy the universe.  The shared abilities of both teams are used to defeat the threat ...

Overall, this idea worked better than I had expected.  Most of the characters are very true to themselves, including Picard’s refusal to even consider helping the Borg (at least at first) and the Doctor’s sheer grinning zest for life.  The artwork verges backwards and forwards, but on the whole it is quite good.  And someone has been considering the implications of having a TARDIS.  Faced with the need to recover elements of the Borg command network, the Doctor travels back in time to the Battle of Wolf 359, where Captain Picard, having been converted into a Borg, led the Borg in an invasion of the Federation.  The Doctor’s inability to do anything about the battle, calling it a fixed point in time, is better expressed by the artwork.  The regret on his face is very clear.

Mind you, there are also some glitches.  As I mentioned above, Captain Picard’s fixation on the Prime Directive should have made for some drama.  We did get his reluctance to help the Borg, but it isn't quite the same.  I also have some difficulty believing that the Cybermen would be able to overcome the Borg.  They are better at dying <evil grin>.  There’s also the fact that the story spends too much time on exposition – no one reading this comic needs to know about the Battle of Wolf 359.

A more personal issue is that the universes are apparently combining, rather than having the STING future be that of Doctor Who.  It would be nice to think that the idyllic future of STING was at least partly due to the Doctor’s meddling in human affairs.

Overall, I enjoyed the crossover.  Roll on the next one.

* * *

Chris Nuttall blogs at The Chrishanger and has a website by the same name. His books can be found on Amazon Kindle. Check out his new book The Royal Sorceress.

Review: Dark Mirror by Diane Duane

Guest post by Chris Nuttall.

“It is easier for the civilised man to play the barbarian than vice versa.”

Star Trek has often been a hit-or-miss show for me.  Some episodes had great ideas, some were corny and often puerile.  But one of the most interesting shows was "Mirror, Mirror", when Captain Kirk and three of his crew were tossed into an alternate universe where the Federation had been replaced by an Empire (and Spock had a goatee).  Sadly, Captain Picard’s crew never visited the original alternate universe and when Deep Space Nine came around, the evil counterpart to the Federation had been destroyed.  Tedious and boring, said I.

Dark Mirror is one of the few TNG novels I have bothered to reread; it is also one of the best.  While on very deep space patrol, the USS Enterprise is kidnapped into an alternate universe as the final step before the Empire jumps across the universal barriers and invades the Federation.  The crew of the Enterprise find themselves unable, at first, to understand what is going on, until they discover that they have been covertly boarded by a counterpart from the ISS Enterprise.  They have to board the Imperial Starship to learn how to build their own ‘inversion device’ that will allow them to return home, all the while avoiding the evil machinations of Mirror Troi.

The Next Generation was known for its rather...pollyanish view of the universe, where Captain Picard can give a speech and convince old hatreds to magically fade away into the ether.  Where Dark Mirror shines is in its portrayal of an alternate crew, one that rose to high-ranking positions in an empire of stunning brutality and ruthlessness.  Mirror Riker is a backstabbing cunning loon looking out for his chance to off his Captain and take command of the Enterprise for himself.  Mirror Troi is a mind-raping security officer who prowls through unwary thoughts for any hint of betrayal (makes you wonder how the people she talked to in OTL felt about the empathy).  Mirror Worf, his homeworld crushed beneath the Empire’s boot, is a broken shadow of the honorable warrior we know.  Mirror Beverly Crusher is Mirror Picard’s ‘Captain’s Woman.’

Sometimes, this can be quite striking.  Captain Picard and Mirror Picard seem to be opposite personalities, but there are moments when it is clear that they are the same person.  They share an abiding love for the Enterprise that overpowers all other loves, as Mirror Beverly points out to Captain Picard (while convinced that he is her Captain).  Mirror Picard is also responsible, it seems, for murdering Beverly’s husband to get his hands on her, and her son.  (Who seems to want to kill him.)  Other characters are more pronounced inversions; Barclay, a semi-coherent engineering officer in Captain Picard’s crew, is the head of Mirror Picard’s security detail.

Service to the Empire is no bed of roses.  Senior officers know that they could be assassinated at any moment, or replaced by security for no reason.  Junior officers and crewmen are at the mercy of their superiors.  All of them carry agonise devices for immediate punishment if they screw up, longer punishments involve sessions in the Agony Booth.  It is not a safe place to live or work.

Dark Mirror also takes a look at the history of the Mirror Universe, one that differs from the Deep Space Nine version and is considerably better.  There was no Khan – and therefore no Eugenics Wars.  Instead, there was a bitter Third World War which ended with the Empire determined never to run close to the brink of extinction again.  The human race roared out into the galaxy, making common cause with the Vulcans (themselves different from their original universe versions) and exterminating or enslaving everyone else.  Mirror Picard’s early career is a dark inversion of the first season of TNG, with mass slaughter and outright genocide instead of noble speeches and high ideals.

Captain Picard claims, towards the end of the book, that the Empire is simply expanding too far, too fast, and that it will eventually collapse like a house of cards.  His counterpart seems aware of it too, hence the plan to invade the Federation and escape the coming chaos.

On the downside, there are odd moments in this book.  The most jarring is Riker and Worf going to the holodeck to enjoy some opera in the midst of crisis.  This isn't exactly badly written, with some amusing comments on the long-term effects of opera fighting in the Klingon Empire, but it is odd.

Overall, however, this is one of the best characters-meet-evil counterparts stories out there, something that rarely happens in TV.  It is certainly a better version of the trope than the Deep Space Nine series and those written by Captain Kirk.

* * *

Chris Nuttall blogs at The Chrishanger and has a website by the same name. His books can be found on Amazon Kindle. Check out his upcoming book The Royal Sorceress.

So You Want To Change The Past?

Guest post by Chris Nuttall.

Dale Cozort’s article on the Prime Directive and Alternate History got me thinking.

Star Trek’s Prime Directive was invented, in universe, by a post-scarcity society that didn’t really have much (if anything) at stake.  Most, if not all, of the Prime Directive issues that Kirk and Picard agonised over were unimportant to the Federation as a whole.  Certainly, the moral dilemma posed by the crisis was worrying, but it was not a major threat.

This cannot be said for people and societies that get moved back in time.  Nantucket in the ISOT universe needs food from the outside world; the only real way to avoid ‘contaminating’ history is to destroy themselves so completely that future archaeologists will find no trace of their existence.  The same can be said for Grantville in the 1632 series, although a case can be made that history was derailed the moment they arrived and Simpson’s grand plan to seal off Grantville was utterly useless.  It is a great deal easier to argue academically that interference is bad when you don't have to worry about starving, being killed and/or raped by local barbarians, enslaved by slave traders, infected by smallpox and a thousand other nasty fates.  What would Captain Picard have done if he’d been forced to spend the rest of his life in a far more hostile era?

There are plenty of stories about people and societies that go back in time and produce a better world, at least as they see it. Lest Darkness Fall, The Guns of the South, Island in the Sea of Time, to name, but a few.  But really...would it be as easy as you might think?

The most immediate problem is language.  Languages change.  Someone from the Britain of 2012 isn't going to be completely comprehensible to Winston Churchill in 1940, even though both of them seem to speak the same language.  How many ideas have entered our language since Churchill died?  He would not understand the use of the word ‘laser,’ for example, or ‘microcircuits.’  Both of them were largely developed after his time.  The same can be said of American English; chances are that George Washington would find it difficult, if not impossible, to talk to someone from our era.

This only gets worse as you go further back in time.  How many people speak whatever language the Aztecs spoke, as they spoke it?  I doubt there are many, if any.  The same goes for the Romans; our Latin is not their Latin.  A student of the Roman Empire might be able to make himself understood, but even he would find it difficult.  Someone from an ordinary background would have to learn to speak Roman Latin the hard way, which is not easy at all without a tutor who speaks both languages – and who will speak modern English in Ancient Rome?

So you go back in time to Rome, where you are effectively mute.  Can you overcome this barrier before it is too late, or will you simply wind up being enslaved, or starving to death on the streets?

The second problem is cultural.  Cultures change, and not always for the better.  A case can be made that the rise of Islam immensely improved the Middle East, only to see that early advantage lost as Islam splintered and the repression of independent thought started to spread out of control.  A Muslim from our era would probably not fit into the early Caliphate; how much stranger (to them) would someone from our world be in Ancient Rome?

Consider; the Romans believed that women should be seen and not heard.  Athens believed that women should be neither seen nor heard.  That’s at least partly why there are so few famous Roman women (and those that we do recall were often scandalous in their time).  In fact, the Romans nursed a fear of powerful women. Augustus had little difficulty drumming up support for war against Cleopatra because she was a foreign queen.  A single woman from our era is highly unlikely to be able to make changes on her own, unless she finds a powerful male ally and protector.  It is far more likely that she will be enslaved and lost in the great heaving mass of Roman slavery.  And those who think that slavery is somehow sexy have never actually been real slaves.

[I came across a woman who argued that she would have liked to be a slave in Rome, after reading a corny erotic novel on the subject that was rather less convincing than Stars and Stripes Forever.  One day, I will write a story that serves as a rebuttal to that story.]

It gets more complicated in other places.  The Confederate States of America believed, quite firmly, that black men were inferior.  They liberally sprinkled the term ‘nigger’ throughout their conversation and, if someone had pointed out how rude that was, they would have been frankly uncomprehending.  The word ‘nigger’ was not forbidden to them.  It would be extremely difficult to convince them that they were wrong; even the success of black soldiers fighting for the USA didn't change many minds.  Tell them that the 44th President of the United States was black and they’d think you were making it up.

Or...what if you tried to convince the Founding Fathers to ban slavery.  Many of them – even Washington – were slaveholders themselves, but let’s assume you succeeded.  It’s unlikely that the American South would go along with it; instead, they would split off from the northern states.  If your overall objective was to create a USA that had never had slavery, odds are you would have failed spectacularly.

The modern world spends literally decades agonising about justifying itself.  Millions of trees have been killed while the world debates over the rightness or wrongness of invading Iraq, the War on Terror, Global Warming (or Cooling)...the ancient world rarely bothered to justify itself so comprehensively.  Rome never really bothered to question its own right to rule an empire, not in the sense we do today. Even the most ‘moral’ Romans would be somewhat amoral by our standards.

If you want to make meaningful change, you’d have to understand just what you were dealing with – and that isn't easy.  There is a school of thought that claims that slaveholders were basically evil and, by extension, the CSA was evil.  Most people believe that to be true, but the Southerners themselves didn't see it that way.  Chattel slavery survived because it was immensely profitable, very much the underpinning of the South’s economy.  The same can be said for most issues throughout history.  Can you learn while fighting to stay alive?

[Star Trek points out that the Federation doesn't always know what’s going on, hence the idea that it is better to stay out of the whole affair.  But as I say above, the time traveller may have no choice.]

The third issue becomes knowledge.  What do you actually know?

Take a look around your room.  How much could you build completely from scratch, if you had no other choice?  I doubt the average citizen could produce much of anything (hence the reason most ISOT stories feature people with experience and skills denied by the average western citizen.)  Do you know enough about computers to go back to 1975 (when Bill Gates was starting his business career) and beat him to the punch?  I don’t – and how many people with computer skills would be completely familiar with the tech from 1975, if they were born in – say – 1990?  If you happened to go back further in time, everything you knew about modern computers would be completely useless.  You couldn't hope to produce even a BBC Basic computer in 1940, unless you happened to be Mr. Spock:

Spock: Captain, I must have some platinum. A small block would be sufficient, five or six pounds. By passing certain circuits through there to be used as a duo-dynetic field core...

Capt. Kirk: [interrupting] Uh, Mr. Spock, I've brought you some assorted vegetables, baloney and a hard roll for myself, and I've spent the other nine tenths of our combined salaries for the last three days on filling this order for you. Mr. Spock, this bag does not contain platinum, silver or gold, nor is it likely to in the near future.

Spock: Captain, you're asking me to work with equipment which is hardly very far ahead of stone knives and bearskins.

It actually gets more complicated as you delve into the past.  In 1632, the main character speaks of using what remains of a 20th century technological base to hammer out a 19th century technological base.  Grantville has enough people – and a knowledge base – to make that possible.  However, if you were on your own, would you even know the formula for gunpowder?  And if you did, could you make it?  Outside of people I know who served in the military – and, I suspect, not all of them – I know few people who could produce gunpowder completely from scratch.

Even if you can, it doesn't solve all of the problems.  Primitive cannons were regarded as somewhat unreliable, partly because they could explode if shoddily made.  Not because of deliberate malice, but because metalworking wasn't entirely up to the task.  Accidents were not uncommon and they could be disastrous.  There were also problems when putting early firearms up against archers; it wasn't until the first set of bugs was ironed out that archers became obsolete.

Other things are easier.  Pretty much everyone with any sense knows that untreated water can be dangerous, and the simplest way of dealing with it is boiling it to kill the germs.  Plenty of epidemics spread through the pre-1900 world because no one knew to boil water, or wash their hands after going to the toilet, or understood exactly how diseases moved from victim to victim.  (Considering the AIDS crisis, where the exact method of transmission was not very well understood for decades, it isn't something uncommon even today.)  You could save millions of lives in Rome, for example, just by insisting on scrubbing the room where someone gives birth.  Poor sanitation accounted for a terrifyingly high rate of death in childbirth; maybe, if you could convince someone to have the room scrubbed with soap and water, you might save lives.  What if you saved Julia Caesar, the wife of Pompey the Great, from her untimely death?

There are two problems with this that need to be addressed.  The first is that the locals might not understand germ theory when you explain it to them.  It wasn't really considered until the American Civil War and, for quite some time, there were doctors who didn't take it seriously.  The second is that the local medical establishment might resist your new innovations.  You would be threatening their livelihoods.

That, as I mentioned above, is something else to keep in mind.  People tend to be guided more by ‘what’s in it for me?’  Slaveholders will resist you trying to ban slavery because it would mean the end of their livelihoods.  Generals might object to you introducing gunpowder because it would put too much power in the hands of barbarian tribes; landlords would oppose it because it would give their peasants too much power.  Pretty much everything you introduce will upset someone.

On the other hand, the people from the past are not stupid.  Give them a concept (as the Romans learned from Carthage) and they will probably be better than you at figuring out how to adapt it to their technology.  I could design a steam engine; someone from the Roman Republic might be able to actually build it.  They’d also probably be more capable of developing technology to match your concepts, because they’d know more about where they were starting from.

And there are all kinds of tidbits you could pass on to someone from the past, even if they’re not primarily technological.  What about Arabic numerals and English letters, so much more useful than anything from Ancient Rome, or even something as simple as stirrups?  Or what about America?  If you went back in time before Columbus, you’d know about the vast American continent just waiting to be discovered and exploited.  What if you told the British of 1812 that there were vast gold fields in California just waiting to be discovered?  Or oil in Saudi Arabia?

The fourth major problem receives less attention in alternate history than I would expect, although it is actually quite a serious issue.  Disease.  The locals may well be more immune to local diseases than you (for a given value of immune); smallpox will kill anyone from our era who doesn't happen to be vaccinated.  (Can you convince them to use cowpox to generate immunity to smallpox?  Would you recognise cowpox when you saw it?)  Any time-travelling mission will have to take that into account.

The fifth major problem concerns supplies.  What if you take a modern carrier back to 1940?  That’s nice, but what happens when the carrier runs out of missiles, bombs, bullets and jet fuel?  Modern-day cruise missiles are completely irreplaceable by any pre-2000 tech base, so if your carrier goes back to 1941 (as in The Final Countdown) there will be no resupply of everything you have with you.  You might end up sinking the Japanese Navy and then having to return to America, working with the locals to build up their tech base.

If you happen to be completely on your own...realistically, what can you have with you?

That is not to say that you can't get a good story out of an ISOT.  I’ve read and written many.  But there are issues that have to be considered carefully before you start writing.  In the end, knowing what you’re talking about allows you to present the past to the reader in its true nature, rather than hackneyed clinches and stereotypes.  Do plenty of research – and don’t be afraid to be politically incorrect.

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Chris Nuttall blogs at The Chrishanger and has a website by the same name. His books can be found on Amazon Kindle. Check out his upcoming book The Royal Sorceress.