Weekly Update #44

Editor's Note

Not only did we break our page view record again last month, we also surpassed 5000 page views in one month.  Our new record now stands at 5504 and that was during the shortest month of the year.  Thanks again to the contributors and readers who helped make this possible.

I hope you guys enjoyed the guests posts from Jordan Harbour and Brian Daugherty.  Remember, if you would like to guest post or even become a full-time contributor, just contact me at ahwupdate@gmail.com.

And now the news...

Submissions Wanted

Theresa Meyers posted on Twitter that Tor.com wants four original speculative fiction: SF, fantasy, horror, alternate history or related genres, as long as the stories are under 12,000 words.  Now I could not find the exact post she was referencing, but Tor.com does have a submissions guideline that you can check out if you are interested in submitting one of your stories to them.

You could also try On Fiction Writing's writing contest: The Flip Side.  They are looking for an alternate history or alternate reality story under 2,500 words by September 1.  The downside: there is an entry fee of $10.  If that does not stop you, good luck.

In other writing news, Mark Lord, editor of the Alt Hist magazine, announced on his blog that the last story for Alt Hist #4 has been selected.  We can expect to see that issue sometime after April.  If you are interested in submitting a story to Alt Hist, you can enter your story for the chance to appear in #5 by going to the submissions page.

What if you want to be a part of the publishing industry, but are not interested in being a writer?  Well Chronicle Books is looking for an editorial assistant.  You can apply here.

Teramis' New Podcast

Deborah Teramis Christian (who posted a series of articles on this very blog) announced that she is starting a new podcast.  You can learn more about it below:

I've been wanting to do this since I started the Lizard Lair blog, but I was so tied up with book obligations for so long that I didn't see my way clear to starting a whole new endeavor on top of all that. Now that Splintegrate is finally in-house at Tor (and sorry, I've received no word back yet on that front so I can't update you yet in that regard) - as I say, now that that's (mostly) off my plate, I am finally able to move on to the podcasting I've had planned for a long time.

I'm regarding these podcasts as a shorthand version of things I don't want to write up long-form at my blog. The theme of my show will reflect my underlying interest in the question of "what if?", focusing on futurism and change and the challenges this presents to us all as we (like in the Chinese curse) live "in interesting times." Also of course I won't neglect my sf/f interests, and the areas of writing, gaming, world building and general thinkishness that I have already staked out at the blog. 

Now, this all brings me to you. 

I'd like to talk about things you specifically want to hear about. And so, I am hereby formally inviting you, if you are interested, to send me questions, topics, comments, rants, and strong opinions about anything you'd like me to engage with in my upcoming podcasts. I can't promise that I will be able to answer all comments/questions on the air, but I will do my best to fit them into some show where they're appropriate. (I'm not dealing with religion or politics, though, so those will be non-starters unless we are talking about them in a fiction-related sense.)

Also, if I may attribute your comment to you by name, I'd love to do so. People would much rather hear a question from "Sharon in San Francisco," than from "someone I know from the internet." So if you do write, let me know if and how I may identify you in the program. If you'd rather not be publicly identified, no problem (I know there are times for all of us when we'd rather not be out there that way). I'm soliciting your name only if you're comfortable with that.

Those interested should contact Teramis at her blog, Notes From the Lizard Lair.

Links to the Multiverse

Articles

2012 Arthur C Clarke Award Submissions by Shana at Torque Control. (Several alternate history works were submitted, check it out).

The Common Denominator – The “Superfly Effect” (Hulk Hogan, Nick Bockwinkle, WWE, AWA, Roddy Piper, Bob Backlund, The Iron Sheik) by Ralph Hardin at Inside Pulse.

Books and Short Stories

Alternate History Lessons in Boilerplate and Frank Reade by James Floyd Kelly at Geek Dad.

New alternate history story sold by Mike Resnick.

Review of “Electrica” by Sean McMullen done by Lois Tilton at Locus.

Review of The Tales of Alvin Maker by Orson Scott Card done by Fabulous Realms.

Online Alternate History

Chapter 4 of Lord of Mountains by S. M. Stirling.

The Sideways Multiverse Club at Tribe.

An Unexpected Union: A 1983 Doomsday Tale by mdc1957 at FanFiction.net.

Video Games

Gotham By Gaslight Video Shows Canceled Elseworlds Batman Game by Spencer at Siliconera.

Media

Altoids Alternate History at glossy.

WIP -- Alternate History Rendering by Shaw Driscoll.

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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.

Points of Divergence: Frameworks of Alternate History

Alternate history encompasses a vast territory of “what if”. Although much ink has been written about this genre, there is at least one consensus that seems to be universal: to be an alternate history, a story world must contain at least one significant point of divergence (POD) from our time line (OTL), and the ensuing tale is concerned with the consequences of that divergence.

In subsequent posts in this series, I'll look at some of the less common rationales for having a time line diverge from our original. For now, to create a frame of reference, I want to sketch out what seems to be the most common approach to creating an alternate history.



Typically, a variant timeline takes as its jumping off point a particular historical event or political outcome. Not surprisingly, the two most popular eras/events treated in this genre are the American Civil War, and Hitler's Third Reich in World War II; different fates for the Kennedy brothers, Napoleon, and the Roman Empire vie for second place in popularity.

Another commonplace in most alternate history fiction is that historical figures of note in our own time are in play in the story in significant roles. They often fill different roles or experience non-historical fates, for part of the appeal to alt-history is to see how the life of a key figure may have played out differently in the altered circumstances of the new timeline.

A less obvious standard, though one often articulated in alt-history writing groups, is the assumption that things in the alt timeline are pretty much as we know them to be here, except for what is affected by the divergent event. A world where Hitler triumphed in World War II almost certainly has Germans speaking German, an America that grew out of 13 British colonies, and a world in which war-time economies lifted many countries out of their Depression-era stagnation.

What the reader sees of this “world as we know it” is dependent to some extent on how far back the POD occurred, and how far ahead in the ensuing timeline the story events take place. For instance, if Rome did not fall from power and instead imposed rule more thoroughly upon the Germanic tribes, Germany as we know it may never have come to exist. Stories set in those 1940s, if that same calendar reckoning were even used, might well lack a Hitler or a World War II. But however such hypothetical timelines unfold, these events will be logical outgrowths of the POD, however it is defined. Alternate histories generally look to the root cause of the divergence, and/or to the subsequent events and actors (historical figures cast as fictional characters) to explore story questions in the new setting.

These elements described here are not the only ones used in telling alternate histories, but for the sake of later discussion, I am using them as a reference point for what is arguably the most common and popular type of alt-history tale: stories rooted in a world very close to our own, differing in important yet limited ways.

This “historical” alt-history standard leaves particular hallmarks on the tales that result. Briefly stated, those characteristics are:

• A singular, significant point of divergence, or a cluster of events, either of which constitutes a major “turning point” in history. The more the actual historical events of our timeline remain resonant with great trauma, meaning, or other emotional charge, the more likely they are to be the focal point of alternate history inquiries.
  
  

• Incorporation of historical figures as major characters in the story. They are not merely bit parts, but usually central to the tale. Readers like to “meet” these figures from the past in the pages of the book or short story.
  

• A surrounding world that in most other respects remains the same as “the world as we know it.” That is to say, the alien-ness of an alternate timeline is usually focused on the POD and its consequences. This stands out all the more because other aspects of the world remain identical or closely akin to what we know and recognize as familiar.

The result of this formulation is a world that is strange in certain striking respects, yet familiar in others. It allows us enough familiarity to imagine ourselves in that setting, perhaps even to be thoroughly at home in it, because in certain respects it is a place that we “know.” Then, in the areas where the author has created divergence, “otherness” emerges. This strangeness is striking precisely because of the contrast with the known; it may even be unsettling because we are asked to play “what if” and challenge the safety and security of the “world that we know.” This is part of the power of alternate history: it gets us where we live, by challenging the premises of how we think the world works.

In the next post in this series I'll look at another approach to creating divergence, and question why it so often ends up being called “science fiction” when, technically speaking, it is as historical in orientation as the “historical standard” I've just described.



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.