Top 5 Posts from October 2015

The end of October means the holiday season has officially begun. Before you get wrapped up in the usual end of the year stresses, why not take a break and check out our top of 5 articles from October?

1) Three Terrifying Alternate History Scenarios by Matt Mitrovich.

2) Map Monday: Kaiserreich 1936 by Milites by Matt Mitrovich.

3) The Audio File: Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons and Cast of Wonders by Sam McDonald.

4) Map Monday: Frankish Empire (1651) by Zrew33 by Matt Mitrovich.

5) Map Monday: Affiliated States of Boreoamerica in 1730 by False Dmitri/Ben Carnehl by Matt Mitrovich.

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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.

Map Monday: Frankish Empire (1651) by Zrew33

The Franks have fascinated alternate historians for a long time. You always see a few alternate histories where Charlemagne's empire stays together after his death and thrives, and todays map is no exception:

This is "Frankish Empire (1651)" by Zrew33, a newcomer to Map Monday. Zrew33 doesn't go into to many details about the map's backstory, but we do know that "Charlemagne only has a single legitimate heir. This allows for a more solidified Frankish Empire that eventually splinters sometime after only to reforms back into the Empire under similar situations as OTL Holy Roman Empire." The result is an empire with an elective monarchy usually given to Charlemagne's heirs. Their current rival is the Eastern Romans, but they have gunpowder legions and the resources of the newly discovered western continents with which to deal with their enemies.

The map is very well done, but the description included with it needs some work. The content isn't bad per se, its just poorly presented, with a lot of grammatical errors and typesetting issues. Let this be a warning to everyone that adding text to a map is as much of an art form as drawing border or coloring a region. Still its a worthy map for Map Monday and a good example of a more successful Carolingian Empire.

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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.