Polite Dissent

Stories and novels about alternate history have always intrigued me. They have what I call the “what if” quotient. What if this happened, or what if that happened? What if Robert Kennedy had not been assassinated? What if England won the Revolutionary War? What if Alexander the Great had not died young? What if Al Gore had won Florida?

Alternate histories tend to raise a lot of questions that cannot easily be answered. A small divergence in the facts can lead to massive changes years later. For this reason, I prefer novels to short stories in this genre. Short stories tend to only tackle the deviation itself or give a superficial “history.” Novels, on the other hand, can address the changes in more detail or show the outcome years later.

The Civil War seems to be a favorite source of inspiration. There are several collections of short stories just about alternate Civil Wars, and Harry Turtledove has written an extensive series starting with the South triumphing in the Civil War and continuing for many years after.

I find that my favorite alternate history novels are those that are set many years after the divergence. The change in history is used to set the stage rather than being the center of the story. I recommend Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle and S. M. Stirling’s The Peshawar Lancers as good alternate histories of this variety

The written word is not the only source of alternate history. Comic books are a unique forum for alternate history stories because they can involve either a divergence from actual history or a deviation from comic-book history. Comic book alternate histories are an extensive topic and deserve an entire post of their own…come back tomorrow.

UPDATE: How could I forget H. Beam Piper’s Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, another excellent alternate history. It ties into his Paratime series of short stories which deal with an entire system of alternate histories.