Alternate History

[David Howery]

I've been a big fan of AH for a long time; I'm a member of a board dedicated to it (alternatehistory.com). I have about every AH novel I could get my hands on... some good, some not so good. I think my interest grew from my interest in history in general, which grew out of my interest in board wargames way back in the day. I think the first AH I was exposed to was one of those old minigames about WI the raid to rescue the Iranian hostages had gone in instead of being stalled in the desert.. the map had a (mostly guesswork) layout of the US embassy, one player had the US special forces and helicopters, the other had Iranian students and mobs, and controlled the hostage units, until they were rescued... oddly enough, never did play the game because I couldn't get anyone to play the Iranians (this was back in 1981 or so).....

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I saw the last book yesterday in the store. Didn't pick it up though - I'll prolly get it thru Amazon at a discount.

The American Empire trilogy has one other important feature: substituting Mexico for the Spanish civil war.

Turtledove is great at the history aspect of the stories, but his characters are flat, and are more of a vehicle for a point of view rather than someone truly interesting. Still, I like the books, I just recognize that there are flaws.

Ruled Brittania managed to have interesting ideas and decent characterization by having only two point of view characters and following a relitively short period of time where a lot was happening. I liked it and started trying to read American Empire. Blech. Seemingly dozens of PoVs, none of them particularly interesting or well fleshed out people, constant leaps in time and space... It was like going from Snowcrash to Diamond Age. It takes something really special for me to read a book I need a mental spreadsheet (or possibly one on my computer) to keep track of, and Turtledove is good but not that good.

Actually, reading both books might be a great thing for anyone interested in writing alternate history to do.

 

[GandhitheBFG]

Do the Alvin Maker books count? I'm a big fan of those.

I tried reading Turtledove's World War series, but couldn't even finish the first, I couldn't really get into it.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

I've enjoyed the World War series by Harry Turtledove. And also Eric Flint's 1632 series of novels even though those get REALLY descriptive and up to here in politics of the time period. But still a good read.

 

[Raptor]

As mentioned S.M. Stirling with his Draka series and Harry Turtledove is the master. I would also like to direct you to William R. Frostchen's The Lost Regiment as well as Douglas Niles and Michael Dobson's books Fox at the Rhine and Fox at the Front

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

As mentioned S.M. Stirling with his Draka series and Harry Turtledove is the master.

QFT, Stirling and Turtledove are indeed the masters of alt history.

Stirling's Draka are truly vile yet at the same time they avoid the standard villian trap memes. They're an antagonist that you are forced to respect as much as you hate.

Turtledove is a master, no doubting that but I personally haven't liked his newer books as much as his older ones. Sort of worry that his age is beginning to impact his quality at last.