Talk:Alternate history
Turtledove looks interesting (+wishlist), but it's not Alternate History, it's common SF placed in the future, while Alternate History may or may not be placed in the past. A key element of Alternate History is that only a small thing happens which changes everything. An alien invasion is not a small thing.
Very little of Turtledove's writing is set in the future. And AH does not depend on a "small thing" happening. It depends on a change on something historical happening. The size is inconsequential. An alien invasion occuring in 1941 is alternate history unless you have some proof that it did, in fact, happen.
Why must it be a small thing? "The Man In The High Castle" is premised on the Axis powers winning WWII, not a small thing but undeniably an Alternate history novel -- GWO
"Undeniably"? Please.
For practical reasons: What other qualifier is there? Any SF story is Alternate History, I'd even say any story is alternate history.
The thing must only be small at the very beginning. There are several points in the history that could have changed the war's outcome. Just kill Hitler at age 25, as Yulsman did.
Most SF stories take place in the future -alternate history have to involve a change in the known story we call history. Some may be set in the present or future but they must involve a change in the past. I agree that the "World war" books combine alternate history and standard scifi. Turtledove's Civil War books are better examples. -rmhermen
There are lots of SF stories requiring change in our past, because they were written decades ago. Have they transmogrified into Alternate History?
The key feature of AH is IMHO that any random piece of trivia would modify our world. What if Helium would not be found in Kansas, but in Sachsen? Lots of Zeppelins in the air. What if some unknown Austrian artist died at age 25? No WWII. What if aliens invade the earth? An invaded earth.
Turtledove's WWII series looks interesting and has something AHish about it, it's only not a prime example, TMITHC is, and the Civil War series probably too.
I cannot find details about J. C. Squire's collection. Someone? --Yooden
Now that I think of it, Darcy doesn't qualify. The stories are about crime and magic, not about alternate history. --Yooden
- Not true. The Darcy stories are set in a world in which Richard I of England lived to an old age, settled down, became an enlightened monarch, and led to England turning into the Western Empire. RickK 22:33, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)
All SF is not alternate history. Alternate history is based on known ahistorical events that took place in the past. Any number of SF stories put their change in the future.
The size of the event is irrelevant. Consider Harry Harrison's "Eden" novels. There the event is the lack of a 100 km diameter asteroid slamming into the Earth 65 million years ago. It doesn't get much bigger than that.
There's a decent discussion of what is/is not AH at http://www.uchronia.net/intro.html --Paul Drye
The asteroid was (not) long ago. Is the movie Armageddon alternate history?
Fatherland is not the best AH book, but it may be the most archetypical.
On the other hand -is all alternate history sci fi? All that I have read was classed as such but why would it need to be. ---rmhermen
No, Fatherland, for example, is mainstream fiction. Len Deighton's XPD is another example of mainstream alternate history. Also, Robert Musil's Viennese epic, Man Without Qualities, plays with alternate outcomes and historical actualities. sjc
It should be important whether AH is SF. SF is often categorized wrong.
Fatherland is no SF because of what? No time machine? Success?
--Yooden
Success, mainly, but it is mainstream principally because it deals with the alternate nature of history without implying any major technological differences, and was marketed as a mainstream novel. Certainly there was an acute shortage of time-machines...sjc
The thing about Fatherland, as I see it, is that it's a detective/thriller novel. It has a detective/thriller plot, it is constructed as a detective/thriller novel, it has no SF elements in it. Apart from the setting, of course, but the fact that it's set in an alternate history is not in any way the point of the novel - it's a detective/thriller novel that just happens to have an unusual setting, more like (insert name of detective novel set in historical ancient Japan) than like (insert example of novel where the fact that it's an alternate history is the whole point). --Paul A
Are you sure that Jonbar hinge is ever used? Google only has three results. In shwi, the word is POD for Point of divergence -- Error
- I was coming here to post the same thing. I changed the article before even reading this comment. I changed it to POD (although in my case it was Point of Departure. I'll change that to Point of divergernce. RickK 22:28, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Nobody yet seems to have mentioned the source of "Jonbar Hinge".
It's from Jack Williamson's story "The Legion of Time", which first appeared in "Astounding" in 1938, and has since been published in book form. The alternatives are the good civilisation of Jonbar or the bad one of Gyronchi, and the pivotal event is whether a child called John Barr picks up an old magnet, or a pebble .
Paul Magnussen
'Alternate history' as a phrase always bothers me. To alternate is to switch between two states (as in alternating current). The phrase ought to be 'alternative history', surely! --Suitov 11:53, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Yeah, I've just fixed that. I'll fix the links over the next few days. — Chameleon 15:47, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- What's this "very commonly but incorrectly" stuff? Google says "alternate history" beats "alternative history" 170k to 44k. (Actually, the latter was bigger than I expected.) ––wwoods 18:12, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Google also reports over three million results for ‘ain't’, without this making the word standard English. Get over Google! — Chameleon 07:36, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Not a persuasive example. Google says that "isn't" beats "ain't", 12.9M to 4.2M. "Alternate history" may not be to your taste, and I've got language peeves of my own, but it just ain't "incorrect". ––wwoods 08:14, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- It's not a matter of my taste. This grammatical confusion is common but a confusion nevertheless. In distinguishing properly between the terms ‘alternate’ and ‘alternative’, I am following the Wikipedia Manual of Style and, more generally, the writing habits of educated people.
- The Google test is not a good one. The phrase "alternate history" gets 180,000 results on Google, yes. But there are 284,000 pages' worth of people thinking ‘tongue’ is spelt ‘tounge’. Netizens' illiteracy is irrelevant to us in our task of building and improving Wikipedia. — Chameleon 09:15, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Actually, it is both a matter of taste and grammer. Grammar because, yes, grammatically, it should be alternative. Taste, because through common (and long) usage, the incorrect (grammatically) form of alternate history is accepted as a marketing tool and the name of the genre which Chameleon disagrees with. More people will recognize the term alternate history than alternative history and the question then comes down to: is the purpose of Wikipedia to be correct in a manner which diminishes its usefulness or incorrect in a manner which allows people to find what they are looking for. You can find many books with the phrase "Alternate History" on the spine (as you would find "science fiction," "mystery," "fiction," etc.) but you won't find any with the more grammatically correct "alternative history." - shsilver
- Using the correct term doesn't make anything less useful to anyone in any way: anybody searching for the term "Alternate Fiction" will be redirected to the article. Don't make out that people will be wondering around deprived of information because we have good grammar. On the other hand, opting for the incorrect term has the negative effect of a) making Wikipedia look stupid and b) condoning the error. It is much the same as not correcting spelling mistakes in articles.
Actually I don't think alternate is "wrong" here in modern usage. The term is used as a synonym for alternative in modern English in a variety of contexts. Correctness is dictated by usage, after all: many of the words you currently use would have been "incorrect" in that usage a mere 300 years ago, but the meaning has shifted. --Delirium 11:13, Apr 22, 2004 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, the 2000 American Heritage dictionary lists this as a correct usage as well: "alternate, n., 3. Serving or used in place of another; substitute: an alternate plan." --Delirium 11:16, Apr 22, 2004 (UTC)
-- Rewrote article to make it more useful and get away from semantic disagreements.- shsilver
- Bah, whatever. — Chameleon 08:58, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
If this article is about alternate history fiction in particular, rather than about the concept of alternate history/virtual history, does 'For Want of a Nail' really belong there? 'For Want of a Nail' is not a story set in an alternate timeline, but a history book from an alternate timeline. Does it belong in the Virtual history article? GCarty
- I would suggest that it is fiction and does tell a story, just not one that uses a traditional narrative style.
In addition, the newsgroup soc.history.what-if is mainly composed of serious counterfactual history discussion - in fact its own FAQ states that discussion of published alternate-history fiction should be done on rec.arts.sf.written only. GCarty
Categorization
I removed the article from Category:Fictional events and Category:Fictional universes, see Category_talk:Fictional -- Pjacobi 21:12, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
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