• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Anyone Like Alternate History Speculation?

I like Turtledove as well, but I haven't read his Civil War stuff except for The Guns Of The South. I've read all of the Worldwar books, though, as well as The Two Georges, which he co-wrote with Richard Dreyfus. (I asked him once, "How much did Dreyfus really write?" The answer I got was "Quite a bit, actually.")
That was a good book. Very underrated. I also liked his alternate American history where the Americas were populated by Neandertals rather than American Indians; I think the stories were collected in a book called A Different Flesh.

I don't really see the Cold War erupting into conflict around 1990; the internal situation in the Soviet Union had been degrading for too long at that point. What interests me more is a nuclear exchange at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. There definitely could have been an exchange of nukes between the US and Russia at that point that would have caused some serious devastation. The US would have gotten through it, but the Soviet Union would have likely collapsed in internal conflict as the member states took advantage of the situation to secede. Today's world would be completely unrecognizable.

In World in Conflict, it was presented rather plausibly. In 1989, the Politburo decides to threaten Western Europe with invasion in order to force them to send aid, but this plan fails and the Soviets end up forcing an actual invasion. After a time, NATO regroups and receives reinforcements from the USA, fighting the Soviets to a stalemate in France. It's not long after this that the Soviets launch their sneak attack on the American west coast.

Don't forget the Chinese assistance of the Soviets! =)
 
The only alternate history I'm familiar with is C&C: Red Alert. :D

Women's military uniforms are a lot nicer in the alternate timeline, and humanity seems to have forgotten how to do up shirt buttons...

gemmaatkinsonredalert3wx0.jpg
 
Brendan DuBois' Remembrance Day is set in the US a couple of decades after the Cuban Missile Crisis turned into all out war. A new enemy is lurking---

Mona Clee's Branch Point imagines a handful of survivors after the Cuban Missile Crisis erupts into war and poisons the world build a time machine to go back in time to make it come out right. This author has a serious case of Kennedy love.
 
Another great one.

Children of Apollo.

Instead of killing the Apollo program after the moon landings, President Nixon seizes upon the manned space program as a way to strain the Soviet economy.

So he plows more and more resources into extra Apollo missions and expanded technology.
I'll have to get that. I always thought that would have been the best way to deal with the Soviets.

In World in Conflict, it was presented rather plausibly. In 1989, the Politburo decides to threaten Western Europe with invasion in order to force them to send aid, but this plan fails and the Soviets end up forcing an actual invasion. After a time, NATO regroups and receives reinforcements from the USA, fighting the Soviets to a stalemate in France. It's not long after this that the Soviets launch their sneak attack on the American west coast.
Well, that's not too far out.

The only alternate history I'm familiar with is C&C: Red Alert. :D

Women's military uniforms are a lot nicer in the alternate timeline, and humanity seems to have forgotten how to do up shirt buttons...

gemmaatkinsonredalert3wx0.jpg
In an alternate timeline, she's out of uniform in that picture.... and you're allowed to Post it!
 
I have read and loved stories about the south conquering the north in the civil war
Hitler winning WW2

I love those types of stories!
 
"A TransAtlantic Tunnel Hurrah!!" by Michael Morcock is one of my favorites..
Much of Harry Turtledove is quite enjoyable...though he's getting a bit..predicitable in his writing.. for a ripping good WW3 story.."Red Storm Rising" by Tom Clancy now falls under alternate history...as well as most of Clancy's "Jack Ryan" series...
 
KSR's The Years of Rice and Salt imagines what would happen if the bubonic plague had wiped out nearly the entire population of Europe, effectively eliminating Christianity from being an influence in the development of the world from that point on. China discovers the Americas from the west, Europe becomes Muslim territory. Really great read.

I would also recommend the book What Ifs? of American History, edited by Robert Cowley. Among some of the essays and stories in the collection are:
--William Pitt the Elder lives long enough to negotiate acceptable terms that avoid the revolution.
--JFK lives....
--The Cuban Missile Crisis yields a nuclear exchange between the USA and USSR.
--The Watergate scandal never happened.

It has a few clunkers in there, but most are very good.
 
I have "What If", "What If 2", and "The What If's of American History".

That is where I first heard of the Able Archer Crisis of 1983. Arguably the last time NATO and the Soviet Union came close to nuclear war.

Second order counterfactuals are of particular interest to me. That is, despite major historical changes, old patterns reemerge and basically the same things happen.

Example:

In "Children of Apollo", despite the earlier changes, Ronald Reagan still becomes president and apparently serves two full terms just as he does in our timeline.
 
Try Howard Waldrop, he writes mainly short stories and most have an alt slant. Very very good. Won a Hugo for 'The Ugly Chickens', which is sort of an alt tale.
 
KSR's The Years of Rice and Salt imagines what would happen if the bubonic plague had wiped out nearly the entire population of Europe, effectively eliminating Christianity from being an influence in the development of the world from that point on. China discovers the Americas from the west, Europe becomes Muslim territory. Really great read.

Great book indeed. Probably the best and most plausible long-term alt history that I've ever read, too.
 
What if alien space nazis invented the cotton gin 200 years before Eli Whitney?

What if Henry the VIII married a Ethiopian?

What if Germany won the Vietnam War?

What if the Mongols were led by Robo-Cop?
 
(with only a couple of nuclear weapons used)

The fallacy with this line of thinking is that there IS no "with only a couple of nuclear weapons used". If ANY nuclear weaopns are used, end of humanity, end of story.
 
Oh, can't forget the World War 2.1 trilogy by John Birmingham.

Naval battle fleet from 2020s caught up in scientific experiment diaster, sent back in tome to WW2. Chaos ensues. Not a bad read.
 
Oh, can't forget the World War 2.1 trilogy by John Birmingham.

Naval battle fleet from 2020s caught up in scientific experiment diaster, sent back in tome to WW2. Chaos ensues. Not a bad read.

That's the Axis of Time trilogy. Very accessible, knows how to poke fun at itself, with some really cool technology and an aircraft carrier called the USS Hilary Clinton. Fun stuff and an easy read.
 
The fallacy with this line of thinking is that there IS no "with only a couple of nuclear weapons used". If ANY nuclear weaopns are used, end of humanity, end of story.
Oh bullshit. The US detonated over 200 of the suckers above ground (most over Nevada) and you're still posting today.
 
(with only a couple of nuclear weapons used)

The fallacy with this line of thinking is that there IS no "with only a couple of nuclear weapons used". If ANY nuclear weaopns are used, end of humanity, end of story.
Depends on the time period and the situation. In fact, it's more likely that there would be only limited use of nuclear weapons. But even in an all-out nuclear war, it wouldn't mean the end of Humanity, just of large-scale civilization.
 
(with only a couple of nuclear weapons used)

The fallacy with this line of thinking is that there IS no "with only a couple of nuclear weapons used". If ANY nuclear weaopns are used, end of humanity, end of story.

Why do people think that if ANY nuclear weapons are used in any combat situation that the worlds powers would unleash everything in their arsenals.

Does anyone really believe that the Soviets would start launching ICBMs into U.S. cities just because a Motor Rifle Division in West Germany gets incinerated?

Or that the U.S. would start lobbing hundreds of SLBMs into the Soviet Union just because an aircraft carrier is vaporized somewhere in the Pacific.

In fact, I read once in an old Navy magazine from years ago that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. actually had an "unofficial" agreement that if nuclear weapons were used by either side against naval targets that the other side would not respond with nuclear attacks on land.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top