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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   2938 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 8, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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So I tried to read 1632 again and I just...can't bring myself to. But I'm still hankering for some alternate history/ISOT stuff. Does anyone have any good recs? And yes, I've read Stirling's Trope Namer. Hopefully that can't be the best work in the genre and it's all downhill from here.

As a longtime alternate history buff, my faves would probably include The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson (Arabs and Chinese duke it out after Europe gets totally decimated by the Black Plague, told through a reincarnation motif), Journey to Fusang (similar, but much more a fun adventure novel), For Want of a Nail that's mentioned below, Turtledove's The Guns of the South (really the only Turtledove you need tbh) and L. Sprague de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall (maybe more a time travel tale? Like Twain's Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court but our accidental time traveller ends up in 600s Italy instead)

(really the only Turtledove you need tbh)

Come on; the trick to this game is to "Use simple lies that seem believable."

GotS has the lowest "extremely awkward sex scene" ratio of all the Turtledove books I've read.

Harry Turtledove is the other obvious name in alternate history. His stuff is typically mixed with a little science fiction (Household Gods was good), or a lot of science fiction (his Worldwar series, which I liked; his Crosstime Traffic series, which is very good by YA standards) or fantasy (I didn't like his Darkness series, but Between the Rivers was good), and there's some more pure alternate history in his works too. I recall liking The Two Georges, though not as much as the impure recommendations already mentioned.

It is a short story rather than a novel, and regular alternate history rather than "Island in the Sea of Time", but The Last Article from Harry Turtledove.

The Yiddish Policemen Union

How uh, alternate are you willing to get?

Napoleonic war era with dragons: https://www.amazon.com/His-Majestys-Dragon-Temeraire-Book/dp/0345481283

For Want of a Nail (no electronic version available, though I may make an illicit HTML/EPUB rendition myself eventually) is the GOAT. There's also Look to the West (Amazon, AlternateHistory.com).

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