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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   2917 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.

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