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[threemonkeys]

Funny things alternate history novels. They don't really fit in with other broadly sf stuff, yet they don't fit in anywhere else either. The sf genre more or less fits them because it is dealing with worlds other than our own. I understand though why some booksellers want to put them in a category of their own. That section could easily be called the "Turtledove" section because ol' Harry probably writes most of it.

To me there are a couple of main reasons for going down the alt-history path. The serious literary one is to use the different world to hold up a mirror to our own world. The contrast between what "could have been" and what "is" is where the heart of such a work lies. Conversely you can just use the strange setting to tell a story and run some characters across a landscape. The latter is the usual Turtledove method and when he is on form, it is good diverting fun but you wouldn't mistake it for deep.

Along the way in an alt-history story you can have a bit of fun. Drop in the odd moment of quirky difference between the alternative world and our own. It can be a bit of spice for the story and it gives the pretentious amongst us (including me) a chance to show off our second rate knowledge of history and feel clever when we understand the references to "real" history. Of course it would be crass to actually draw attention in the story to our world - planting an alternate world inside the alternate world is just silly. Not only does The Two Georges by Harry Turtledove and Richard Dreyfuss have a bit of entirely inappropriate alternate-alternate in it but it is just stuffed full to overflowing with those little spice moments. Its all about "spot the allusion". Oh there is a story, but it so clearly isn't the point.

Perhaps its just me. I think I've reached a saturation point. I gave up the big inflated Turtledove novel series a while back. I think its time to give up the one-offs as well. Time to go back to works where "spot the allusion" is about film or music references. I still feel clever when I spot those.

Comments

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Don't know much about Ford, but Chabon strikes me very much as a "mirror to our own world" kind of writer. A horse of a very different colour indeed compared to Turtledove.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

The use of the alternate history device in YPU seemed to be mostly a way to say something about Jewishness without getting all caught up in the specifics of Israel, though Chabon gets a few more layers out of it as well.

I've only just started the Ford book, but its in the Fantasy Masterworks series, and while I've only just started it, early indications are that it deserves the accolades.

There is the alternate history in Mary Gentles Ash, as well, where the alternate history is worked into the plot in an overt way.

I'm normally more a fan of the Tim Powers style secret history, though, the story in which the facts are outwardly the same, but very different once you peel back the layers of secrecy. It seems to be a genre that pushes some of the same buttons, though.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

You might be on to something there. I love Powers' secret history type of approach too. In fact right this minute I have an Amazon shopping basket filled with a number of Powers titles because they aren't available here anymore. Returning to Turtledove though, he doesn't slowly reveal a different hidden history - he thrusts it in your face from the beginning and keeps on pushing it.

I'll keep an eye out for the Ford book - if its in the masterworks series it will float past me at some point.