Coming Anarchy also highlights multiple historical places with the same name; Albania, Iberia, Alexandria,  various African nations, and Guinea.  They don’t have one for Galicia, but they ought to.

My usual noble call in the case of ‘too many of the Same Thing in the alternate history genre’ is usually responded to with ‘yeah, well, this stuff you sneer at sells, so there.’

And you can’t argue sales.  People do the same old same old because they’re trained to and it’s familiar to them.   WW2 is plenty fresh in a lot of minds, and the US Civil ( Read more... )

While I’m notorious in AH circles as someone who insists that a AH story be (1) A GOOD STORY and (2) have some historical basis, not to mention (3) be one simple Point Of Divergence, not a whole mess of them (I can deal with some cascade effects, but not simultaneous stuff) - I give a lot of latitude to someone who gets those points clearly covered ( Read more... )

• There’s now a monument in Iraq to the shoe-throwing seen round the world.
• Paul Krugman is a fan of Charles Stross, which makes sense to me.   I’ll just wait for Krubman’s first AH novel…
• How many ways can you force-stuff the Roman Empire into science-fiction?  At least a dozen.

If anyone around has a good background history on Carthage, suggest away.  I’m looking for something NOT a rehash of the Rome-Punic Wars, but information on Carthage and how it worked at its height.  Thanks!

Query: Your favorite historical novel, and why?

If I had to pick a series, I’d say it would be Colleen McCullough’s “Masters of Rome” series.  Fantastically well-researched, and a great read.  Just picked up on remainder the last book - on Antony and Cleopatra.