alternative title

[pigeonhed]

Is it still Alternative History when a story makes no substantive changes to known historical record but imagines what might have occurred beyond the point where no definitive record exists? Or is that something else? E.g. Agatha Christie's missing days could be explored speculatively without divergence from existing history.

Comments

[drasecretcampus]

fictional history? Speculative history. Faction, even. Much of,say, the last days of Hitler in the bunker.

[pigeonhed]

The case in point is Lewis Shiner's Perfidia which speculates on how Glenn Miller may have died.
Secret history?

[del_c]

The taxonomy I saw on soc.history.what-if in the old days called that Secret History: history we don't know about.

[gummitch]

Yep. This.

[sbisson]

Yes, that's the term. Stories like Dan Simmons' The Terror or Drood.

[stevegreen]

It can't be 'alternative history' if there's no fixed history for it to represent an alternative to.

[anonymous]

ビーダーマイヤー買います！

[secritcrush]

Secret History.