Comments | jrittenhouse: Capricon: panel schedule

jrittenhouse

Capricon: panel schedule

Jan 30, 2012 19:17

Alternate History that Doesn’t Involve WW2 or the Civil War - Friday, 02-10-2012 - 11:30 am to 1:00 pm - Birch B
As any judge for the Sidewise Awards knows, hundreds of Alternate History stories come out each year. Though many of them seem to fixate on World War II and the Civil War, some find more unique points in history for a divergence. What are ( Read more... )

sidewise, science_fiction, ah, fandom, books, capricon, cons

Comments 13

barondave January 31 2012, 01:03:01 UTC

underutilized periods in history

Heh.

Sort of reminds me that most people who claim to be reincarnated (or remember a past life) are Napoleon or Cleopatra or someone ultra-famous and powerful. In fact, if reincarnation is random (two big ifs there), then one out of four should really remember their life as a Chinese peasant.

Uh-huh jrittenhouse January 31 2012, 02:00:36 UTC

Or something like that. I don't disbelieve that such things do and can happen, but I disbelieve 99.999% as (at best) fantasies re remembering past lives.

virtualvirtue January 31 2012, 02:40:11 UTC

Things like Eric Flint's 1632 series and George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman series?

jrittenhouse January 31 2012, 02:59:25 UTC

The former one is AH; Flashman's more secret history than AH. But yeah, you get the idea.

xirpha January 31 2012, 04:35:37 UTC

Looking forward to the panel. This year there is a lot of panels I hope to get to.

crankyoldgoat January 31 2012, 10:32:38 UTC

lets leave out war.

What if Columbus hadn't come back?

What if disease had gone the other way - instead of Eurpoean diseases devasting the the New World, a New World disease devastated Europe?

What if the Crash of 29 had lead to an economic disintegration of the United States?

What if the Crash of 29 had lead (home grown) communists to take control of the government (there were plenty of them back in the 20s, no Russians need be involved).

What if the French had never sold Louisiana to the United States?

What if, on the death of the last emperor related to Augustus, the Roman Senate had successfully reasserted itself rather than a string of former generals declaring themselves emperor.

What if the Black Death had never occured? there were a raft of social and economic changes the drop in population brought about, but would those changes have occurred anyway?

stickmaker January 31 2012, 14:31:27 UTC

Charlemagne almost caused the Renaissance centuries early. What if he had?