Establishing the historical breakpoint . . . is only half the game of writing alternate history. The other half, and to me the more interesting one, is imagining what would spring from the proposed change. It is in that second half of the game that science fiction and alternate history come together. Both seek to extrapolate logically a change in the world as we know it. Most forms of science fiction posit a change in the present or nearer future and imagine its effect on the more distant future. Alternate history, on the other hand, imagines a change in the more distant past and examines its consequences for the nearer past and the present. The technique is the same in both cases; the difference lies in where in time it is applied.
A teacher once wrote in a forum that she was disappointed how much Second Life mirrored real life. She had been listening to presenters talk about alternative pedagogies in virtual worlds. Except for the fact that she had teleported to the lecture hall, the lecture itself was all too much like its real life counter part. What draws me to the alternate history genre is that its authors constantly intersect possible paths with real history, often through science fiction mechanisms like time travel, such that it is impossible not to consider what might well be. I am waiting for Harry Turtledove to tackle teaching and lecturing.
Reading List
- Isaac Asimov. The End of Eternity, 1955 [very different in tone from his better known Foundation trilogy]
- Ray Bradbury. A Sound of Thunder, 1952 [short story]
- Orson Scott Card. Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus, 1996
- Philip K. Dick. The Man in the High Castle, 1962
- Robert A. Heinlein [Heinlein also uses time travel in some of his other books, such as Time Enough for Love and To Sail Beyond the Sunset
- By His Bootstraps, 1941
- All You Zombies--, 1959
- Robert Silverberg. Up the Line, 1969
- Kurt Vonnegut
- Slaughterhouse-Five, 1969
- Timequake, 1996
- Karl Alexander. Time After Time, 1979
- Lou Antonelli. Pen Pal, 2004
- Stephen Baxter. The Time Ships, 1995 [sequel to Wells' The Time Machine]
- Juan Jos%uFFFD Ben%uFFFDtez. Caballo de Troya, 1984 [not yet translated]
- Gregory Benford. Timescape, 1980
- John Birmingham
- Axis of Time trilogy, 2004-present
- Weapons of Choice, 2004
- Octavia Butler. Kindred, 1979
- David G. Compton. Chronocules, 1970
- Michael Crichton. Timeline
- Brendan DuBois. Resurrection Day, 1999
- Jack Finney
- In Time and Again, 1970
- From Time to Time, 1995
- David Gerrold. The Man Who Folded Himself, 1973
- Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen. Grant Comes East, 2004.
- Harry Harrison. In A Rebel In Time, 1983
- Simon Hawke. TimeWars, 1984
- James P. Hogan. In Thrice Upon a Time, 1980
- Stephen King. The Langoliers, 1990 [novella from Four Past Midnight]
- Dean Koontz. Lightning, 1988
- Geoffrey A. Landis. Ripples in the Dirac Sea, 1988 [Nebula Award]
- Paul Levinson. The Plot To Save Socrates, 2006
- Richard A. Lupoff. 12:01 PM, 1973
- Michael Moorcock. Behold the Man, 1966
- H. Beam Piper
- Police Operation, 1948
- The Last Enemy, 1950
- Temple Trouble, 1951
- Time Crime, 1955
- Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, 1965
- Tim Powers. The Anubis Gates, 1983
- Terry Pratchett
- Thief of Time, 2001
- Night Watch, 2002
- Jeremy Robinson. The Didymus Contingency, 2006
- Romain Sardou The Spark of God, 2004
- Robert J. Sawyer. End of an Era
- George Gaylord Simpson. The Dechronization of Sam Magruder
- Harry Turtledove
- The Guns of the South: A Novel of the Civil War, 1992
- The Great War Trilogy: American Front, 1998; Walk in Hell, 1999; Breakthroughs, 2000
- Ian Watson.The Very Slow Time Machine, 1978
- Connie Willis
- Doomsday Book, 1992 [Hugo and Nebula Awards]
- To Say Nothing of the Dog, 1997
- Robert Charles Wilson. Darwinia, 1998
2 Comments
Good list. Here’s a question, though. How far back in time do you need to take your story or your point of departure for it be alternate history.
wOOt! You’ve got me thinking. Maybe a point of departure can be found at the turn of the 20th century when adult learning became systematized. Perhaps in the influential work of a learning theorists like Edward Thorndike who held low opinions of lectures, but influential means his path was the one already taken. Or maybe, because lectures are often defended on the grounds of efficiency, what if a rival research group looking at the social aspects of job design came up with results about 180 degrees from Fredrick Taylor’s scientific management? Or what about game theory as applied to education? It’s only been formalized recently, but a POD could be a game-theoretic insight going back to ancient times. What do you think? Is this the stuff of a riveting story?