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What did you think of Lest Darkness Fall?
I liked it. 3 (60%)
I didn't care for it. 0 (0%)
I haven't read it. 2 (40%)
Total Votes: 5
Old Skool AH
Topic Started: Jan 10 2008, 09:37 PM (702 Views)
Makkabee
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So, let's talk about the classics of the genre: Lest Darkness Fall, The Wheels of If, Bring the Jubilee, that sort of thing.

Do you read old alternate history? If so, what do you think of it? What are its strengths and weaknesses compared to the stuff that comes out these days? Do you have any recommendations, either for novels or short fiction, that fit into the genre?

I've included a poll question about L. Sprague de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall as kind of a jumping off point.
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The Guy from Fiji
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Haven't read Lest Darkness Fall, but I have read Bring the Jubilee which I thought was fantastic. It gave a full and interesting look at that world, and it had a cool Twilight Zone ending.
Sic Temper Molemannis!
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Makkabee
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Yeah, I was impressed with the twist at the end of BtB. I thought the book overstated the postwar problems of the USA and assumed the Confederates would get far more at the peace table than was reasonable given the branch point, but it was still a great read and one of the most important works in the genre.
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TR1
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Adored LDF. Good old style sci-fi. A co-worker of mine insisted I read it. He even let me read his copy. A copy signed by the author.

He tried to get me to read Piper Beam's work, but I'd moved on to lawyering.

"Nobody's gay for Moleman." - Hans Moleman
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Custer
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Never read any of this stuff. My (as-of-right now un)roommate has that Best Alternate History of the 20th Century anthology that he told me to read. Maybe some year I shall.

I've read that What if the South Won the Civil War? AH from the Sixties, in which the USA, CSA, and Texas experience and fight the same OTL events, and ultimately reunite in peace exactly 100 years after the Civil War. I forget the author's name. Didn't do much for me.
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TR1
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Kantor. HT wrote an intro to a recent reissue.
"Nobody's gay for Moleman." - Hans Moleman
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Custer
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TR1
Jan 10 2008, 10:44 PM
Kantor. HT wrote an intro to a recent reissue.

Thanks.

Actually now that I think of it, I read HT's intro.
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Makkabee
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It was Bruce Catton, I think -- he also wrote a well-regarded non-fiction trilogy about the Army of the Potomac, but I thought his AH was ridiculously overoptimimistic. For instance, he had the CSA abolish slavery in the 1880s. I don't see the generation that fought to preserve slavery giving it up on their own. Generations born after the fight? Maybe. But not the men who bled to stop the "abolition hordes." The whole thing struck me as a ridiculously shiny-happy feel-good story to capitalize on the 100th anniversary of the war.

I think it influenced Turtledove's Guns of the South heavily, but at least HT gave us some reasons for the south's turn towards emancipation.

McKinley Kantor wrote Andersonville, a magnificent prize-winning novel about the infamous prison camp.

Now I need to recheck and make sure about this.

Oh, and Piper's a fun read. I like his Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen quite a bit. I don't agree with his extremist libertarian politics, but those politics didn't show up in Kalvan's story.
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TR1
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It was Kantor.

http://www.uchronia.net/bib.cgi/label.html?id=kantsouthh

"Nobody's gay for Moleman." - Hans Moleman
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Bignate
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Just about all the current AH writers, including HT, list LDF as their inspiration. By the way, has anyone read Silverberg's Roma Eterna?
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Custer
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Bignate
Jan 11 2008, 06:38 PM
By the way, has anyone read Silverberg's Roma Eterna?

I'm afraid I have to say that I haven't. Is that the one where Rome and the Aztecs fight sometime in near-modern times?
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The Guy from Fiji
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Bignate
Jan 11 2008, 06:38 PM
Just about all the current AH writers, including HT, list LDF as their inspiration. By the way, has anyone read Silverberg's Roma Eterna?

I read it. The POD is that the Biblical Exodus fails. The Hebrews remain an Egyptian slave class (with wild views on religion). So, no Temple-based Judaism, and thus no Christianity. The Empire has its strikes and gutters (and even splits between East and West for a while), but it keeps on truckin'.

A couple of the stories were nothing special. Ex: the romance between a classy lady from Constantinople and a rough military man from Roma. But overall I liked it.

In particular, my favs were the aforementioned story of the Empire getting itself into a quagmire against the Aztecs. Also, the Roman who is exiled to Deserta Arabia and meets a man with strange views on what he calls 'The God.'
Sic Temper Molemannis!
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TR1
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Custer
Jan 11 2008, 06:40 PM
Bignate
Jan 11 2008, 06:38 PM
By the way, has anyone read Silverberg's Roma Eterna?

I'm afraid I have to say that I haven't. Is that the one where Rome and the Aztecs fight sometime in near-modern times?

The New Barbarians, the second book in the "Procurator" series, also details a war between the Romans and the Aztecs.
"Nobody's gay for Moleman." - Hans Moleman
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Bignate
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TR, I just gogled the book you mentioned, the New Barbarians by Kirk Mitchell. It gets 4.5 stars out of 5. Did you enjoy it? I don't think I've ever read anything by him.
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TR1
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It was a satisfying trilogy on the whole. The first is actually the weakest. The New Barbarians was quite a bit of fun, IIRC. It's been roughly 7 years since I read it.
"Nobody's gay for Moleman." - Hans Moleman
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