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Re: Good new altenate history authors?

From Don Kuenz <garbage@crcomp.net>
Newsgroups rec.arts.sf.written
Subject Re: Good new altenate history authors?
Date 2016-06-09 17:06 +0000
Organization A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID <20160609a@crcomp.net> (permalink)
References <f8b038cb-79ec-4382-8b68-9460a981dc4a@googlegroups.com> <P4adnTLW9v0SrMvKnZ2dnUU7-c2dnZ2d@earthlink.com> <20160606f@crcomp.net> <c5ca146a-b890-4aac-ad0a-e9cbed268c3d@googlegroups.com>

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Moriarty <blues95@ivillage.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday, June 7, 2016 at 4:08:42 PM UTC+10, Don Kuenz wrote:
>> David DeLaney <daviddelaney@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> > On 2016-06-06, Dale Cozort <dalecoz2@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> I'm a big alternate history fan. I've read most of Turtledove's stuff and the
>> >> SM Stirling alternate history stuff, along with Stross's Merchant Princes
>> >> novels and Eric Flint's 163X. What I'm looking for are authors on the way up
>> >> with stuff that plays the AH reasonably straight--not the Roman empire
>> >> survives because they tamed dragons and Emperor Marilyn Monroe is now
>> >> invading President Jeb Bush's US or Nazi sorcerers.
>> >
>> > The very first to spring to mind is actually a webcomic, found at
>> > girlgeniusonline.com . An alternate Europe (and England) in a universe where
>> > devisors, called "sparks", build gadgets and organisms that toy with the laws
>> > of physics and are susceptible to Science-Related Memetic Disorder as well
>> > ( < http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScienceRelatedMemeticDisorde
r > )
>> > {DO NOT CLICK THE ABOVE LINK IF YOU HAVE ANYTHING ELSE YOU NEED TO DO TODAY}.
>>
>> Yet another (older than GG) AH is _The Man in the High Castle_ by PKD.
>
> It doesn't qualify, being neither good nor new.

There's an even older novella named "Two Dooms" by Cyril M. Kornbluth
that piques my own interest. It includes time travel, AH, a desert
setting, and peyote. It's on order now. Here's a review:

    Review: "Two Dooms" by C. M. Kornbluth

    This short story was originally published in 1958, and can
    be classified as a science fantasy piece concerned with
    alternate history. Cyril M. Kornbluth is one of the most
    gifted short fiction writers one may encounter in the
    realm of speculative fiction, and this has to be one of
    his most brilliant works, though it runs only 34
    closely-printed pages. Kornbluth uses a plot-device
    wherein he makes his central character ingest a peyote
    button administered by a Hopi medicine man. Our protagonist
    is an overworked, ethically-troubled young scientist,
    Dr. Edward Royland, working under Oppenheimer on the
    Manhattan Project in the desert of New Mexico. The peyote
    and a kind of quantum-shamanic ritual open a temporal
    portal for the protagonist, who is taken on an odyssey
    in which he experiences a far future America where the
    German Nazis and the Japanese Imperialists are the winners
    of World War II, and the feudalistic, fascistic, racist,
    and anti-intellectual tenets of these powers have been
    allowed to develop in the former United States, which
    these two powers have long ago divided between them in a
    kind of interlocking confederacy. The result of this has
    been a complete devolution of the free and democratic
    society the time-traveling young scientist had once known
    back in the mid-1940s. In terms of literary publication,
    this short story anticipates the same scenario found in
    Phillip K. Dick's brilliant novel, The Man in the High
    Castle, by six years, and in many ways Kornbluth's tale of
    an Axis Powers' victory conveys a far more intense experience
    for the reader in its exploration of the ramifications of
    both Asian and European versions of fascism upon the lot of
    the common person, as well as the wreckage it makes of
    education and scientific advancement.

    (excerpt)

    http://goodshortfictiontoread.blogspot.com/2010/03/review-two-dooms-by-c-m-kornbluth.html

--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU

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Thread

Good new altenate history authors? Dale Cozort <dalecoz2@gmail.com> - 2016-06-06 08:10 -0700
  Re: Good new altenate history authors? Greg Goss <gossg@gossg.org> - 2016-06-06 19:56 -0600
    Re: Good new altenate history authors? Don Kuenz <garbage@crcomp.net> - 2016-06-07 04:13 +0000
    Re: Good new altenate history authors? "Brian M. Scott" <b.scott@csuohio.edu> - 2016-06-07 14:20 -0400
  Re: Good new altenate history authors? David DeLaney <daviddelaney@earthlink.net> - 2016-06-06 21:29 -0500
    Re: Good new altenate history authors? Don Kuenz <garbage@crcomp.net> - 2016-06-07 06:08 +0000
      Re: Good new altenate history authors? Moriarty <blues95@ivillage.com> - 2016-06-06 23:14 -0700
        Re: Good new altenate history authors? Don Kuenz <garbage@crcomp.net> - 2016-06-09 17:06 +0000
          Re: Good new altenate history authors? Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> - 2016-06-09 11:04 -0700
          Re: Good new altenate history authors? Kevrob <kevrob@my-deja.com> - 2016-06-09 12:59 -0700
    Re: Good new altenate history authors? Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> - 2016-06-07 04:38 -0700
      Re: Good new altenate history authors? Kevrob <kevrob@my-deja.com> - 2016-06-07 09:28 -0700
    Re: Good new altenate history authors? "Brian M. Scott" <b.scott@csuohio.edu> - 2016-06-07 14:23 -0400
      Re: Good new altenate history authors? Richard Hershberger <rrhersh@gmail.com> - 2016-06-10 06:38 -0700
        Re: Good new altenate history authors? Kevrob <kevrob@my-deja.com> - 2016-06-10 08:23 -0700
          Re: Good new altenate history authors? Dale Cozort <dalecoz2@gmail.com> - 2016-06-10 14:33 -0700
        Re: Good new altenate history authors? "Brian M. Scott" <b.scott@csuohio.edu> - 2016-06-10 12:48 -0400

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