> I used to read the newsgroup soc.history.what-if, which is
>entirely dedicated to discussion of alternative history, but got really
>bored with endless discussions about what might have happened if some
>obscure Civil War battle had turned out differently. Mind you, these
>threads were nothing like as tedious as the "What if x hadn't got in as
>president/been nominated as a losing candidate for US president in
>1834". If I lived in the states, or had been taught US history rather
>than European history at school, they might be more interesting, I
>suppose.
>
I think the presidential and war based alternative history books pale in
comparison to some of the fantasy based ones. I remember TIME OF THE TWINS
by Wies and Hickman in particular. I especially liked the idea that only
people of races that did not exist at that time in the past (i.e. Kinders)
were the only ones who could permanently affect time. The "time is like a
river, a stone will make waves, but the river will return to its normal
state" theory of time. The sheer terror that Raistlin faced realizing that
he was doomed to make the same mistakes of his predecessor made the whole
trilogy worth reading.
Joey Mellott : poet, writer, and subversive intellectual
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"I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom,
I want goodness. I want sin." - Aldous Huxley
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