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Less Popular Alternative History Plots and Subplots

Andrew Troutman
@Dotorimuk
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Alternative History books are fascinating. It’s endlessly engrossing to go over the “what ifs” of a different world. We’re all familiar with “what if the Nazis won” and “what if the South won the Civil War.” That’s some dark speculation, for sure. But it set my mind to wandering and dreaming up some other scenarios. Imagine worlds in which:

1. There’s still WWII, but this time Hermann Goring is thin.

2. Correlation DOES equal causation.

3. The car is invented before the wheel.

4. John Lennon writes “Imogene,” a loving tribute to Imogene Coca. The song is sung worldwide at funerals and after tragedies.

5. Ibarra Chocolate does not comply with the Mexican norm.

6. The Big Bopper survives the plane crash.

7. The names of Germany and Austria are reversed.

8. The ukulele has five strings, lending a quaint drone to Hawaiian music.

9. Space aliens visit Earth, but are only advanced in space travel — otherwise totally primitive, without even a language.

10. J.K. Rowling’s “Hairy Potter” book series, about a hirsute ceramicist, is a hit with readers worldwide.

11. Gandhi decides to fistfight the British, one by one.

12. Beethoven’s sense of hearing is intact, but he is unable to smell like a normal person.

13. Leonardo da Vinci leaves all his sketchbooks in a tavern. His books and ideas are stolen by a guy named Milton.

14. The pyramids are made of styrofoam blocks with stone siding. They were built because the pharaoh lost a bar bet.

15. It’s very noisy because all insects have the ability to speak in Esperanto.

16. George Orwell’s “1985” depicts a dystopia that has free Pac-Man machines as its only redeeming feature.

17. The Olympic Games include “Snooker to the Death.”

18. Julius Caesar is only metaphorically stabbed in the back by Brutus, who leaks details of the salad he’s been working on.

19. Andy Griffith’s character in the “Andy Griffith Show” is named Sheriff Andy Griffith.

20. You can’t bet your bottom dollar, because it is forbidden worldwide.

Imagine other worlds, and tell me what you dredge up.

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Discussion (63)

  • She@She

    Interesting thoughts to ponder. And yes, alternative history books can be fascinating. In these increasingly ahistorical times though, I fear that those who read or listen to them may not "get" the "alternative" part.

    C.J. Sansom (a novelist whose Tudor mysteries I used to read avidly) wrote an alternative history book called Dominion, in which--among other things--Nazi sympathizer Enoch Powell is installed as Chancellor of the Exchequer in a post-war (a war they lost) British collaborationist government.

    I remember Enoch Powell. He didn't deserve that sort of cheap smear. He represented a parliamentary constituency in which many of my family lived, for many years. They voted for him.

    I'm an occasional student of history, and I'm old enough to have heard the real story of WWII from those who lived it and fought it. But many aren't, and I fear that they'll take exactly the wrong message away from Sansom's anti-British political message. (Sometimes, Sansom is described as an anti-nationalist. That's wrong. He was pro-nationalism. Just not British nationalism.)

    So I worry about about "alternative history," and would rather it be labeled straight "fiction."

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