Alternate Universe / Reality

[SwedishEroticaFan]

I've always been a big fan of the "alternate universe/reality" genre. I was just interested in your thoughts on this particular brand. Books, TV, etc.

Just to get the ball rolling:

"The Man in the High Castle" by Philip K. Dick

"The City on the Edge of Forever" by Harlan Ellison (screenplay & televised version)

"The Outer Limits" (1990's): "A Stitch In Time"

"Fatherland" - film w/ Rutgar Hauer

Doesn't have to be confined to sf/fantasy. For example, Lein Deighton's "SS-GB" would fall into the category.

Feel free to weigh in with your discussions.

[haldane4]

Bring The Jubilee by Ward Moore set the standard for all alternate histories. Few have ever matched it.

At the moment I'm reading Ken Macleod's The Human Front which is an odd alternate set in Scotland - he hasn't identified the point of divergence fro our own universe, I'm wondering if he's saving it for the finale.

[Aubrey]

Yes, Bring the Jubilee is great.

I never saw the Ellison - that is the Star Trek episode that is never shown, or that I always miss.

I'm afraid that I have never read the Dick book, either (very remiss of me, that).

Keith Roberts - Pavanne (set in the 60s in a world where Elizabeth I was assasinated and the Spanish invaded). It is a series of linked stories and is brilliant.
A story by him called Weihnachtsabend is also really good. That is a "Nazis won" story.

The Alteration by K Amis - set in a similiar world to Pavanne, or at least with the same premise - is good fun, with a Yorkshire pope and other nice touches (I have a personal reason for liking this book as I had the same complaint - though only in one - that the hero suffers from at the end. It is the only time I have ever seen it used in a novel, or even mentioned anywhere).

[brianwp]

I don't know about those books or movies, but I do wonder about the next dimension, or parallel universe. I do believe there are a lot of strange things that we sometimes catch a glimpse of that can still not be satisfactorily explained. We hear voices, see ghosts, angels, demons, and experience a wide range of paranormal activity. What do you accredit this all to? I have wondered about dimensions. We can only perceive three spatial dimensions. One day it occurred to me that we can see those below us, but of course the lower dimensions can't see us. What if there were another dimension, a fourth, or fifth, or tenth, that is right here with us, that we cannot see, but can see us? According to string theory, or quantum mechanics, this is possible. If there were another reality right here with us, that would explain a lot of the phenomenon that we can't explain. Just a thought.

[penfold007]

I read quite a bit of sci-fi which includes a fair amount of dystopian future fiction. There are also dystopian present stories which tend not to get classed as sci-fi, e.g.

The Children's War by J.N.Stroyar which is based on the premise that the allies lost WWII in Europe and the US withdrew.
Never Let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro which I'm not going to give away the premise as the way it is gradually revealled (the blurb on the back gives no hint) is important to the feel of the book (IMO anyway).

and there is "alternate past" - the Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling set at the beginning of the 20th century which posits the computer age 100 years early after Babbage gets his engines to work, resulting in steam powered, mechanical computers.

[electile disfunction]

Connie Willis has written many good alternate history/time travel stories (like Doomsday Book and "Fire Watch"). My favourite is To Say Nothing of the Dog.

My favourite alternate universe is probably Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

e.d.

[buttsie]

I used to watch sliders(1995-2000 TV) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sliders
at least when they were about alternate histories http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_history_(fiction)

[SwedishEroticaFan]

One common thread of alternate universe stories is Allied defeat in World War II.

One thing I always wondered: what would the world have been like if the Allies lost The Great War? I guess it could take the form of two scenarios:

1) The Germans win the Battle of the Marne

2) The German 1918 offensives succeed in cracking the Allies before the Americans can intervene in force.

Any thoughts?

[charlie_D]

S.M. Stirling does alternate history stuff too. The Emberverse series is interesting.

[haldane4]

Originally Posted by SwedishEroticaFan

One common thread of alternate universe stories is Allied defeat in World War II.

One thing I always wondered: what would the world have been like if the Allies lost The Great War? I guess it could take the form of two scenarios:

1) The Germans win the Battle of the Marne

That's an interesting supposition: if the Germans had won the Marne and taken Paris, then the BEF probably would have had to withdraw to the UK Dunkirk-style in early 1915. Basically we would have had a Second-World War scenario played out during the First World War. But there would have been no Battle of Britain given the primitive aircraft of the time. The Germans might have stepped up their U-Boat campaign at an early stage in an attempt to blockade Britain, which, in turn, might have brought the US into the war a little earlier. D-Day 1916, instead of the wretched Somme. And there was always Churchill's 'soft underbelly' - the Dardinelles campaign might well have gone better if the BEF had been withdrawn from France and deployed there.

Originally Posted by SwedishEroticaFan

2) The German 1918 offensives succeed in cracking the Allies before the Americans can intervene in force.

I think German society was on the brink of revolution by the time the Spring offensives were under way. Even if they'd managed to break the blockade, their society was coming apart. And there are all the stories of advancing German troops stopping to loot abandoned British supply columns - allegedly they'd hadn't seen riches such as tinned beef and white bread since 1916. Their discipline was gone. You can see why. No, by 1918, Germany was exhausted and finished, US or not.

If anyone is interested the BBC have a fabulous series called The Great War - made in 1964 and narrated by Michael Redgrave, it's 26 episodes of sheer brilliance to war students. It's out as a DVD box-set, but I got mine online.