WesWorld

So what is the best and worst Alt history you read or watched?

Since no oene else is interested i can use this thread to warn people off from buying the Atlantis series by Turtledove, what could have been great is simply American history in New Zeeland flora and fauna wrapping...

Heh,

It's just I tend towards Sci-fi or fantasy rather than alt-history. Only read one Turtledove, aliens land during WWII expecting knights. Meh.

I was never really thrilled with Turtledove.

I read an alternate history called 1901 - plot goes, the Kaiser decides to invade New York so Germany can acquire the colonies the US just picked up from Spain. There are two naval battles - a smaller one between the battleship USS Alabama and three German cruisers, and a larger fleet action between the German High Seas Fleet (including Captain Hipper aboard the Furst Bismarck) and the US Navy.

(Don't think this is a book for brilliantly-described naval battles, though. It's not.)

Four stars out of five, I'd say.

Kirk, if you like reading fantasy, might I recommend Brandon Sanderson? I've read his Mistborn and The Well of Ascension and I recommend them most heartily.

I actually liked the World War and Colonization series by Turtledove, TL-191 was a let down and now so are the Atlantis series. I always prefered Sci-Fi to Fantasy and then there are som good books that are hard to classify like Pyramid scheme and the Tinker series

I also liked the World War and Colonization, i found the other timeline 191 rather boring. I havent read Atlantis. But the worst alt history i have read is 1632 and 1633 by Eric Flint. It´s a modification of a Yankee at King Arthurs Court, instead it´s a West Virginia coalmining town displaced to Germany at the time of the 30year war.

I enjoyed the 1632 and the following books, which brings me to another book that you either love or hate namely "Years of Rice and Salt"

Since i have not read "Years of Rice and Salt" i googled it, it sounds intresting.

I think Robert Silverberg have written something like it. "Years of Rice and Salt" is now on my must read list.

I made the misstake of buying Turtledove´s "Hitlers War" that is based on a great idea (war instead of an Munich agreement) but is let down by poor research and strange actions by most of the mentioned European countries.

Never read alt-history stuff - but read a lot of fantasy. I strongly recommend David Eddings, starting with Pawn of Prophecy (German title: Kind der Prophezeihung).

There may be better fantasy stories but the way Eddings charackters interact is lots of fun and better than anything else I ever read.

I started the "Demonwars Saga" by Feist an author that I really like and which I think that those of you that havent read him would appreciate. Another fantasy/Scifi author I like is Wen Spencer who mixes Elfs with with the modern day world

Everything I've read by Timothy Zahn has ended up high or highest on my favorites list.

Just got the four Destroyermen books and it looks interesting. the story is about a destroyer fleeing into a storm that is a portal to an alternative earth after the battle of Java sea where humanity hasnt evolved

Thanks for the tip, i got the first two Destroyermen books today. The history seems intresting.

For those of you that like steampunk I can recomend "The Doomsday vault" by Steven Harper

Words can't describe the loathing I feel for Lars E Rohdes 'Hvis det var nemt havde de sendt nogle andre' (If it was easy they would have sent someone else)
It's supposed to be a postscript for the RDN submarine arm, but the plot is so farfetchet and the author's understanding of sub combat is so poor it ends up as a farce.
The plot centers around a Libyan attempt at attacking Israel with chemical weapons. In order to maximize the attacks effectiveness they need accurate weather data, and this is were the plot really begins to fall apart. Instead of buying the data on the open market they decide to be inspired by the germans and set up a weather station om Greenland.
Of course the author completely ignorer the little fact that the data will be useless to predict weather in the middle east, but that seems to be bo ongoing trend in the book.
Anyway, in order to collect the data they go on and make their second mistake. Instead of sending some nondescript civilian ship they send two frigates, a sub and a supply ship.
Somehow they manage to leave the med, sail all the way up the Euorpean west coast and set up a base on the east coast of Greenland without anyone noticing.
A week or so later a Danish patrol ship comes close to the base and the Libyans decides to use their submarine to sink her.
This of course causes quite a stir in Denmark and the Sirius patrol is sending to find out what's going on. Once it's been established who's there and what they're doing Denmark reacts rather violently, but instead of doing something reasonable like sending fighters to bomb them to kingdom come (The authors remarks that F-16s doesn't have the range to reach them, but a little work with a ruler shows that they have ample range if they take a stop-over in Sønderstrømfjord) Instead they decided to send a sub, two more patrol ships and two corvettes. In order to justify the patrol ships the author claims that their helicopters are equipped with Stingray torpedoes and Brimstone missiles (In reality they didn't even have 12,7mm MGs)
Anyway they go up there, but before they arrive they are ambushed by the Libyan submarine and one of the corvettes go down before they manage to chase the sub away. They then attack the Libyan ships who for some reason decides to remain at anchor. Once they're through sinking them the sub pops up again and sinks another patrol ship before the Danish sub manages to sink it in return.
They then go back home and all the subs are decommissioned.

And now I have to go and cool off. Just thinking about this piece of garbage makes me angry

That's... odd.

There's a book I've got called The Sledge Patrol about the Greenland hunters who served in WWII on those duties. I liked it quite a lot - the author met and interviewed the men who were there, Germans included. But it's not an alternate history.

Quoted

Originally posted by Thiel
Words can't describe the loathing I feel for Lars E Rohdes 'Hvis det var nemt havde de sendt nogle andre' (If it was easy they would have sent someone else)
It's supposed to be a postscript for the RDN submarine arm, but the plot is so farfetchet and the author's understanding of sub combat is so poor it ends up as a farce.
The plot centers around a Libyan attempt at attacking Israel with chemical weapons. In order to maximize the attacks effectiveness they need accurate weather data, and this is were the plot really begins to fall apart. Instead of buying the data on the open market they decide to be inspired by the germans and set up a weather station om Greenland.
Of course the author completely ignorer the little fact that the data will be useless to predict weather in the middle east, but that seems to be bo ongoing trend in the book.
Anyway, in order to collect the data they go on and make their second mistake. Instead of sending some nondescript civilian ship they send two frigates, a sub and a supply ship.
And I gotta run. I'll finish it later.

There is a similair book by Jan Guillou where Palestinians use a Akula sub to attack Israel called Madame Terror

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Terror

Well, I finished my previous post.

Wow, that sounds... 'Special.'