The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History
The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History

Author: Jack Dann

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2023-07-13

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 1350351377

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A comprehensive guide to the speculative sub-genre of alternate history fiction, this book maps the unique terrain of this vibrant mode of storytelling and then explains how to write it. First giving a concise conceptual overview and the critical tools to differentiate the different forms of counterfactual fiction, Jack Dann lays out the 'tricks of the trade' such 'Heinleining', how to create recognizable 'divergent points' and how to employ paratextual elements and 'layering' to overcome readers' unfamiliarity with invented counterfactual events and cultures. Alongside this, Dann takes you step-by-step through a complete short story to demonstrate, line-by-line, how alternative history fiction works. As well as Dann's exacting methodology for writing professional quality alternate history stories, this book also features a live-on-the-page Q&A with some of the most esteemed alternate history writers working today, including Kim Stanley Robinson, John Birmingham and Lisa Goldstein among many others, who will detail their own particular hacks, theories, processes, methods and strategies. Combining extensive and deep knowledge of the field with accessible writing advice, this is the ultimate guidebook to the broad and complex sub-genre of counterfactual and alterative history fiction.

The Alternate History
The Alternate History

Author: Karen Hellekson

Publisher: Kent State University Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13: 9780873386838

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

What would the world be like is history had taken a different course? Science fiction literature has long contemplated this question, and this text analyzes alternate history science fiction through a variety of historical models. It raises questions of narrative, writers, temporality and time.

Sideways in Time
Sideways in Time

Author: Glyn Morgan

Publisher: Liverpool Science Fiction Text

Published: 2019-09-30

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 1789620139

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Alternate history is a genre of fiction that, although connected to science fiction, has its own rich history and lineage. With its roots in the writings of ancient Rome, alternate history matured into something close to its current form in the essays and novels of the nineteenth century. In more recent years a number of highly acclaimed novels have been published as alternate histories, by authors ranging from bestselling science fiction writers to Pulitzer prize-winning literary icons. The popularity of the genre is reflected in its success on television, where original concepts have been developed alongside adaptations of classic texts such as Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle. This collection of essays, by both leading scholars in the field and rising stars, seeks to redress an imbalance between the importance and quality of alternate history texts and the available critical scholarship on the genre. The essays acknowledge the long and distinctive history of alternate history whilst also revelling in its vitality, adaptability, and contemporary relevance.

The Novel: An Alternative History
The Novel: An Alternative History

Author: Steven Moore

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2013-09-17

Total Pages: 705

ISBN-13: 1441133364

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Encyclopedic in scope and heroically audacious, The Novel: An Alternative History is the first attempt in over a century to tell the complete story of our most popular literary form. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the novel did not originate in 18th-century England, nor even with Don Quixote, but is coeval with civilization itself. After a pugnacious introduction, in which Moore defends innovative, demanding novelists against their conservative critics, the book relaxes into a world tour of the pre-modern novel, beginning in ancient Egypt and ending in 16th-century China, with many exotic ports-of-call: Greek romances; Roman satires; medieval Sanskrit novels narrated by parrots; Byzantine erotic thrillers; 5000-page Arabian adventure novels; Icelandic sagas; delicate Persian novels in verse; Japanese war stories; even Mayan graphic novels. Throughout, Moore celebrates the innovators in fiction, tracing a continuum between these pre-modern experimentalists and their postmodern progeny. Irreverent, iconoclastic, informative, entertaining-The Novel: An Alternative History is a landmark in literary criticism that will encourage readers to rethink the novel.

The Time Traveler's Guide
The Time Traveler's Guide

Author: Simon Rose

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2016-10-25

Total Pages: 92

ISBN-13: 9781539749349

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Time Traveler's Guide examines the writing of time travel stories and historical fiction. Books always transport us to other places, especially stories involving time travel or those set in different historical eras. The book examines the definition of time travel and historical fiction, the creation of time machines, methods and devices, selecting historical eras and settings, and creating characters and crafting dialogue. The book also explores common issues with time travel stories, and the importance of research, plausibility, description, and plot, along with writing about time travel into the future, alternate history, and parallel universes. The Time Traveler's Guide is an excellent resource for those writing time travel or historical fiction stories for both children and adults. "This is a unique book, overall, and I recommend it to writers and those interested in methods of time travel in general." "The Time Traveler's Guide is a great resource for any writer wanting to improve their craft."

The Writer's Guide to Creating a Science Fiction Universe
The Writer's Guide to Creating a Science Fiction Universe

Author: George Ochoa

Publisher: Writer's Digest Books

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9780898795363

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

To hold the interest of knowledgeable sci-fi readers, a writer the genre must stay within certain fuzzy boundaries of scientific belief. This volume provides some of the scientific detail that will make a writer's adventures compelling and consistent with current views of the universe. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction
The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction

Author: Philip Athans

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2010-06-18

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 1440507295

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Science fiction and fantasy is one of the most challenging--and rewarding!--genres in the bookstore. But with New York Times bestselling author Philip Athans and fantasy giant R. A. Salvatore at your side, you’ll create worlds that draw your readers in--and keep them reading! Just as important, you’ll learn how to prepare your work for today’s market. Drawing on his years of experience as one of the most acclaimed professionals in publishing, Wizards of the Coast editor Athans explains how to set your novel apart--and break into this lucrative field. From devising clever plots and building complex characters to inventing original technologies and crafting alien civilizations, Athans gives you the techniques you need to write strong, saleable narratives. Plus! Athans applies all of these critical lessons together in an unprecedented deconstruction of a never-before-published tale by the one and only R. A. Salvatore! There are books on writing science fiction and fantasy, and then there’s this book--the only one you need to create strange, wonderful worlds for your own universe of readers!

Fictional History
Fictional History

Author: Source Wikipedia

Publisher: University-Press.org

Published: 2013-09

Total Pages: 58

ISBN-13: 9781230649375

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 56. Chapters: Alternate history, Future history, Counterfactual history, Sidewise Award for Alternate History, List of alternate history fiction, Femizonia, CoDominium, Alliance-Union universe, History of Arda, The Shape of Things to Come, Last and First Men, Revelation Space universe, Noon Universe, The Psychotechnic League, Alien space bats, Instrumentality of Mankind, Paradox, The State, Rise of the Ogre, Uchronia: The Alternate History List, Jonbar Hinge, Wythnos yng Nghymru Fydd, Pax Germanica, The Third Millennium: A History of the World AD 2000-3000, Point of divergence. Excerpt: Fantasy Fiction Horror Fiction Science Fiction Other Alternate history or alternative history is a genre of fiction consisting of stories that are set in worlds in which history has diverged from the actual history of the world. It can be variously seen as a sub-genre of literary fiction, science fiction, and historical fiction; different alternate history works may use tropes from any or all of these genres. It is sometimes abbreviated AH. Another occasionally used term for the genre is "allohistory" (literally "other history"). Since the 1950s, this type of fiction has to a large extent merged with science fictional tropes involving cross-time travel between alternate histories or psychic awareness of the existence of "our" universe by the people in another; or ordinary voyaging uptime (into the past) or downtime (into the future) that results in history splitting into two or more time-lines. Cross-time, time-splitting and alternate history themes have become so closely interwoven that it is impossible to discuss them fully apart from one another. "Alternate History" looks at "what if" scenarios from some of history's most pivotal turning points and presents a completely different version, sometimes based on science and fact, but often based...

Post-9/11 Historical Fiction and Alternate History Fiction
Post-9/11 Historical Fiction and Alternate History Fiction

Author: Pei-chen Liao

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-09-19

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 3030524922

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Drawing on theories of historiography, memory, and diaspora, as well as from existing genre studies, this book explores why contemporary writers are so fascinated with history. Pei-chen Liao considers how fiction contributes to the making and remaking of the transnational history of the U.S. by thinking beyond and before 9/11, investigating how the dynamics of memory, as well as the emergent present, influences readers’ reception of historical fiction and alternate history fiction and their interpretation of the past. Set against the historical backdrop of WWII, the Vietnam War, and the War on Terror, the novels under discussion tell Jewish, Japanese, white American, African, Muslim, and Native Americans’ stories of trauma and survival. As a means to transmit memories of past events, these novels demonstrate how multidirectional memory can be not only collective but connective, as exemplified by the echoes that post-9/11 readers hear between different histories of violence that the novels chronicle, as well as between the past and the present.