Newt Gingrich | Eleventh Stack

That skit — and I don’t remember which of the SNL cast were in it* — may be one of the best one-sentence summations of that offshoot of fiction: alternative history.

In 30 seconds or less, what distinguishes AH from regular fiction and its close relative, historic fiction? Well, fiction is fiction. In 1851 George Payn Quackenbos wrote, in First Lessons in Composition:

Fiction is a species of composition in which events are narrated that have no foundation except in the imagination of the writer.

For historic fiction, take that definition, add your storyline and characters, and deposit them into an event or events that are matters of historic record — Michaelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel, Columbus sailing from Spain, Gettysburg, the Soviet blockade of Berlin, etc. — and make them part of the story. Even as characters and plot are added, the outcome of history isn’t altered, nor do the facts change. Leon Uris, James Michener, Herman Wouk, Michael Shaara and James Jones come to mind as examples of great authors of the genre.

What is alternative history? Take the formula for historic fiction and bend history. Use the characters and plot to alter events and change the outcome: Pickett doesn’t charge, Lincoln goes to bed early, Napoleon gets a B-52, etc. For me, good AH needs to be plausible and believable, without compelling me to suspend belief. The change in the course of events or in the flow of history has to be logical . . . but that’s just me. There is certainly excellent AH that borders on (or is outright) science fiction, but that sets my “plausibility meter” going.

Recently several authors’ works have drawn me in. Among them are:

Robert Conroy, whose books take the titles of the years he’s altering: 1862, 1901, 1942, 1945, and Red Inferno: 1945. They are dominated by war, but they aren’t techno-thrillers. The circumstances are very credible, the characters are sympathetic, but all too human; they could be us. Conroy’s historic twists are well thought out and compelling. In one or two cases he has to line up a copious quantity of ducks to have events fall into place as he intends, but he’s the author, and he gets to do that.

Newt Gingrich, collaborating with William Fortchen, has also written an enjoyable and plausible set of novels that include a civil war trilogy: Gettysburg, Grant Comes East, and Never Call Retreat. They also collaborated on an equally well-written pair of books, Pearl Harbor and Days of Infamy, which explore the emerging diplomatic crisis between the United States and Japan and culminate in the attack on Pearl Harbor. As in Conroy’s 1952, Hawaii doesn’t remain uncontested.

Harry Turtledove, one of the deans of AH, and perhaps its most prolific writer. Turtledove has published over 50 books ranging from true AH to regular sci-fi. He’s not as conventional as Conroy or Gingrich & Co., but can easily draw the reader in.

Turtledove has written several series that cross over each other, covering almost 100 years of history from the Civil War through the mid-1940s. In How Few Remain, the work that introduces this combination series, the Confederacy is victorious over the Union, and both U.S. and world history going forward are radically changed. Utah and Quebec are independent republics, and Imperial Germany is the ally of a rogue United States, while the Confederate States of America are allied with Britain. The next sets of series, the Great War and American Empire trilogies and the Settling Accounts tetralogy, provide a thorough and well-planned century of angst and patriotism, as well as the rise of a Nazi-like movement and unmitigated efforts by the stronger but unsuccessful North to reunify the two Americas.

Turtledove stretches the boundaries of plausibility, but also presents the most disturbing scenarios that ask hard questions in the guise of literature. Could Americans be just as susceptible and guilty as the Germans of two generations ago were of “just following orders?”

And — last, but certainly not least — Philip Roth, who asks the same questions Turtledove does in his pseudo-autobiographical work of fiction, The Plot Against America. In Roth’s case, the backdrop is an America confronted by a Europe at war, domestic politics dominated by America Firsters, and Charles Lindbergh as president. Like Turtledove, Roth wonders if American democracy and its traditions of liberty and individual belief could withstand everything thrown at it. Roth portrays a U.S. dominated by the isolationist sentiments that were very prevalent in the years leading up to Pearl Harbor. His projections for what could have been aren’t wholly unwarranted.