[Duraccione]

I have this big doubt: how can I distinguish alternate history from distopian history? It seems easy, but when I try to figure out their guidelines I see that they seem to converge: both in fact start from the world we know but are about events that didn't happen. I'm guessing that maybe it's the backgroud they are built upon which makes the difference, but...
Can someone give me a hint? :)

[Hobbit]

OK Duraccione - lets start with the easy one. Alternate history uses events that have happened, but then takes a 'what-if' view, different from the one that has happened.

The usual examples would be something along the lines of 'What would have happened if the Nazis won World War Two?' or 'What would have happened if Hannibal had not been defeated by the Romans?' 'What would have happened if Napoleon had won Waterloo?' 'What would have happened if rockets had not been invented?' etc etc. This can be a good thing or a bad thing!

Dystopian history looks at a projected future which is mainly negative. This can be at a global scale - what would have happened if the world's vegetation died? - (and can therefore be rather apocalyptic!) or on a much smaller scale. George Orwell's 1984 is an example of this, where the world goes on but it is ruled by an all-powerful regime of somekind. Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 (where books are banned and burnt) is another.

The opposite of this and actually where the term dystopia comes from is the word utopia/eutopia, based on Thomas More's novel (1516) of a future where people live in an earth (or earthlike) paradise - an ideal state.

(Edit - here's a great weblink - OMG, I forgot The time Machine! and Brave New World!)

Dystopias weblink (http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateSF/thisthat.html#dystopia)

Hope this helps!

Hobbit

[Duraccione]

Thank you! :)

I knew that the difference was very easy to be shown, but I wasn't able to find the right way! :D

Just one more step into the subject: I was reading a review about the Drakas' books by Stirling, and there the reviewer said that the history represented in them is dystopian rather than alternate, but it seems to have deep roots in real history...
Do you know the series? What do you think about it, is their history really dystopian?

Btw, I read both Fahrenheit and 1984: I loved the first one (one of the best books I've ever read) and disliked the second one, truly dreadful.

[Hobbit]

No problem, Duraccione! :)

I know of the Drakas series, but haven't read them. S(teve) M Stirling is a well known military writer - has worked with Jerry Pournelle, and David Drake, for example - and David Drake (who sort-of had Draka connections) is well known as a 'military SF' writer though, and is now writing Fantasy novels. As his educational background is History & military (served in Vietnam, I think!), the links to 'real' history don't surprise me.

David drake homepage (http://david-drake.com/)

'We only learn through the mistakes of our past', and all that... :)

Hobbit

[Duraccione]

:)