Alternative Literature

(Neil Gaiman's Library of Dreams in The Sandman.)

I have said this before in different words. I happen to think that this blog is worth reading but I take no credit for that. Retired, I have leisure to read, reread and reflect. I would be nowhere without:

Poul Anderson;

several literary traditions that he represents (I will not list the names yet again, at least not this time);

his successors, notably SM Stirling whom so far I prefer "in his own write" rather than in collaboration, although I have not read everything yet.

If, on the one hand, humanity did exist but, on the other hand, none of these literary traditions or individual authors existed, then this would only be because several millennia of history had diverged, thus generating an entirely different literaure which someone else would at this moment be appreciating. (Hello, across the timelines, if you exist.)

SM Stirling explored this idea. What was it that Kipling wrote in the timeline of the Fall? (See here.) And, in that timeline, the Sherlock Holmes series was an alternative history.