Subject: soc.history.what-if FAQ
Date: 2 Apr 1996 14:05:17 -0500
Summary: Frequently asked questions and answers for soc.history.what-if,
         a newsgroup which debates such questions as "What if the South
         won the Civil War", "What if there were no Internet", etc.

Last updated: 2 April 1996
Version: 2.08
Posting-Frequency: Monthly


                         "Frequently" Asked Questions
                                      in
                             soc.history.what-if

This document is maintained by R.B. Schmunk (rbs@panix.com). It is also
copyright 1994-1996 by R.B. Schmunk. It may be freely distributed
electronically provided this copyright notice is attached.

Corrections and additions should be e-mailed directly to rbs@panix.com,
rather than posted to the newsgroup if you want to guarantee their
consideration.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 0. Recent changes

    Fixed various grammatical mistakes throughout.
    Q3b. Corrected translation of uchronie definition.
    Q9.  Added McAuley's PASQUALE'S ANGEL and Greenberg's THE WAY IT WASN'T.

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                             Table of Contents

     0. Recent Changes
     1. Introduction
     2. What is alternate history?
     3. Are there other names for alternate history?
        a. Alternative history
        b. Uchronia
        c. Allohistory
        d. Counterfactuals
     4. What is secret history? Why isn't it alternate history?
     5. Are there any rules about posting to soc.history.what-if?
     6. What are the most common what-ifs in literature?
     7. Can anybody recommend a good book about alternate history?
     8. Is there an (on-line) alternate history book list?
  *  9. What alternate histories should I read?
    10. What about this book?
        a. S.M. Stirling's next Draka book
        b. Orson Scott Card's next Alvin Maker book
        c. An AH novel by Newt Gingrich?
        d. An AH novel by actor Richard Dreyfuss?
    11. What's this about an alternate history TV show called "Sliders"?

  * Minor modification to this entry
 ** Significant modification to this entry
*** New entry

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1. Introduction

   soc.history.what-if is a newsgroup for the discussion of history divergent
   from that of our own. A very common example thread would be "What if the
   South won the U.S. Civil War?"

   The newsgroup was created in late May 1995, after the usual Usenet
   discussion (RFD) and voting (CFV) periods. It assumes the role previously
   filled by the newsgroup alt.history.what-if. However, the older newsgroup
   was not correspondingly scheduled for removal.  Nevertheless, persons
   interested in alternate history should post *only* to soc.history.what-if
   in order to reach the widest possible audience, while eliminating the
   confusion which usually results from cross-posting.

   The soc.history.what-if charter, as written by its proponent (Richard
   Gadsden, C.R.Gadsden@politics.hull.ac.uk) after the discussion period
   ended, is:

     The soc.history.what-if newsgroup will be open to discussion of alternate
     history. This is "what-ifs" regarding specific historical events.

     Specifically, but not exclusively:
     + Historical events - what could have happened if they had been
       different?
     + How could this have happened differently (i.e. discussion of how the
       divergence could have occurred, not of what its consequences would be.)

     Note: the following topics are not to be discussed:
     + Revisionism regarding the Holocaust or Turkish/Armenian massacres
       (post to alt.revisionism). "What if the Holocaust had not happened?"
       is a legitimate question
     + Future history - "What if the President were assassinated tomorrow?"
     + Alternate history in fictional worlds - "What if Luke had failed to
       destroy the Death Star?"

   Many Usenet FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions answer lists) usually begin
   with several paragraphs on netiquette, i.e., proper behavior on posting
   to newsgroups. Rather than do that here, I will just recommend that if you
   have not already done so, you should *immediately* go to the newsgroup
   news.announce.newusers and read the posting entitled "A Primer on How to
   Work With the Usenet Community". After that, please read it again.

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 2. What is alternate history?

   "Alternate history" essays/stories are often referred to as the "What ifs"
   of history. A typical example is the question, "What if Napoleon won at
   Waterloo?" Places where you will frequently find such questions asked are
   in science fiction literature, wargaming magazines, and history and
   economics journals. However, it can also be occasionally found in such
   mainstream publications as Time magazine or Entertainment Weekly, and an
   occasional alternate history novel will crack the New York Times bestseller
   list and maybe even get made into a movie (e.g., Robert Harris's
   FATHERLAND).

   In science fiction, alternate histories are a distinct subset of parallel
   worlds and alternate universe stories, in which some emphasis has been
   put on an historical element. In case those terms are meaningless to you,
   I should point out that an alternate world may have no historical or
   physical similarity to our own. A common example is for someone in our
   world to be mysteriously transported to a "magical" alternate. Alternate
   history fiction, on the other hand, requires that the world described be
   historically the same as ours up to some point prior to when the author
   wrote the story, after which things begin get different.

   Arguably, any wargame which does not precisely duplicate the original
   battle(s) could be called alternate history, but the term is best reserved
   for battles that never occurred, such as playing out the German invasion of
   England in 1940. Wargaming articles usually provide the information
   necessary for setting up such a scenario (i.e., troop availability and
   strengths, etc.) but generally do not advance it much beyond the starting
   point.

   In history journals, alternate history, or "counterfactuals", is not
   always treated with the greatest of respect, and it should be noted that
   many historians will only state things that *might* or *probably* would
   have followed the historical divergence point in question. This is
   particularly common in afterwords to biographical and/or historical
   texts (e.g., "What if Frederick had been Kaiser longer than 91 days? Well,
   Germany *might* have been a more liberal state in the 1910s."). When
   historians do make a serious attempt at treating alternate history, they
   can be amazingly ignorant of its use in science fiction (e.g., the
   introduction to Polsby, Nelson W. (ed.), WHAT IF? EXPLORATIONS IN
   SOCIAL-SCIENCE FICTION [Lewis 1982]). On the flip side, some very
   entertaining pieces of alternate history fiction can be seriously marred by
   historical errors (e.g., Bill Fawcett's "Lincoln's Charge").

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 3. Are there other names for alternate history?

 3.a. Alternative history

   As noted by sf author Brian Stableford in "An Introduction to Alternate
   Worlds", in Alternate Worlds #1:

     "Some years ago I used the term 'alternate worlds' in front of Brian
     Aldiss, who took me to task for it. 'They should be called alternative
     worlds', he said. 'Calling them alternate worlds makes it sound as if
     they somehow take turns.'"

   The same argument could be applied to alternate/alternative histories, and
   indeed, when Charles G. Waugh & Martin H. Greenberg decided to put together
   a genre-defining anthology, they chose the title ALTERNATIVE HISTORIES:
   ELEVEN STORIES OF THE WORLD AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN (Garland 1986).

 3.b. Uchronia

     "Uchronie, n.f. ... Utopie appliquee a l'histoire; l'histoire refaite
     logiquement telle qu'elle aurait pu etre."
                                           Nouveau Larousse Illustre (1913)

     <<Uchronia, n. ... Utopia applied to history; history refashioned as it
     logically could have been.>>

   The term "uchronie", or "uchronia", was apparently first used by Charles
   Renouvier in an anonymous article in Revue Philosophique et Religieuse in
   1857, and later in the title of his 1876 book, UCHRONIE (L'UTOPIE DANS
   L'HISTOIRE), ESQUISSE HISTORIQUE APOCRYPHE DU DEVELOPMENT DE LA
   CIVILISATION EUROPEENNE TEL QU'IL N'A PAS ETE, TEL QU'IL AURAIT PU ETRE
   (Bureau de la Critique Philosophique 1876; Alcan 1901; Artheme 1919; Fayard
   1988), which translates as UCHRONIA (UTOPIA IN HISTORY), AN APOCRYPHAL
   SKETCH OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION NOT AS IT WAS BUT AS IT
   MIGHT HAVE BEEN. "Uchronie" is still the preferred term in French for
   alternate history literature.

 3.c. Allohistory

   "Allohistory" literally means "other history" and is the term preferred by
   Gordon B. Chamberlain in his essay "Allohistory in science fiction", in
   ALTERNATIVE HISTORIES (eds. Waugh & Greenberg) (Garland 1986), pp. 281-300.

   As noted by Chamberlain,

     "In English uchronia and uchronian will do for the thing described,
     by analogy with utopia; but for the theoretical discipline and the
     literary genre uchronics seems uncouth, uchronian romance wordy,
     metahistory and parahistory ambiguous. Even alternative history has
     been used to mean something else (a sort of social-commentary sf).
     Allohistory is short, ambiguous, and used here."

 3.d. Counterfactuals

   "Counterfactuals" appears to be the preferred term of professional
   historians and economists. Despite the fact that so much of the study of
   history is the interpretation of past writings, some historians will assert
   that theirs is an entirely factual field. Thus, examination of something
   that didn't happen is counterfactual.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 4. What is secret history? Why isn't it alternate history?

   Often confused with alternate history, a "secret history" story involves
   the revelation that something that we know about the past is in fact
   untrue. Nevertheless, history itself is unchanged, and the present is
   certainly still the present. Why what we know is untrue may vary, but in
   many secret history stories there's some sort of a conspiracy at work to
   hide the truth from the masses. Some examples are:

     Corley, Edwin, THE JESUS FACTOR
       In which the atomic-bomb dropped at Hiroshima fizzled.

     Flynn, Michael, IN THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND
       In which Charles Babbage really did complete his computer.

     Poyer, David, VENGEANCE 10
       In which Nazi scientists at Peenemunde built a moon rocket.

   These are items that fit a fairly strict definition of secret history, but
   if one applies a loose definition, virtually any historical fiction could
   fit (e.g., GONE WITH THE WIND). Of course, they might also fit a loose
   definition of alternate history, too.
   
   The above-mentioned books are all fiction, and thus a related side-issue is
   whether a purportedly non-fiction book (e.g., Baigent et al.'s HOLY BLOOD,
   HOLY GRAIL, or even one of the Von Daniken books) can also be secret
   history. This is a can of worms you'll have to sort out for yourself.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 5. Are there any rules about posting to soc.history.what-if?

   Since soc.history.what-if is an un-moderated newsgroup, there are no
   enforceable rules. But at the risk of re-iterating the newsgroup charter,
   please keep the following in mind:

   a) The word "history" appears in the newsgroup name. Thus, questions like
      "What if Luke had not destroyed the Death Star?" are not appropriate.
      There's certainly a more appropriate newsgroup for such questions.

   b) The newsgroup is for discussing history that has already happened.
      Questions such as "What if Bill Clinton was assassinated tomorrow?" have
      been asked and argued, and will probably continue to come up. I would
      suggest that you take such threads to alt.history.future, except that
      propagation of that newsgroup seems to be limited (I had to specifically
      request it be carried at my site; you may have to do so also).

   c) There is no official style guide.

   The level of historical knowledge possessed by posters to this newsgroup
   varies, and many new subscribers sometimes feel intimidated by the detail
   in some postings. Don't let that prevent you from posting. Just keep in
   mind:

   d) It is generally considered impolite to ask a question and then not
      attempt to provide some (partial) answer of your own. An example of such
      rudeness is "What if the South won the Civil War? Jump on it, dudes.
      I'll sit back and read your answers." Questions like this leave readers
      with the impression you've a history class assignment to work on and are
      too lazy to do the necessary research.

   e) In advancing a timeline that might result from a historical divergence,
      don't be afraid to explain why you think certain things would happen.
      Provide some historical background rather than just state that such-and-
      such would happen, followed by a-later-event and then something-even-
      later.

   f) Be prepared to defend your assertions; i.e., don't state something is
      true without being able to provide evidence. Some "common knowledge"
      about the past is actually untrue (whether it be because of television,
      the blandness of grade school textbooks, or myth-makers such as Parson
      Weems), and posters to this newsgroup are more than willing to tell you
      so.

   g) Don't forget the forest when considering a tree. Many posters posit
      questions about the results of something and ignore the wider
      implications of what might lead to the (non)event they describe. For
      instance, someone might ask "What if World War I never happened?",
      perhaps seeking out opinions on how that might result in the non-rise
      of fascism and presumably no World War II. But an honest answer means
      also considering such important factors as the European arms race during
      the decades prior to World War I and also imperial Germany's search for
      colonial territories, and how they would have to be altered so that the
      war didn't occur.

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 6. What are the most common what-ifs in literature?

   Gordon B. Chamberlain (see 3.c above) asserted that:

     "For the winner's plate it is Hitler's war first, the rest nowhere; for
     place money, surviving Roman Empires apparently nosed out victorious
     Napoleons, Lees, and Montezumas and defeated Revolutions and
     Reformations. Barring the weak showing of World War I and the near-
     absence of classical Greece and Israel [...], the finish reflects the
     sort of Sellers-and-Yeatman history that Anglo-Americans remember from
     school [...]"

   As Chamberlain's essay was printed in 1986, he missed the recent explosion
   in stories diverging from November 22, 1963, and the resurgence in interest
   in the American Civil War created by Ken Burns's 1990 PBS program. However,
   WW2 holds a comfortable enough lead that it will likely be some time before
   alternative Kennedys and Gettysburgs overtake it.

   Evelyn Leeper (ecl@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com) points out a count made by alternate
   history buff Mark Keller at an sf con in 1991:
    
     "'Histories: The Way We Weren't' panel at Boskone 28. Mark Keller said
     that the most common change points were (in English-language science
     fiction, anyway) was 'What if Germany (Japan) had won World War II?'
     (over a hundred that he found). The next most popular was 'What if the
     South had won the Civil War?' (about eighty). Third was 'What if the
     Spanish Armada hadn't been defeated?'  The most popular in French was
     'What if Napoleon had not been defeated?' which Keller said usually
     resulted in a better world than we have, while most American alternate
     histories show things as being worse. When someone in the audience asked
     why, Mark Olson replied, 'We look at this as the best of all possible
     worlds, but the French know it isn't, because most people speak
     English.'"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 7. Can anybody recommend a good book about alternate history?

   About alternate history itself? There are a number of anthologies, but only
   one also includes non-fiction material, to wit an essay and a bibliography.
   It is:

     Waugh, Charles, G., & Martin H. Greenberg (eds), ALTERNATIVE HISTORIES:
     ELEVEN STORIES OF THE WORLD AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN (Garland 1986)

   Unhappily, the book was only published in hardback and can be difficult to
   find. The most likely place you'll locate it is at a reasonably well-
   stocked public or university library.
   
   Ed McKnight's doctoral thesis (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
   1994) ALTERNATIVE HISTORY: THE DEVELOPMENT OF A LITERARY GENRE is available
   from UMI Dissertation Services as order number 9508228.

   If you can read German, Jorg Helbig's dissertation (Freie Universitat
   Berlin 1987) has been published as a book (Lang 1987) and may be found
   at some US research libraries. The title is DER PARAHISTORISCHE ROMAN.
   EIN LITERARHISTORISCHER UND GATTUNGSTYPOLOGISCHER BEITRAG ZUR
   ALLOTOPIEFORSCHUNG and it focuses on two general types of alternate
   history: intellectual study vs. fictional allegory.

   Sf author Brad Linaweaver (author of MOON OF ICE) is involved in the
   production of an all-non-fiction book about alternate history, but word
   suggests it won't be published any earlier than 1998. (It hasn't even been
   submitted to a publisher yet.) Pieces by S.M. Stirling and Lawrence Watt-
   Evans are known to have been written, and Harry Turtledove has supposedly
   also agreed to contribute.

   Otherwise, the most recommendable alternate history book is the first,
   and probably still the best, alternate history anthology:

     Squire, J.C. (ed), IF IT HAD HAPPENED OTHERWISE: LAPSES INTO IMAGINARY
     HISTORY (Longmans, Green 1931; exp Sidgwick & Jackson 1972; St. Martin's
     1974); rev as IF: OR, HISTORY REWRITTEN (Viking 1931; Kennikat 1964)

   This, too, is hard to find and you'll certainly have to try a library.

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 8. Is there an (on-line) alternate history book list?

   But of course, and the maintainer of this FAQ list maintains it. The
   Usenet Alternate History List is posted to this newsgroup and to
   rec.arts.sf.written and news.answers in mid-January, April, July and
   October (version 24 was posted October 1995). If you would like a copy and
   can't wait until the next posting, it's available from a number of
   archives.
   
   Hypertext (HTML) and plain text (ASCII) copies of the list are available
   from the maintainer. Try:

   http://www.panix.com/~rbs/AH/

   Plain text (ASCII) copies of the list can be downloaded from:

   http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/sf/alt_history/top.html

   ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/rec.arts.sf.written/alt_history/part*
   (where * is a part number, ranging from 1 to 8)

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 9. What alternate histories should I read?

   Everyone has different tastes, but the most widely acknowledged classics
   of the field *apparently* are:

     de Camp, L. Sprague, LEST DARKNESS FALL (Ballantine 1949, etc); exp of
       "Lest Darkness Fall", in Unknown Dec 1939

     Dick, Philip K., THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE (Putnam's 1962, etc)

     Garrett, Randall, LORD DARCY (SFBC 1983); omnibus of MURDER AND MAGIC
       (Ace 1979); TOO MANY MAGICIANS (Doubleday 1967, etc); and LORD DARCY
       INVESTIGATES (Ace 1981)
      
     Kantor, Mackinlay, IF THE SOUTH HAD WON THE CIVIL WAR (Bantam 1961)
  
     Moore, Ward, BRING THE JUBILEE (Farrar, Straus & Young 1953; etc); exp of
       "Bring the Jubilee", in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Nov
       1952

     Piper, H. Beam, LORD KALVAN OF OTHERWHEN (Ace 1965, etc; vt GUNPOWDER
       GOD, Sphere 1978); rev of "Gunpowder God", in Analog Nov 1964 and "Down
       Styphon", in Analog Nov 1965

     Roberts, Keith, PAVANE (Hart-Davis 1968; Ace 1968; etc)
       
     Spinrad, Norman, THE IRON DREAM (Avon 1972, etc)

   As these go in and out of print, they can be difficult to find unless you
   have a friend with a personal library of sf classics. Some books which
   received some favorable attention and which were published recently and/or
   which are easily findable are:

     Baxter, Stephen, ANTI-ICE (HarperCollins UK 1993, etc)

     Deighton, Len, SS-GB: NAZI-OCCUPIED BRITAIN 1941 (Cape 1978, etc)
       
     Evans, Christopher, AZTEC CENTURY (Gollancz 1993, etc)

     Harris, Robert, FATHERLAND (Hutchinson 1992, etc)

     Hogan, James P., THE PROTEUS OPERATION (Bantam 1985, etc)

     McAuley, Paul J., PASQUALE'S ANGEL (Morrow 1995, etc)

     Newman, Kim, ANNO-DRACULA (Simon & Schuster 1992, etc)

     Stableford, Brian, THE EMPIRE OF FEAR (Simon & Schuster UK 1988, etc)

     Turtledove, Harry, THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH: A NOVEL OF THE CIVIL WAR
       (Ballantine 1992, etc)

     Wilson, Robert Charles, MYSTERIUM (Bantam 1994)

   Some decent collections of alternate history short stories which you may
   want to sample (besides the Waugh & Greenberg mentioned in question 7) are:

     Adams, Robert, Martin H. Greenberg & Pamela Crippen Adams (eds),
       ROBERT ADAMS' BOOK OF ALTERNATE WORLDS (NAL/Signet 1987)

     Benford, Gregory, & Martin H. Greenberg (eds), HITLER VICTORIOUS:
       ELEVEN STORIES OF THE GERMAN VICTORY IN WORLD WAR II (Garland 1986;
       Berkley 1987)

     Benford, Gregory, & Martin H. Greenberg (eds), WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN?
       VOLUME 1: ALTERNATE EMPIRES (Bantam 1989)

     Benford, Gregory, & Martin H. Greenberg (eds), WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN?
       VOLUME 2: ALTERNATE HEROES (Bantam 1990)

     Benford, Gregory, & Martin H. Greenberg (eds), WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN?
       VOLUME 3: ALTERNATE WARS (Bantam 1991)

     Greenberg, Martin H. (ed), THE WAY IT WASN'T: GREAT STORIES OF ALTERNATE
       HISTORY (Carol 1996)

     Resnick, Mike (ed), ALTERNATE KENNEDYS (Tor 1992)

     Resnick, Mike (ed), ALTERNATE PRESIDENTS (Tor 1992)

   Retail editions of most of these books are out-of-print and you'll probably
   have to scour used bookstores to find them. However, the WHAT MIGHT HAVE
   BEEN books are available via the Science Fiction Book Club.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. What about this book?

10.a. S.M. Stirling's next Draka book

   DRAKON, the follow-up to MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA, UNDER THE YOKE, and
   STONE DOGS, was published in January 1996 (Baen; US$5.99; 0-671-87711-9).
   The first three chapters of the book are on-line, located at:

   http://www.teleport.com/~bruceab/drakon.html

   The basic premise is that a Homo drakensis from the year 2442 of the Drakan
   timeline is transported by a laboratory accident to *our* 1995.  An
   American cyberwarrior follows her back to limit the possible damage.

   The three-paragraph epilog to DRAKON makes it pretty obvious there will be
   a sequel.

10.b. Orson Scott Card's next Alvin Maker book?

   The fourth volume, ALVIN JOURNEYMAN, was published in September 1995 (Tor;
   US$24.95, C$29.95; ISBN 0-312-85053-0). A fifth book, entitled THE CRYSTAL
   CITY, is under contract and a sixth and final book, called MASTER ALVIN, is
   projected.

10.c. An AH novel by Newt Gingrich?

   No, I'm not kidding. An alternate history novel titled 1945 co-authored by
   the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives was published by
   Baen Books in July 1995 (US $24.00, C$32.00; ISBN 0671876767). The other
   author is William R. Forstchen, a decent writer of science fiction
   (including the "Ice Prophet" and "Lost Regiment" series) who is also a
   college history professor.

   The premise of the historical divergence is that Hitler was in some sort of
   accident on December 6, 1941, and while he lived, he was in a coma long
   enough that Germany did not declare war on the United States right after
   Pearl Harbor. By 1945, Germany has won the war in Europe and the U.S. the
   war in the Pacific. It's obvious that the two will soon face each other, but
   Germany cannot precipitate the fight until it has done something about the
   U.S. nuclear weapons program.

   The literary quality of 1945 is IMHO tolerable but not great. The relative
   contributions of Gingrich and Forstchen to the final text are open to
   debate, but given Gingrich's presumably busy schedule as a politician, it
   is probably safe to assume that Forstchen did most of the writing. However,
   the bedroom scene which starts the book seems out of place, and rumor is
   that editor Jim Baen spiced it up in order to gather media attention (i.e.,
   free publicity) when the first chapter of the book was circulated to the
   press in late 1994.

   BTW, according to Locus magazine, 1945 will have a sequel entitled FORTRESS
   EUROPA, to be published in the fall of 1996.

10.d. An AH novel by actor Richard Dreyfuss?

   Co-written with prodigious alternate history writer Harry Turtledove, THE
   TWO GEORGES was published in Britain by Hodder & Stoughton in late 1995 and
   in the U.S. by Tor (ISBN 0-312-85969-4) in March 1996. As a result of the
   later publication date, the American edition includes two maps at the start.
   The premise of the novel is that differences between Britain and its
   American colonies were settled amicably c. the early 1770s. In 1996, a
   painting symbolizing the strong ties between the two lands is stolen,
   apparently by a terrorist organization, the Sons of Liberty.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11. What's this about an alternate history TV show called "Sliders"?

   Premiering on the Fox television network on March 22, 1995, was a program
   called "Sliders". It aired on Wednesday nights at 9:00 Eastern time.
   Despite reports to the contrary, it was picked up for a second season, with
   new episodes airing in March 1996.

   The basic premise of the show is that a college physics student
   accidentally created a cross-time machine in his basement, but got stuck
   travelling through alternate Earths with three other people, trying to get
   back to the world they came from (presumably ours). Many of the shows
   employ what-if premises which are vague (at best) in providing historical
   divergences, and somehow it always turns out that one of the quartet is
   famous in whatever world they're visiting.

   (There are also complaints that the show is a pale rip-off of a TV pilot
   sold to ABC a couple years ago called "Doorways". Comments by that show's
   producer, George R.R. Martin, were posted to rec.arts.sf.tv in the spring
   of 1995 noting some very suspicious connections.)

   There is a "Sliders" FAQ maintained by Ed Hall (edhall@best.com). You can
   find a copy at

   http://www.best.com/~edhall/sliders/

   A "Sliders" newsgroup, alt.tv.sliders, was created almost immediately after
   the first episode aired. Discussion about the show which does not focus on
   the discussion of *history* should be taken there.

rbs
-- 
Robert B. Schmunk
rbs@skatecity.com, rbs@panix.com
http://www.panix.com/~rbs/
