Tudor bulls, meet 16th century German china shop.

Dr. Waterhouse

Helga said:
Its the same for me, a mix of A & B with a bit of D. Allthough funny enough just whenever I reread the TL you started posting again.

One thing I found confusing is the naming of the main characters, wish those Wettins and others would stop calling every daughter Elizabeth for example. (thats how it felt on occasions anyway). :)

Still I do love this TL and I'm looking forward to whatever you decide to do.

Cheers
Helga
Click to expand...

Hahahaha! That's just how it is for me when I'm reading actual history. In the reign of Henry VII Margaret can be Margaret Beaufort, Margaret of York, Princess Margaret of England, Margaret of Savoy, Margaret d'Angouleme, or if someone is referring to the recent past, Margaret of Anjou or Margaret of Denmark, Queen of Scotland. I even recall once consulting the genealogies of the actual Wettin princes hoping to find different female names, only to be confronted with Frederick the Wise and John the Steadfast's sister Margaret, Duchess of Brunswick, their grandmother, Margaret of Austria-Styria and their mother, Elizabeth of Bavaria.

Still, you're right that something needs to be done to individuate the women's names more. It's been long since decided that when we re-do the sixteenth century there will be at least one Dorothea.
 

Deimos

Banned
Dr. Waterhouse said:
Interesting. Here's what I'm thinking right now: I want to keep an actual "timeline" structure as the core, presenting events year by year. But we'll have more in-depth explorations from the point of view of the alternate present, so that we'll see for example more items like the Ausrisser cuisine article and the corporate history of Imperial Neubrno posted last week. And I'll commit to having every border change presented in text form somehow mapped out.

One thing starting over will allow me to do is to really nail how the basic overarching changes in the alternate world get started. Sixteenth century Lutherans aren't religious pluralists, and Tudors aren't pluralists, so how did the son of John the Steadfast and a Tudor get to be a pluralist? Those cards will be getting put on the table.

I'm also beginning to think we should arrange the timeline by individual years instead of decades, to make events more digestible. That might make things look a bit more like what you're talking about. I will check out the page on Wikipedia you're talking about and consider that carefully.
Click to expand...

My proposal is to interfere as little as possible with the current structure of updates to this TL.
Just reserve 3-5 empy posts and update them when you come across a new facet of your TL that happened in the same year.

For example:
1495: Original POD Elizabeth Tudor survives
[...]
1610 Saxon-Imperial conflict over Julich-Cleve, Duke John dies, establishment of the Wettin triumvirate,
Click to expand...
At a later point in time you write something about the Ausrissers during the same time frame and add it accordingly.

1495: Original POD Elizabeth Tudor survives
[...]
1610 Saxon-Imperial conflict over Julich-Cleve, Duke John dies, establishment of the Wettin triumvirate, first contact between Jesuits and the Ausrissers in North America,
Click to expand...
That way you can do your updates without changing too much and the reader has a handy tool to orient onseself anew with each update.
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

Dr. Waterhouse said:
Hahahaha! That's just how it is for me when I'm reading actual history. In the reign of Henry VII Margaret can be Margaret Beaufort, Margaret of York, Princess Margaret of England, Margaret of Savoy, Margaret d'Angouleme, or if someone is referring to the recent past, Margaret of Anjou or Margaret of Denmark, Queen of Scotland. I even recall once consulting the genealogies of the actual Wettin princes hoping to find different female names, only to be confronted with Frederick the Wise and John the Steadfast's sister Margaret, Duchess of Brunswick, their grandmother, Margaret of Austria-Styria and their mother, Elizabeth of Bavaria.

Still, you're right that something needs to be done to individuate the women's names more. It's been long since decided that when we re-do the sixteenth century there will be at least one Dorothea.
Click to expand...

In the mid 1800s in Germany, I wanted to shoot the next ruler who named his son 'Friedrich', 'Wilhelm' or 'Friedrich-Wilhelm'. Sheesh!
 

Dr. Waterhouse

First, I want to apologize for letting this project gather dust for so long. It was not my intention for more than a year to pass before I came back to it. During that time, in addition to various real world responsibilities, I worked more on the second volume of the novel (and am close to 80 percent done on a first draft). I also published a revised version of the first volume, I cannot speak your England, which can be found on Amazon. While I started the revision attempting to "true up" some minor historical details (like having the characters move through the actual floor plan to Richmond Palace and other Tudor residences) it turned out to be a much more involved project, and I'm happy to say the language and storytelling is somewhat tighter. I would like to say that this is the final version of the novel the world will ever see, but I'm a bit obsessive compulsive, so who knows.

Second, I want to also apologize for the errors in those last eighteenth century updates. Some of them are truly embarrassing. Given that I had at the time a rather strenuous work schedule, I was writing many of those updates between midnight and 2am on weeknights before work at 8 the next day. Between exhaustion and eagerness to make progress on the timeline, my editorial skills suffered a terrible lapse, both in terms of the alternate history and the writing.

So, we're going to take it from the top. This is going to be a bit awkward for me since my thinking about the alternate history for the past year has been focused not on the early sixteenth century, northern European humanism, the Reformation, and the all-determinative breeding problems of various Tudor and Habsburg monarchs, so much as what happens to the European settler colonies in North America, what becomes of slavery, and a dramatically different Age of Revolution. Suffice to say, you're all going to have to wait a bit for the final answers to those questions now.

Hence, my third apology. Cathbar Cutthroat. You are now going to have to wait a terribly long time to meet Cathbar Cutthroat, and for that I am truly sorry.

In any case, my next update to this timeline will probably be the last, linking this first draft of the project to the new one, shiny & chrome.

See you soon. And by soon I mean less than 16 months. :)
 

Helga

Looking forward to it. Glad the patience pays off now. Its also a good reason to reread this. Wishing you sucess with the reboot. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top