"Alternate Now"?

There seem to be a lot of Alternate History and "Parallel World"/Multiverse stories (in which it's sort of implied, if not directly stated, that our own world is "out there somewhere") but what about a story set in the "now" of a world where there was some historical POD that sets it apart from the world we know?

The POD is not explored (or possibly even made obvious or elaborated on, perhaps there was more than one) it's not set in the distant past after the POD or arrival of Alien Space Bats or whatever, it's just a world that's different from this one but in its Early 21st Century.

Would that be "Alternate History" or a "parallel world" or what?

If the publicly-known history (i.e. ruling out any "our world, but behind The Masquerade" settings) of that world diverges significantly from ours, it's still technically Alternate History, regardless of how far after the POD or how close to the "present day" it's set. The only technical requirement to qualify for the genre is that it answers the question: "How would the world look if something went differently in this world than it did in our world?"

The Man in the High Castle is a seminal work of Alternate History, and it was set in the same era in which it was published — the 1960s — though the POD happened during World War 2. Same with the Lord Darcy books.

edited 12th Apr '13 4:14:17 PM by Specialist290