To all the authors out there starved for ideas, I offer a handful of alternate-history plot concepts and a few real-world events that seem woefully unrecapped
To my knowledge, these are ideas that have seen little or no use thus far. (Though if anyone knows of a title that sounds like one of the following, by all means, share!) So on that note and without further ado, to any writers currently wracking their brains for a novel alt-history idea or a little-known past event worthy of a recount, perhaps take a stab at one of the following:
The moon landing missed!
Premise: In a speculative twist on this milestone event, the famed moon landing fails tragically when the crew of Apollo 11 overshoot their goal, and ultimately become the long-deceased yet officially confirmed thirty-second manned landing on Mars (having arrived at the red planet 221 years after the first-ever intended journey to Mars, launched in the summer of 2042). The book will be framed as an actual historic account, featuring faithfully fabricated documents regarding the mistakes leading to the overshoot, details of the valiant yet failed attempt to rescue the doomed crewmen and a DVD insert containing the last recorded transmission from the crew; specifically, Armstrong’s voice saying “So I’m thinking something along the lines of ‘one small step for man, one giant leap’ . . . wait, should that be ‘man’ or ‘people’? I don’t want to seem—hold on . . . holy crap! That was it! Back there, turn around! Break you basta—!” –end transmission–
Entitled: No Reverse on a Rocket or One Way to the Stars.
A very alternate history
Premise: Having suffered a crisis of conscience, the world’s consummate blonde vows to forsake her life of glit and glamour in order to pursue higher education, thus encouraging her millions of tweenage socialite followers to abandon the mall for the library, the fashion world for full-time studies and ultimately, to usher in a golden age of American technological, cultural and economic development marked by forward leaps and bounds.
Entitled: Paris Hilton and the Philosophy Degree.
The July 20th Plot
Premise: Sometimes it’s all we can to do wish that history had zigged when instead it zagged. In a very real-world turn of events, at roughly 12-noon on July 20th, 1944, a bomb hidden within a briefcase detonated during a meeting that included Hitler and several other high-ranking Nazi officials. The bomb was a desperate, do-or-die attempt by the German resistance movement to topple the Nazi party and possibly end the war peacefully, thus avoiding tens of thousands more casualties. Hitler survived the near-assassination only, it is believed, because the briefcase had been set too far from his chair during the meeting – a matter of a few feet.
This is the story.
Entitled: A Smidge Too Far or . . . GODDAMMIT!
The Mongols go to Japan
Premise: Like the July 20th Plot, another major historic event that seems to remain surprisingly uncovered by the history section is the combined Mongol invasions of Japan during 1274 and again in 1281. In each case, armies tens of thousands strong were dispatched by Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, to conquer the defiant island nation. In the ultimate demonstration of Murphy’s Law, the 1274 invasion was destroyed utterly while still at sea by a monstrous typhoon, whereas the second dispatched horde met with much the same fate seven years later; succumbing to a colossal storm before ever having gained a foothold on Japanese soil.
Entitled: Rather Fight a Land War in Asia or The Mongol Hordes: Won if by Land, Screwed if by Sea.
