Re: Alternative histories and paralele universes

On Sun, 3 Jan 1999, John Cowan wrote:

> A natural candidate would be the horse itself, which evolved in
> the New World before becoming extinct there; it survived only
> because some horses had escaped over the Bering Strait to Asia.
>
Now there's an interesting idea for an alternative history: all horses are
rendered extinct before they could be domesticated.  Way off topic for
this list though.

I think the book several people have referred to is _Aztec Century_, an
alternitive history where the world is conquered by the Mexica or the
Aztecs, one of the last countries to fall is occupied Britain.  I read it
but found the empire's thorough conquest slightly improbable and the
denouement a little...disturbing.  The American author Orson Scott Card
speculated on something similar in a recent book on alternative histories
but I can't think of the title off hand.  (I think his most recent books
suffer a bit from too much political correctness.)

- andrew.

Andrew Smith, Intheologus                       hobbit@earthlight.co.nz
Q. Why are there so many Smiths in the Phone Book?
A. Because they all have telephones!

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