FAQ: Iron Seas alternate history

I’ve added Iron Seas info to the FAQ page (mostly reprinting my What is steampunk? post and answering whether the books will stand alone.) But the other topic about which I’ve been asked a few times is the alternate history.

It’s a funny thing about alternate history — none of the characters in the book know about the differences (and most of them don’t even know about those moments when everything changed). No one says, “Oh, if only Batu hadn’t taken control of the Mongol Horde, and the Polo brothers had met with Kublai Khan” in the course of the story.

Anyway, it’s there now, and really only describes the very first changes that happened to the world (we don’t actually see much of the Horde in the novella or The Iron Duke, just the result and aftermath of these changes. The history given in the FAQ is info that matters in the same way that Jefferson writing the Declaration of Independence matters — that he did is one of the reasons why I live the way I do now, but the fact itself also doesn’t figure in a significant way in my daily life*).

I have maps and other info that I’ll put up later which better detail where people have settled in the New World and a few of their significant historical events (they didn’t just fight the Horde, but also warred for territory and trade routes, and the French revolution didn’t exactly end the same way, for example.) None of this is necessary to understand the world and the stories — anything necessary for understanding should be in the books — but I just think it’s fun info to have, like little extras.

I’m hoping that as the series continues *crosses fingers* that I’ll be able to move around the world, and slowly illuminate the history and changes that have taken place in those locations and to those people — that way the world will never go stale, and there’s always somewhere new to explore. But we’ll see 😀

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*There was no Declaration of Independence in Iron Seas history.