I bought yesterday Ian R. MacLeod´s "The Light Ages"(2004,
originally 2003), which is a mix of alternative history and fantasy in
the modern vein á la China Mieville&company. It has been highly
praised, was relatively cheap and had a beautiful cover, so I bought it.

I very rarely read alternative history - the whole concept is not
to my taste, to put it mildly. Somehow I just don´t like the idea
that things could be otherwise - maybe because history as it is
is a pretty slippery thing and - more than people usually
understand - really a more like "current interpretation of past
events" than "a chronological collection of solid facts". Every
historical era is like a huge jiggsaw puzzle that has lost large part
of it´s pieces. You have to fill in the holes, and getting to
consensus can be very hard - or impossible.

Writers of alternative history have a very mechanical view
of history and human society - and it´s also usually old time
macrohistory, of princes and emperors and empires. Of course,
it really has to be, because it´s just fiction and these kind of
themes produce of course good plots (there´s of course
alternative history from the ordinary person´s viewpoint, but
even then alternative history the person lives is a consequence
of something that happened or did not happen to some Very
Important Person). But I don´t like it. I like space operas (like
the work of Alastair Reynolds, whose "Redemption Ark"(mine
2003, orginally 2002) I also bought yesterday), I like fantasy
worlds invented from scratch (or stolen from Tolkien), but
alternative history - rarely. I hope that "The Light Ages" will be
an exception.