In Case You Were Wondering

When I was younger, junior high basically, I read a lot of Harry Turtledove books. Most of them alternate historical fiction. You know, "time-traveling racists equip Confederacy with M-16s", "aliens attack Earth in 1942". I imagine that, even allowing for things being different due to whatever change the story was based on, the books weren't all that accurate in terms of what characters might cross paths in what locations.

Still, I got a kick out of the idea that, had McClellan not been handed those messages detailing Robert E. Lee's strategy, the end result would be Abe Lincoln traveling the West 20 years later as a Socialist, and having arguments about it in a small Montana town with ranch-owner Teddy Roosevelt. It seems to be an exercise in name-dropping, but it worked well for me back then. Plus, there was always lots of fighting and that suited me just fine. It would probably work well for me now, though I'd be aware of the fact much of the path-crossing was highly improbable, if not impossible. That didn't register back then, but as I said, it wasn't the reason I was reading those books anyway.

Don't think I didn't learn anything from the stories, though. The series about the alien invasion taught me that there was a sexually transmitted disease colloquially referred to as the clap, which was news to junior high school me. Really, can you ascribe a value to such knowledge?