why I don't write alternate history
mood: 
optimistic
optimisticmusic: Paul Simon - The Rhythm of the Saints
For example, if I were actually concerned about a plausible alternate history here, I couldn't call this thing a zeppelin, nor could I name it the Andrea Dorea, because there would be no Andrea Doria, nor would there be a Ferdinand von Zeppelin. Nor could I have the Shakespeare and/or Marlowe quotes I've used in a couple of these. Nor would there be any reason at all to have a Victoria or a Napoleon cognate, all of which figure in my setting. As does a French revolution, and a city of Boston, and all sorts of other things that wouldn't actually exist, or if they did, would exist in unrecognizable shapes and sizes.
Also, the names of everything would be different, the languages would be different, just unimaginably different. And that conceit where familiar historical persons show up slightly recast? Never happen: they'd never get born.
But since what I'm actually writing is fantasy, not any academic exploration of how the history of the world would be different if magic worked in certain limited ways, I don't have to worry about that stuff. Because I realize just how ridiculous it would be.
See, and once I start thinking about all the things I can't do because the world would be different, I never get anywhere.
.
We all set our comfort-monitor where we feel comfortable. Me, I wrote a whole series about the Crusades without actually using the word crusade (L crux, a cross, not an appropriate symbol for an otherworld religion) - but I have also read stories set in the Crusades which invoked a degree of magic that would certainly have cancelled out Christianity if you wanted to carry it back in time, but hey. Good story. Here is my disbelief, and see how I suspend it...
Of course, any alternative history type thing is all in the imagination, anyway. :D
I'm not sure I agree completely, but his sales figures indicate that a large number of readers believe he's right.
This is why I don't write rigorous alternate history. Because if I tried, I would start questioning everything, and you'd never get the book written.
And yanno, Andrea Doria was a pretty interesting guy. He deserves a zeppelin.
Yes, I know Turtledove whet his sword on De Camp's sharpening stone, but Dr. T is IMO the best, or at least the most prolifically successful AH writer *today*.
I'd love to meet him someday.
I also have a New Amsterdam, only its Nieuw Nederlandts (Nederlandten?) It gets tricky real quick.. Best to Keep It Simple Stupid.. But, as they say, when in doubt, have a sword fight.
I mean, why would all those people and things not have existed?
google "chaos theory" and "butterfly effect" for some explanation of how this works.
But there probably wouldn't be Laura Secord chocolate and that makes me sad. :(
I didn;t say they wouldn't have occurred. I said they would be *different.*
Seriously, though, my family was dirt farmers in that era. If there was no Revolution, men would've still met (probably the same) women and had (more or less) the same children. They'd just be paying taxes to and following the laws of a different country.
(Or you've never spoken to a woman whose fiance or husband was killed in WWII or Vietnam, and whose life changed dramatically because of it?)
Wander through history, and see how many persons who had some significant impact (cultural, scientific, militarily) were born nobody in particular.