Uchronia: The Alternate History List
| Web address | www |
|---|---|
| Commercial? | No |
|
Type of site
|
Online database |
| Registration | None |
| Owner | Robert B. Schmunk |
| Created by | Robert B. Schmunk and Evelyn Leeper |
| Launched | 1997 |
| Current status | 2800 entries |
Uchronia: The Alternate History List is an online general-interest book database containing a bibliography of over 2900 alternate history novels, stories, essays and other printed material. It is owned and operated by Robert B. Schmunk. Uchronia was twice selected as the Sci Fi Channel's "Sci Fi Site of the Week."[1][2]
Background
Uchronia catalogues and chronicles almost every published alternate history novel, short story, anthology, collection, series, including reference material and works published in other languages. Entries indicate the original publication date, the point of divergence and a brief synopsis of the plot. A search mechanism that can identify works by author, keyword or language of publication/translation is also included.
Uchronia also features a couple of real-world timelines: one devoted to alternate histories published before the Golden Age of Science Fiction, and another offering a complex chronological outline of point of divergences of the entries.[1]
Uchronia also contains large cover art gallery and links to Amazon.com in order to obtain the listed alternate history books.[2]
History
The idea for creating Uchronia was first conceived in late February 1991 and was initiated by a request to the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.sf-lovers (now rec.arts.sf.written) for help finding stories in the alternate history genre. Version 1 of the "Usenet Alternate History List" was then posted on April 11, 1991, to rec.arts.sf-lovers. It was essentially a plain text file about 30 kB long and included about 250 items. Much of that first posting was based on information provided by Evelyn Leeper, who continues to post information today.
A new version of the Alternate History List was posted to Usenet once every month or two over the next six years. The first web version was posted in 1995, but for the next two years it remained just a slightly modified copy of the same material that was still being posted to Usenet. In early 1997, the list became Web-only.
Uchronia received its current name late in 1997. At almost the same time it also was converted into a website, which is extracted dynamically from a text database. Although the underlying script has been heavily rewritten since 1997, the user interface of Uchronia has remained basically unchanged since then. As of January 2008, the database was over 1.4 MB in size and included over 2900 entries.[3]
Uchronia also hosts the main website for the Sidewise Award for Alternate History.[4]
