I will say that if you can get it published as fantasy – while being historically correct – that’s as good as it gets………

envy, envy, envy…. you’re not good for my mental health you know….

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This does not quite count as an alternate history. All the dates and events are still there. I plan to footnote this quite a bit. Instead, I have taken playful license, but nothing that will disagree with history.

It will in fact have the actual history a bit more correct than most histories of Shakespeare do. Most historians have their bias and leave out or walk over details that break with their bias. I instead take details that conflict with my story as challenges!

There are no blimps, so it really won’t qualify as an alternate history. While there is more technology in this than in the standard histories, all of the technology is quite real and existed at the time. Spy stories need technology.

While this will not qualify as SF, it will however qualify as fantasy. During my research, the temptation to use the evidence as reported in the day became quite irresistible. This was a time when astrology was used as evidence in court. In fact there was a noble who tried to eliminate the use of astrology in courts of law, and Queen Elizabeth warned him that his arguments were bordering on heresy.

Here is another odd detail, all of the prophesies that were made in the plays of Shakespeare, have turned out to come true. And they were made in plain English. So Nostradamus is hardly in the same league with Shakespeare.

Oddly, by ignoring the modern distaste for superstition and mysticism, my tale is one that would have been much more believable by the people of the day, than what modern historians have written.

Bob

One problem I can see – alternative history mite not sell outside of the sci-fi genre. Just my 2 cents worth…

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