All Along the Watchtower (novel)

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This is a work of Alternate History by writer 037771 of Alternate History Dot Com, author of Well Meet Again. The point of departure is the premature death of Leonard W. Hall in 1959, which opens the way for Nelson Rockefeller to compete with Vice President Richard Nixon to be the Republican Party's 1960 nominee for President of the United States. Rockefeller loses, but he does manage to land the VP slot under him. The Nixon/Rockefeller ticket manages to squeak out a victory against JFK and LBJ, setting the stage for what would become known in this timeline as the "Shrieking Sixties", altering history not just for the United States but for the whole world.

Read it here.

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All Along the Watchtower contains the following tropes:

• Alternate History: Duh.
• Allohistorical Allusion
• Bay of Pigs Invasion: Successful.
• Berlin Wall: Averted.
• The British Invasion: Beat-what? "It's all about the Stones"
  • In an inversion, Pete Best has the most successful career among the Beatles.
• Dirty Communists
• For Want of a Nail: Most people on the Alternate History Board don't even know who Leonard Hall is.
• La Résistance: Crushed by the Centurions. Who, by the way come to power by overthrowing and killing De Gaulle. Ouch.
• Manipulative Bastard: Alexandr Shelepin.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: The Centurions are accused of being fascists by their critics. It's a charge not without truth although, as described by one thread commentator, it's less about ideology and more that the Centurions are a "bunch of generals who are frankly out of their depth."
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Mixed. Hemingway's alive, but Bob Dylan will never write songs.
• No Koreans in Japan: Averted. The aftermath of a violent anti-Korean race riot in Japan is described at length.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: LBJ decides to step down as Senate Majority Leader.
• Shown Their Work: Oh yeah.
• Titled After the Song: Written by Bob Dylan, made famous by Jimi Hendrix (who served in Cuba with honor & distinction, thank you very much). The funny part is that Bob Dylan's songwriting career is butterflied away.
• The Vietnam War: Subverted. Initially, Laos is where Nixon focuses on.
• Young Future Famous People: Sarkozy remembering the Centurion coup when he was a child, for one.