Talk:The Gladiator (novel)

The question of the actual POD of this universe has been an ongoing source of debate. The novel lists the Cuban Missile Crisis the first appreciably different incident, so logic would suggest that this is the POD.

But, the structure of the novel (HT's decision not to use an Xtimer as a POD, Stalin's continued popularity, etc,) has always left me with the sense that the history wasn't that clean and simple.

So I tweeted HT. His response: https://twitter.com/HNTurtledove/status/880103421428219904

For those who don't have Twitter: "I don't think I ever said exactly. It's just the late 21st century in a world where the USSR and its system won the Cold War."

So this would appear to be an instance where Harry the author wanted an alternate timeline for story telling purposes, and wasn't that deeply worried about getting there. The CMC and the Vietnam withdrawal are more "symptoms" of everything going the USSR's way rather than the one "aha!" moment where everything changes. TR (talk) 18:40, June 28, 2017 (UTC)