I am looking for alternate history stories where AIDS never happens. I know there are a lot a stories where it isn’t mentioned at all, but I am looking for the ones that deal directly with the different ways history and politics change directly because of its absence, worlds where Freddie Mercury, Isaac Asimov, Arthur Ashe lived on, where politicians never had it influence their decisions etc. I would like to avoid stories where a mysterious illness which is just as bad (or even worse) suddenly pops up to take the place of AIDS-this is, to me, just a copout.
I am looking and still haven’t found any.
I can’t think of any either. It’s a rather specific premise: AIDS never happened as opposed to some other alternate history hinge point?
Out of curiosity: why the question? Are you checking for prior art before writing your own, perhaps?
It just sounds like an interesting read.
I can offer you the opposite. Harry Turtledove has a book called the Wages of Sin where AIDS appears in the 1500s which makes 1800s England hyper conservative and puritanical.
It involves the opposite of what I asked for. Just looking for our regular history, totally absent the occurrence of AIDS.
Aside from what you are looking for, which I’m sorry but I can’t help with, this sort of speculation would make for an interesting thread in its own right. I hope someone with better chops than I have might start one. (Please don’t respond further in this thread, consider this a sidebar, not something to hitch a hijack to.)
Fair enough. As a songwriter and story writer myself, I am always a bit worried that I might have subconsciously stolen an idea from somewhere. The classic case is George Harrison and ‘My Sweet Lord.’, of course.
This could be a good alternate history premise… but as I said, I can’t think of any instances.
And sure: many great artists died too young: from AIDS and many other things too.
There’s an independent film based on this premise called Fathers:
Imagine a world where AIDS never happened and our heroes lived. Who would they be? Who would we be? Fathers explores these questions by weaving history, current gatherings and fiction to create a vision of queer utopia.
Thank you.
I tried checking on Uchronia but they don’t seem to have any short stories or novels listed on this divergence.
I hadn’t heard that Asimov’s death was AIDS related until now.
It was reported as heart disease at the time, due to the stigma of it.
Yes, after I saw the OP I checked and I see that the actual cause of Asimov’s death wasn’t publicly released until ten years later.
Sorry - I know of several stories in which AIDS came earlier or spread faster or varied in other ways, but its complete absence is not a variant I’ve seen.
I suspect the reason why is that in the case of an earlier, or worse outbreak, it’s easy to make up a plausible story - just taken what really happened and map it to an earlier time, or take what really happened and exaggerate it. But a story without AIDS at all would involve a differnt kind of imagination
I tried asking a science fiction fan group on Facebook, and this one guy doesn’t seem to understand that this one story he found about a group of people that travels back to the 16th century and somehow cures all diseases doesn’t have jack shit to do with the question I asked about AIDS somehow not coming into existence when it did (or earlier or later-ghod, the way some people try to shoehorn their ideas into a conversation sometimes astounds me), and how that may have changed history and morals.
Isaac Asimov, like Arthur Ashe who died the very same day, contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion in the early 1980s. Asimov was a public AIDS activist in his final years, but his family was told not to reveal the actual cause of his death until 10 years later. I’m sure his heart and kidney disease contributed heavily, but yes, his primary COD was indeed acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.
As for alternative-history stories related to AIDS, the ones I’ve seen, or at least know of, were about HIV mutating into something that was transmissible by casual contact.
If only Asimov had lived two more years.
He could have written another fifty books.