There are places I remember in my life, though some have changed…
Sometimes the moment comes for what you did in the past.
As 2018 came to a close, there was some buzz among the Beatles community about the film Yesterday, which tried to do a “what if…?” story involving the Beatles. Even before the film came out, there were comments among them such as, “That seems like a weird way to use the Beatles in that film,” and, “So Hollywood’s doing fanfic now.”
And a few comments along the lines of, “Hey, they’re doing what you did almost 20 years ago…”
Back in the days when Rooftop Sessions was an active publication, an online literary magazine which published short stories and serials tied to the Beatles, I had a series of stories in there from 2000 to 2005. Many of them were alternate history tales, or “AltHis” for short, what today would be called counter-factuals. As AltHis is a passion of mine, as much as being a fan of the Beatles is, most of the stories were “what if…?” tales, with a few jumps into other genres here and there.
In addition to getting to do stories with the Beatles in them, I also got to touch on The Twilight Zone, Doctor Who, comic books, Pink Floyd… There were a lot of interests that found their way into these stories, which were great dives into elements of the band’s time that might not otherwise have been written about.
Finally, after all this time, the stories I did were collected in one convenient place, with intros and notes about each piece. Hopefully readers will find it amusing, having been some time in preparation…
James Ryan 