Thank you Olav Rokne for your five years of service as a member of the jury for the Sidewise Awards for Alternate History. Olav has decided to step back from the Sidewise Awards in order to make room for someone with new perspectives on alternate history informed by different historical narratives.

His eloquent essay “The Gold Standard of What If” beautifully articulates (far better than I ever could) what I love about the genre. The essay also quotes some nobody named Eric Choi who apparently said this at the alternate history panel at Can*Con in Ottawa last month:

“[Alternate history is] a playground in which authors can muse about the degree to which chance or determinism play in constructing our world.”

Thank you, Olav!