Comment by jaggederest

You can go one further and just mount a squirrel cage fan in place of or on the front or top of the wing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FanWing

Or go further and use rotating drums: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flettner_airplane

Or you can use a horizontal-axis style helicopter rotor with variable pitch, and it gets you omnidirectional thrust (VTOL) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclogyro

There are a lot of interesting possible alternate histories (only requiring a few tweaks to physics) where fixed wings never really work and horizontal rotorcraft dominate, especially in a world where lighter-than-air craft are common - something like a hybrid between a zeppelin and a paddleboat.