books tagged “alternative history”

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  • 1632
    by Eric Flint
    ISBN 1416532811 (1-4165-3281-1)
    Softcover, Pocket Books

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    FREEDOM AND JUSTICE -- AMERICAN STYLE

    1632 And in northern Germany things couldn't get much worse. Famine. Disease. Religous war laying waste the cities. Only the aristocrats remained relatively unscathed; for the peasants, death was a mercy.

    2000 Things are going OK in Grantville, West Virginia, and everybody attending the wedding of Mike Stearn's sister (including the entire local chapter of the United Mine Workers of America, which Mike leads) is having a good time.

    THEN, EVERYTHING CHANGED....

    When the dust settles, Mike leads a group of armed miners to find out what happened and finds the road into town is cut, as with a sword. On the other side, a scene out of Hell: a man nailed to a farmhouse door, his wife and daughter attacked by men in steel vests. Faced with this, Mike and his friends don't have to ask who to shoot. At that moment Freedom and Justice, American style, are introduced to the middle of the Thirty Years' War. [via]

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  • Weber, David: 1633
    1633
    by David Weber, Eric Flint, James Baen
    ISBN 0743471555 (0-7434-7155-5)
    Softcover, Pocket Books

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    Hurled back in time into the Thirty Years War by a mysterious cosmic force, the West Virginian coal miners led by Mike Stearns have allied with the King of Sweden to form the Confederated Principalities of Europe. Cardinal Richelieu, effective ruler of France, is bent on their destruction. As the greatest naval war in European history erupts, Mike's "native" wife is trapped in war-torn Amsterdam, and his sister is a prisoner in the Tower of London! But Mike has plans for correcting that situation; very explosive plans. . . . [via]

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  • 1812: The Rivers of War
    by Eric Flint
    ISBN 0345465687 (0-345-46568-7)
    Softcover, Ballantine Books

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    Eric Flints acclaimed 1634: The Galileo Affair was a national bestseller from one of the most talked-about voices in his field. Now, in this extraordinary new alternate history, Flint begins a dramatic saga of the North American continent at a dire turning point, forging its identity and its future in the face of revolt from within, and attack from without.

    In the War of 1812, U.S. troops are battling the British on the Canadian border, even as a fierce fight is being waged against the Creek followers of the Indian leader Tecumseh and his brother, known as The Prophet. In Europe, Napoleon Bonapartes war has become a losing proposition, and the British are only months away from unleashing a frightening assault on Washington itself. Fateful choices are being made in the corridors of power and on the American frontier. As Andrew Jackson, backed by Cherokee warriors, leads a fierce attack on the Creek tribes, his young republic will soon need every citizen soldier it can find.

    What ifat this critical momentbonds were forged between men of different races and tribes? What if the Cherokee clans were able to muster an integrated front, and the U.S. government faced a united Indian nation bolstered by escaping slaves, freed men of color, and even influential white allies?

    Through the remarkable adventures of men who were really theremen of mixed race, mixed emotions, and a singular purposeThe Rivers of War carries us in this new direction, brilliantly transforming an extraordinary chapter of American history.

    With a cast of unforgettable charactersfrom James Monroe and James Madison to Sam Houston, Francis Scott Key, and Cherokee chiefs John Ross and Major RidgeThe Rivers of War travels from the battle of Horseshoe Bend to the battle of New Orleans, and brings every explosive moment to life. With exquisite attention to detail, an extraordinary grasp of history, and a storytellers gift for the dramatic, Flint delivers a bold, thought-provoking epic of enemies and allies, traitors and revolutionaries, and illuminates who we are as a nation, how we got here, and how history itself is madeand remade.


    From the Hardcover edition. [via]

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  • American Empire : The Victorious Opposition
    by Harry Turtledove
    ISBN 034544423X (0-345-44423-X)
    Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group

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    Harry Turtledoves acclaimed alternate history series began with a single question: What if the South had won the Civil War? Now, seventy years have passed since the first War Between the States. The North American continent is locked in a battle of politics, economies, and moralities. In a world that has already felt the soul-shattering blow of the Great War, North America is the powder keg that could ignite another global conflictcomplete with a new generation of killing machines.

    Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! In 1934, the chant echoes across the Confederate States of America, a country born of bloodshed and passion, stretching from Mexico to Virginia. But while people use the word to greet each other in the streets, the meaning of Freedom has become increasingly unclear.

    Jake Featherston, leader of the ruling Freedom Party, has won powerand is taking his country and the world to the edge of an abyss. Charismatic, shrewd, and addicted to conflict, Featherston is whipping the Confederate States into a frenzy of hatred. Blacks are being rounded up and sent to prison camps, and the persecution has just begun. Featherston has forced the United States to give up its toeholds in Florida and Kentucky, and as the North stumbles through a succession of leaders, from Socialist Hosea Blackford to Herbert Hoover and now Al Smith, Featherston is feeling his might. With the U.S.A. locked in a bitter, bloody occupation of Canada, facing an intractable rebellion in Utah, and fatigued from a war in the Pacific against Japan, Featherston may pursue one dangerous proposition above all: that he can defeat the U.S.A. in an all-out war.

    The Victorious Opposition is a drama of leaders and followers, spies and traitors, lovers and soldiers. From California to Canada, from combat on the high seas to the secret meetings where former slaves plot a desperate strategy for survival, Harry Turtledove has created a human portrait of a world in upheaval. The third book in his monumental American Empire series, The Victorious Opposition is a novel of ideas, action, and surpriseand an unforgettable re-imagining of history itself. [via]

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  • Black Powder War
    by Naomi Novik
    ISBN 0345481305 (0-345-48130-5)
    Softcover, Del Rey

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    A splendid series.
    Anne McCaffrey

    Naomi Novik has done for the Napoleonic Wars what Anne McCaffrey did for science fiction: constructed an alternate reality in which dragons are real in a saga that is impressively original, fully developed, and peopled with characters you care about.
    David Weber, author of the Honor Harrington series

    After their fateful adventure in China, Capt. Will Laurence of His Majestys Aerial Corps and his extraordinary dragon, Temeraire, are waylaid by a mysterious envoy bearing urgent new orders from Britain. Three valuable dragon eggs have been purchased from the Ottoman Empire, and Laurence and Temeraire must detour to Istanbul to escort the precious cargo back to England. Time is of the essence if the eggs are to be borne home before hatching.

    Yet disaster threatens the mission at every turnthanks to the diabolical machinations of the Chinese dragon Lien, who blames Temeraire for her masters death and vows to ally herself with Napoleon and take vengeance. Then, faced with shattering betrayal in an unexpected place, Laurence, Temeraire, and their squad must launch a daring offensive. But what chance do they have against the massed forces of Bonapartes implacable army? [via]

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  • Conquistador
    by S. M. Stirling
    ISBN 0451459334 (0-451-45933-4)
    Softcover, Roc

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    A new alternate history of America from the author of The Peshawar Lancers, the bestselling novel the Chicago Sun-Times called "a pleasure to read" and Harry Turtledove hailed as "first-rate adventure all the way."

    1945: An ex-marine has discovered a portal that permits him to travel between the America he knows-and a virgin America untouched by European influence. 21st century: The two realities collide...

    [via]

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  • The Difference Engine
    by Bruce Sterling, William Gibson
    ISBN 055329461X (0-553-29461-X)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    A collaborative novel from the premier cyberpunk authors, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Part detective story, part historical thriller, The Difference Engine takes us not forward but back, to an imagined 1885: the Industrial Revolution is in full and inexorable swing, powered by steam-driven, cybernetic engines. Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine, and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time. [via]

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  • The Difference Engine
    by William Gibson
    ISBN 055307346X (0-553-07346-X)
    Hardcover, Bantam Books

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    A collaborative novel from the premier cyberpunk authors, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Part detective story, part historical thriller, The Difference Engine takes us not forward but back, to an imagined 1885: the Industrial Revolution is in full and inexorable swing, powered by steam-driven, cybernetic engines. Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine, and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time. [via]

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  • Eyre Affair
    by Jasper Fforde
    ISBN 0142001805 (0-14-200180-5)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Penzler Pick, January 2002: When I first heard the premise of this unique mystery, I doubted that a first-time author could pull off a complicated caper involving so many assumptions, not the least of which is a complete suspension of disbelief. Jasper Fforde is not only up to the task, he exceeds all expectations.

    Imagine this. Great Britain in 1985 is close to being a police state. The Crimean War has dragged on for more than 130 years and Wales is self-governing. The only recognizable thing about this England is her citizens' enduring love of literature. And the Third Most Wanted criminal, Acheron Hades, is stealing characters from England's cherished literary heritage and holding them for ransom.

    Bibliophiles will be enchanted, but not surprised, to learn that stealing a character from a book only changes that one book, but Hades has escalated his thievery. He has begun attacking the original manuscripts, thus changing all copies in print and enraging the reading public. That's why Special Operations Network has a Literary Division, and it is why one of its operatives, Thursday Next, is on the case.

    Thursday is utterly delightful. She is vulnerable, smart, and, above all, literate. She has been trying to trace Hades ever since he stole Mr. Quaverley from the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit and killed him. You will only remember Mr. Quaverley if you read Martin Chuzzlewit prior to 1985. But now Hades has set his sights on one of the plums of literature, Jane Eyre, and he must be stopped.

    How Thursday achieves this and manages to preserve one of the great books of the Western canon makes for delightfully hilarious reading. You do not have to be an English major to be pulled into this story. You'll be rooting for Thursday, Jane, Mr. Rochester--and a familiar ending. --Otto Penzler [via]

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  • Harris, Robert: Fatherland
    Fatherland
    by Robert Harris
    ISBN 1560545569 (1-56054-556-9)
    Hardcover, Thorndike Pr

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    Fatherland is set in an alternative world where Hitler has won the Second World War. It is April 1964 and one week before Hitler's 75th birthday. Xavier March, a detective of the Kriminalpolizei, is called out to investigate the discovery of a dead body in a lake near Berlin's most prestigious suburb.

    As March discovers the identity of the body, he uncovers signs of a conspiracy that could go to the very top of the German Reich. And, with the Gestapo just one step behind, March, together with an American journalist, is caught up in a race to discover and reveal the truth -- a truth that has already killed, a truth that could topple governments, a truth that will change history.


    From the Paperback edition. [via]

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  • Turtledove, Harry: The Great War
    The Great War
    by Harry Turtledove
    ISBN 0345405609 (0-345-40560-9)
    Softcover, Del Rey

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    Harry Turtledove marches on through history with The Great War: Walk in Hell. In his alternate timeline, the Confederate States of America won the Civil War, aided by Britain and France. In the 1880s (How Few Remain), Americans fought again after the CSA acquired parts of Mexico--and the CSA won again. When WWI begins with Archduke Ferdinand's assassination in 1914 (The Great War: American Front), the 34-state USA under Teddy Roosevelt allies with Imperial Germany and Austria against Britain, France, Russia, Japan, Canada, and Woodrow Wilson's CSA. Trenches divide Canada, fierce fighting rages from Tennessee and Kentucky into Pennsylvania, a Mormon uprising against the USA consumes Utah, and a black socialist rebellion distracts the CSA, where slavery has ended but blacks still await full citizenship.

    Walk in Hell takes us from fall, 1915, through 1916. Soldiers, sailors, and airmen continue the fight, but much happens behind the lines too. Turtledove's characters include Jewish immigrants who are socialist and antiwar, a widow running a coffee house in CSA-occupied Washington, D.C., who passes information to the USA, and two Canadian farmers living under U.S. occupation in Quebec and Manitoba. He vividly conveys the human side of war. When Joe Hammerschmitt gets a shoulder wound in the Virginia trenches:

    ... pain warred with exultation on his long, thin face. Exultation won. 'Got me a hometowner, looks like,' he said happily. Half the men up there with him made sympathetic noises; the other half looked frankly jealous. Hammerschmitt was going to be out of the firing line for weeks, maybe months, to come, and they still risked not just death but horrible mutilation every day.

    Some find Turtledove's cast too large, the story's action too slow. Others complain that Walk in Hell is too similar to his Worldwar series. Alternate history buffs, however, will marvel at his mastery of detail, enjoy following his logic as he pursues military and social developments onward in time, and find it hard to wait for the next in the series. --Nona Vero [via]

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  • Turtledove, Harry: The Guns of the South
    The Guns of the South
    by Harry Turtledove
    ISBN 0345384687 (0-345-38468-7)
    Softcover, Ballantine Books

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    Northern Virginia is ragged and ill-equipped. The battle of Gettysburg has broken the back of the Confederacy and decimated its manpower.

    Then Andries Rhoodie, a strange man with an unplaceable accent, approaches Lee with an extraordinary offer. Rhoodie demonstrates an amazing rifle; its rate of fire is incredible, its lethal efficiency breathtaking--and Rhoodie guarantees unlimited quantities to the Confederates.

    The name of the weapon is the AK-47.

    "As a Civil War historian, I literally could not put The Guns of the South down. It is absolutely unique--without question the most fascinating Civil War novel I have ever read. Harry Turtledove knows his Civil War. And best of all, The Guns of the South is not simply great entertainment; it is also a serious and successful effort to come to grips with the central issues of the war.  It is must reading for every Civil War student."
    --Professor James M. McPherson, Edwards Professor of American History, Princeton University; Author of Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom [via]

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  • Heartfire
    by Orson Scott Card
    ISBN 0812509242 (0-8125-0924-2)
    Softcover, Tor Books

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    Peggy is a Torch, able to see the fire burning in each person's heart. She can follow the paths of each person's future, and know each person's most intimate secrets. From the moment of Alvin Maker's birth, when the Unmaker first strove to kill him, she has protected him.

    Now they are married, and Peggy is a part of Alvin's heart as well as his life.

    But Alvin's destiny has taken them on separate journeys. Alvin has gone north into New England, where knacks are considered witchcraft, and their use is punished with death.

    Peggy has been drawn south, to the British Crown Colonies and the court of King Arthur Stuart in exile. For she has seen a terrible future bloom in the heartfires of every person in America, a future of war and destruction. One slender path exists that leads through the bloodshed, and it is Peggy's quest to set the world on the path to peace.
    [via]

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  • The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
    by Christopher Knight, Robert Lomas
    ISBN 1931412758 (1-931412-75-8)
    Softcover, Fair Winds Pr

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    What if...there were actually two Jesus Christs, feuding brothers who fell out! What if...the Christian Church is actually a political invention that has little connection to the man we call Christ! What if...the true teachings of Jesus have survived and are awaiting excavation!

    When the authors, both Masons, set out to find the origins of the Freemasonry they had no idea they would find themselves unraveling the true story of Jesus Christ and the original Jerusalem Church. Their startling and unexpected conclusions are presented here-backed by rigorous analyses of ancient Egyptian records, the Old and New Testaments, early Christian and Rabbinical texts, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the rituals of Freemasonry.

    The findings of this controversial book make the Dead Sea Scrolls look as exciting as a shopping list, and may forever change the way we perceive the origins of Christianity! [via]

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  • His Majesty's Dragon
    by Naomi Novik
    ISBN 0345481283 (0-345-48128-3)
    Softcover, Ballantine Books

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    Aerial combat brings a thrilling new dimension to the Napoleonic Wars as valiant warriors rise to Britain's defense by taking to the skies . . . not aboard aircraft but atop the mighty backs of fighting dragons.When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes its precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Capt. Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future-and an unexpected kinship with a most extraordinary creature. Thrust into the rarified world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France's own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte's boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fire. [via]

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  • How Few Remain
    by Harry Turtledove
    ISBN 0345406141 (0-345-40614-1)
    Softcover, Ballantine Books

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    From the master of alternate history comes an epic of the Second Civil War. It was an epoch of glory and success, of disaster and despair. Twenty years after the South won the Civil War, America writhed once more in the bloody throes of battle. Furious over the annexation of key Mexican territory, the United States declared total war against the Confederate States of America. And so, in 1883, the fragile peace was shattered.

    But this was a new kind of war, fought on a lawless frontier where the blue and gray battled not only each other, but the Apache, the outlaw, and even the redcoat. Along with France, England entered the fray on the side of the South, with blockades and invasions from Canada.

    Out of this tragic struggle emerged figures great and small. The disgraced Abraham Lincoln crisscrossed the nation championing socialist ideals. Confederate cavalry leader Jeb Stuart sought to prevent wholesale slaughter in the desert Southwest, while cocky young Theodore Roosevelt and stodgy George Custer bickered over modern weapons--even as they drove the British back into western Canada.

    Thanks to the efforts of journalists like Samuel Clemens, the nation witnessed the clash of human dreams and passions. Confederate genius Stonewall Jackson again soared to the heights of military expertise, while the North's McClellan proved sadly undeserving of his once shining reputation as the "young Napoleon."  For in the Second War Between the States, the times, the stakes, and the battle lines had changed . . . and so would history.

    Once again, Harry Turtledove has created a thoroughly engrossing alternate history novel, a profoundly original epic of blood and honor, courage and sacrifice, set amidst the raw beauty of young America's frontier wilderness. [via]

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  • Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
    by Susanna Clarke
    ISBN 1582346038 (1-58234-603-8)
    Softcover, Bloomsbury Pub Plc USA

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    It's 1808 and that Corsican upstart Napoleon is battering the English army and navy. Enter Mr. Norrell, a fusty but ambitious scholar from the Yorkshire countryside and the first practical magician in hundreds of years. What better way to demonstrate his revival of British magic than to change the course of the Napoleonic wars? Susanna Clarke's ingenious first novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, has the cleverness and lightness of touch of the Harry Potter series, but is less a fairy tale of good versus evil than a fantastic comedy of manners, complete with elaborate false footnotes, occasional period spellings, and a dense, lively mythology teeming beneath the narrative. Mr. Norrell moves to London to establish his influence in government circles, devising such powerful illusions as an 11-day blockade of French ports by English ships fabricated from rainwater. But however skillful his magic, his vanity provides an Achilles heel, and the differing ambitions of his more glamorous apprentice, Jonathan Strange, threaten to topple all that Mr. Norrell has achieved. A sparkling debut from Susanna Clarke--and it's not all fairy dust. --Regina Marler [via]

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  • Kushiel's Dart
    by Jacqueline Carey
    ISBN 0765342987 (0-7653-4298-7)
    Softcover, Tor Books

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    The land of Terre d'Ange is a place of unsurpassing beauty and grace. It is said that angels found the land and saw it was good...and the ensuing race that rose from the seed of angels and men live by one simple rule: Love as thou wilt.

    Phèdre nó Delaunay is a young woman who was born with a scarlet mote in her left eye. Sold into indentured servitude as a child, her bond is purchased by Anafiel Delaunay, a nobleman with very a special mission...and the first one to recognize who and what she is: one pricked by Kushiel's Dart, chosen to forever experience pain and pleasure as one.

    Phèdre is trained equally in the courtly arts and the talents of the bedchamber, but, above all, the ability to observe, remember, and analyze. Almost as talented a spy as she is courtesan, Phèdre stumbles upon a plot that threatens the very foundations of her homeland. Treachery sets her on her path; love and honor goad her further. And in the doing, it will take her to the edge of despair...and beyond. Hateful friend, loving enemy, beloved assassin; they can all wear the same glittering mask in this world, and Phèdre will get but one chance to save all that she holds dear.

    Set in a world of cunning poets, deadly courtiers, heroic traitors, and a truly Machiavellian villainess, this is a novel of grandeur, luxuriance, sacrifice, betrayal, and deeply laid conspiracies. Not since Dune has there been an epic on the scale of Kushiel's Dart-a massive tale about the violent death of an old age, and the birth of a new.
    [via]

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  • Lost in a Good Book
    by Jasper Fforde
    ISBN 0142004030 (0-14-200403-0)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Thursday Next, literary detective and newlywed is back to embark on an adventure that begins, quite literally on her own doorstep. It seems that Landen, her husband of four weeks, actually drowned in an accident when he was two years old. Someone, somewhere, sometime, is responsible. The sinister Goliath Corporation wants its operative Jack Schitt out of the poem in which Thursday trapped him, and it will do almost anything to achieve this - but bribing the ChronoGuard? Is that possible? Having barely caught her breath after The Eyre Affair, Thursday must battle corrupt politicians, try to save the world from extinction, and help the Neanderthals to species self-determination. Mastadon migrations, journeys into Just William, a chance meeting with the Flopsy Bunnies, and violent life-and-death struggles in the summer sales are all part of a greater plan. But whose? and why? [via]

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  • The Man in the High Castle
    by Philip K. Dick
    ISBN 0679740678 (0-679-74067-8)
    Softcover, Random House Inc

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    It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some 20 years earlier the United States lost a war - and is now occupied jointly by Nazi Germany and Japan. This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to awake. [via]

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  • Pavane
    by Keith Roberts
    ISBN 0575061030 (0-575-06103-0)
    Softcover, Victor Gollancz

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    An ever-expanding subgenre of science fiction is devoted to "alternate worlds" or "alternate histories": fiction in which a crucial event goes differently than in the world we know, and history is changed. Keith Roberts's Pavane (1968) is set in a backward 20th century molded by the assassination of Queen Elizabeth I and the triumph of a militantly antiscience Catholic Church. This is a classic alternate history, in the same company as such highly regarded novels as L. Sprague De Camp's seminal Lest Darkness Fall (1941), in which a modern man slips back in time and attempts to avert the Dark Ages; Ward Moore's Bring the Jubilee (1953), set after the South wins the U.S. Civil War; and Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle (1962), set after the Germans and Japanese win World War II. Lest Darkness Fall and The Man in the High Castle are justly famous; the other two classics, Bring the Jubilee and Pavane, are less well known, and that is a shame.

    One reason for Pavane's relative obscurity among American SF readers might be its British setting and author (the Moore and Dick novels are both set in the U.S., and De Camp, Moore, and Dick were all American). Another reason might be that Pavane is a novel created from interrelated but standalone stories (six "measures," or novelettes, and a coda), and the stories are of varying quality. Most are wise, beautifully written, and intensely visualized, especially the opener, "The Lady Margaret," and the closer, "Corfe Gate"; but "Brother John," the story of the monk-artist who witnesses Inquisition tortures and sparks an anti-Church rebellion, is far less detailed, and sometimes even unclear. Another reason for the novel's obscurity may be that some of the stories/chapters have more of a fantasy feel than is typical of more recent alternate history. Also, the nature of the coda's revelations may put off some readers. Nonetheless, Pavane is an intelligent, powerful, and moving work, deserving of a wide readership. --Cynthia Ward [via]

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  • The Peshawar Lancers
    by S. M. Stirling
    ISBN 0451458737 (0-451-45873-7)
    Softcover, Roc

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    A DIFFERENT PAST... A spray of comets freezes human progress in the 1870s. A STRANGE PRESENT... Now the British Empire and All the Russias each rule half the world. A DANGEROUS FUTURE... Everyone predicts a showdown-but no one can predict the role that one man, spy and hero, double and triple agent, will play... [via]

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  • The Plot Against America
    by Philip Roth
    ISBN 1400079497 (1-4000-7949-7)
    Softcover, Random House Inc

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    "What if" scenarios are often suspect. They are sometimes thinly veiled tales of the gospel according to the author, taking on the claustrophobic air of a personal fantasia that can't be shared. Such is not the case with Philip Roth's tour de force, The Plot Against America. It is a credible, fully-realized picture of what could happen anywhere, at any time, if the right people and circumstances come together.

    The Plot Against America explores a wholly imagined thesis and sees it through to the end: Charles A. Lindbergh defeats FDR for the Presidency in 1940. Lindbergh, the "Lone Eagle," captured the country's imagination by his solo Atlantic crossing in 1927 in the monoplane, Spirit of St. Louis, then had the country's sympathy upon the kidnapping and murder of his young son. He was a true American hero: brave, modest, handsome, a patriot. According to some reliable sources, he was also a rabid isolationist, Nazi sympathizer, and a crypto-fascist. It is these latter attributes of Lindbergh that inform the novel.

    The story is framed in Roth's own family history: the family flat in Weequahic, the neighbors, his parents, Bess and Herman, his brother, Sandy and seven-year-old Philip. Jewishness is always the scrim through which Roth examines American contemporary culture. His detractors say that he sees persecution everywhere, that he is vigilant in "Keeping faith with the certainty of Jewish travail"; his less severe critics might cavil about his portrayal of Jewish mothers and his sexual obsession, but generally give him good marks, and his fans read every word he writes and heap honors upon him. This novel will engage and satisfy every camp.

    "Fear presides over these memories, a perpetual fear. Of course, no childhood is without its terrors, yet I wonder if I would have been a less frightened boy if Lindbergh hadn't been president or if I hadn't been the offspring of Jews." This is the opening paragraph of the book, which sets the stage and tone for all that follows. Fear is palpable throughout; fear of things both real and imagined. A central event of the novel is the relocation effort made through the Office of American Absorption, a government program whereby Jews would be placed, family by family, across the nation, thereby breaking up their neighborhoods--ghettos--and removing them from each other and from any kind of ethnic solidarity. The impact this edict has on Philip and all around him is horrific and life-changing. Throughout the novel, Roth interweaves historical names such as Walter Winchell, who tries to run against Lindbergh. The twist at the end is more than surprising--it is positively ingenious.

    Roth has written a magnificent novel, arguably his best work in a long time. It is tempting to equate his scenario with current events, but resist, resist. Of course it is a cautionary tale, but, beyond that, it is a contribution to American letters by a man working at the top of his powers. --Valerie Ryan [via]

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  • Prentice Alvin
    by Orson Scott Card
    ISBN 0812502124 (0-8125-0212-4)
    Softcover, St Martins Pr

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  • Red Prophet
    by Orson Scott Card
    ISBN 0812524268 (0-8125-2426-8)
    Softcover, Tor Books

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    Book summary:

    The first tale of Alvin Maker, "Seventh Son", introduced people to a very familiar but just slightly different pioneer America where magic works, and many people have special talents. In "Red Prophet", listeners learn more about those talents, both the minor gifts of the white people and the much grander gifts of the Indians. Abridged. November '98 publication date. [via]

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  • Return Engagement
    by Harry Turtledove
    ISBN 0345457234 (0-345-45723-4)
    Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group

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    Harry Turtledoves remarkable alternative history novels brilliantly remind us of how fragile the thread of time can be, and offer us a world of what if. Drawing on a magnificent cast of characters that includes soldiers, generals, lovers, spies, and demagogues, Turtledove returns to an epic tale that only he could tellthe story of a North American continent, separated into two bitterly opposed nations, that stands on the verge of exploding once again.

    In 1914 they called it The Great War, and few could imagine anything worse. For nearly three decades a peace forged in blood and fatigue has held sway in North America. Now, Japan dominates the Pacific, the Russian Tsar rules Alaska, and England, under Winston Churchill, chafes for a return to its former glory. But behind the façade of world order, America is a bomb waiting to go off. Jake Featherston, the megalomaniacal leader of the Confederate States of America, is just the man to light the fuse.

    In the White House in Philadelphia, Socialist President Al Smith is a living symbol of hope for a nation that has been through the fires of war and the flood tides of depression. In the South, Featherston and his ruling Freedom Party have put down a Negro rebellion with a bloody fist and have interned them in concentration camps. Now they are determined to crush their Northern neighbor at any cost.

    Featherstons planes attack Philadelphia without warning. The U.S.A. lashes back blindly at Charleston. And a terrible second coming is at hand. When the CSA blitzkrieg is launched, the U.S.A. is caught flat-footed. Before long, the gray Army reaches Lake Erie. But in its wake the war machine is spinning a vortex of destruction, betrayal, and fury that no one, not even Jake Featherston himself, can control.

    Now, President Smith faces a Herculean task, while an obscure assistant secretary of war named Roosevelt rises in his ranks. For the U.S.A., the darkest days still lay ahead. Across the globe, a new era of war has just begun. And in the hands of the incomparable Harry Turtledove, readers are treated to a masterful vision of what might have been. An enduring portrait of history, nations, and human nature in its many manifestations, Return Engagement is a monumental journey into the second half of the twentieth century. [via]

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  • The Rivers of War
    by Eric Flint
    ISBN 0345465679 (0-345-46567-9)
    Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group

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    Eric Flints acclaimed 1634: The Galileo Affair was a national bestseller from one of the most talked-about voices in his field. Now, in this extraordinary new alternate history, Flint begins a dramatic saga of the North American continent at a dire turning point, forging its identity and its future in the face of revolt from within, and attack from without.

    In the War of 1812, U.S. troops are battling the British on the Canadian border, even as a fierce fight is being waged against the Creek followers of the Indian leader Tecumseh and his brother, known as The Prophet. In Europe, Napoleon Bonapartes war has become a losing proposition, and the British are only months away from unleashing a frightening assault on Washington itself. Fateful choices are being made in the corridors of power and on the American frontier. As Andrew Jackson, backed by Cherokee warriors, leads a fierce attack on the Creek tribes, his young republic will soon need every citizen soldier it can find.

    What ifat this critical momentbonds were forged between men of different races and tribes? What if the Cherokee clans were able to muster an integrated front, and the U.S. government faced a united Indian nation bolstered by escaping slaves, freed men of color, and even influential white allies?

    Through the remarkable adventures of men who were really theremen of mixed race, mixed emotions, and a singular purposeThe Rivers of War carries us in this new direction, brilliantly transforming an extraordinary chapter of American history.

    With a cast of unforgettable charactersfrom James Monroe and James Madison to Sam Houston, Francis Scott Key, and Cherokee chiefs John Ross and Major RidgeThe Rivers of War travels from the battle of Horseshoe Bend to the battle of New Orleans, and brings every explosive moment to life. With exquisite attention to detail, an extraordinary grasp of history, and a storytellers gift for the dramatic, Flint delivers a bold, thought-provoking epic of enemies and allies, traitors and revolutionaries, and illuminates who we are as a nation, how we got here, and how history itself is madeand remade. [via]

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  • Turtledove, Harry: Ruled Brittania
    Ruled Britannia
    by Harry Turtledove
    ISBN 0451459156 (0-451-45915-6)
    Softcover, Roc

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    The year is 1597. For nearly a decade, the island of Britain has been under the rule of King Philip in the name of Spain. With Queen Elizabeth imprisoned in the Tower of London, the British have no one to unite them against the enemy who occupies their land.

    No one, that is, except William Shakespeare, a playwright presented with the opportunity to pen his greatest work, a drama that will incite the people of Britain to rise against their persecutors-and change the course of history. [via]

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  • Settling Accounts: Return Engagement
    by Harry Turtledove
    ISBN 0345464052 (0-345-46405-2)
    Softcover, Del Rey

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    Book summary:

    Harry Turtledoves remarkable alternative history novels brilliantly remind us of how fragile the thread of time can be, and offer us a world of what if. Drawing on a magnificent cast of characters that includes soldiers, generals, lovers, spies, and demagogues, Turtledove returns to an epic tale that only he could tellthe story of a North American continent, separated into two bitterly opposed nations, that stands on the verge of exploding once again.

    In 1914 they called it The Great War, and few could imagine anything worse. For nearly three decades a peace forged in blood and fatigue has held sway in North America. Now, Japan dominates the Pacific, the Russian Tsar rules Alaska, and England, under Winston Churchill, chafes for a return to its former glory. But behind the façade of world order, America is a bomb waiting to go off. Jake Featherston, the megalomaniacal leader of the Confederate States of America, is just the man to light the fuse.

    In the White House in Philadelphia, Socialist President Al Smith is a living symbol of hope for a nation that has been through the fires of war and the flood tides of depression. In the South, Featherston and his ruling Freedom Party have put down a Negro rebellion with a bloody fist and have interned them in concentration camps. Now they are determined to crush their Northern neighbor at any cost.

    Featherstons planes attack Philadelphia without warning. The U.S.A. lashes back blindly at Charleston. And a terrible second coming is at hand. When the CSA blitzkrieg is launched, the U.S.A. is caught flat-footed. Before long, the gray Army reaches Lake Erie. But in its wake the war machine is spinning a vortex of destruction, betrayal, and fury that no one, not even Jake Featherston himself, can control.

    Now, President Smith faces a Herculean task, while an obscure assistant secretary of war named Roosevelt rises in his ranks. For the U.S.A., the darkest days still lay ahead. Across the globe, a new era of war has just begun. And in the hands of the incomparable Harry Turtledove, readers are treated to a masterful vision of what might have been. An enduring portrait of history, nations, and human nature in its many manifestations, Return Engagement is a monumental journey into the second half of the twentieth century.


    From the Hardcover edition. [via]

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  • Settling Accounts#2 : Drive to the East
    by Harry Turtledove
    ISBN 0345457242 (0-345-45724-2)
    Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group

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    Book summary:

    Harry Turtledovethe master of alternate historyhas recast the tumultuous twentieth century and created an epic that is powerful, bold, and as convincing as it is provocative. In Drive to the East he continues his saga of warfare that has divided a nation and now threatens the entire world.

    In 1914, the First World War ignited a brutal conflict in North America, with the United States finally defeating the Confederate States. In 1917, The Great War ended and an era of simmering hatred began, fueled by the despotism of a few and the sacrifice of many. Now its 1942. The USA and CSA are locked in a tangle of jagged, blood-soaked battle lines, modern weaponry, desperate strategies, and the kind of violence that only the damned could conjure upfor their enemies and themselves.

    In Richmond, Confederate president and dictator Jake Featherston is shocked by what his own aircraft have done in Philadelphiakilling U.S. president Al Smith in a barrage of bombs. Featherston presses ahead with a secret plan carried out on the dusty plains of Texas, where a so-called detention camp hides a far more evil purpose.

    As the untested U.S. vice president takes over for Smith, the United States face a furious thrust by the Confederate army, pressing inexorably into Pennsylvania. But with the industrial heartland under siege, Canada in revolt, and U.S. naval ships fighting against the Japanese in the Sandwich Islands, the most dangerous place in the world may be overlooked. [via]

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  • Seventh Son
    by Orson Scott Card
    ISBN 0812533054 (0-8125-3305-4)
    Softcover, St Martins Pr

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    From the author of Enders Game, an unforgettable story about young Alvin Maker: the seventh son of a seventh son. Born into an alternative frontier America where life is hard and folk magic is real, Alvin is gifted with the power. He must learn to use his gift wisely. But dark forces are arrayed against Alvin, and only a young girl with second sight can protect him.
    [via]

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  • Something Rotten
    by Jasper Fforde
    ISBN 014303541X (0-14-303541-X)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Detective Thursday Next has had her fill of her responsibilities as the Bellman in Jurisfiction, enough with Emperor Zharks pointlessly dramatic entrances, outbreaks of slapstick raging across pulp genres, and hacking her hair off to fill in for Joan of Arc. Packing up her son, Friday, Thursday returns to Swindon accompanied by none other than the dithering Danish prince Hamlet. Caring for both is more than a full- time job and Thursday decides it is definitely time to get her husband Landen back, if only to babysit. Luckily, those responsible for Landens eradication, The Goliath Corporation formerly an oppressive multinational conglomerate, now an oppressive multinational religion have pledged to right the wrong.

    But returning to SpecOps isnt a snap. When outlaw fictioneer Yorrick Kaine seeks to get himself elected dictator, he whips up a frenzy of anti-Danish sentiment and demands mass book burnings. The return of Swindons patron saint bearing divine prophecies could spell the end of the world within five years, possibly faster if the laughably terrible Swindon Mallets dont win the Superhoop, the most important croquet tournament in the land. And if thats not bad enough, The Merry Wives of Windsor is becoming entangled with Hamlet. Can Thursday find a Shakespeare clone to stop this hostile takeover? Can she prevent the world from plunging into war? Can she vanquish Kaine before he realizes his dream of absolute power? And, most important, will she ever find reliable child care? Find out in this totally original, action-packed romp, sure to be another escapist thrill for Jasper Ffordes growing legion of fans. [via]

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  • Tales of Alvin Maker
    by Orson Scott Card, Renato Arlem
    ISBN 0976401126 (0-9764011-2-6)
    Softcover, Dabel Brothers Prod Llc

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  • Throne of Jade
    by Naomi Novik
    ISBN 0345481291 (0-345-48129-1)
    Softcover, Del Rey

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    When Britain intercepted a French ship and its precious cargoan unhatched dragons eggCapt. Will Laurence of HMS Reliant unexpectedly became master and commander of the noble dragon he named Temeraire. As new recruits in Britains Aerial Corps, man and dragon soon proved their mettle in daring combat against Bonapartes invading forces.

    Now China has discovered that its rare gift, intended for Napoleon, has fallen into British handsand an angry Chinese delegation vows to reclaim the remarkable beast. But Laurence refuses to cooperate. Facing the gallows for his defiance, Laurence has no choice but to accompany Temeraire back to the Far Easta long voyage fraught with peril, intrigue, and the untold terrors of the deep. Yet once the pair reaches the court of the Chinese emperor, even more shocking discoveries and darker dangers await. [via]

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  • Thursday Next in the Well Of Lost Plots
    by Fforde Jasper
    ISBN 0143034359 (0-14-303435-9)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    The third installment in Jasper Fforde's New York Times bestselling series follows literary detective Thursday Next on another adventure in her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England Jasper Fforde has done it again in this genre-bending blend of crime fiction, fantasy, and top-drawer literary entertainment. After two rollicking New York Times bestselling adventures through Western literature, resourceful BookWorld literary detective Thursday Next definitely needs some downtime. And what better place for a respite than in the hidden depths of the Well of Lost Plots, where all unpublished books reside? But peace and quiet remain elusive for Thursday, who soon discovers that the Well is a veritable linguistic free-for-all, where grammasites run rampant, plot devices are hawked on the black market, and lousy books-like the one she has taken up residence in-are scrapped for salvage. To make matters worse, a murderer is stalking the personnel of Jurisfiction and it's up to Thursday to save the day. A brilliant feat of literary showmanship filled with wit, fantasy, and effervescent originality, this Ffordian tour de force will appeal to fans of Douglas Adams and P. G. Wodehouse. Thursday's zany investigations continue with Something Rotten. Look for the five other bestselling Thursday Next novels, including One of Our Thursdays is Missing and Jasper Fforde's latest bestseller, The Woman Who Died A Lot. Visit jasperfforde.com for a ffull window into the Ffordian world! [via]

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  • The Victorious Opposition
    by Harry Turtledove
    ISBN 0345444221 (0-345-44422-1)
    Softcover, Del Rey

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    Book summary:

    Harry Turtledoves acclaimed alternate history series began with a single question: What if the South had won the Civil War? Now, seventy years have passed since the first War Between the States. The North American continent is locked in a battle of politics, economies, and moralities. In a world that has already felt the soul-shattering blow of the Great War, North America is the powder keg that could ignite another global conflictcomplete with a new generation of killing machines.

    Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! In 1934, the chant echoes across the Confederate States of America, a country born of bloodshed and passion, stretching from Mexico to Virginia. But while people use the word to greet each other in the streets, the meaning of Freedom has become increasingly unclear.

    Jake Featherston, leader of the ruling Freedom Party, has won powerand is taking his country and the world to the edge of an abyss. Charismatic, shrewd, and addicted to conflict, Featherston is whipping the Confederate States into a frenzy of hatred. Blacks are being rounded up and sent to prison camps, and the persecution has just begun. Featherston has forced the United States to give up its toeholds in Florida and Kentucky, and as the North stumbles through a succession of leaders, from Socialist Hosea Blackford to Herbert Hoover and now Al Smith, Featherston is feeling his might. With the U.S.A. locked in a bitter, bloody occupation of Canada, facing an intractable rebellion in Utah, and fatigued from a war in the Pacific against Japan, Featherston may pursue one dangerous proposition above all: that he can defeat the U.S.A. in an all-out war.

    The Victorious Opposition is a drama of leaders and followers, spies and traitors, lovers and soldiers. From California to Canada, from combat on the high seas to the secret meetings where former slaves plot a desperate strategy for survival, Harry Turtledove has created a human portrait of a world in upheaval. The third book in his monumental American Empire series, The Victorious Opposition is a novel of ideas, action, and surpriseand an unforgettable re-imagining of history itself.


    From the Hardcover edition. [via]

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  • The Well of Lost Plots
    by Jasper Fforde
    ISBN 0340825928 (0-340-82592-8)
    Softcover, Hodder & Stoughton

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    Leaving Swindon behind her to hide out in the Well of Lost Plots (the place where all fiction is created), Thursday Next, Literary Detective and soon-to-be one parent family, ponders her next move from within an unpublished book of dubious merit entitled 'Caversham Heights'. Landen, her husband, is still eradicated, Aornis Hades is meddling with Thursday's memory, and Miss Havisham - when not sewing up plot-holes in 'Mill on the Floss' - is trying to break the land-speed record on the A409. But something is rotten in the state of Jurisfiction. Perkins is 'accidentally' eaten by the minotaur, and Snell succumbs to the Mispeling Vyrus. As a shadow looms over popular fiction, Thursday must keep her wits about her and discover not only what is going on, but also who she can trust to tell about it ...With grammasites, holesmiths, trainee characters, pagerunners, baby dodos and an adopted home scheduled for demolition, 'The Well of Lost Plots' is at once an addictively exciting adventure and an insight into how books are made, who makes them - and why there is no singular for 'scampi'. In the words of one critic: 'Don't ask. Just read it.' [via]

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  • Ambrose, Stephen E.: What If?
    What If?
    by Stephen E. Ambrose, Robert Cowley
    ISBN 0425176428 (0-425-17642-8)
    Softcover, Berkley Pub Group

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  • What If? 2: Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been
    by James Bradley, Robert Cowley
    ISBN 042518613X (0-425-18613-X)
    Softcover, Berkley Pub Group

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    Book summary:

    Many armchair historians have spent hours daydreaming of what might have been if some turning point in history had gone another way. The appeal of the What If? books is that editor Robert Cowley gets professional historians to concentrate on these imaginative questions. The first volume focused entirely on military matters; What If? 2 leans heavily but not exclusively in that direction. Victor Davis Hanson wonders about the consequences for Western philosophy if Socrates had died in battle, Thomas Fleming ponders a Napoleonic invasion of North America, and Caleb Carr argues the Second World War lasted longer than it should have because George Patton's superiors restrained their energetic general. More than two dozen contributors offer bold speculation: If the Chinese had committed themselves to ocean exploration, asks Theodore F. Cook Jr., might they have discovered the New World and even prevented "the worst horrors of the Atlantic Slave Trade [by halting] Portuguese expansion along the African coast at this early date?" Other times they are pleasantly modest: In one of the book's best sections, John Lukacs describes the fantasy of Teddy Roosevelt defeating Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 election--and decides the long- term effects would not have been great. Like its predecessor, What If? 2 is delicious mind candy for readers willing to believe there's nothing inevitable about what has come before us. --John Miller [via]

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  • Cowley, Robert: What If? : Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been
    What If? : Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been
    by Robert Cowley
    ISBN 0399147950 (0-399-14795-0)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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  • World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been
    by Robert Cowley, Stephen E. Ambrose, John Keegan, David McCullough, James M. McPherson
    ISBN 0399145761 (0-399-14576-1)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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    Book summary:

    Counterfactuals--what-if scenarios--fueled countless bull sessions in smoke-filled dorm rooms in the 1960s. What if Sitting Bull had had a machine gun at Little Big Horn? What if Attila the Hun had had a time machine? What if Columbus had landed in India after all? Some of those dorm-room speculators grew up to be historians, and their generation (along with a few younger and older scholars) makes a strong showing in this anthology of essays, in which the what-ifs are substantially more plausible. What if Hitler had not attacked Russia when he did? He might have moved into the Middle East and secured the oil supplies the Third Reich so badly needed, helping it retain its power in Europe. What if D-Day had been a failure? The Soviet Union might have controlled all of Europe. What if Sennacherib had pressed the siege of Jerusalem in 701 B.C.? Then the nascent, monotheistic Jewish religion might never have taken hold among the people of Judah--and the daughter religions of Christianity and Islam would never have been born.

    So suggest some of the many first-rate contributors to this collection, which grew from a special issue of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History. One of them is classicist Josiah Ober, who suggests that if Alexander the Great had died at the age of 21 instead of 32, Greece would have been swallowed up by Persia and Rome, and the modern Western world would have a much different sensibility--and probably little idea of democratic government. Still other contributors are Stephen E. Ambrose, Caleb Carr, John Keegan, David McCullough, and James McPherson, who examine a range of scenarios populated by dozens of historical figures, including Sir Walter Raleigh, Chiang Kai-shek, Robert E. Lee, Benito Mussolini, and Themistocles. The result is a fascinating exercise in historical speculation, one that emphasizes the importance of accident and of roads not taken in the evolution of human societies across time. --Gregory McNamee [via]

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  • Worlds That Weren't
    by Harry Turtledove, Walter Jon Williams, S. M. Stirling, Mary Gentle
    ISBN 0451458869 (0-451-45886-9)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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    Book summary:

    Alternate history is the branch of speculative fiction that explores what might have happened if history had taken a different turn. The obvious changes, like the Nazis winning World War II, have filled innumerable novels. Fortunately, the anthology Worlds That Weren't avoids the obvious with its four fine new novellas from four superior authors: Harry Turtledove, S.M. Stirling, Mary Gentle, and Walter Jon Williams.

    The collection opens with "The Daimon," written by Harry Turtledove, AH's best-known practitioner. In Turtledove's turning point, the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates chooses to accompany General Alkibiades to war instead of remaining in Athens, and sets Alkibiades on a triumphant, terrible new course.

    Set in the British India-dominated alternate history of The Peshawar Lancers, S.M. Stirling's novella is a rousing old-fashioned adventure. "Shikari in Galveston" follows a hunting safari through a regressed American frontier that might have given even Daniel Boone pause.

    A prequel to her Book of Ash tetralogy, Mary Gentle's novella "The Logistics of Carthage" concerns Christian warriors serving pagan Turks in a North Africa conquered by Visigoths instead of Vandals, and is the strongest story in Worlds That Weren't.

    The collection concludes with "The Last Ride of German Freddie," in which Nebula Award winner Walter Jon Williams considers what might have happened if the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had taken himself and his superman theories to the Wild West. --Cynthia Ward [via]

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  • Worlds That Weren't
    by Walter Jon Williams, S. M. Stirling, Mary Gentle, Harry Turtledove
    ISBN 0451460545 (0-451-46054-5)
    Softcover, Roc

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    Book summary:

    Alternate history is the branch of speculative fiction that explores what might have happened if history had taken a different turn. The obvious changes, like the Nazis winning World War II, have filled innumerable novels. Fortunately, the anthology Worlds That Weren't avoids the obvious with its four fine new novellas from four superior authors: Harry Turtledove, S.M. Stirling, Mary Gentle, and Walter Jon Williams.

    The collection opens with "The Daimon," written by Harry Turtledove, AH's best-known practitioner. In Turtledove's turning point, the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates chooses to accompany General Alkibiades to war instead of remaining in Athens, and sets Alkibiades on a triumphant, terrible new course.

    Set in the British India-dominated alternate history of The Peshawar Lancers, S.M. Stirling's novella is a rousing old-fashioned adventure. "Shikari in Galveston" follows a hunting safari through a regressed American frontier that might have given even Daniel Boone pause.

    A prequel to her Book of Ash tetralogy, Mary Gentle's novella "The Logistics of Carthage" concerns Christian warriors serving pagan Turks in a North Africa conquered by Visigoths instead of Vandals, and is the strongest story in Worlds That Weren't.

    The collection concludes with "The Last Ride of German Freddie," in which Nebula Award winner Walter Jon Williams considers what might have happened if the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had taken himself and his superman theories to the Wild West. --Cynthia Ward [via]

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  • Worldwar
    by Harry Turtledove
    ISBN 0345402405 (0-345-40240-5)
    Softcover, Ballantine Books

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    Del Rey edition paperback new [via]

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  • Worldwar : Striking the Balance
    by Harry Turtledove
    ISBN 0345405501 (0-345-40550-1)
    Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group

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    Book summary:

    WORLDWAR: BOOK 4
    At the bloody height of World War II, the deadliest enemies in all of human history were forced to put aside their hatreds and unite against an even fiercer foe: a seemingly invincible power bent on world domination.
    With awesome technology, the aggressors swept across the planet, sowing destruction as Tokyo, Berlin, and Washington, D.C., were A-bombed into submission. Russia, Nazi Germany, Japan and the U.S. were not easily cowed, however. With cunning and incredible daring, they pressed every advantage against the invader's superior strength, and, led by Stalin, began to detonate their own atom bombs in retaliation.
    City after city explodes in radioactive firestorms, and fears grow as the worldwide resources disappear; will there be any world left for the invaders to conquer, or for the uneasy allies to defend?
    While Mao Tse-tung wages a desperate guerrilla war and Hitler drives his country toward self-destruction, United States forces frantically try to stop the enemy's push from coast to coast. Yet in this battle to stave off world domination, unless the once-great military powers take the risk of annihilating the human race, they'll risk losing the war.
    The fatal, final deadline arrives in Harry Turtledove's grand, smashing finale to the Worldwar series, as uneasy allies desperately seek a way out of a no-win, no-survival situation: a way to live free in a world that may soon be bombed into atomic oblivion. [via]

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  • Turtledove, Harry: Worldwar : Upsetting the Balance
    Worldwar : Upsetting the Balance
    by Harry Turtledove
    ISBN 0345420586 (0-345-42058-6)
    Softcover, Random House Publishing Group

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  • Robinson, Kim Stanley: The Years of Rice and Salt
    The Years of Rice and Salt
    by Kim Stanley Robinson
    ISBN 0553580078 (0-553-58007-8)
    Softcover, Spectra

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    Book summary:

    Award-winning author Kim Stanley Robinson delivers a thoughtful and powerful examination of cultures and the people who shape them. How might human history be different if 14th-century Europe was utterly wiped out by plague, and Islamic and Buddhist societies emerged as the world's dominant religious and political forces? The Years of Rice and Salt considers this question through the stories of individuals who experience and influence various crucial periods in the seven centuries that follow. The credible alternate history that Robinson constructs becomes the framework for a tapestry of ideas about philosophy, science, theology, and politics.

    At the heart of the story are fundamental questions: what is the purpose of life and death? Are we eternal? Do our choices matter? The particular achievement of this book is that it weaves these threads into a story that is both intellectually and emotionally engaging. This is a highly recommended, challenging, and ambitious work. --Roz Genessee [via]

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