From Samuel Peralta, creator of the #1 bestselling Future Chronicles anthology series, comes a new speculative anthology series that turns the world you know upside down.In Alt.History 101, thirteen top speculative fiction authors re-imagine the world - as one where the inventor of the smallpox vaccine died before he'd created it, as one where the women's suffragist movement failed to win the right to vote, as one where the death penalty exists but where all forms of capital punishment are ruled inhumane - and ten other compelling stories charting the histories of these worlds.Enter worlds so much like our own, yet so different - where everything you know... is history.

    This is true.Other true things about hippos: they are savage, they are fast, and their jaws can snap a man in two.This was a terrible plan.Contained within this volume is an 1890s America that might have been: a bayou overrun by feral hippos and mercenary hippo wranglers from around the globe. It is the story of Winslow Houndstooth and his crew. It is the story of their fortunes. It is the story of his revenge.

    One of the most startlingly original and entertaining SF anthology concepts in years, perfectly preserving the spirit of H. G. Wells's classic. H. G. Wells's immortal novel The War of the Worlds describes an invasion from Mars through the fictional dispatches of a London newspaper reporter. Yet we have been able to see only one segment of the global catastrophe - until now. Here is the Martian invasion that might have been, from the Earthlings best prepared to tell the tale. Besides the struggle in England, the reporter mentions similar battles taking place all over the planet. From Teddy Roosevelt in Cuba to the Dowager Empress in China, we see our fellow humans encounter the Martian menace through the eyes of science fiction luminaries: --In Providence, Rhode Island, an eight-year-old H. P. Lovecraft bravely seeks communion with an alien intelligence - and a return to his long-lost home; --In Russia, a letter by Count Leo Tolstoy describes the coming of the ultimate revolution; --In a dark woods outside of Zurich, a heroic Albert Einstein finds himself trapped inside a Martian craft, where survival itself is relative; --In Amherst, Massachussetts, Emily Dickinson leaves poetic evidence that she encountered the Martians eleven years after her death; --In Paris, a young artist named Pablo Picasso is inspired by the Martian carnage to create his most shocking and disturbing masterpiece.Contents:**(H. G. Wells): Foreword (War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches) • essay by H. G. Wells*(Teddy Roosevelt): The Roosevelt Dispatches [War of the Worlds] (1996) / shortstory by Mike Resnick*(Percival Lowell): Canals in the Sand [War of the Worlds] (1996) / shortstory by Kevin J. Anderson*(Dowager Empress of China): Foreign Devils [War of the Worlds] (1996) / novelette by Walter Jon Williams*(Pablo Picasso): Blue Period [War of the Worlds] (1996) / shortstory by Daniel Marcus*(Henry James): The Martian Invasion Journals of Henry James [War of the Worlds] (1996) / novelette by Robert Silverberg*(Winston Churchill and H. Rider Haggard): The True Tale of the Final Battle of Umslopogaas the Zulu [War of the Worlds] (1996) / shortstory by Janet Berliner*(Texas Rangers): Night of the Cooters [War of the Worlds] (1987) / shortstory by Howard Waldrop*(Albert Einstein): Determinism and the Martian War, with Relativistic Corrections [War of the Worlds] (1996) / shortstory by Doug Beason*(Rudyard Kipling): Soldier of the Queen [War of the Worlds] (1996) / shortstory by Barbara Hambly*(Edgar Rice Burroughs): Mars: The Home Front [War of the Worlds] (1996) / shortstory by George Alec Effinger*(Joseph Pulitzer): A Letter from St. Louis [War of the Worlds] (1996) / shortstory by Allen Steele*(Leo Tolstoy): Resurrection [War of the Worlds] (1996) / shortstory by Mark W. Tiedemann*(Jules Verne): Paris Conquers All [War of the Worlds] (1996) / shortstory by Gregory Benford and David Brin*(H. P. Lovecraft): To Mars and Providence [War of the Worlds] (1996) / shortstory by Don Webb*(Mark Twain): Roughing It During the Martian Invasion [War of the Worlds] (1996) / shortstory by Daniel Keys Moran and Jodi Moran*(Joseph Conrad): To See the World End [War of the Worlds] (1996) / shortstory by M. Shayne Bell*(Jack London): After a Lean Winter [War of the Worlds] (1996) / novelette by Dave Wolverton*(Emily Dickinson): The Soul Selects Her Own Society: Invasion and Repulsion: A Chronological Reinterpretation of Two of Emily Dickinson's Poems: A Wellsian Perspective [War of the Worlds] (1996) / shortstory by Connie Willis**(Jules Verne): Afterword: Retrospective (War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches) (1996) • essay by Gregory Benford and David Brin..

    When Konrad von Marburg, a Church inquisitor, arrives on the scene, innocent and guilty alike find themselves subject to the inquisitor’s violent form of purification. Two knights of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae, Andreas and Raphael, soon arrive in the village. Though each journeys on a separate path, they quickly band together to confront the inquisitor as he whips the townspeople into a righteous bloodlust.When her dead husband’s severed head appears on her doorstep, a local woman is charged with practicing heretical rituals, it is up to the knights to discover the truth behind the brutal murder before the torches are lit and the woman is burned at the stake. Their task proves daunting, though, as the townspeople have their own long-buried secrets and sins that they want to keep hidden—even if it means allowing the sacrifice of an innocent woman.With Sinner, Mark Teppo forges the first link in a chain that leads to the world-shattering events of the Mongoliad series.

    Gathered into one volume by intrepid chrononauts and world-renowned anthologists Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, this book compiles more than a century's worth of literary travels into the past and the future that will serve to reacquaint readers with beloved classics of the time travel genre and introduce them to thrilling contemporary innovations.This marvelous volume includes nearly seventy journeys through time from authors such as Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, William Gibson, Ursula K. Le Guin, George R. R. Martin, Michael Moorcock, H. G. Wells, and Connie Willis, as well as helpful non-fiction articles original to this volume (such as Charles Yu's "Top Ten Tips For Time Travelers").In fact, this book is like a time machine of its very own, covering millions of years of Earth's history from the age of the dinosaurs through to strange and fascinating futures, spanning the ages from the beginning of time to its very end. The Time Traveler's Almanac is the ultimate anthology for the time traveler in your life.

    In it, a small band of warriors and mystics raise their swords to save Europe from a bloodthirsty Mongol invasion. Inspired by their leader (an elder of an order of warrior monks), they embark on a perilous journey and uncover the history of hidden knowledge and conflict among powerful secret societies that had been shaping world events for millennia.But the saga reaches the modern world via a circuitous route. In the late 19th century, Sir Richard F. Burton, an expert on exotic languages and historical swordsmanship, is approached by a mysterious group of English martial arts aficionados about translating a collection of long-lost manuscripts. Burton dies before his work is finished, and his efforts were thought lost until recently rediscovered by a team of amateur archaeologists in the ruins of a mansion in Trieste, Italy. From this collection of arcana, the incredible tale of The Mongoliad was recreated.Full of high adventure, unforgettable characters, and unflinching battle scenes, The Mongoliad ignites a dangerous quest where willpower and blades are tested and the scope of world-building is redefined.A note on this edition: The Mongoliad began as a social media experiment, combining serial story-telling with a unique level of interaction between authors and audience during the creative process. Since its original iteration, The Mongoliad has been restructured, edited, and rewritten under the supervision of its authors to create a more cohesive reading experience and will be published as a trilogy of novels. This edition is the definitive edition and is the authors' preferred text.Reviews:“This off-beat alternate history of Eurasia could be your new obsession.” –i09.com“This story is pure adventure, with much swordplay and swashbuckling.” –Kirkus Reviews“A terrifically engaging book that pulled me along at least as quickly as The Hunger Games. Think Lord of the Rings without all that pesky fantasy…Five frighteningly accurate historical sword fights out of five.” –Fanboy Comics

    With cover art by Bob Eggleton.Contents: Through darkest adolescence with Lois McMaster Bujold : or Thank you, but I already have a life / Lillian Stewart Carl — The adventure of the lady on the embankment — Barter — Garage sale — The hole truth — Dreamweaver’s dilemma — The mountains of mourning — My first novel — Beyond genre barriers — The unsung collaborator — Allegories of change — Biolog — Answers — Miles Naismith Vorkosigan : his universe and times / Suford Lewis — Towards a genealogy of Lord Miles Vorkosigan and other persons of interest / Suford Lewis — A pronunciation guide to names and places / Suford Lewis

    In the title tale, narrator James 14 returns home with Mama to 1898 village when his father Les, time-traveller Ambassador to aliens, vanishes from 1975 jet-pack city. When the "mothaship" takes the anointed few into the brave new world, those left behind are angry. "0wnz0red" asks - what happens when hackers hack the human body? 1 Craphound 2 A place so foreign 3 All day sucker 4 To market, to market 5 Return to Pleasure Island 6 Shadow of the mothaship 7 Home again, home again 8 The super man and the bugout 9 Ownz0red

    With her career and her life at stake, June Stefanov will ally with a remarkable traveler who exposes her to a reality she never imagined, as they embark on an around-the-world adventure and discover breathtaking secrets of the past...Russia, 1725: In the depths of the Kremlin, the tsar's loyal mechanician brings to life two astonishingly humanlike mechanical beings. Peter and Elena are a brother and sister fallen out of time, possessed with uncanny power, and destined to serve great empires. Struggling to blend into pre-Victorian society, they are pulled into a legendary war that has raged for centuries.The Clockwork Dynasty interweaves past and present, exploring a race of beings designed to live by ironclad principles, yet constantly searching for meaning. As June plunges deeper into their world, her choices will ultimately determine their survival or extermination.

    Volume One, presenting the first five writers to receive the award, features the fiction of: Robert A. HeinleinJack WilliamsonClifford D. SimakL. Sprague de CampFritz Leiber

    until the day the spider appears. What looks like an ordinary arachnid turns out to be Anansi, the trickster god of African legend, and its arrival throws Dion’s existence into chaos. Dion’s already impressive legal brain is sharpened. He becomes nimbler-witted and more ruthless, able to manipulate and deceive like never before, both in and out of court. He has been transformed into Anansi’s avatar on earth.Then he discovers the price he has to pay for his new-found skills: he must travel to America and take part in a contest between avatars of all the other trickster gods. It’s a life-or-death battle of wits, full of skulduggery and double-cross. At the end, only one will be left standing.

    Ginger is a medium for the Spirit Corps, a special Spiritualist force.Each soldier heading for the front is conditioned to report to the mediums of the Spirit Corps when they die so the Corps can pass instant information about troop movements to military intelligence.Ginger and her fellow mediums contribute a great deal to the war efforts, so long as they pass the information through appropriate channels. While Ben is away at the front, Ginger discovers the presence of a traitor. Without the presence of her fiance to validate her findings, the top brass thinks she's just imagining things. Even worse, it is clear that the Spirit Corps is now being directly targeted by the German war effort. Left to her own devices, Ginger has to find out how the Germans are targeting the Spirit Corps and stop them. This is a difficult and dangerous task for a woman of that era, but this time both the spirit and the flesh are willing…

    They fly two into the Tigris & Euphrates World Trade Towers in Baghdad, and a third into the Arab Defense Ministry in Riyadh. The fourth plane, believed to be bound for Mecca, is brought down by its passengers.The United Arab States declares a War on Terror. Arabian and Persian troops invade the Eastern Seaboard and establish a Green Zone in Washington, D.C. . . .Summer, 2009: Arab Homeland Security agent Mustafa al Baghdadi interrogates a captured suicide bomber. The prisoner claims that the world they are living in is a mirage--in the real world, America is a superpower, and the Arab states are just a collection of "backward third-world countries." A search of the bomber's apartment turns up a copy of "The New York Times," dated September 12, 2001, that appears to support his claim. Other captured terrorists have been telling the same story. The president wants answers, but Mustafa soon discovers he's not the only interested party.The gangster Saddam Hussein is conducting his own investigation. And the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee--a war hero named Osama bin Laden--will stop at nothing to hide the truth. As Mustafa and his colleagues venture deeper into the unsettling world of terrorism, politics, and espionage, they are confronted with questions without any rational answers, and the terrifying possibility that their world is not what it seems.Acclaimed novelist Matt Ruff has created a shadow world that is eerily recognizable but, at the same time, almost unimaginable. Gripping, subversive, and unexpectedly moving, "The Mirage" probes our deepest convictions and most arresting fears.

    Subterranean Press is proud to publish The Sagan Diary, a long novelette that for the first time looks at the worlds of the Hugo-nominated Old Man's War and its sequel The Ghost Brigades from the point of view of Lieutenant Jane Sagan, who in a series of diary entries gives her views on some of the events included in the series... and sheds new light into some previously unexplored corners. If you thought you knew Jane Sagan before, prepare to be surprised.

    A young Puritan woman travels to the New World with her unwanted new husband. Alan Turing, the renowned mathematician and code breaker, writes letters to his best friend's mother. A Jewish refugee and professor of computer science struggles to reconnect with his increasingly detached wife. An isolated and traumatized young girl exchanges messages with an intelligent software program. A former Silicon Valley Wunderkind is imprisoned for creating illegal lifelike dolls.Each of these characters is attempting to communicate across gaps — to estranged spouses, lost friends, future readers, or a computer program that may or may not understand them. In dazzling and electrifying prose, Louisa Hall explores how the chasm between computer and human — shrinking rapidly with today's technological advances — echoes the gaps that exist between ordinary people. Though each speaks from a distinct place and moment in time, all five characters share the need to express themselves while simultaneously wondering if they will ever be heard, or understood.