Book picks similar to
Alternate Empires by Gregory BenfordJames P. Hogan
alternate-history
science-fiction
anthology
short-stories
The Man in the High Castle
Philip K. Dick - 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 twenty years earlier the United States lost a war — and is now occupied 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 wake.
The Half-Made World
Felix Gilman - 2010
What exists has been carved out amidst a war between two rival factions: the Line, paving the world with industry and claiming its residents as slaves; and the Gun, a cult of terror and violence that cripples the population with fear. The only hope at stopping them has seemingly disappeared--the Red Republic that once battled the Gun and the Line, and almost won. Now they're just a myth, a bedtime story parents tell their children, of hope. To the west lies a vast, uncharted world, inhabited only by the legends of the immortal and powerful Hill People, who live at one with the earth and its elements. Liv Alverhyusen, a doctor of the new science of psychology, travels to the edge of the made world to a spiritually protected mental institution in order to study the minds of those broken by the Gun and the Line. In its rooms lies an old general of the Red Republic, a man whose shattered mind just may hold the secret to stopping the Gun and the Line. And either side will do anything to understand how.
Gloriana
Michael Moorcock - 1978
Gloriana's reign brings the Empire of Albion into a Golden Age, but her oppressive responsibilities choke her, prohibiting any form of sexual satisfaction, no matter what fetish she tries. Her problem is in fact symbolic of the hypocrisy of her entire court. While her life is meant to mirror that of her nation - an image of purity, virtue, enlightenment and prosperity - the truth is that her peaceful empire is kept secure by her wicked chancellor Monfallcon and his corrupt network of spies and murderers, the most sinister of whom is Captain Quire, who is commissioned to seduce Gloriana and thus bring down Albion and the entire empire.
The Mongoliad: Book One
Neal Stephenson - 2012
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
Grantville Gazette, Volume I
Eric FlintRick Boatright - 2004
A religious conference has been called in nearby Rudolstadt which will determine doctrine for all the Lutherans in the nation. The hard-fought principle of religious freedom is at stake, threatened alike by intransigent theologians and students rioting in the streets.As if that weren't bad enough:* the up-time American Lutherans are themselves divided;* a rambunctious old folk singer is cheerfully pouring gasoline on the flames;* and a Calvinist "facilitator" from Geneva is maneuvering to get the U.S. involved with the developing revolutionary movement in Naples.Stories include:* Portraits by Eric Flint* Anna's Story by Loren Jones* Curio and Relic by Tom Van Natta* The Sewing Circle by Gorg Huff* The Rudolstadt Colloquy by Virginia DeMarce* Radio in the 1632 Universe by Rick Boatright* They've Got Bread Mold, So Why Can't They Make Penicillin? by Robert Gottlieb* Horse Power by Karen Bergstralh
Time Travelers Never Die
Jack McDevitt - 2009
Fearing his father may be stranded in time—or worse—Shel enlists the aid of Dave Dryden, a linguist, to accompany him on the rescue mission. Their journey through history takes them from the enlightenment of Renaissance Italy through the American Wild West to the civil-rights upheavals of the 20th century. Along the way, they encounter a diverse cast of historical greats, sometimes in unexpected situations. Yet the elder Shelborne remains elusive. And then Shel violates his agreement with Dave not to visit the future. There he makes a devastating discovery that sends him fleeing back through the ages, and changes his life forever.
Alt.History 101
Samuel PeraltaNicolas Wilson - 2015
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.
E Pluribus Unicorn
Theodore Sturgeon - 1953
Contents:· The Silken-Swift · nv F&SF Nov ’53 · The Professor’s Teddy-Bear · ss Weird Tales Mar ’48 · Bianca’s Hands · ss Argosy (UK) May ’47 · Saucer of Loneliness · ss Galaxy Feb ’53 · The World Well Lost · ss Universe Jun ’53 · It Wasn’t Syzygy [“The Deadly Ratio”] · nv Weird Tales Jan ’48 · The Music · vi * · Scars · ss Zane Grey’s Western Magazine May ’49 · Fluffy · ss Weird Tales Mar ’47 · The Sex Opposite · nv Fantastic Fll ’52 · Die, Maestro, Die! · nv Dime Detective Magazine May ’49 · Cellmate · ss Weird Tales Jan ’47 · A Way of Thinking · nv Amazing Oct/Nov ’53
The Cross-Time Engineer
Leo Frankowski - 1986
But several days of ever stranger events convinced him that he had somehow been stranded in 1231 A.D.And that meant Conrad had to turn Medieval Poland into the most powerful contry in the world. Otherwise the Mongols were destined to detroy it--in just ten years!
First Flight
Mary Robinette Kowal - 2009
"First Flight" is a finalist for the 2010 Locus Award.The winner of the 2008 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of short fiction published in Strange Horizons, Cosmos, and Asimov's. Her first novel, Shades of Milk and Honey, will be published by Tor in 2010.
Burning Chrome
William Gibson - 1986
Johnny Mnemonic (1981)The Gernsback Continuum (1981)Fragments of a Hologram Rose (1977)The Belonging Kind (1981) with John ShirleyHinterlands (1981)Red Star, Winter Orbit (1983) with Bruce SterlingNew Rose Hotel (1984)The Winter Market (1985)Dogfight (1985) with Michael SwanwickBurning Chrome (1982)
Looking for Jake
China MiévilleCristina Jurado - 2003
Now from this brilliant young writer comes a groundbreaking collection of stories, many of them previously unavailable in the United States, and including four never-before-published tales–one set in Miéville’s signature fantasy world of New Crobuzon. Among the fourteen superb fictions are“Jack”–Following the events of his acclaimed novel Perdido Street Station, this tale of twisted attachment and horrific revenge traces the rise and fall of the Remade Robin Hood known as Jack Half-a-Prayer. “Familiar”–Spurned by its creator, a sorceress’s familiar embarks on a strange and unsettling odyssey of self-discovery in a coming-of-age story like no other.
Yellow Blue Tibia
Adam Roberts - 2009
With the Nazis recently defeated, Stalin gathers half a dozen of the top Soviet science fiction authors in a dacha in the countryside. Convinced that the defeat of America is only a few years away—and equally convinced that the Soviet Union needs a massive external threat to hold it together—Stalin orders the writers to compose a massively detailed and highly believable story about an alien race poised to invade the earth. The little group of writers gets down to the task and spends months working until new orders come from Moscow to immediately halt the project. The scientists obey and live their lives until, in the aftermath of Chernobyl, the survivors gather again, because something strange has happened: the story they invented in 1946 is starting to come true.
The Dragon Waiting
John M. Ford - 1983
But this is a changed world, and medieval Europe is dominated by the threat from the Byzantine Empire. Sforza, the Vampire Duke, marshals his forces for his long-planned attack on Florence, and Byzantium is on the march. A mercenary, the exiled heir to the Byzantine throne, a young woman physician forced to flee Florence, and a Welsh wizard, the nephew of Owain Gly Dwr, seem to have no common goals but together they wage an intrigue-filled campaign against the might of Byzantium, striving to secure the English throne for Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and make him Richard III.
Eifelheim
Michael Flynn - 2006
Tom, a contemporary historian, and his theoretical physicist girlfriend Sharon, become interested. Tom indeed becomes obsessed. By all logic, the town should have survived, but it didn't and that violates everything Tom knows about history. What's was special about Eifelheim that it utterly disappeared more than 600 years ago? Father Dietrich is the village priest of Oberhochwald, the village that will soon gain the name of Teufelheim, in later years corrupted to Eifelheim, in the year 1348, when the Black Death is gathering strength across Europe but is still not nearby. Dietrich is an educated man, knows science and philosophy, and to his astonishment becomes the first contact between humanity and an alien race from a distant star when their interstellar ship crashes in the nearby forest. It is a time of wonders, in the shadow of the plague.Tom and Sharon, and Father Dietrich, have a strange and intertwined destiny of tragedy and triumph in this brilliant SF novel by the winner of the Robert A. Heinlein Award.