Book picks similar to
1882: Custer in Chains by Robert Conroy


alternate-history
fiction
alternative-history
military

Her Brother's Keeper


Mike Kupari - 2015
    Air Force weapons expert Mike Kupari, co-author of Dead Six and Swords of Exodus, offers up a science fiction adventure. When privateer Captain Catherine Blackwood is enlisted to rescue her brother from a treacherous warlord, she finds herself on her most dangerous mission yet.It's been years since Catherine Blackwood left the stodgy, repressive colony world of Avalon. Now the captain of the privateer vessel Andromeda, she is the master of her own destiny. But Catherine soon finds herself back on Avalon after receiving a plea for help from a most unlikely source: her estranged father, esteemed Avalon Council member Augustus Blackwood. It seems Catherine's brother, the heir to the Blackwood aristocracy, has gone off in search of treasure on the failed, chaotic world of Zanzibar. But Cecil Blackwood's plans have gone very, very wrong, and he has been taken hostage and held for ransom by a fearsome local warlord. Augustus, knowing his daughter is the only one who can be trusted to return his son safely, swallows his pride and hires Catherine to bring her brother home. Catherine takes the job—but it won't be easy. Just getting to Zanzibar proves treacherous. And once she arrives, things only get worse. If she is to save her brother, Catherine Blackwood must face down danger at every turn and uncover a mystery four million years in the making. About Her Brother's Keeper: "After cowriting Dead Six and Swords of Exodus with Larry ­Correia, Kupari makes his solo debut with this space opera that is bound to attract fans of Mike ­Shepherd’s Kris Longknife series or Elizabeth Moon’s Vatta’s War books. An excellent choice for both teen and adult sf readers."—Library Journal "[P]age-turning action . . . may be Kuperi's best book yet."—Galveston County Daily News “A big, sweeping space adventure, with heroic characters you care about. Mike Kupari is an awesome storyteller.”—Larry Correia

A Thousand Suns


Alex Scarrow - 2006
    The Nazi regime is being slowly throttled by the oncoming Russian and Allied armies and Hitler rages uselessly in his Berlin bunker. But the high command have one more throw of the dice to make. An audacious plan is hatched to save the Fatherland and beat off the oncoming apocalypse. All it will take is a hodge-podge squadron of escort fighters, a captured U.S. bomber, and one brave but suicidal pilot to fly it over the Atlantic into the beating heart of America. Half a century later, a rusting plane is discovered, sunk with its crew, off the coast of New York—a relic from a bygone age. Chris Roland, a brilliant young photographer, is sent to take photos of this time capsule. But it is only when he discovers that the fragments of Nazi uniforms on the decaying corpses that he realizes that he has come across a secret so terrible that even 50 years later it could still kill him.

Leviathan


Scott Westerfeld - 2009
    His own people have turned on him. His title is worthless. All he has is a battletorn war machine and a loyal crew of men.Deryn Sharp is a commoner, disguised as a boy in the British Air Service. She's a brilliant airman. But her secret is in constant danger of being discovered.With World War I brewing, Alek and Deryn's paths cross in the most unexpected way…taking them on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure that will change both their lives forever.

Kirov


John Schettler - 2012
    Built from the bones of all four prior Kirov Class battlecruisers, she is updated with Russia’s most lethal weapons, given back her old name, and commissioned in the year 2020. A year later, with tensions rising to the breaking point between Russia and the West, Kirov is completing her final missile trials in the Arctic Sea when a strange accident transports her to another time. With power no ship in the world can match, much less comprehend, she must decide the fate of nations in the most titanic conflict the world has ever seen—WWII. The novel is an intensely focused naval saga, where the crew of the lost Russian battlecruiser must struggle to understand what has happened to them, and then make a choice that could be decisive in the outcome of the war—who’s side are they on? The course of all future history rides in the balance! At this crucial time, Kirov finds herself just days and miles away from a secret summit at sea between Churchill and Roosevelt. On August 9, 1941, the two great leaders meet to plan cooperation in the war and lay down the Atlantic Charter, which decides the framework of post war power in the world and becomes the basis for the new United Nations and NATO. With the hindsight of history as their guide, Kirov races south toward the secret meeting place at Argentia Bay in Newfoundland. Even as she cruises for the Denmark strait, both Roosevelt and Churchill prepare to embark for the sea journey as well. The Royal Navy soon discovers what they believe to be a fearsome new German raider in the Norwegian Sea, and they join with America’s Atlantic Fleet to bar the way and hunt down the most formidable surface action ship in the world.

His Majesty's Dragon


Naomi Novik - 2006
    When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes the precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Captain 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.

Karen Memory


Elizabeth Bear - 2015
    See, my name is Karen Memery, like memory only spelt with an e, and I'm one of the girls what works in the Hôtel Mon Cherie on Amity Street. Hôtel has a little hat over the o like that. It's French, so Beatrice tells me."Set in the late 19th century—when the city we now call Seattle Underground was the whole town (and still on the surface), when airships plied the trade routes, would-be gold miners were heading to the gold fields of Alaska, and steam-powered mechanicals stalked the waterfront, Karen is a young woman on her own, is making the best of her orphaned state by working in Madame Damnable's high-quality bordello. Through Karen's eyes we get to know the other girls in the house—a resourceful group—and the poor and the powerful of the town. Trouble erupts one night when a badly injured girl arrives at their door, begging sanctuary, followed by the man who holds her indenture, and who has a machine that can take over anyone's mind and control their actions. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the next night brings a body dumped in their rubbish heap—a streetwalker who has been brutally murdered.Bear brings alive this Jack-the-Ripper yarn of the old west with a light touch in Karen's own memorable voice, and a mesmerizing evocation of classic steam-powered science.

The Cobra Trilogy


Timothy Zahn - 2004
    Outnumbered and on the defensive, Earth made a desperate decision. It would attack the aliens not from space, but on the ground-with forces the Trofts did not even suspect. Thus were created the Cobras, a guerilla force whose weapons were surgically implanted, invisible to the unsuspecting eye, yet undeniably deadly. But power brings temptation . . . and not all the Cobras could be trusted to fight for Earth alone. Jonny Moreau would learn the uses-and abuses-of his special abilities, and what it truly meant to be a Cobra.

Stars and Stripes Forever


Harry Harrison - 1998
    navy warship stopped a British packet and seized two Confederate emissaries on their way to England to seek backing for their cause. England responded with rage, calling for a war of vengeance. The looming crisis was defused by the peace-minded Prince Albert. But imagine how Albert's absence during this critical moment might have changed everything. For lacking Albert's calm voice of reason, Britain now seizes the opportunity to attack and conquer a crippled, war-torn America.Ulysses S. Grant is poised for an attack that could smash open the South's defenses. In Washington, Abraham Lincoln sees a first glimmer of hope that this bloody war might soon end. But then disaster strikes: English troops have invaded from Canada. With most of the Northern troops withdrawn to fight the new enemy, General William Tecumseh Sherman and his weakened army stand alone against the Confederates. Can a divided, bloodied America defeat England, or will the United States cease to exist for all time?

Great Kings' War


Roland J. Green - 1985
    Here the Indo-Aryan invasions went east across Asia and down the Aleutian Islands into North America, where they have stagnated for thousands of years. Dropped off into the middle of a local dispute, Corporal Calvin Morrison comes face to face with warriors armed with pikes and broadswords, not petty criminals. Lord Kalvan, as the locals call him, transforms the petty Princedom of Hostigos into a fearsome warrior Kingdom by inspired leadership and advanced military knowledge.Now, after having created and saved his new nation of Hos-Hostigos from destruction by Styphon's House, a tyrannical theocracy that holds sacred the secret formula for gunpowder, Kalvan, now Great King of Hos-Hostigos, faces his greatest challenge-keeping what he has won.The Holy Host of Styphon and the Royal Army of Hos-Harphax, two of the greatest armies in the history of the Five Kingdoms, are on the move and Kalvan will once again have to call upon his knowledge of military history to save his family and friends. This time it's personal!

The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack


Mark Hodder - 2010
    The two men are sucked into the perilous depths of this moral and ethical vacuum when Lord Palmerston commissions Burton to investigate assaults on young women committed by a weird apparition known as Spring Heeled Jack, and to find out why werewolves are terrorizing London's East End.Their investigations lead them to one of the defining events of the age, and the terrifying possibility that the world they inhabit shouldn't exist at all!

A Long Time Until Now


Michael Z. Williamson - 2015
    A military unit is thrust back into Paleolithic times with only their guns and portable hardware.Ten soldiers on convoy in Afghanistan suddenly find themselves lost in time. Somehow, they arrived in Earth's Paleolithic Asia. With no idea how they arrived or how to get back, the shock of the event is severe. They discover groups of the similarly displaced: Imperial Romans, Neolithic Europeans, and a small cadre of East Indian peasants. Despite their technological advantage, the soldiers only have ten people, and know no way home. Then two more time travelers arrive from a future far beyond the present. These time travelers may have the means to get back, but they aren't giving it up. In fact, they may have a treacherous agenda of their own, one that may very well lead to the death of the displaced in a harsh and dangerous era.

Treasure Planet


Hal Colebatch - 2014
    “Ah, the wealth o’ the treasure planet be beyond the dreams of Man or the hopes o’ Kzin!” On Wunderland, a generation after Liberation, memories of the bloody kzin conquest and Occupation have faded, and men and kzin live largely in peace. But the fabulous treasure of the kzin pirates, hidden on a distant world, remains a magnet for freebooters. Young Peter Cartwright and his kzinrett friend Marthar receive information and map from a most unlikely source and soon themselves fighting the most ruthless pirates in Known Space for an unimaginable prize.About the Man-Kzin War Series:“[The Man-Kzin Wars series is] excellent . . .gripping . . .and expands well on Larry Niven’s universe. . . .” –Locus

The Buntline Special


Mike Resnick - 2010
    Think you know the story of the O.K. Corral? Think again, as five-time Hugo winner Mike Resnick takes on his first steampunk western tale, and the West will never be the same.

Rewinder


Brett Battles - 2014
    But even if you did, you’d never believe it.The world as you know it wouldn't be the same without him. Denny was born into one of the lowest rungs of society, but his bleak fortunes abruptly change when the mysterious Upjohn Institute recruits him to be a Rewinder, a verifier of personal histories. The job at first sounds like it involves researching old books and records, but Denny soon learns it's far from it. A Rewinder's job is to observe history.In person.Embracing his new duties with enthusiasm, Denny witnesses things he could never even imagine before. But as exciting as the adventures into the past are, there are dangers, too. For even the smallest error can have consequences. Life-altering consequences. Time, after all, is merely a reference point.

The Falling Machine


Andrew P. Mayer - 2011
    But twenty year-old socialite Sarah Stanton still dreams of becoming a hero. Her opportunity arrives in tragedy when the leader of the Society of Paragons, New York's greatest team of gentlemen adventurers, is murdered right before her eyes. To uncover the truth behind the assassination, Sarah joins forces with the amazing mechanical man known as The Automaton. Together they unmask a conspiracy at the heart of the Paragons that reveals the world of heroes and high-society is built on a crumbling foundation of greed and lies. When Sarah comes face to face with the megalomaniacal villain behind the murder, she must discover if she has the courage to sacrifice her life of privilege and save her clockwork friend.