Book picks similar to
Colossus by Colin Falconer


historical-fiction
fiction
history
kultura

The Adventures of Captain Hatteras


Jules Verne - 1866
    In the novel, First Mate Shandon receives a mysterious letter asking him to construct a reinforced steamship in Liverpool. As he heads out for Melville Bay and the Arctic labyrinth, a crewman finally reveals himself as Captain John Hatteras, and his obsession--to get to the North Pole. After experiencing appalling cold and hunger, the captain treks across the frozen wastes in search of fuel. Abandoned by most of his crew, and accompanied by a rival American explorer, Hatteras continues his journey to the Pole, encountering endless perils and adventures along the way. This new and unabridged translation of the first of Verne's Extraordinary Journeys series brilliantly conveys the novel's hypnotic mood and atmosphere. This edition also includes the original, censored ending, and fascinating details about the Arctic expeditions that captivated Verne's imagination. The introduction provides biographical insights based on recently discovered documents, and contains original proof of Verne's sources and inspiration; the notes analyze for the first time the hundreds of real-life figures cited by Verne.

Abandon


Blake Crouch - 2009
    Recently, a similar party had also attempted to explore the town and was never heard from again. Now the area is believed to be haunted. This crew is about to discover, twenty miles from civilization with a blizzard bearing down, that they are not alone, and the past is very much alive.Revised edition: This edition of Abandon includes editorial revisions.

In the Balance


Harry Turtledove - 1994
    Machines soared through the air, churned through the seas, crawled across the surface, pushing ever forward, carrying death. Earth was engaged in titanic struggle. Germany, Russia, France, China, Japan: the maps were changing day by day. The hostilities spread in ever-widening ripples of destruction: Britain, Italy, Africa...The fate of the world hung in the balance. Then the real enemy came. Out of the dark of night, out of the soft glow of dawn, out of the clear blue sky came an invasion force the likes of which Earth had never known - and worldwar was truly joined. The invaders were inhuman and they were unstoppable. Their technology was far beyond our reach, and their goal was simple. Fleetlord Atvar had arrived to claim Earth for the Empire. Never before had Earth's people been more divided. Never had the need for unity been greater. And grudgingly, inexpertly, humanity took up the challenge. In this epic novel of alternate history, Harry Turtledove takes us around the globe. We roll with German panzers; watch the coast of Britain with the RAF; and welcome alien-liberators to the Warsaw ghetto. In tiny planes we skim the vast Russian steppe, and we push the envelope of technology in secret labs at the University of Chicago. Turtledove's saga covers all the Earth, and beyond, as mankind - in all its folly and glory - faces the ultimate threat; and a turning point in history shows us a past that never was and a future that could yet come to be...

Lost Legio IX


Marc Alan Edelheit - 2017
     One of history’s greatest mysteries, the Ninth Imperial Legion guarding Rome’s northernmost frontier in Britannia disappeared around the year 122 AD. This is their story. Badly outnumbered, facing certain destruction, and cut off from supply, the Imperial Roman Ninth Legion Hispana is in a desperate position. Surrounded by the hostile Celtic army, Senior Centurion Lucious Grackus Lisidus Karus must lead his men to safety after unexpectedly finding himself thrust into command of the legion. Then the unthinkable happens. Karus and the Ninth are transported to a strange place, far away from the Britannia they knew. The legion’s deliverance from danger at first appears to be a blessing from the gods, but slowly they begin to uncover the secrets of this new land, a world that is slowly being overrun by a terrible evil. A young woman is discovered in a dungeon, where she has been abandoned and left to starve. Inextricably linked with Karus’ own destiny, she may be the key to salvation, or worse, the instrument of destruction for the Ninth. Cast adrift in a terrible war, Karus must find his way through the mysteries of this unfamiliar world, one that is filled with true magic, strange alien races, evil gods, and dragons. More importantly, Karus must discover his destiny, and complete a desperate task set for him by a god of Rome. Should he fail, it will mean certain destruction for the Ninth, the triumph of evil, and the rise of a new order. Lost Legio IX is the first book in this exciting series. ‘For these I set no bounds in space or time; but have given empire without end.’ —Jupiter, Virgil’s Aeneid.

The Eagle Has Landed


Jack Higgins - 1975
    The mission, ordered by Hitler himself and planned by Heinrich Himmler, is led by ace agent Kurt Steiner and aided on the ground by IRA gunman Liam Devlin.As the deadly duo executes Hitler’s harrowing plot, only the quiet town of Studley Constable stands in their way. Its residents are the lone souls aware of the impending Nazi plan, and they must become the most unlikely of heroes as the fate of the war hangs in the balance.

By the Blood of Heroes


Joseph Nassise - 2012
    Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, set it on the blood-and-gore-soaked European battlefields of World War One, and you get By the Blood of Heroes, a wildly imaginative alternate history zombie novel by acclaimed urban fantasy author Joseph Nassise. When the German high command employs a terrible new chemical weapon that reanimates the dead, Allied forces must take on the Kaiser’s zombie army in order to rescue a downed American flying ace in the first book of Nassise’s The Great Undead War saga. By the Blood of Heroes is a deliciously gruesome adventure that horror and alternate history lovers, steampunk aficionados, and fans of such zombie-centric offerings as TV’s The Walking Dead, popular literature’s World War Z, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and Zombie Haiku, and the Resident Evil video game and film series will eagerly devour.

Dominion


C.J. Sansom - 2012
    Twelve years have passed since Churchill lost to the appeasers, and Britain surrendered to Nazi Germany after Dunkirk. As the long German war against Russia rages on in the east, the British people find themselves under dark authoritarian rule: the press, radio and television are controlled; the streets patrolled by violent auxiliary police and British Jews face ever greater constraints. There are terrible rumours too about what is happening in the basement of the German Embassy at Senate House. Defiance, though, is growing.In Britain, Winston Churchill's Resistance organisation is increasingly a thorn in the government's side. And in a Birmingham mental hospital an incarcerated scientist, Frank Muncaster, may hold a secret that could change the balance of the world struggle forever. Civil Servant David Fitzgerald, secretly acting as a spy for the Resistance, is given by them the mission to rescue his old friend Frank and get him out of the country. Before long he, together with a disparate group of Resistance activists, will find themselves fugitives in the midst of London’s Great Smog; as David’s wife Sarah finds herself drawn into a world more terrifying than she ever could have imagined. And hard on their heels is Gestapo Sturmbannfuhrer Gunther Hoth, brilliant, implacable hunter of men . . .

Black Cross


Greg Iles - 1995
    To salvage the planned assault, two vastly different but equally determined men are sent to infiltrate the secret concentration camp where the poison gas is being perfected on human subjects. Their only objective: destroy all traces of the gas and the men who created it — no matter how many lives may be lost...including their own.Stunning....From the very first page, Greg Iles takes his readers on an emotional roller-coaster ride, juxtaposing tension-filled action scenes, horrifying depictions of savage cruelty, and heart-stopping descriptions of sacrifice and bravery. A remarkable story from a remarkable writer.” — Booklist

Roma Eterna


Robert Silverberg - 2003
    Through brute force, terror, and sheer indomitable will, her armies have enslaved a world. From the reign of Maximilianus the Great in A.U.C. 1203 onward through the ages -- into a new era of scientific advancement and astounding technologies -- countless upstarts and enemies arise, only to be ground into the dust beneath the merciless Roman bootheels. But one people who suffer and endure throughout the many centuries of oppressive rule dream of the glorious day that is coming -- when the heavens themselves will be opened to them...and the ships they are preparing in secret will carry them on their "Great Exodus" to the stars.

The Road to Alexander


Jennifer Macaire - 2006
    Choosing her childhood hero Alexander the Great, she is sent back in time for less than a day. He mistakes her for Persephone, goddess of the dead, and kidnaps her, stranding her in his own time. What follows, after she awakes under the pomegranate tree, is a hilarious, mind-bending tale of a modern woman immersed in the ancient throes of sex, love, quite a bit of vino, war, death and ever so much more.

The Only Thing to Fear


Caroline Tung Richmond - 2014
    America has been carved up by the victors, and 16-year-old Zara lives a life of oppression in the Eastern America Territories. Under the iron rule of the Nazis, the government strives to maintain a master race, controlling everything from jobs to genetics. Despite her mixed heritage and hopeless social standing, Zara dreams of the free America she's only read about in banned books. A revolution is growing, and a rogue rebel group is plotting a deadly coup. Zara might hold the key to taking down the Führer for good, but it also might be the very thing that destroys her. Because what she has to offer the rebels is something she's spent her entire life hiding, under threat of immediate execution by the Nazis. In this action-packed, heart-stopping novel of a terrifying reality that could have been, Zara must decide just how far she'll go for freedom.

Dracula vs. Hitler


Patrick Sheane Duncan - 2016
    To fight these monstrous forces, Van Helsing raises a legendary monster from centuries of slumber... Prince Dracula himself.Once he was the ruler of Transylvania. Prince Vlad Dracul, is, above all else, a patriot. He proves more than willing to once again drive out his country’s invaders. Upshot: No one minds if he drinks all the German blood he desires.In Berlin, when Hitler hears about the many defeats his forces are suffering at the hands of an apparent true vampire, he is seduced by the possibility of becoming immortal. Thus two forces are set upon a collision course, the ultimate confrontation: Superpower against superpower.

Bitter Seeds


Ian Tregillis - 2010
    The Nazis have supermen, the British have demons, and one perfectly normal man gets caught in betweenRaybould Marsh is a British secret agent in the early days of the Second World War, haunted by something strange he saw on a mission during the Spanish Civil War: a German woman with wires going into her head who looked at him as if she knew him.When the Nazis start running missions with people who have unnatural abilities--a woman who can turn invisible, a man who can walk through walls, and the woman Marsh saw in Spain who can use her knowledge of the future to twist the present--Marsh is the man who has to face them. He rallies the secret warlocks of Britain to hold the impending invasion at bay. But magic always exacts a price. Eventually, the sacrifice necessary to defeat the enemy will be as terrible as outright loss would be.Alan Furst meets Alan Moore in the opening of an epic of supernatural alternate history, the tale of a twentieth century like ours and also profoundly different.

The Iron Lance


Stephen R. Lawhead - 1985
    While his father and brothers follow Pope Urban II’s call to win Jerusalem from the infidels, Murdo Ranulfson stays behind to guard his family’s interests. But when his home is confiscated by greedy usurpers, Murdo is forced to follow the Crusades himself. Hoping to find his father and redeem his family’s land, Murdo sets off on a journey that leads him to the Mediterranean—the heart of civilization now threatened by barbarian hordes—and on to the fabled city of Constantinople and beyond, to the Holy Land. Amidst brutality and ambition, Murdo discovers what he seeks—and obtains a relic that will guide him and his descendants for centuries.Rich in heroism, treachery, and adventure, The Iron Lance begins an epic trilogy of Scottish noble family fighting for its existence and its faith during the age of the Crusades—and of a secret society whose ceremonies will shape history for a millennium.“INTRIGUING . . . STEEPED IN HISTORICAL DETAIL . . .” —Library Journal

Master and Commander


Patrick O'Brian - 1969
    Meanwhile—after a heated first encounter that nearly comes to a duel—Aubrey and a brilliant but down-on-his-luck physician, Stephen Maturin, strike up an unlikely rapport. On a whim, Aubrey invites Maturin to join his crew as the Sophie’s surgeon. And so begins the legendary friendship that anchors this beloved saga set against the thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars.Through every ensuing adventure on which Aubrey and Maturin embark, from the witty parley of their lovers and enemies to the roar of broadsides as great ships close in battle around them, O’Brian “provides endlessly varying shocks and surprises—comic, grim, farcical and tragic.… [A] whole, solidly living world for the imagination to inhabit” (A. S. Byatt).