Book picks similar to
Grantville Gazette IX by Eric Flint


anthology
historical-fiction
alternate-history
science-fiction

Opening Moves


Colin Gee - 2012
    Most of the characters therein are a figment of the author’s imagination. Without exception, those characters that are historical figures of fact or based upon historical figures of fact are used fictitiously, and their actions, demeanour, conversations, and characters are similarly all figments of the author’s imagination.]

A Prophet Without Honor: A Novel of Alternative History


Joseph Wurtenbaugh - 2017
    Written in epistolary style and populated with interesting, fully-realized characters, the multi-general narrative is a seamless blend of authentic fact and sound speculation. The plot focuses on the one great, unrealized opportunity of the Twentieth Century. In the first months of 1936, Adolf Hitler risked everything by ordering his untrained military to reoccupy the Rhineland. It was a bluff. The Germans would have been forced to retreat if the French or British had offered the slightest opposition. But the bluff succeeded. History changed decisively. Hitler quieted the opposition at home, and marched the world relentlessly on, to the edge of destruction and beyond. The story examines that lost chance in detail. The result is a compelling story full of intrigue, danger, romance, and action, culminating in the reckoning that Hitler might have faced, had events taken a different course. It is a celebration of ordinary integrity and the enduring power of simple good will - even in times when honesty is the most dangerous virtue of all and the effects of good will seem lost in obscurity.

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.

A History of What Comes Next


Sylvain Neuvel - 2021
    Preserve the knowledge.Survive at all costs.Take them to the stars.Over 99 identical generations, Mia’s family has shaped human history to push them to the stars, making brutal, wrenching choices and sacrificing countless lives. Her turn comes at the dawn of the age of rocketry. Her mission: to lure Wernher Von Braun away from the Nazi party and into the American rocket program, and secure the future of the space race. But Mia’s family is not the only group pushing the levers of history: an even more ruthless enemy lurks behind the scenes.A darkly satirical first contact thriller, as seen through the eyes of the women who make progress possible and the men who are determined to stop them...

Strike Force Red: The Korth Chronicles Book 1


C.T. Glatte - 2019
    A catastrophic event has crippled the alien's technology and they must interact with the species they were sent to observe. Europe goes dark. A decade of silence. Western countries fear war is on the horizon. Mandatory service and war readiness are the reality. When war finally comes, It’s on US soil. Jimmy Crandall and his fellow infantrymen are thrust into combat against the Korth supported Red Army. It’s a brutal and bloody clash of superpowers. MaryAnn Larkin joined the Army Air Corps, her superior reflexes are a perfect fit for the nation’s top fighter…the P51 Mustang, but she'll be battling alien enhanced Russian fighters and will need all her skill to survive. Navies, Armies and Air Forces clash and North America becomes a battleground. With the humans effectively at each other’s throats, the Korth continue their secret mission, which, if successful will mean the end of Earth as we know it. Get book one: Strike Force Red and prepare to stay up late.

Other Americas


Norman Spinrad - 1988
    Written with the biting wit and penetrating insight that are his trademarks, this new collection is exciting and essential reading.

The Nomad of Time


Michael Moorcock - 1981
    

The Chrysanthemum, the Cross, and the Dragon


Iver P. Cooper - 2018
    Cooper's latest alternate history novel, a new contribution to Eric Flint's 1632 Universe, the romance between Juan Cardona, an officer in Spain's Manila garrison, and Huang Mingyu, a young, beautiful Chinese woman, is threatened when a Dutch-Japanese force launches a surprise attack on 17th century Manila. Manila falls and Juan is rescued by Huang Mingyu, who proves to have hidden talents and connections. It is then up to Juan to warn the incoming Manila galleon of the Dutch-Japanese threat before it blunders into Manila Bay, and to prove his worth to Mingyu's family. Who have interests of their own in the region....Will true love prevail when Japan (the chrysanthemum), Spain (the cross) and China (the dragon) come into conflict?For readers unfamiliar with the 1632 universe, it posits a cosmic catastrophe -- the RIng of Fire -- that throws the West Virginia town of Grantville into 17th century Germany. By 1633, the ripples caused by this event have reached East Asia, and the Japanese are determined to forestall the missionary-instigated Shimabara Rebellion of 1637.

The Long and Short of It


Jodi Taylor - 2017
    When a Child is Born - A jump back to 1066 to witness the coronation of William the Conqueror goes slightly astray. Roman Holiday - Max and her team become spectacularly involved with Julius Caesar, Cleopatra and a basket of confused asps. Christmas Present - An attempt to rescue lost historians involving an enraged pig and Boudicca herself. The Very First Damned Thing - Discover the truth about the very beginning of St Mary's. Ships and Stings and Wedding Rings - A gun left behind in Ancient Egypt and a race against time to prevent a catastrophe. The Great St Mary's Day Out - Hooray! It's a happy holiday. For everyone except Max - the only one with her mind on the job. My Name is Markham - Alfred, the cakes and Mr Markham. The Great British Bake Off it's not! And a bonus - a new and previously unpublished short story.

Bread Alone (Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Number 34)


Sharon Lee - 2021
    Bread is a good start for sustenance.Don Eyr and Serana were survivors who came to Low Port – it gave them air, water, a place to stand and a place to make bread. The place to sleep meant they needed a certain amount of safety and to get that they founded a bakery at the corner of Crakle and Toom, brought in others seeking to survive in the midst of the poverty and ignorance, and built a tiny bastion of a self-sufficient community dedicated to raising competent, alert children who understood decency.Low Port toughs tried to break the bakery and a planet-shaking blast from the skies nearly did it in, but the bakery was hope, and people who have hope will fight to keep it.This chapbook collects four stories about sustenance, all about the bakery, its people, and its influence. ″Degrees of Separation,″ ″Fortune’s Favors,″ and "Block Party" are reprints. The novelette ″Our Lady of Benevolence″ appears here for the first time.

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.

American Apocalypse III


Nova - 2010
    At the end of the last installment, Freya had led Gardener and his friends (Night, Ninja, Max, and Shelli) into an abandoned coal mine to hide out from the violent outpouring of people desperately trying to escape the Washington DC area. Autumn passes and their story resumes near winter's end. Gardener and his friends emerge from the mine and must come to grips with the horrors that took place while they were in safe hiding. Throughout the following months, they gather more and more people to them, growing from their small, tight band to a large Horde traveling across the country to a new home.

The Jump


Alex Myers - 2013
    He must assimilate if he’s to have any hope of getting back. Tormented, he tells his tale to Frances Sanger, a woman with trust issues that trusts Jack to stop a war that’s been brewing for over a hundred years. He alone holds the key to saving nearly a million people and he’s got to do it in three and a half years.THERE ARE PEOPLE THAT WANT THE CIVIL WAR FOUGHTAbner Adkins, lawyer and cheating ex-husband of Frances represents a group of ruthless Southern terrorists that will kill anyone that tries to keep the peace—and concerning Jack, it’s personal. The Southern economy is invested in the slave trade and some 2013 ideas could reek havoc. HELP FROM YOUNG SAMUEL CLEMENS AND RALPH WALDO EMERSONCan Jack invent this country out of it’s bloodiest war ever while trying to stay one step ahead of those who want him dead? Jack with the help of a cast of historical superstars come up with a plan that can stop the war before it starts. Corporate spies and suicide bombers threaten to ruin it all. Even with a real life guardian angel can Jack and his ideas survive?EVERY CHANGE RIPPLES INTO THE FUTURETime Change Book One: The Jump jumps back to 1856 and an America on the verge of war . . . and discovery.

Operation Anadyr


James Philip - 2014
    On Saturday 27th October 1962 American and Soviet geopolitical brinkmanship resulted in the most terrible war in human history. The forever changed world that remained when the thermonuclear fires had burned themselves out is the world of ‘Timeline 10/27/62’. ‘Operation Anadyr’ is Book 1 of the alternative history series Timeline 10/27/62. ‘Operation Anadyr’ is about the first hours of that alternative history of the world. It is about living through the cataclysm, and wondering how it happened. How did the unthinkable happen? How could our leaders let it happen? How does one quantify the magnitude of the disaster? And what of the survivors living with the aftermath of a world gone mad? ‘Operation Anadyr’ confronts these questions. In ‘Operation Anadyr’ the anatomy of the disaster is writ plain and the men and women who survive it begin to find their voices. * * * Why Timeline 10/27/62? Because that date is a very significant date in my life and in the lives of everybody else in the world alive today because on Saturday 27th October 1962 World War III almost started. World War III probably wouldn’t have lasted very long because one side would have been swiftly obliterated in the first 24 hours of a cataclysm that would have left vast tracts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabited and uninhabitable for decades to come. Perhaps, a quarter of the world’s population would have died in the firestorm or in the starvation and the plagues that would have ensued in the following weeks and months. In the October War of 1962 the hammer of the gods would have fallen upon the territories of the Soviet Union, central and Western Europe, and to a lesser extent, upon the extremities of continental North America. In the Soviet Union and in Europe from Paris to Warsaw, from Prague to Berlin, from the Alps to the Baltic, across the Low Countries and parts of the United Kingdom the thermonuclear fire would have burned with a merciless flame. Scandinavia might have escaped relatively untouched, likewise southern France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, Ireland and possibly parts of England, Wales and Scotland. The ‘Cuban Missiles’ War would have been a Man made global catastrophe like no other in human history. In the aftermath, the USA, mourning the dead in half-a-dozen wrecked cities would have been the last major industrial and military power left standing. That world could never, ever be the world we know today. How close did we actually come to the edge of the abyss? Much closer than most people like to contemplate. On Saturday 27th October 1962, north east of Cuba, the commander of Soviet submarine B-59 had to be talked out of firing a nuclear-tipped torpedo at the American destroyer USS Beale. That’s how close we came to World War III! The Captain of the B-59 was a man called Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky. He gave the order for a nuclear warhead to be fitted to a torpedo. In that era Soviet naval doctrine governing the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons onboard a warship at sea required the authorisation of three officers: the captain, the executive officer, and the vessel’s political officer. B-59’s political officer, Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov signed off on starting World War III but fortunately for us all, the submarine’s second-in-command, Captain 2nd Rank Vasili Arkhipov, dissented and Armageddon was narrowly averted. Timeline 10/27/62 is an alternative history of the modern world in which nobody ever got to know the name of Vasili Arkhipov because he died in the first act of the most terrible war in history.

Darwinia


Robert Charles Wilson - 1998
    To some, the Miracle is an act of divine retribution; to others, it is an opportunity to carve out a new empire.Leaving an America now ruled by religious fundamentalism, young Guilford Law travels to Darwinia on a mission of discovery that will take him further than he can possibly imagine...to a shattering revelation about mankind's destiny in the universe. Darwinia is a 1999 Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel.