Alternate History

Stormborn · Jul 27, 2007

Do you like Alternate History fiction? If so do you have favorite themes or concepts? How "alterante" do you like your history, IOW how siginifcat a divergence do you enjoy? What is your favorite example of alternate history?

Chairman7w · Jul 27, 2007

Eeeennhhhh, (shrug), I read "Guns of the South" and it was enough Alternate History for me. I read regular History, and I read fantasy, I guess I just don't get into mixing them up.

Umbran · Jul 27, 2007

Turtledove is King!

cignus_pfaccari · Jul 27, 2007

Aye, Turtledove is our king, especially at the rate he writes.

One alternate history writer I like is Thomas Harlan; I borrowed one of his Oath of Empire characters for a warmage concept. It's a pity that he hasn't published his third Sixth Sun book yet.

Brad

LightPhoenix · Jul 27, 2007

It doesn't really fall into the category of alternate history (IMO, of course, technically it does), but Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt is one of my favorite books.

Steve Jung · Jul 28, 2007

I love Turtledove's books. The Two Georges, which he wrote with Richard Dreyfuss had an interesting take on a modern world in which the British won the Revolutionary War.

Edit: I also like Eric Flint's 16xx series. A town in 2000 AD West Virginia is transplanted to the middle of Europe during the Thirty Years War.

Kid Charlemagne · Jul 28, 2007

I'm a fan! I enjoyed Fatherland, and I recently read (and plan on rereading soon) the Baroque Cycle by Neil Stephenson - Quicksilver, The Confusion, and System of the World, which are kind of a tiptoe into the genre - they're not heavy on the alternate history elements, but they are there.

Way back when I read a book called World War III, which if I recall, was written by a former US Army General... I hadn't thought of that book for decades until just now.

Ranger REG · Jul 28, 2007

Stormborn said:
Do you like Alternate History fiction? If so do you have favorite themes or concepts? How "alterante" do you like your history, IOW how siginifcat a divergence do you enjoy? What is your favorite example of alternate history?

I like the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik.

Looking for any novels based on alternate Roman history, including an existing Roman Empire that lasted in the present day.

Particle_Man · Jul 28, 2007

Turtledove did some short stories collected in "AGent of Byzantium" in which the prophet Mohammed was a Christian prophet so the Islam faith never happened. The Byzantine and Persian empires are, by about 1300 locked in a cold war and competing over various technologies, like the Printing Press, and even gunpowder.

PhoenixDarkDirk · Jul 28, 2007

I like Jasper Fforde's "Thursday Next" series, which consists of The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten, and First Among Sequals. In the 1980s cloning has led to pet dodos and there are such things as vampires, time travel, and advertisements for toast. The main character, Thursday Next, is a detective who can send herself into books.

One of Turtledove's books I enjoyed was Ruled Britannia. It supposes that the 1588 Spanish attack of England had succeeded in imposing new monarchs and an Inquisition. Ten years later, William Shakespeare is given the task of writing a play meant to inspire a revolution.