Alternate Fiction

While J. Robert Oppenheimer and his Manhattan Project team struggle to develop the A-bomb, Edward Teller wants something even more devastating: a weapon based on nuclear fusion - the mechanism that powers the sun. But Teller’s research leads to a terrifying discovery: by the year 2030, the sun will eject its outermost layer, destroying the entire inner solar system - including Earth. After the war ends, Oppenheimer’s physicists combine forces with Albert Einstein, computing pioneer John von Neumann, and rocket designer Wernher von Braun.

On the eve of the U.S. invasion of Baghdad, as the world waits for war, a miles-high energy wave cordons a vast area from southern Canada to northern Mexico. In a moment, 99 percent of the U.S. population has been wiped from the face of the earth.

As the renowned granddaughter of Isabella Camherst, Audrey Camherst has always known she, too, would want to make her scholarly mark upon a chosen field of study. When Lord Gleinheigh recruits Audrey to decipher a series of ancient tablets holding the secrets of the ancient Draconean civilization, she has no idea that her research will plunge her into an intricate conspiracy, one meant to incite rebellion and invoke war.

Arabella Dempsey's dear friend Jane Austen warned her against teaching. But Miss Climpson's Select Seminary for Young Ladies seems the perfect place for Arabella to claim her independence while keeping an eye on her younger sisters nearby. Just before Christmas, she accepts a position at the quiet girls' school in Bath, expecting to face nothing more exciting than conducting the annual Christmas recital. She hardly imagines coming face to face with French aristocrats and international spies...

Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz, the world's greatest alchemist and a great-grandson of Paracelsus - and a Bombast on his mother's side - was a man history had forgotten. But when the town of Grantville was transported by a cosmic accident from modern West Virginia to central Germany in the early 17th century, he got a second chance at fame and fortune.

El 22 de noviembre de 1963 tres disparos resonaron en Dallas. Murió el presidente Kennedy, y el mundo cambió. ¿Qué harías tú si pudieras impedirlo?

Bea’s five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away, consumed by the smog and pollution of the overdeveloped metropolis that most of the population now calls home. If they stay in the city, Agnes will die. There is only one alternative: the Wilderness State, the last swath of untouched, protected land, where people have always been forbidden. Until now.

Picking up right where A Longer Fall left off, this thrilling third installment follows Klementina and Eli, both wizards from the Holy Russian Empire, as they enter Ciudad Juarez. On a mission to find the descendants of Grigori Rasputin, Eli and Klemintina are in a race to discover the wizard’s magical blood - but they’re not the only ones. A group of grigoris is after the same person - Felicia, Rasputin’s granddaughter.

In an alternate 2009, the United States has been a second-rate power for a quarter of a century, ever since Argentina’s victory in the Falkland’s War thanks to their development of “psychopigments.” Created as weapons, these colorful chemicals can produce almost any human emotion upon contact, and they have been embraced in the US as both pharmaceutical cure-alls and popular recreational drugs. Black market traders illegally sell everything from Blackberry Purple (which causes terror) to Sunshine Yellow (which delivers happiness).

Young Alvin was born the seventh son of a seventh son. By his birthright, he possesses magical powers and is destined to become something great, perhaps even a Maker. Indeed, Alvin is special. But the boy remains vulnerable to dark forces who reach out to destroy him and are willing to do anything to keep him from growing up. Carefully weaving the lore and the folk-magic of the men and women who settled a continent—as well as the beliefs of the tribes who were there before them—Orson Scott Card has created a fascinating alternate frontier America.

An engineer finds himself in an alternate reality, Cornwall, in the year 715 A.D. He awakens in the body of a young Baron.

2080: At a remote site on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a group of scientists, engineers, and physicians gather to gamble humanity’s future on one last-ditch experiment. Their goal: to make a tiny alteration to the past, averting a global catastrophe while at the same time leaving recorded history intact. To make the experiment work, they just need one last recruit: an ageing schoolteacher whose late mother was the foremost expert on the mathematics of paradox. 2028: A young woman goes into surgery for routine brain surgery.

In Reconstruction-era America, vampire Henry Sturges is searching for renewed purpose in the wake of his friend Abraham Lincoln's shocking death. It will be an expansive journey that will first send him to England for an unexpected encounter with Jack the Ripper, then to New York City for the birth of a new American century, the dawn of the electric era of Tesla and Edison, and the blazing disaster of the 1937 Hindenburg crash.

US Marine Colonel Robert Buckner, passed over for a coveted command, takes a post working for Vice Admiral Falkner on his way to retirement. As the world is lurching towards World War Ill, he finds his way towards a panoramic view of the unfolding crisis with a pivotal role to play. War breaks out across the globe, but the pin falls in the far north, where soldiers and civilians alike must battle not just the enemy, but the unforgiving elements. With arsenals of high-tech weapons loosed in both directions, the ultimate reward may not be victory, but survival.

Jasper Fforde's delightfully zany Thursday Next series shows no signs of slowing down with its seventh entry, The Woman Who Died a Lot. Despite being semihappily semi-retired from SpecOps, Thursday accepts the head librarian position at the Swindon library. But soon threats from a supreme Deity, a mnemonomorph, and the nefarious Goliath corporation press Thursday back into active duty.

It is 1978, and John Lennon has escaped New York City to try to find the island off the west coast of Ireland he bought nine years prior. Leaving behind domesticity, his approaching 40s, his inability to create, and his memories of his parents, he sets off to find calm in the comfortable silence of isolation. But when he puts himself in the hands of a shape-shifting driver full of Irish charm and dark whimsy, what ensues can only be termed a magical mystery tour.

In the wake of the king's death, war has come to Vordan. The deputies-general have precarious control of the city, but it is led by a zealot who sees traitors in every shadow. Executions have become a grim public spectacle. The new queen, Raesinia Orboan, finds herself nearly powerless as the government tightens its grip and assassins threaten her life. But she did not help free the country from one sort of tyranny to see it fall into another. Placing her trust with steadfast soldier, Marcus D'Ivoire, she sets out to turn the tide of history.

16 years of peace and prosperity have passed since Lord Otori Takeo united the Three Countries. Takeo and his beloved consort, Kaede, have three daughters and a happy family life. Their success has attracted the attention of the distant Emperor and his general, the warlord Saga Hideki, who covet the wealth of the Countries. Meanwhile, the violent acts and betrayals of the past will not lie buried, and other secrets will not stay hidden. Everything that Takeo and Kaede have achieved is threatened.

Was wäre, wenn die Achsenmächte den Zweiten Weltkrieg gewonnen hätten? Und sich Hitler mit Japan die USA geteilt hätte? Die Grenze durch die Rocky Mountains verliefe, wo es neutrale Pufferstaaten gäbe? Und dort ein "Orakel vom Berge"? Vor dieser Unwirklichkeit flüchten die Menschen in ein Buch über die "Heuschrecken", in der die Welt so dargestellt wird, wie sie eher unserer Wirklichkeit gleicht - aber nur fast, oder ist es wirklich ganz anders herum?

It is 54 B.C. Gaius Julius Caesar is sweeping through Gaul. While his victories in the name of Rome are epic, the conservative leaders of the Republic are not pleased -- they are terrified. Where will the boundless ambition of Rome's most brilliant soldier stop? He must be destroyed before he can overthrow the government and install himself as Dictator.