Alternate Fiction

Beatrice Leal’s personal life is complicated between her divorce and her precocious six-year-old. But the job she loves is the one thing she counts on to be straightforward—that is, until her boss’s own divorce prompts a move from NYC back to Ireland. Now Bea’s in Ireland twice a month for work. It’s wreaking havoc on the custody agreement she and her moody ex are sorting out while he lives downstairs in the brownstone they co-own. And to top it off, her company’s new CTO turns out to be the boy who once broke her heart: Jack Sander.

A Main Selection of the Science Fiction Book Club, Breakthroughs is the third installment of best-selling author Harry Turtledove’s The Great War series of remarkable alternate histories. As the frightening war to end all wars continues to spread with vengeance around the globe, the swiftly modernizing armies of the Confederacy and the United States battle for control of the North American continent.

After being stranded on a very different and more perilous Earth, Colonel Lewis Cayce led his small army of displaced Americans, natives of the Yucatán, and Jaguar Warriors to defeat the biggest host the Dominion general Agon could assemble. Most unexpectedly, General Agon came to recognize the inherent evil of the Dominion and its depraved Blood Priests and turned on his former leaders.

Rudi Mackenize, now Artos the First, High King of Montival, and his allies have won several key battles against the Church Universal and Triumphant. But still the war rages on, taking countless lives, ravaging the land once known as the United States of America. Artos and his Queen, Mathilda, must unite the realms into a single kingdom to ensure a lasting peace. If the leaders of the Changed world are to accept Artos as their ruler, he will need to undertake a quest to the Lake at the Heart of the Mountains....

Thomas Hunter, supreme commander of the Forest Guard, has seen a great evil decimate much of his beautiful world. With a dwindling army and an epic threat, Thomas is forced to supplement his fighters with new recruits ages 16 and 17. From thousands, four will be chosen to lead a special mission. Unknown to Thomas, the chosen four are redirected to a different endgame. They must find the seven lost Books of History before the Dark One.

History is rewritten in an instant as the future smashes into the past, and high-tech hardware goes head to head with World War Two technology. In the chaos that ensues, thousands are killed, but the maelstrom has only just begun. The veterans of Pearl Harbor have never seen a helicopter, or a cruise missile - let alone nanotechnology, ceramic bullets, and F22 Raptor stealth jetfighters. Allied and Axis forces are then caught in a desperate struggle to gain the upper hand.

Before World War II could reach its conclusion, the world suffered what could only be defined as a cataclysm. Now, Yosemite City stands as the gateway between two worlds. The empire of humanity to the west, and the wild wastes to the east. Standing at the helm for Yosemite is Vince, a ranger turned city-state ruler. Vince has begun to maneuver through the intricacies of ruling. At the same time he must balance his expanding foundation and fend off external threats.

In the 10th year of the Change, the survivors in western Oregon have learned how to live in a world without technology. They have held the Lord Protector, Norman Arminger - the warlord of Portland - at bay. The tensions between these factions have been building for some time, and the only reason they haven't confronted one another on the battlefield is because Arminger's daughter has fallen into Clan Mackenzie's hands. But Lady Sandra has a plan to retrieve her, one that may spark open warfare.

After their fateful adventure in China, Captain Will Laurence of His Majesty's Aerial Corps and his extraordinary dragon, Temeraire, are waylaid by a mysterious envoy bearing urgent new orders from Britain. Three valuable dragon eggs have been purchased from the Ottoman Empire, and Laurence and Temeraire must detour to Istanbul to escort the precious cargo back to England. Time is of the essence if the eggs are to be borne home before hatching.

Thousands of years ago, artifacts of the early space age were lost to rising oceans and widespread turmoil. Garnett Baylee devoted his life to finding them, only to give up hope. Then, in the wake of his death, one was found in his home, raising tantalizing questions. Had he succeeded after all? Why had he kept it a secret? And where is the rest of the Apollo cache? Antiquities dealer Alex Benedict and his pilot, Chase Kolpath, have gone to Earth to learn the truth.

Heroes die, cowards live. Daughter of a conquered world, Ruying hates the invaders who descended from the heavens long before she was born and defeated the magic of her people with technologies unlike anything her world had ever seen. Blessed by Death, born with the ability to pull the life right out of mortal bodies, Ruying shouldn’t have to fear these foreign invaders, but she does. Especially because she wants to keep herself and her family safe. When Ruying’s Gift is discovered by an enemy prince, he offers her an impossible deal.

The tale again comes to us from the pen of Murgen, Annalist and Standard Bearer of the Black Company. Led by the wily commander, Croaker, and the Lady, the Company is working for the Taglian government, but neither the Company nor the Taglians are overflowing with trust for each other. Arrayed against both is a similarly tenuous alliance of sorcerers, including the diabolical Soulcatcher, the psychotic Howler, and a four-year-old child who may be the most powerful of all.

One of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory, Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain is a masterpiece that is at once an enthralling adventure, a stirring love story, and a luminous evocation of a vanished American in all its savagery, solitude, and splendor.

Alive and hiding in South America, the fiendish Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele gathers a group of former colleagues for a horrifying project. Barry Koehler, a young investigative journalist, gets wind of the scheme and informs famed Nazi hunter Yakov Liebermann, but before he can relay the evidence, Koehler is killed. Thus Ira Levin opens one of the strangest and most masterful novels of his career. Why has Mengele marked a number of harmless aging men for murder? What is the hidden link that binds them?

Rudi MacKenzie continues his trek across the land that was once the United States of America. His destination: Nantucket, where he hopes to learn the truth behind the Change that rendered technology across the globe inoperable.

When he falls ill on his way home from school, 15-year-old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. In time she becomes his lover--then she inexplicably disappears. When Michael next sees her, he is a young law student, and she is on trial for a hideous crime. As he watches her refuse to defend her innocence, Michael gradually realizes that Hanna may be guarding a secret she considers more shameful than murder.

Communist China, Japan, Nazi Germany, the United States: they began World War II as mortal enemies. But suddenly their only hope for survival - never mind victory - was to unite to stop a mighty foe: one whose frightening technology appeared invincible. Far worse beings than the Nazis were loose. From Warsaw to Moscow to China's enemy-occupied Forbidden City, the nations of the world had been forced into an uneasy alliance since humanity began its struggle against overwhelming odds.

Richard Sharpe returns to England to save the regiment. Major Sharpe's men are in mortal danger - not from the French, but from the bureaucrats of Whitehall. Unless reinforcements can be brought from England, the regiment will be disbanded. Determined not to see his regiment die, Sharpe returns to England and uncovers a nest of high-ranking traitors, any of whom could utterly destroy his career with a word.

What would you do if you woke up to a different life? Because that’s what happened to me. I woke up in a hospital bed with my family and friends telling me everything I knew was nothing more than a coma-induced dream. The girl I love. The baby we’re having…all of it ripped away. In their place is a house I don’t recognize and a girl I’ve never seen before who’s claiming she’s my fiancée. To everyone around me, it’s clear my mind twisted around my real life to create a false one. As weeks pass and a few crucial memories return, it’s easy to see they’re right.

At the bloody height of World War II, the deadliest enemies in all of human history were forced to put aside their hatreds and unite against an even fiercer foe: a seemingly invincible power bent on world domination. With awesome technology, the aggressors swept across the planet, sowing destruction as Tokyo, Berlin, and Washington, D.C., were A-bombed into submission.