Alternate Fiction

In an alternate society that values law and truth above all else, Laszlo Ratesic is a 19-year veteran of the Speculative Service. He lives in the Golden State, a nation standing where California once did, a place where like-minded Americans retreated after the erosion of truth and the spread of lies made public life and governance impossible. In the Golden State, knowingly contradicting the truth is the greatest crime - and stopping those crimes is Laz's job. In its service, he is one of the few individuals permitted to harbor untruths, to "speculate" on what might have happened.

It's 1941. In the chaos of wartime Marseille, American engineer - and occult disciple - Jack Parsons stumbles onto a clandestine anti-Nazi group, including surrealist theorist André Breton. In the strange games of the dissident diplomats, exiled revolutionaries, and avant-garde artists, Parsons finds and channels hope. But what he unwittingly unleashes is the power of dreams and nightmares, changing the war and the world forever.

From the celebrated, New York Times bestselling author comes the twisted thriller of an MIT grad student who unwittingly uncovers the hidden connection between the Gardner Museum heist and the most fascinating secret in American history.

Prince of Dogs returns listeners to the war-torn kingdoms of Wendar and Varre and the intertwined destinies of Alain, raised in humble surroundings but now the count's heir; Liath, who struggles to unravel the secrets of her past while evading the traps set for her by those seeking the treasure she hides; Sanglant, believed dead by those who could save him but actually a prisoner in the city of Gent; and Fifth Son, who now builds an army to do his father's bidding - or his own!

Mighty Greyboar, the world's greatest professional strangler, is dissatisfied with his lot in life. The work is steady and the pay is good, but what, he wonders, is the point of it all. But when he learns that there is a Supreme Philosophy of Life, Greyboar the Strangler is born again! Still, just how can a professional man in good standing pay the bills with all this philosophical exploration getting in the way.

Ariane has found refuge in Illinois, and now plans her rightful return to vampire society. She must stay in control while hiding in nature, while foes old and new converge on her territory.

China thought it would be a quick war, an easy war. But now, years later, as the insurgency on the streets of Los Angeles escalates but the propaganda never changes, a Chinese officer can’t keep silent any longer. Torn between loyalty to his country and loyalty to his troops, he writes a brutally honest—and possibly suicidal—letter home to unmask the truth. Brooks combines his signature meticulous research with unforgettable characters in this landmark work of speculative fiction.

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.

Two months after an investigation that nearly put Elias Roche behind bars, the former cop turned mob enforcer has endeavored to separate himself from his past by going straight. Now working as a private investigator, his attempts to build himself a quiet life have so far been promising. However, while Manhattan's Lower City is in the midst of a reignited mob war, Elias is faced with finding a man who doesn't want to be found, absolving a machine of a murder charge, and discovering a network of secrets that keeps the world turning, almost literally.

Desperate to save as many people as he can from a horrible fate in the cruel game of the gods, Lee and his small group of friends abandon the relative safety of Satterfield for the great city of Kirshtein. Tensions within the city have reached a breaking point after the arrival of an enemy Herald, and Lee is soon caught up in the struggle for power.

What if mankind's "missing link", the apelike Homo erectus, had survived to dominate a North American continent where woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers still prowled while the more advanced Homo sapiens built their civilizations elsewhere? Now imagine that the Europeans arriving in the New World had chanced on these primitive creatures and seized the opportunity to establish a hierarchy in which the sapiens were masters and the "sims" were their slaves.

After Germany and Japan won WWII, the US fell under their control. Growing up in this world, Mac plays portical games, haphazardly studies for the Imperial Exam, and dreams of becoming a mecha pilot. Only problem: Mac's grades are terrible. His only hope is to pass the military exam and get into the prestigious mecha pilot training program at Berkeley Military Academy. When his friend Hideki's plan to game the test goes horribly wrong, Mac washes out of the military exam, too. Perhaps he can achieve his dream by becoming a civilian pilot.

Let's do the "Time Warp" again! Another anthology of rollicking, thought-provoking tales by a star-studded array of top writers such as David Brin and Eric Flint himself - all set in Eric Flint's phenomenal Ring of Fire series.

A trolley car pulls into the station. Four minutes before, the inhabitants were seen boarding at the previous station. All are dead. And all of them are union. The year is 1919. The McNaughton Corporation is the pinnacle of American industry. They built airships that cross the seas. Guns that won the Great War. And above all, the city of Evesden. But something is rotten at the heart of Evesden. Caught between the union and the company, between the police and the victims, Hayes must find the truth behind the city before it kills him.

Los Angeles, August 4, 1962. The city broils through a midsummer heat wave. Marilyn Monroe ODs. A B-movie starlet is kidnapped. The overhyped LAPD overreacts. Chief Bill Parker’s looking for some getback. The Monroe deal looks like a moneymaker. He calls in Freddy Otash. The freewheeling Freddy O: tainted ex-cop, defrocked private eye, dope fiend, and freelance extortionist. A man who lives by the maxim “Opportunity is love.” Freddy gets to work. He dimly perceives Marilyn Monroe’s death and the kidnapped starlet to be a poisonous riddle that only he has the guts and the brains to untangle

Salem, Massachusetts, 1851: McGlue is in the hold, still too drunk to be sure of name or situation or orientation - he may have killed a man. That man may have been his best friend. Intolerable memory accompanies sobriety.

In modern, beautiful Green City, the capital of Southwest Asia, gender selection, war, and disease have brought the ratio of men to women to alarmingly low levels. The government uses terror and technology to control its people, and now females must take multiple husbands to have children as quickly as possible. Yet there are some who resist, women who live in an underground collective and refuse to be part of the system. Secretly protected by the highest echelons of power, they emerge only at night....

Senior investigator Khalid al-Zarzisi is a modern man, a product of the unsurpassed educational systems of North Africa and the Middle East. Liberal, tolerant, and, above all, rich, the countries and cultures of North Africa and the Middle East have dominated the globe for centuries. But one region has festered for decades: Europe. Now, Khalid has been sent to Rome, ground zero of backwater discontent. He and his partner Dawud have been tasked with figuring out how to protect the tinpot Grand Duke, the impoverished Pope, and the overall status quo.

The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was a resounding success - except for one detail: A second bombing mission, to destroy crucial oil storage facilities, was aborted that day. Now, in this gripping and stunning work of alternate history, Robert Conroy reimagines December 7, 1941, to include the attack the Japanese didn't launch, and what follows is a thrilling tale of war, resistance, sacrifice, and courage. For when Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto sees how badly the United States has been ravaged in a two-pronged strike, he devises another, more daring proposal.

From the end of the 18th century, Americans traveled west to find new homes and new lands. They brought with them the magics of plain people. It is from these roots of the American dream that award-winning writer Orson Scott Card has crafted what the Charlotte Observer called "a uniquely American fantasy." Using the lore and the folk magic of the men and women who settled a continent, and the beliefs of the tribes who were here before them, Card has created an alternate frontier America.