Alternate Fiction

Mary Robinette Kowal continues the grand sweep of alternate history begun in The Calculating Stars. The Fated Sky looks forward to 1961, when mankind is well established on the moon and looking forward to its next step: journeying to, and eventually colonizing, Mars. Of course the noted Lady Astronaut Elma York would like to go, but there’s a lot riding on whoever the International Aerospace Coalition decides to send on this historic - but potentially very dangerous - mission. Could Elma really leave behind her husband and the chance to start a family to spend several years traveling to Mars?

Gwendolen Ingolfsson, hurled into a parallel Earth filled with billions of unaltered, antique humans when the molehole experiment she was working on malfunctioned, is very clear where her duty lies. As a member of the Draka, genetically engineered to dominate crude, unmodified humans, her task is to build a molehole device in this universe and establish a bridgehead for the Race to come through. It had been some time since the Draka last had such an opportunity for conquest....

Roy Court and his crew are taking the trip of a lifetime—several lifetimes in fact—duplicated and dispatched across the galaxies searching for Earthlike planets. Many possibilities for the future. Yet for Roy, no matter how many of him there are, there’s still just one painful, unchangeable past. In what world can a broken relationship be reborn? The universe is so vast, there’s always room for hope.

Set in the same universe as the Worldwar series, the Colonization series brings us to Earth in the 1960s, where four superpowers rule: the United States, Russia, Nazi Germany, and the aliens of the Race.

The year is 1992. Over twenty years have passed since Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev was assassinated by a crazed gunman. Since that time, the Soviet Union has been put on a course toward economic success—and war. In the Balkans, Yugoslavia's collapse into ethnic violence draws NATO and the Warsaw Pact to the brink of Armageddon. Armies deploy and fleets maneuver. Political intrigue engulfs Moscow and Washington, and paranoia radiates from the Iron Curtain. In the zero-sum game of Cold War, neither side can afford to blink or back down.

Novembre 1941. L'Allemagne est sur le point de gagner la guerre. L'armée du Troisième Reich est aux portes de Moscou. Pour Himmler, le chef des SS, la victoire sera définitive s'il parvient à s'emparer d'une swastika sacrée disparue en Europe. Pour Churchill, il faut absolument retrouver cette relique avant les nazis. Chacun compte sur Tristan Marcas, agent double au passé obscur. Au cœur de cette guerre occulte entre les forces du Bien et du Mal, Laure, la résistante française, et Erika, l'archéologue allemande, vont s'affronter dans une lutte sans merci.

In a world where an anti-aging cure is available worldwide, immortality comes with its own unique problems. John Farrell is about to get "The Cure". Old age can never kill him now. The only problem is, everything else still can.

With 99.7 percent of the Earth's population dead and gone, the few who remain struggle to survive in an empty world. The scattered. The leftovers. These are their stories. This collection contains the first four volumes of the Scattered and the Dead series, audiobooks 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0.

A jaded thief and an idealistic archaeologist form an unlikely partnership to solve an ancient mystery. Opposed at every turn by unknown forces, their journey takes them across 1880s Egypt in search of a lost temple to the other side of the universe, where magic is all too real. Being a foreigner's bastard, Louisa learned early to take from the world before it took from her. Like a whisper in the sands of time, a stolen letter hints at the unimaginable.

Deftly blending such genres as mystery, science fiction, and classic literature, Jasper Fforde’s gleefully irreverent New York Times best-selling Thursday Next novels defy categorization. In this sixth installment, the threat of all-out Genre war looms over BookWorld. But with the real Thursday Next retired in the real world, the Council of Genres has no other choice than to tap the fictional Thursday to save the day. Her mission as emissary is to prevent the brewing war—but her task is made more difficult by a hidden foe manipulating events.

When it comes to expressing the pleasure and pain of being just a touch too smart to be happy, Dorothy Parker is still the champion. Along with Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, and the rest of the Algonquin Round Table, she dominated American popular literature in the 1920s and 1930s. This collection of more than 30 short stories and poems is essential for any Parker fan and an excellent way for new listeners to make the acquaintance of one of the 20th century's most quotable authors.

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.

Egypt, 1912. In an alternate Cairo infused with the otherworldly, the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities investigate disturbances between the mortal and the (possibly) divine. What starts off as an odd suicide case for Special Investigator Fatma el-Sha’arawi leads her through the city’s underbelly as she encounters rampaging ghouls, saucy assassins, clockwork angels, and plot that could unravel time itself, in P. Djèlí Clark's Tor.Com Original, A Dead Djinn in Cairo.

A cosmic accident sets the modern town of Grantville, West Virginia, down in war-torn 17th-century Europe and a new nation is forged. Now when United States of Europe ally King Gustavas of Sweden invades Poland, the U.S. of E. is dragged into a full-scale European war against ruthless opponents. Meanwhile Mike Stearns, wily and courageous leader of the up-time West Virginians, has been turned out of office in an election. But, like Churchill (before and after him) Stearns is not done yet.

Commander Matt Reddy and his crew are afraid it may finally be the end of the USS Walker. Ever since their ship was transported to another world, and they became embroiled in a deadly conflict between the Lemurians and the vicious Grik, the Walker has been taking a pounding. With Walker out of commission for repairs, Reddy takes command of a different ship and joins a desperate battle to block the Grik swarm.

The Unfolded World is a bitter and unfriendly place for Daniel Carter and Emily Lovecraft. In this world the Cold War never happened because the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1941. In this world the Nazi Großdeutschland is the premier superpower and is not merely tolerated but indulged because, in this world, the Holocaust happened behind the ruins of the Iron Curtain and consumed only Bolsheviks, Communists, and others the West was glad to see gone. In this world there are monsters, and not all of them are human.

Hazel Sinnett is alone and half-convinced the events of the year before—the immortality, Beecham’s vial—were a figment of her imagination. She doesn’t even know if Jack is alive or dead. All she can really do now is treat patients and maintain Hawthornden Castle as it starts to decay around her. When saving a life leads to her arrest, Hazel seems doomed to rot in prison until a message intervenes: Hazel has been specifically requested to be the personal physician of Princess Charlotte, the sickly granddaughter of King George III.

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.

What could possibly be in Longbourn Crater that was worth their while?When damage to his ship forces Captain Darcy to land in an unexpected location on an alien world, he's not prepared for what he finds. He expected aliens, certainly, but he didn't expect a contingent of humans related to Earth's most notorious traitor, or for those humans to be his crew’s only chance to repair their ship and complete their mission. Brilliant and beautiful, the human women they meet seem poised to do more harm than good.

The bond between a mother and her child is the strongest in the natural world. So, why would a young woman, dreaming of America, throw her newborn baby into the waves of the wild Atlantic ocean? Life in the Scottish Hebrides can be harsh - 'The Edge of the World' some call it. For Kirsty MacLeod, the love of Murdo promises a new life away from the scrape of the land and the repression of the church. But the Great War looms, and Kirsty is overpowered and raped by an unknown assailant.