Alternate Fiction

It is the 14th century, and one of the most apocalyptic events in human history is set to occur - the coming of the Black Death. History teaches us that a third of Europe's population was destroyed. But what if the plague had killed 99 percent of the population instead? How would the world have changed? This is a look at the history that could have been - a history that stretches across centuries, a history that sees dynasties and nations rise and crumble, a history that spans horrible famine and magnificent innovation.

Zhu Yuanzhang, the Radiant King, is riding high after her victory that tore southern China from its Mongol masters. Now she burns with a new desire: to seize the throne and crown herself emperor. But Zhu isn’t the only one with imperial ambitions. Her neighbor in the south, the courtesan Madam Zhang, wants the throne for her husband—and she’s strong enough to wipe Zhu off the map. To stay in the game, Zhu will have to gamble everything on a risky alliance with an old enemy: the talented but unstable eunuch general Ouyang, who has already sacrificed everything for a chance at revenge.

In late 1997, a runaway teenager and her small yellow toy robot travel west through a strange American landscape where the ruins of gigantic battle drones litter the countryside, along with the discarded trash of a high-tech consumerist society addicted to a virtual-reality system. As they approach the edge of the continent, the world outside the car window seems to unravel at an ever faster pace, as if somewhere beyond the horizon, the hollow core of civilization has finally caved in.

In AD 60, Boudica, war leader of the Eceni, led her people in a final bloody revolt against the occupying armies of Rome. It was the culmination of nearly 20 years of resistance against an occupying force that sought to crush a vibrant, complex civilisation and replace it with the laws, taxes and slavery of the Roman Empire.

Young ex-slave Gideon Bardsley is a brilliant inventor, but the job is less glamorous than one might think, especially since the assassination attempts started. Worse yet, they're trying to destroy his greatest achievement: a calculating engine called Fiddlehead, which provides undeniable proof of something awful enough to destroy the world. Both man and machine are at risk from forces conspiring to keep the Civil War going and the money flowing. Bardsley has no choice but to ask his patron, former president Abraham Lincoln, for help.

Joe Colsco boarded a flight from San Francisco to Chicago to attend a national chemistry meeting. He would never set foot on Earth again. On planet Anyar, Joe is found unconscious on a beach of a large island inhabited by humans where the level of technology is similar to Earth circa 1700. He awakes amid strangers speaking an unintelligible language and struggles to accept losing his previous life and finding a place in a society with different customs, needing a way to support himself and not knowing a single soul.

Lieutenant Richard Sharpe and a detachment of riflemen join the assault of a strong French force holding the Holy City of Santiago de Compostela.Lieutenant Richard Sharpe and a detachment of Riflemen are cut off from the rest of the army and surrounded. Their only hope of escape is to accept the help of the Spanish, but this assistance comes at a price: to join the assault on the holy city of Santiago de Compostela, held by a strong French force.

Tiffany is trapped in a life she never wanted for herself. The man she fell in love with turned out to be a lazy, good-for-nothing womanizer. Night after night Tiffany comes home to Blake’s physical, mental, and verbal abuse. She’s tried leaving it in the past, but somehow he always finds her. Each time, she comes back and convinces herself things will get better. Then one day Blake beats her for the last time. Tiffany decides death is the only way out - and she’s not the one being buried. Her life takes a drastic turn as she attempts to live the life she’s always wanted.

A few months ago, Winslow Houndstooth put together the damnedest crew of outlaws, assassins, cons, and saboteurs on either side of the Harriet for a history-changing caper. In the aftermath of the Harriet catastrophe, that crew has scattered to the winds. Some hunt the missing lovers they refuse to believe have died. Others band together to protect a precious infant and a peaceful future. All of them struggle with who they've become after a long life of theft, murder, deception, and general disinterest in the strictures of the law.

In an astonishing feat of empathy and narrative invention, our most ambitious novelist imagines an alternate version of American history. In 1940 Charles A. Lindbergh, heroic aviator and rabid isolationist, is elected president. Shortly thereafter, he negotiates a cordial "understanding" with Adolf Hitler while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism.

It is 1941 and Germany has won the war. Britain is occupied, Churchill executed, and the King imprisoned in the Tower of London. At Scotland Yard, Detective Inspector Archer tries to do his job and keep his head down. But when a body is found in a Mayfair flat, what at first appears to be a routine murder investigation sends him into a world of espionage, deceit, and betrayal.

The great city of Troy is under siege as Greek heroes Achilles and Agamemnon wage bloody war over a stolen woman. In the Greek camp, another woman is watching and waiting: Briseis. She was a queen of this land until Achilles sacked her city and murdered her husband and sons. Now she is Achilles' concubine: a prize of battle. Briseis is just one among thousands of women backstage in this war - the slaves and prostitutes, the nurses, the women who lay out the dead - all of them voiceless in history.

A small British army is stranded when the French invade northern Portugal and Lieutenant Richard Sharpe meets the future Duke of Wellington. Sharpe is stranded behind enemy lines, but he has Patrick Harper, his riflemen, and he has the assistance of a young, idealistic Portuguese officer. When he is joined by the future Duke of Wellington they immediately mount a counter-attack and Sharpe, having been the hunted, becomes the hunter once more.

Pulled from his world by an experiment gone wrong, Darwin Lloyd is one of the few who can see the Threads - quantum strings that can be manipulated to change or control reality. On an alternate Earth ravaged by war, Darwin is torn between the Qabal and SafeHaven, his only goal to find a way back home and stop the same fate from happening in his time line. Threads - thought of as a gift from the machine he helped his father create - and Threaders are both loved and hated, treated as gods by some and as criminals by others.

Yossi is an ideal agent for the Mossad. He's recruited by an agent named Tajar, and code-named "the Runner." Thus begins the longest-running and most successful operation in the history of Israeli intelligence. Meanwhile, in the desert oasis of Jericho, Abu Musa, an Arab patriarch, and Moses the Ethiopian, meet each day over games of shesh-besh and glasses of Arak to ponder history and humanity.

It is the year 1636. The United States of Europe, the new nation formed by an alliance between the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus and the West Virginians hurled back in time by a cosmic accident, is on the verge of civil war. His brain injured in the war with Poland, the USE's emperor Gustavus Adolphus is no longer in command. Enter Swedish chancellor Oxenstierna, a leader of aristocratic reaction against democracy. His goal: to assemble the forces of the hidebound ruling class in Berlin and drown the revolution in a bloodbath.

A Rainbow of Blood continues the epic, exciting story that began in Peter G. Tsouras’s previous alternate history, Britannia’s Fist. The Great War accelerates during a few desperate weeks in October 1863. From the bayous of Louisiana to the green hills of the Hudson Valley, from Chicago in flames to the gates of Washington itself, the conflict uncoils in ropes of fire. French and British armies are on the march, and heavy reinforcements have put to sea.

This fascinating third volume in the Britannia's Fist series will have you pondering how easily history could have been swayed differently. What if other countries had become involved in America's Civil War? Historian Peter G. Tsouras presents the third installment in his Britannia's Fist alternate history series.

In this stunning conclusion to the After The Rift series, Josie and her friends return home to find Glancia on the brink of war and their enemies in power. With political machinations and court intrigue bringing danger at every turn, they must tread carefully. But being careful won’t bring resolutions and answers. It won’t bring back lost memories or stop the nation hurtling into war.

Blending fact and fiction, China Dream is an unflinching satire of totalitarianism. Ma Daode, a corrupt and lecherous party official, is feeling pleased with himself. He has an impressive office, three properties, and multiple mistresses who text him day and night. After decades of loyal service, he has been appointed director of the China Dream Bureau, charged with replacing people's private dreams with President Xi Jinping's great China Dream of national rejuvenation.