Alternate History Fiction

In Virginia DeMarce's witty and touching "Pastor Kastenmayer's Revenge", a Lutheran pastor gets even with the American who eloped with his daughter by scheming to gain new adherents through eight separate arranged marriages between Lutheran down-timers and American up-timers. Also included: Gorg Huff's "Other People's Money", plus much more.

In the extraordinary Worldwar tetralogy, set against the backdrop of World War II, Harry Turtledove, whom Publishers Weekly has called the "Hugo-winning master of alternate SF," wove an explosive saga of world powers locked in conflict against an enemy from the stars.

In 1914, they called it The Great War, and few could imagine anything worse. For nearly three decades, a peace forged in blood and fatigue has held sway in North America. Now, Japan dominates the Pacific, the Russian Tsar rules Alaska, and England, under Winston Churchill, chafes for a return to its former glory. But behind the façade of world order, America is a bomb waiting to go off. Jake Featherston, the megalomaniacal leader of the Confederate States of America, is just the man to light the fuse.

North America, 2047. For the small Pacific Coast community of San Onofre, life in the aftermath of a devastating nuclear attack is a matter of survival, a day-to-day struggle to stay alive. But young Hank Fletcher dreams of the world that might have been, that might yet be - and dreams of playing a crucial role in America's rebirth.

When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers/listeners of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

When the diplomatic embassy from the United States of Europe was freed from the Tower of London during the Baltic War, most of its members returned to the continent. But some remained behind in Britain, including notorious enemy to the crown Oliver Cromwell. Now, the hunt for Cromwell is on, with King Charles himself demanding Cromwell's head. When the diplomatic embassy from the United States of Europe was freed from the Tower of London during the Baltic War, most of its members returned to the continent.

In the real world, Reinhard Heydrich, the number-two man in the SS and an architect of the Holocaust, was assassinated in Czechoslovakia in May 1942. In The Man with the Iron Heart, Heydrich survives that fated assassination attempt, only to hatch an insurgency as insidious as anything conceived by Osama bin Laden.

Young Alvin returns to the town of his birth and begins his apprenticeship with Makepeace Smith, committing seven years of his life in exchange for the skills and knowledge of a blacksmith. But Alvin must also learn to control and use his own talent, that of a Maker, or else his destiny will be unfulfilled.

A cosmic catastrophe, the Ring of Fire, strands the West Virginia town of Grantville in the middle of Europe during the Thirty Years War. The repercussions of that event transform Europe and, in a few years, begin spreading across the world. By 1636, the Ring of Fire's impact is felt across two great oceans, the Atlantic and Pacific.

The Thirty Years War continues to ravage 17th century Europe, but a new force is gathering power and influence: the Confederated Principalities of Europe, an alliance between Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, and the West Virginians from the 20th century led by Mike Stearns who were hurled centuries into the past by a mysterious cosmic accident.

It's been said that musicians live for the next new sound. Well, the musicians of Europe were presented with the biggest new sound ever when the Ring of Fire brought the future back to 1631. What will the court musicians think when they hear Bach, Stravinsky, and the Beatles? What will the street and tavern musicians think when faced with Johnny Cash, Metallica, and Nirvana? Things don't go smoothly for Marla Linder and her friends.

Armed with lancers, breech-loading rifles, steamships, and galleys, General Belisarius, accompanied by his own ally from the future, ventures into the Malwa Empire, a sixth-century kingdom ruled by Link, a horrifying and evil entity from the future.

Two generations after the Change, Crown Princess Orlaith struggles to preserve the hard-won peace her father brought to Montival - the former Western US. But the Change opened many doors, and through them, powers strong, strange, and terrible walk once more among humankind. With her fire-forged friend and ally Japanese Empress Reiko, Orlaith must take up her sword to stop the spread of the mad malignancy behind the Yellow Raja that has imprisoned her brother, Prince John.

Thousands of years in the future, Earth is a desolate ruin. The first human ship to return in millennia discovers an abandoned wasteland inhabited by only a few degenerate or mutated human outcasts. But among them is a boy of immense native intelligence and determination who grows up to become the force behind a plan to make Earth flower again.

During a raging sandstorm along a riverbed in the ancient lands of Saba, a powerful jinni born of smokeless fire gives birth to a half-human daughter. Bilqis does not inherit her mother's magical abilities, but the fire of her jinni blood does imbue her with other powerful gifts. As she undergoes her rites of womanhood and her insatiable sexual hunger is awakened, it becomes clear - this is the key to her "great destiny" prophesied at her birth. But it could also lead to her total undoing.

The Domination of the Draka begins as a British possession in Africa, but soon becomes far more. Absorbing refugees after the American Revolution, and later the Civil War, the Draka become a people bred to rule with an iron fist. They permanently enslave the peoples of Africa, when they do not simply kill them. But this does not slake the Draka thirst for power. Sweeping across the world, the Draka empire engulfs nation after nation, shackling into servitude all who are not Draka.

The Malwa Empire has conquered 6th century India and is forging the subcontinent's vast population into an invincible weapon of tyranny. Belisarius, the finest general of his age, must save the world. Guided by visions from a future that may never be, he and a band of comrades penetrate the Malwa heartland, seeking the core of the enemy's power. And when Belisarius leads the forces of good, only a fool would side with evil.

In an alternate Renaissance Italy where the church regulates magic and licenses magicians, fiery Fiametta Beneforte wants to be more than her goldsmith-mage father's unpaid apprentice. But when the Duchy of Montefoglia is laid under military and magical siege, she unexpectedly must join with Thur Ochs, a young Swiss miner and foundryman, to tap their skills in both metalwork and necromancy to rescue her father's soul and combat an evil sorcerer.

In 1893, there's no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box. But when the Eastwood sisters - James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna - join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women's movement into the witch's movement.

Steamboats that launch Greek fire; telegraph lines connecting the battlefront on the Indus to ancient Constantinople, Byzantine palace plots aided by wireless devices: General Belasarius and his battle-hardened troops must advance quickly through the history of technology to stave off a coming age of ultimate darkness. And now - the epic final battle that will either give birth to or destroy Aide, Belasarius' doughty crystalline advisor and humanity's loyal friend!