Alternate History Fiction

Young Alvin was born the seventh son of a seventh son. By his birthright, he possesses magical powers and is destined to become something great, perhaps even a Maker. Indeed, Alvin is special. But the boy remains vulnerable to dark forces who reach out to destroy him and are willing to do anything to keep him from growing up. Carefully weaving the lore and the folk-magic of the men and women who settled a continent—as well as the beliefs of the tribes who were there before them—Orson Scott Card has created a fascinating alternate frontier America.

The Trial by Franz Kafka, narrated by award-winning narrator Mike Vendetti, begins like a nightmare - only K is awake, and he is being arrested and indicted on charges he never learns. He is caught up in a legal system that will destroy his life. This is a text that often is used in English classes because it is so deep. Kafka attacks the norms of society, religion, and the legal system.

Franklin Roosevelt is the assistant secretary of defense. Thomas Dewey is running for president with a blunt-speaking Missourian named Harry Truman at his side. Britain holds on to its desperate alliance with the United States' worst enemy while a holocaust unfolds in Texas. In Harry Turtledove's compelling, disturbing, and extraordinarily vivid reshaping of American history, a war of secession has triggered a generation of madness. The tipping point has come at last.

Aerial combat brings a thrilling new dimension to the Napoleonic Wars as valiant warriors rise to Britain’s defense by taking to the skies . . . not aboard aircraft but atop the mighty backs of fighting dragons.

Princess Orlaith, heir to Rudi Mackenzie, Artos the First, High King of Montival, now wields the Sword of the Lady - and faces a new enemy. Fortunately, she also has a new ally in Reiko, Empress of Japan. To combat their mutual foe, Orlaith and Reiko embark on a quest to find the fabled Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, the Grass-Cutting Sword, one of the three great treasures of the Japanese Imperial House - but they'll face great peril along the way.

In 1938, two men held history in their hands. One was Adolf Hitler. The other was British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, who, determined to avoid war at any cost, came to be known as "the great appeaser". But Harry Turtledove, the unrivaled master of alternate history, has launched a gripping saga that springboards from a different fateful act: What if Chamberlain had stood up to Hitler? How would the war have unfolded and changed our world?

In Kingsley Amis’s virtuoso foray into virtual history, it is 1976, but the modern world is a medieval relic, frozen in intellectual and spiritual time ever since Martin Luther was promoted to pope back in the sixteenth century. Stephen the Third, the king of England, has just died, and Mass (Mozart’s second requiem) is about to be sung to lay him to rest. In the choir is our hero, Hubert Anvil, an extremely ordinary ten-year-old boy with a faultless voice.

The spirit of Prince John, the brother of Crown Princess Orlaith, has fallen captive to the power of the Yelolow Raja and his servant, the Pallid Mask. Prince John's motley band of friends and followers, led by Captain Pip of Townsville and Deor Godulfson, the bard and master of magic, must lead a quest through realms of shadow and dream to rescue Prince John from a threat far worse than death. Meanwhile, Reiko and Orlaith muster their kingdoms for war, making common cause with the reborn Kingdom of Hawaii.

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.

After Jack the Ripper terrorized London in 1888, he would spark a mystery when he disappeared, his string of violent and horrific murders ending as quickly as they began. Now, in 1907, biographer Charles Hapgood is about to be visited a man who astonishingly claims that he was the famous Ripper and that he wishes to tell his tale before his coming death. Skeptical at first, Hapgood agrees to hear his story, only to soon be shown indisputable proof that his visitor speaks the truth.

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.

One of the great works of the 20th century, Kafka's The Trial has been read as a study of political power, a pessimistic religious parable, or a crime novel where the accused man is himself the problem. In it, a man wakes up one morning to find himself under arrest for an offence which is never explained. Faced with this ambiguous but threatening situation, Josef K. gradually succumbs to its psychological pressure.

In the 23rd century, humanity has been hunted to the verge of extinction by an alien race. When an exploratory ship accidentally travels back in time to Viking-age Scandinavia, the human race is given a second chance. Pursued by the power-hungry King Harald, the four surviving crew members join a ragtag band of Vikings as they pillage their way across Europe. To save humanity, they must somehow return to the stars. Thus begins a decades-long effort to teach the Vikings to build a craft capable of reaching space - a ship that will come to be known as the Iron Dragon.

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.

Winter is a time of reflection and cultivation for the Verdant Green Waters Sect. For Wu Ying, this peaceful interlude is interrupted by a new assignment that pits him against the mortal world’s conventions of class and privilege.

Ten years have passed since Admiral Kolhammer's 21st-century battlefleet was dragged into a wormhole and thrown across oceans of time, emerging with disastrous consequences and shattering the history of the Second World War.

Jonathan Lambshead stands to inherit his deceased grandfather’s overstuffed mansion - a veritable cabinet of curiosities - once he and two schoolmates catalog its contents. But the three soon discover that the house is filled with far more than just oddities: It holds clues linking to an alt-Earth called Aurora, where the notorious English occultist Aleister Crowley has stormed back to life on a magic-fueled rampage across a surreal, through-the-looking-glass version of Europe replete with talking animals (and vegetables).

Next to the colonial town of Essenwald sits the Vorrh, a vast - perhaps endless - forest. It is a place of demons and angels, of warriors and priests. Sentient and magical, the Vorrh bends time and wipes memory. Legend has it that the Garden of Eden still exists at its heart. Now a renegade English soldier aims to be the first human to traverse its expanse. Armed with only a strange bow, he begins his journey, but some fear the consequences of his mission, and a native marksman has been chosen to stop him.

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.

After attacking Devil's Reef in 1928, the US government rounded up the people of Innsmouth and took them to the desert, far from their ocean, their Deep One ancestors, and their sleeping god, Cthulhu. Only Aphra and Caleb Marsh survived the camps, and they emerged without a past or a future. The government that stole Aphra's life now needs her help. FBI agent Ron Spector believes that communist spies have stolen dangerous magical secrets.