Alternate World Fantasy

In these 34 intriguing episodes, leading historian Christopher Andrew rewrites history, considering what might have transpired if pivotal events had turned out differently. By altering a single, plausible fact, he explores alternative futures where the Spanish Armada landed on English soil, Pontius Pilate freed Jesus, the Nazis occupied Britain and many more.

When 20-year-old police recruit Kiera Hudson sets off to the remote town of Ripper Falls, in search of her missing brother, her life is changed forever. But when Kiera's life collides into a stranger, she finds herself tangled up in a world unlike anything she has even known.

In an alternate 1875 America, electricity is forbidden, Native Americans and Yankees are united, and eldritch evil lurks in the shadows. Young Archie Dent knows there really are monsters in the world. His parents are members of the Septemberist Society, whose job it is to protect humanity from hideous giants called the Mangleborn. Trapped in underground prisons for a thousand years, the giant monsters have been all but forgotten - but now they are rising again as the steam-driven America of 1875 rediscovers electricity, the lifeblood of the Mangleborn.

Covert agent Cyril DePaul thinks he's good at keeping secrets, especially from Aristide Makricosta. They suit each other: Aristide turns a blind eye to Cyril's clandestine affairs, and Cyril keeps his lover's moonlighting job as a smuggler under wraps. Cyril participates in a mission that leads to disastrous results, leaving smoke from various political fires smoldering throughout the city. Shielding Aristide from the expected fallout isn't easy, though.

In this thought-provoking masterpiece, H.G. Wells predicts the inventions that will inadvertently lead to mass destruction, forcing the world to "start over." You will see many similarities between H.G. Wells' new world and today's world due to the recent technological revolution. This stimulating novel will leave you wondering if and when the remaining predictions will come to pass!

On the 20th anniversary of Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder returns with a spellbinding fable. When 15-year-old Anna begins receiving messages from another time, her parents take her to the doctor. But he can find nothing wrong with Anna; in fact he believes there may be some truth to what she is seeing. Anna is haunted by visions of the desolate world of 2082. She sees her great-granddaughter, Nova, in a wasteland peopled by ragged survivors, after animals and plants have died out.

Annabel Scheme is a detective story set in an alternate San Francisco where the digital and the occult live side-by-side. It's a short listen, perfect for people who like Sherlock Holmes, Douglas Adams, ghosts and/or the Internet. In Scheme's San Francisco, an indie rocker's new tracks are climbing the charts, even though the rocker herself is long dead. A devout gamer has gone missing, and the only trace of him that remains is inside his favorite game, the blockbuster MMORPG called World of Jesus. And the richest man in the city, the inventor of the search engine called Grail, might just have made a deal with a devil.

In our universe, Ponce de Leon is remembered for his fruitless search for the mythical fountain of youth. But, in an alternate universe, his quest found something very different - and very dangerous. Eighty-five years later, Spain sent a fleet of ships against England. The English were confident that they could repel the threat - but England's fleet was annihilated by weapons shooting beams of fiery light, weapons which seemed to employ the blackest of sorcery, even if they were wielded by odd-looking beings in monk's garb.

Archie Dent is convinced that he and his friends Hachi and Fergus are the first three members of a new League of Seven: a group of heroes who come together to fight the Mangleborn whenever the monsters arise to destroy humanity. His belief is put to the test when they are forced to undertake separate missions. Archie and his faithful Tik-Tok servant, Mr. Rivets, pursue a shape-shifting girl who has stolen the Dragon Lantern, an ancient artifact with mysterious powers.

In Amberlough City, out of the ashes of revolution, a traitor returns, a political campaign comes to a roaring head, and the people demand justice for crimes past. As a nation struggles to rebuild, who can escape retribution? Amnesty is a smart, decadent, heart-pounding conclusion to Lara Elena Donnelly’s widely praised glam spy trilogy that will have listeners enthralled until the very end.

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.

1939: Adolf Hitler, fallen from power, seeks refuge in a London engulfed in the throes of a very British Fascism. Now eking a miserable living as a down-at-heels private eye and calling himself Wolf, he has no choice but to take on the case of a glamorous Jewish heiress whose sister went missing. It's a decision Wolf will very shortly regret. For in another time and place a man lies dreaming: Shomer, once a Yiddish pulp writer, who dreams lurid tales of revenge in the hell that is Auschwitz.

Teenage supersoldier Ryn Whittaker started an uprising. For three years Ryn was stationed at The Battle Ground Rift site - one of the 14 mysterious and unpredictable tears in the fabric of the universe that serve as doorways to alternate Earths - and then she met Ezra Massad. Falling in love and becoming a rebel Citadel wasn't part of Ryn's life plan, but with Ezra there asking all the right questions, they began to decode what's really going on with the Allied Rift Coalition, and what they discovered was enough to start a civil war.

Billy Boustany had the adventure of a lifetime. Now, all he wants to do is to go back to the amazing universe he discovered. But the power brokers over there warned him to stay away and keep his mouth shut. At the same time, Diyami Red Hawk, an idealistic young man from that universe, has connected with Billy’s daughter and is on a mission to build a modern Native American city in our world. But he’s getting nowhere—until he finds support in unexpected places.

The Lion of Mistra is the third in this epic historical series, shaped by the quest for a powerful relic which could save the endangered Byzantine Empire. It's a different world. Bayezid, leader of the Ottomans, is dead; his heirs, Suleyman and Mehmed, are at war with each other; and the dread Tamerlane, who was on the brink of invading China, is also dead. Luke is now pushed into the role of protector of Mistra.

Using science fiction, allegory, and magical realism to challenge the perception of what it means to be "the other", this groundbreaking anthology contains stories that are heartbreakingly surreal and yet utterly recognizable to the human experience. Though born out of exhaustion, fear, and despair, Iraq + 100 is also fueled by themes of love, family, and endurance and woven through with a delicate thread of hope for the future.

After months of mystery, the true power of the blue men has finally been revealed, plunging the fate of both new and old worlds into question. Working together with their new dragon allies, Britain and the United States must find some way to survive in a cosmos at war.... But when a new blue man threat is discovered, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, and all the heroes of the new world, must rally for a dangerous mission - one that offers them only a slim chance of survival. The time has come for humanity to truly face the Empire....

Sixteen-year-old Charli is living in a pandemic-ravaged 2020 America when she stumbles upon the parallel world of the Q'ehazi. Drawn to these peaceful people, whose constant joy and optimism provides a stark contrast to the suffering and violence in her own life, Charli wants nothing more than to stay with them forever-but first, she must learn to attain a state of grace.

Commander Tony Romella takes a small team on what is expected to be a routine one month trip to Casablanca, Morocco. Their mission is simply to provide a temporary Top Secret special intelligence communications center to support U.S. members of a high level Allied war planning meeting. An easy mission quickly goes awry. Only two months after the Allied assault and occupation of Casablanca (Operation TORCH), the city remains a hotbed of Vichy and German sympathizers and spies. One unexpected event leads to another. Things get dicey, with life threatening situations, shots fired and dead bodies.

New research has uncovered deeply buried military secrets—both the Allied and Axis special operations during WWII included monsters. Did the Soviets use a dragon to win the Battle of Kursk? Did a vampire fight for the Canadians in Holland? Did the US drop the second atomic bomb on a kaiju? This collection takes real events from World War II and injects them with fantastical creatures that mirror the “unreality” of war itself. Each story—and two poems—feature mythical, mystical, and otherwise unexplainable beings that change the course of history.