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The Years of Rice and Salt
by
Kim Stanley Robinson
Award-winning author Kim Stanley Robinson delivers a thoughtful and powerful examination of cultures and the people who shape them. How might human history be different if 14th-century Europe was utterly wiped out by plague, and Islamic and Buddhist societies emerged as the world's dominant religious and political forces? The Years of Rice and Salt considers this question through the stories of individuals who experience and influence various crucial periods in the seven centuries that follow. The credible alternate history that Robinson constructs becomes the framework for a tapestry of ideas about philosophy, science, theology, and politics. At the heart of the story are fundamental questions: what is the purpose of life and death? Are we eternal? Do our choices matter? The particular achievement of this book is that it weaves these threads into a story that is both intellectually and emotionally engaging. This is a highly recommended, challenging, and ambitious work. |
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Voyage
by
Stephen Baxter
Kennedy survived. Like many alternate history stories, that's the premise of Stephen Baxter's Voyage. But in Baxter's version of the past, that one altered fact is the propellant that drives humanity into space, beyond the primitive lunar landings of the 1960s. Spurred by a JFK who champions space flight and a Nixon administration that backs NASA, humans reach Mars in 1986. But this is a tragic tale as well as a triumphant one, for Baxter's relentless realism chronicles the perils of extended space flight as well as its glamorous achievements, making for a gritty, true-to-life story. |
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God's Fires
by
Patricia Anthony
God has fallen to the Earth. Angels are sleeping with women. There is an immaculate conception, and lights are seen in the heavens. Heady stuff for the small village of Quintas, located in Portugal about the time of the Inquisition. While the pragmatic Father Pessoa struggles to keep the strange goings-on hidden from the eyes of the inquistors, the simple King Alfonso has decided that the stricken alien ship is God Himself. And God has let Alfonso in on a secret: the Earth orbits the sun. Unfortunately, the inquisitor-general is on his way to straighten things out. There will be no easy answers. |
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West of Eden
by
Harry Harrison
Sixty-five million years ago, a disastrous cataclysm eliminated three quarters of all life on Earth. Overnight, the age of dinosaurs ended. The age of mammals had begun. But what if history had happened differently? What if the reptiles had survived to evolve intelligent life? In West of Eden, bestselling author Harry Harrison has created a rich, dramatic saga of a world where the descendants of the dinosaurs struggled with a clan of humans in a battle for survival. Here is the story of Kerrick, a young hunter who grows to manhood among the dinosaurs, escaping at last to rejoin his own kind. His knowledge of their strange customs makes him the humans¹ leader . . . and the dinosaurs¹ greatest enemy. Rivalling Frank Herbert¹s Dune in the majesty of its scope and conception, West of Eden is a monumental epic of love and savagery, bravery and hope. Rivalling Frank Herbert¹s Dune in the majesty of its scope and conception, West of Eden is a monumental epic of love and savagery, bravery and hope. |
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Fox on the Rhine
by
Douglas Niles
and
Michael Dobson
'Fox on the Rhine,' by Douglas Niles and Micheal Dobson, is a wonderful story of just how differently World War Two could have turned out if the Army Officers plot had succeeded in killing Adolf Hitler. In 'Fox' Hitler is killed at Rastenberg on July 20th, 1944 and Germany is soon thrown into a sea of chaos. Heinrich Himmler and his SS soon move to gain the loyalty of the army and seek a seperate peace with the Soviets. Once that's accomplished, Himmler appoints Erwin Rommel, 'the Desert Fox,' to command an alternate version of the 'Battle of the Bulge.' While at times Dobson and Niles spend a little too much time showing off the fruits of their research, which is impressive, they do manage to tell a riveting story, and while some aspects of 'Fox' do stretch the reader's believabilty, the story is riveting and builds to an explosive climax. But perhaps the most fun is the simple question that the authors ask and attempt to answer: What would have happened had Erwin Rommel commanded the Ardennes Offensive? A great ride that ranks among the best works of alternate history. |
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Operation Shatterhand
by
Jake Page
May 7, 1944. In the dark of predawn, across the Mexican border and into the sleepy, sparsely populated desert lands of the American Southwest rolls a convoy of military vehicles--half-track trucks, troop trucks, and tanks. The very few people awake to witness it assume the armored detail is an American Army recruiting drive out of Fort Bliss. In fact, it is Operation Shatterhand, the master plan of a German officer who intends to conquer the Americans by dividing them in their own land. When word reaches the government of the invading Germans, FDR wants the incident handled quietly, lest the American populace panic. Suddenly it is up to a handful of Indians--Navajo and Hopi, hereditary enemies--to find a way to stop the German incursion. The Indians lost America once. They are not about to lose it again . . . |
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Celestial Matters
by
Richard Garfinkle
In newcomer Garfinkle's outrageous alternate world, the natural laws as understood by the ancient Greeks are literally true. So, the Earth, at the center of the universe, is surrounded by crystal spheres, the planets move in epicycles, space contains air, the gods talk to and through people, and good health depends upon a balance of humors. Here, the Delian League--based on the unmatchable warriors of Sparta and the unequalled learning of the Athenian Akademe--has been at war with the Middle Kingdom for 900 years. Now, the distinguished scientist Aias, in his mile-long celestial ship sculpted of glowing moon-matter, has proposed to capture a fragment of the sun and scorch the Middle Kingdom (which has its own well-developed, incomprehensible, science) into submission. As the voyage to the sun gets under way, Aias and his bodyguard, the Spartan Captain Yellow Hare, realize that they have a Middler spy aboard. The ship's military suspect Aias's old friend, mathematician Ramonojon; the latter maintains that the sun- capture method worked out by scientist Mihradarius will destroy the ship. Who is lying? Prompted by the gods, and heeding the wisdom of a stowaway, the Middler scientist Phan, Aias comes to believe that his entire course of action is mistaken. But only after a long, strange trip will he find a means to resolve the situation. Weird, disconcerting, fascinating, and original--though readers may find the counter-factual workings of Garfinkle's universe-that-never-was more puzzling than stimulating. |
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Devil's Tower
by
Mark Sumner
The turning point of the Civil War had come when the bodies got up at Shiloh. Dangerous magic had risen on a flood of blood and violence, and it swept across the land, washing away all but the strong and the lucky. Unnatural powers had been loosed, and nothing would ever be the same again. Towns out west were dying faster than mayflies in June. To survive the perils of the frontierbandits, hexes, marauders, and conjurations, folks needed a strong sheriff. And any lawman who expected to survive had better have a fast gun and a talent for magic. Jake Bird wasn't aiming to pin any star to his chest. He had a talent, maybe a strong one. But before he could search out his future, he'd have to face his past--and stand up against the man who'd killed his father. That would mean a showdown against the most dangerous wielder of magic in all the West: General George Armstrong Custer! |
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The Man in the High Castle
by
Philip K. Dick
This is a very complex, suspenseful novel, consisting of four main plot lines and a host of characters whose lives sometimes interact. Don't expect any slam-bang pyrotechnic action here, despite the novel's provocative premise. It's more a slice of life tale, showing that even after a catastrophic defeat, life in America would go on. Dick is very good at detailing the nuances of life in Axis-ruled America. For example, at one point as an aside, it is pointed out that after the Nazi pograms, the only surviving prewar comedian is Bob Hope, and even he has to broadcast out of Canada. Also, an unintended irony for a novel written in 1962 is Dick's conjecture that if the United States had lost WWII, we would all be listening to Japanese audio equipment and driving German cars now. The author achieves the near impossible feat of actually being even-handed towards the Nazis without glamorizing them. He describes them at one point as Neanderthals in white lab coats, technological geniuses who have drained the Mediterranean and are conquering the Solar System, yet are morally bankrupt. Dick is much easier on the Japanese, depicting them not just as benign conquerors, but almost like a group of tourists, just off the latest JAL flight headed for the souvenir stand at Disneyland. Only in one brief instance when Juliana Frink reminiscences about conditions in San Francisco immediately after the occupation is their wartime rapacity even hinted at. |
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The Complete Compleat Enchanter
by
L. Sprague De Camp
and
Fletcher Pratt
The place: a town in Ohio. Two psychologists, Harold Shea and Doc Chalmers, have made an amazing discovery: by altering their logical assumptions, they can visit any world they choose. Of course, it is difficult to tell beforehand exactly what world they're going to visit... These stories are hilarious and extremely readable, though you shouldn't expect anything terribly deep. This volume collects all of the original Harold Shea novellas into one book. This makes it something of a one-stop buy for anyone who wants to read them, especially since the original volumes are out of print. There are other in-print Shea stories, but they weren't written by the De Camp-Pratt team, so they're not nearly as good. They're still worth a look if you're bored. though. |
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Farnham's Freehold
by
Robert A. Heinlein
Farnham is a self-made man who sees nuclear war coming and who builds a shelter under his house; only to find it thrust into a strange universe when the bomb explodes. In this future world all civilization in the northern hemisphere has long been destroyed, and Farnham and his family are fit to be slaves under the new regime. Heinlein's story is as engrossing now as it was in its original form decades ago. |
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Three Hearts and Three Lions
by
Poul Anderson
"Three Hearts and Three Lions" by Poul Anderson is a wonderful tale of a 20th century man who must fight chaos and evil in land full of magic and oddities in order to keep his dream alive. I personaly found my self lost in this book of high adventure as unimaginable events unfolded before my eyes. A great book for the first time fantasy / alternative history reader, and for the experienced as well. |
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A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
by
Mark Twain
A practical, no-nonsense New Englander of 1889, knocked unconscious in a fight, wakes up in old England of 528, where, by dint of his industry, he becomes Sir Boss, a prominent and dissident member of the Round Table. With a trace of cockney in his voice, Chris Walker sprints through Mark Twain's revision of the chivalric ideal as if he were late for an appointment, tripping occasionally and never quite connecting with the authorial personality. He has no idea of what a Connecticut Yankee is or why placing one in Camelot should produce such telling thematic consequences. His main achievement is in keeping so much of the text straight at such high RPM. |