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Originally Posted by rhadin
I agree with this choice for alternate history fiction. I have read all of Turtledove's novel-length works; some are excellent and some are pretty mediocre. I also own most of his work in hardcover.
To get the flavor of his work without going the series route, I highly recommend Household Gods by Harry Turtledove and Judith Tarr.
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Or
Ruled Britannia, wherein a successful Spanish Armada re-imposes Catholicism upon no longer Elizabethan England.
I have long been a fan of Alternate History, and I tend to find the most interesting stories to be those that don't get too far from the point of divergence. That is to say, those that don't go too far forward from the point in which the story's timeline diverged from our own.
The Years of Rice and Salt is a long, drawn out story that skips forward in time from one epoch to another long past the point of divergence, where 99% of Europeans are killed by the Plague in the 14th century. It devolves into the author preaching and berating the reader. I can't recall how many times this book put me to sleep, but I wouldn't waste my time on it!