Any new Alternate history authors just over the Horizon?

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by scrapking

This sounds amazing. I haven't found it in my e-bookstore of choice, do you happen know if it's available anywhere (if not, I'll keep searching)?

Norman Spinrad sells The Iron Dream himself on Amazon, but it's pricey and very poorly formatted (he has health issues) and geo-restricted to the US, IIRC.

I'd say if you're willing to read paper, your best bet is to hunt it down in a used bookstore or see if the library has it. I originally read it from the Vancouver Public Library's hardback copy and you might be able to arrange an inter-library loan through the BC province-wide system if they haven't turfed it from their shelves to make space for yet another Dan Brown book in the meantime.

It's very good, though probably not what you'd expect.

I also second the recommendation upthread for Harry Turtledove's Ruled Britannia, which I bought on considered impulse last year and turned out to be well worth it. My impressions, for the morbidly curious, can be found in the What Are You Reading thread post here.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by morriss003

Thanks for this, I just picked it up from Amazon for a cent.

What I would like to see are AH's based on a difference in culture. For example, instead of a different victor in a war, imagine what the US and the world would be like if the South had accepted the abolition of slavery in the US Constitution in 1789.

Now THAT'S an interesting Idea!

What if Liberia had been as successful as originally hoped for? Or Emperor Maximilian had managed to hang on to Mexico?

[RDaneel54]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

Or Emperor Maximilian had managed to hang on to Mexico?

I can't imagine a timeline where he would have been connected to reality enough to have done so. Maybe if he was a completely different person with the same name, but then he probably wouldn't have been naive enough to have tried to be emperor. IMHO

[DaleCoz]

As tired as people are of the World War II and Civil War alternate histories, I find with my newsletters that World War II stuff gets far more hits than anything else, especially eastern front stuff and anything that involves Pearl Harbor or the first few months of the Pacific War. Part of the problem is that the further you go from the big events everybody has heard of, the fewer people understand the real history enough to appreciate the alternatives.

That's especially true if you get away from wars, but even there you lose a lot of people if you go away from Civil War and World War II. I did a novella a while back where the Indians won King Phillip's War and found that almost nobody knew enough about the real King Phillips War to know where the divergences happened.

I was on a panel at Windycon a few years ago on why so few science fiction stories are set in Africa. I made the point that alternate history is very difficult there because so few people know the real history. Here's an example: I'm going to toss out some things about an African kingdom called Kongo. Challenge: without googling it, tell me which if any of the events I describe are alternate history:

1) Starting in 1491, the royal family of the Kongo, a powerful kingdom in what is now Northern Angola, converted to Catholicism. Many of their subjects followed suit. They were in contact with various popes over the next several hundred years and had a considerable church hierarchy.
2) For the next almost a century and a half, Kongo remained a regional power, interacting intriguing with and fighting for and against the Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch.
3) In the 1660s, the Portuguese crushed Kongo in an epic and close-fought battle that was to that Kingdom as Mansikert was to the Byzantines. They killed the king and the core of his supporters, seized his treasury and triggered a decades long civil war. Some of the Portuguese forces were from Brazil, and they may have included Brazilian Indians allied to Portugal.
4) The remnants of the kingdom generated a "Joan of Arc"-type figure who tried to bring the kingdom back together, and was burned at the stake for her troubles.

Feel free to make your guesses as to what is alternate history and then scroll down.

All true. No alternate history involved.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by RDaneel54

I can't imagine a timeline where he would have been connected to reality enough to have done so. Maybe if he was a completely different person with the same name, but then he probably wouldn't have been naive enough to have tried to be emperor. IMHO

Max was a bit of a fool to be sure, but one or two competent advisors, and Max would have lasted much longer. Or a situation that forced the US to accept French troops in Mexico for a few more years. Possibly Max getting the support of Britain or Germany. Lots of scenarios possible where Max doesn't have to be personally competent to hang on to power.

[owly]

Oh, oh! I read a duology years ago that was set in a world ruled by the Zulu and the main character was a white slave boy from England, now if I could remember the title.... Then there is an interesting SF series by Thomas Harlan starting with the book "House of Reeds" where the ruling cultures are the Aztecs and Imperial Japanese.

[GlenBarrington]

But I don't think I HAVE to know the history to enjoy the story. At some point the divergence becomes obvious, and I personally can enjoy the research required to find out about what really occurred.

For example, I just finished a straight historical novel called Winston's War: A Novel of Conspiracy, by Michael Dobbs. I found it fascinating. The Author took great pains to make sure that the reader understood this was a NOVEL not history.

As an American, my knowledge of WW2 prior to American involvement was remarkably fuzzy. And my understanding of everyday British politics is virtually nonexistant. I never REALLY understood how conflicted the British public was over Churchhill. And when the novel got to the part where Britain invades Finland, I thought surely we've taken a trip into AH land. After I completed the novel, I was aghast to discover that was one of the true parts!

The point, I'm trying to make is, novelized History, whether Alternate or straight, doesn't have to get in the way of a good story, and for some subset of the reader population is a launching pad to further personal research.

Waiting for an educated, discerning readership before we tell a story means we'll never get to tell the story.

[Apache]

For something different try The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith. Note that he is a Libertarian and it comes through in his books.

The ostensible point of divergence leading to the North American Confederacy (NAC) is the addition of a single word in the preamble to the United States Declaration of Independence, wherein it states that governments "derive their just power from the unanimous consent of the governed." Inspired by this wording, Albert Gallatin intercedes in the Whiskey Rebellion to the benefit of the farmers, rather than the fledgling United States government. This eventually leading to the execution of George Washington, the abrogation of the U.S. Constitution, and the reestablishment of government under the revised Articles of Confederation.

Apache

[stonetools]

I was on a panel at Windycon a few years ago on why so few science fiction stories are set in Africa. I made the point that alternate history is very difficult there because so few people know the real history. Here's an example: I'm going to toss out some things about an African kingdom called Kongo. Challenge: without googling it, tell me which if any of the events I describe are alternate history:

1) Starting in 1491, the royal family of the Kongo, a powerful kingdom in what is now Northern Angola, converted to Catholicism. Many of their subjects followed suit. They were in contact with various popes over the next several hundred years and had a considerable church hierarchy.
2) For the next almost a century and a half, Kongo remained a regional power, interacting intriguing with and fighting for and against the Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch.
3) In the 1660s, the Portuguese crushed Kongo in an epic and close-fought battle that was to that Kingdom as Mansikert was to the Byzantines. They killed the king and the core of his supporters, seized his treasury and triggered a decades long civil war. Some of the Portuguese forces were from Brazil, and they may have included Brazilian Indians allied to Portugal.
4) The remnants of the kingdom generated a "Joan of Arc"-type figure who tried to bring the kingdom back together, and was burned at the stake for her troubles.

Feel free to make your guesses as to what is alternate history and then scroll down

I would happily read just that history, if it was done well.

The Wikipedia article on Alternate History is detailed, comprehensive and filled with links to other resources.

WIKIPEDIA

[RDaneel54]

Another one outside the usual is Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt. Europe totally wiped out by the plague in the 14th century. Islamic and Buddhist societies end up being the dominant world forces.

In the same vein, L. Neil Smith's The Crystal Empire. Same defining change in history, but add a powerful Sino Aztec empire into the mix.

[stonetools]

Here is another alternate history:

His Insha’Allah series which consists of the Novel’s The Lion’s Blood and Zulu Heart depicts an alternative North America colonized by Muslims from Africa

LINK

Until I did the search for Barnes, I had no idea there was an Islamic sci-fi forum.

[stonetools]

Although this is not alternate history but paralell universe, Robert Sawyer posits an intersting world where the Neaderthals , not anatomically modern humans, gain sentience and dominate the Earth:

LINK

An interesting alternate history would be where we had two or three sentient human species.

[scrapking]

Originally Posted by morriss003

Thanks for this, I just picked it up from Amazon for a cent.

How did you pick this up for a cent? I looked at each of the books being discussed in the thread, and they all seemed to cost a whole lot more than that.

[scrapking]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

Or Emperor Maximilian had managed to hang on to Mexico?

[Harry Turtledove "Great War" series Spoilers ahead]

Though it's not the main act, this actually does occur in Harry Turtledove's "Southern Victory" set. It's a series of series, with an initial volume about a second American civil war 20 years later (after the first was fought to a draw), then a three volume set 25 years after that as the two take different sides in World War I, and then more volumes after that (that I have yet to read).

The Southern States not only support the Empire of Mexico, but purchase two pacific provinces from the cash-strapped Empire to extend the Confederate States to the Pacific. This has the double effect of keeping the Mexican Empire afloat, and causing new consternation between North and South. Large chunks of the novels do take place in these two Confederate, former Mexican, states as they deal with aboriginal fugitives from the U.S., as well as the indiginous and spanish-descended Mexican populations.

Yes it's a war book, but Harry Turtledove does a good job of exploring lots of different cultures in most of his books, not just white anglo-saxon protestant cultures.

[b0rsuk]

! CAUTION !
An actual real history book. Not an alternate history, but so different from the usual fare that it reads like one.

Black Mother - Basil Davidson
How the slave trade looked from inside Africa (south of Sahara). How and why it started, how it affected societies, and why it was so hard to stop. Fascinating stuff. I guarrantee you'll read a lot of things you've never heard about. Best of all, it doesn't read like a typical history book (Dates, kings, and battles). It's much more about cause and effect.