Alternate History Recs?

[Chovexani]

This is a subgenre I really need to read more of and I was wondering if anyone could request some good stuff. People keep telling me about the Anno Dracula books in particular and I'm looking for opinions.

[coloradodem2005]

1. Novels by Harry Turtledove.

Alternate history novels.

[Technowitch]

2. Turtledove sets up interesting premises...

...but cripples them with unsympathetic 2-dimensional characters and... well, a total lack of ability to write an actual ending.

Otherwise he's brillian, in terms of the historical stuff.

[Chovexani]

3. Ugh. Maybe I should stay away then.

There's few things I hate more than books with crap-ass endings. I mean, they really piss me off. :(

[Technowitch]

5. I'd have to say that endings are his weakest point, sad to say.

Mind you, I've read a LOT of Turtledove's stuff, too.

I tend to be pretty forgiving when I'm reading what I know to be a series, for the earlier volumes. But in the World War saga, the Colonization follow-on, and the Great War books... Not a one of them comes to an actual climax. Things happen, and then it's just over, with nothing but loose ends. It's almost like he loses interest, or maybe the deadline comes up.

But in any case it's a pattern I've seen several times now, enough so that I'm done buying his stuff. Great opening... a middle that gets draggy, but still compelling enough to continue to read... and then a thoroughly disappointing ending, by which time I've also ceased to care about the characters.

These are all just my opinions, of course. There are LOTS of folks out there who think he's wonderful, else his books wouldn't sell as well as they do.

-Technowitch

[ThoughtCriminal]

16. "Guns of the South" was an exception

probably his best, and the characters were interesting.

[phantom power]

4. "Years of Rice and Salt", by Kim Stanley Robinson

What if the plague had killed 99% of Europe, instead of 33%? Islam and Buddhism dominate the next thousand years of world culture. The Enlightenment takes place in the middle east and Asia, not europe...

[Dogmudgeon]

10. Is that a paperback yet?

I've been looking for it, but it does not seem to exist as a paperback.

--bkl

[phantom power]

11. yes, I'm reading it as a trade paperback myself.

[lazarus]

6. short stories

Look for collections edited by Martin Greenburg, they tend to have really good stuff.

IMO, alt history is best dealt with in a short story.

[Astarho]

7. Gate of the Worlds

By Robert Silverberg, all about the Aztec empire as a world power.

[bobbieinok]

8. Turtledove's contemp alt hist--The Toxic Spell Dump

environmental pollution from 'toxic spells'

very funny book

[Enraged_Ape]

9. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

This Hugo award winner is the granddaddy of all the sci-fi alternate history novels, with some great Phildickian stuff thrown in.

[politicat]

12. Fictionwise has tons of Alt. His.

At reasonable rates.

My favorites are Connie Willis' Dunworthy books (Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog) and I'm interested in Eric Flint's 1632, 1633 and 1634.

I'm slowly slogging through the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson. I just finished Quicksilver, and I'm resting before I dive into The Confusion. Be warned: they're massive in a multifaceted way.

If you like alt. hist and are interested in being a beta-reader, I'm working on a long piece now that posits the idea that the Puritans retained control of England and the North American continent was settled by the Royalists. I have a second piece in progress dealing with 16th c. Venice in the same genre. PM me on that option.

Pcat

[DavidDvorkin]

13. I'll dare to suggest my own two alt-hist novels

Budspy (http://www.dvorkin.com/budspy.htm)

Dawn Crescent (http://www.dvorkin.com/dawncresc) This one has a nice blurb from Harry Turtledove.

[Taxloss]

19. Your blurb about Budspy intrigues me ...

... where can I see the cover?

[DavidDvorkin]

25. Sorry, somehow I missed this till now

I keep meaning to put both the old and new covers up, along with some of the text. I'll let you know as soon as I do, which will be . . . RSN.

You can see a small version of the covers of the new edition on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1587153610/qid=991690687/sr=1-1/ref=sc_b_1/002-2642599-3827224?n=283155

They don't have the cover of the old edition on Amazon, I assume because it would require scanning, whereas the new one was available to them as a file. Which will be a problem for me as well, if I can't get my scanner working with my new computer.

[raccoon]

14. Fatherland (Hitler still in power in the 1960's)

and there's a short story called "Winterberry"--its premise if that JFK survived but had suffered brain damage.

[NewJeffCT]

15. Not quite sci-fi

But, alternate history, a book called "What If" where famous historians imagine important battles in history going a different way - i.e., what if Napoleon had won at Waterloo?; what if the Greeks had lost to the Persians at Salamis? What if the Chinese nationalists hadn't invaded the Communist stronghold of Manchuria?

[semillama]

17. The Children's War

forget the author's name, but it's a look at what Europe would be like if the Nazis had won. Very long, and can be seriously depressing, but it's so believable. check it out.

[Taxloss]

18. This is one of my favourite genres.

"The Difference Engine" by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling is excellent. Charles Babbage's Difference engine actually works, and the information age happens at breakneck pace in Victorian England - beautifully realised, great plot, well written, the detail is splendid. "Britain, with her difference engines and calculating cannons, prepare to civilise the world ..." There's a fair amount about the USA in there as well - or rather, the USA, the CSA, and the republics of Texas and California.

"Pavane" by Keith Roberts is a beautifully written vision of an England where Protestantism failed, the Enlightenment never happened, and the country remains basically medieval into the 20th century.

"Pasquale's Angel" by Paul J McAuley is another fine book. The slightest tweak to Leonardo da Vinci's designs and the industrial revolution gets under way in Renaissance Florence. Lovely stuff.

I would also recommend "The Whole Orb", but sadly it's not in print. Humanity makes first contact with aliens in the 16th century, but sadly the race that visits is rather expansionist. There's no outright invasion (many setpiece battles, though, and a lot of diplomacy), but by the 21st century we have settled into our status as a comfortable colony. Some, however, are not so comfortable. The author is a total unknown. Me.

(I wrote another as well, "Qualities of Light", in which Henry V doesn't die of dysentery at Vincennes in 1422, but 28 years later. A truncated Renaissance, Gothicism triumphant, and no Reformation or Enlightenment. Europe is still in the Middle Ages by the 20th Century. However, I'm not satisfied with it and intend a rewrite.)

[bain_sidhe]

20. Not mentioned yet

The "Nantucket" series by S.M. Stirling - The island of Nantucket is somehow transported back to the Bronze age.

Island in the Sea of Time
Against the Tide of Years
On the Oceans of Eternity

Eric Flint's 1632 series (although it's a bit shallow on the characterization, IMHO.)

[porkrind]

21. "Draka" novels by S.M. Stirling

Start with the first and best of the lot: "Marching through Georgia." A classic of scifi alternate history. This book really kicks ass.

[Bridget Burke]

22. Here to recommend Kim Newman's Anno Dracula books....

"Anno Dracula" shows a Victorian England in which the widowed queen has taken a new husband--Count Dracula, who was NOT defeated by von Helsing. The other Old Ones come out of hiding & "turning" becomes quite the rage. A large number of historical & literary characters have cameos.

"The Bloody Red Baron" shows how The Great War could have been even worse. Again, fascinating appearances by real & fictional characters.

The third volume has two different titles. Rome in the late 50's--how decadent!

[SheilaT]

23. Try

Alternities, by Michael Kube-McDowell, which has recently been re-printed. It had been out of print for a long time, and I'm glad to see it's back. It involves crossing over between alternate time-lines, and is thoughtfully and well-done.

While not exactly alternate history, you might like Replay by Ken Grimwood. On the very first page the protagonist dies, and then proceeds to relive his life, starting from about age 20. And then again, when he dies again. One of my all-time favorites.

[Orsino]

24. Harry Harrison's Hammer & Cross Trilogy

http://www.iol.ie/~carrollm/hh/n27-.htm

I think a lot of these.

I tried to read the first of his Stars And Stripes tilogy, but got fed up pretty quickly.