I want to get into more AH content. I plan on reading the Man in the High Castle, but I was wondering if there were some other books people could recommend me.
Recommend me some AH Books.
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Harry Turtledove's one of the better ones, but some of his stuff really wavers in quality since he has Protection From Editors. Eric Flint's done some solid ISOT work, especially the 1632 series.
Robert Conroy's stuff is also pretty good. 1945 and his Custer one, I think, are pretty solid in particular.
Also, the already mentioned Turtledove. TL-191 is a short step from required reading on this site (ok, not seriously!), and The War that Came Early and Bombs Away/Fallout are very good too.
- BNC
Also, the already mentioned Turtledove. TL-191 is a short step from required reading on this site (ok, not seriously!), and The War that Came Early and Bombs Away/Fallout are very good too.
- BNC
Robert Harris' Fatherland is one of my favourites.
If you don't mind something a bit less realistic then I can heartily recommend the three Oswald Bastable books - Warlord of the Air, The Land Leviathan and The Steel Tsar - by Michael Moorcock.
If you don't mind something a bit less realistic then I can heartily recommend the three Oswald Bastable books - Warlord of the Air, The Land Leviathan and The Steel Tsar - by Michael Moorcock.
Of Harry Turtledove, his short stories and one shot novels tend to be better. I highly recommend Ruled Britannia and his Departures anthology.
I'd also recommend the Temeraire series (the Napoleonic Wars but with dragons!) by Naomi Novik and Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle. Celestial Matters does some really neat stuff with a premise that's rarely done of what if the ancient Greek understanding of the physical and natural world was correct.
I'd also recommend the Temeraire series (the Napoleonic Wars but with dragons!) by Naomi Novik and Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle. Celestial Matters does some really neat stuff with a premise that's rarely done of what if the ancient Greek understanding of the physical and natural world was correct.
I dunno, Conroy really succumbs to lazy stereotypes a lot. His 1901 in particular is choc-full of All Germans Are Nazis stereotypes to the point of absurdity and features a German invasion of New York. In 1901. Despite the Kaiserliche Marine still being mostly a joke at that time and the Brits ruling the waves.
Turtledove's stuff is best with WW2 and Byzantium, IMO; his Treasonous Rebellion stuff is a bit weaker. Especially the treasonous secessionists surviving for so long as an independent state with any kind of power at all, given that they'd be suffering rebellions from loyal patriots like the Free State of Jones, East Tennessee, and West Virginia. But I liked The Man with the Iron Heart; that was some really scary WW2 stuff.
I also recommend the Belisarius series, less as a serious AH and more as a pulpy period piece featuring BYZANTINES WITH GUNS going up against INDIANS WITH ROCKETS and other such Cool VS. Awesome matchups. It also (refreshingly) subverts a lot of tropes in amusing ways.
Some books that is 100% true (Liberty 1784 in particular), others it is almost completely the reverse, IMO. Anyway, the OP asked for what people think are good, and I have eight Conroys on my shelf, so they can't be so terrible as to not deserve a mention. If the OP buys one and decides it sucks, that is up to him.
- BNC
I recommend that would check to the Sea Lion Press' books and/or can check out to Alternate History fiction that would provide you an wide guide to the whole genre: (edited) Books and 'short' AH. stories.
Actually that's the one set of Tsouras's books I would recommend avoiding.
His Disaster at D-Day and Gettysburg, if only for being an AH where the North does better, are far superior.
For someone un-mentioned yet try the works of William Forstchen.
(The amusement of having even his sometime co-author, Newt Gingrich, admit that the South was screwed whatever happens is worth a read)
Resurrection Day by Brendan DuBois is a fine airport novel about a world where the Cuban Missile Crisis turned hot, although it has a major unicorn in its garden with Europe managing to escape the war scot-free. It paints a grubby portrait of a US that "won" the war after only taking a handful of nukes, but is still not a great place to live; there's rationing, 'orphie' gangs, and the country is a functional one-party state, with the military holding a Turkish-level involvement in the government and the Democrats being blamed for the war.
The Company of the Dead by David Kowalski is an interesting different take on the genre. In this book, the Titanic never sank, which indirectly results in America never getting involved in WW2, and the world develops in a very different way... a worse way, as it turns out.
So there is a plan to go back in time and sink the Titanic, to allow the world to develop as it could/should - yes, with all the horror of war etc, but including the jumps in science this meant.
This is a long book, and a first novel, so the author's pacing is not always great. But it is an intriguing idea
So there is a plan to go back in time and sink the Titanic, to allow the world to develop as it could/should - yes, with all the horror of war etc, but including the jumps in science this meant.
This is a long book, and a first novel, so the author's pacing is not always great. But it is an intriguing idea
I would like to recommend some AH crime stories.
A standalone by Michael Chabon: 'The Yiddish Policeman Union'. POD: Jewish immigrants allowed to settle in refugee district near Sitka, Alaska.
And tangentially AH Arabesk cycle (or Ashraf Bey cycle) by John Courtenay Grimwood. Crime/techno books set "five minutes into different future" in melange of cultures in El - Iskandrija. POD is somewhat different WWI, but books start in slightly cyberpunk 21st century time, concentrating on local area. Wider world situation is rarely shown, differences are only mentioned in passing.
A standalone by Michael Chabon: 'The Yiddish Policeman Union'. POD: Jewish immigrants allowed to settle in refugee district near Sitka, Alaska.
And tangentially AH Arabesk cycle (or Ashraf Bey cycle) by John Courtenay Grimwood. Crime/techno books set "five minutes into different future" in melange of cultures in El - Iskandrija. POD is somewhat different WWI, but books start in slightly cyberpunk 21st century time, concentrating on local area. Wider world situation is rarely shown, differences are only mentioned in passing.
Agree the above is an excellent read, plus if your taste is more toward the 'knock about' the Stuart Slade's The Big One and subsequent series is good fun. Conrad's Eye particularly stands out.
John Brunner - Times without number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Without_Number
not top quality, but entertaining, alternate history in a timeline where the spanish armada wins, spain rules the world, and where contemporary spain has a machine to travel in time and alternate universes
avoid at all cost any AH written by harry harrison!!!!
not top quality, but entertaining, alternate history in a timeline where the spanish armada wins, spain rules the world, and where contemporary spain has a machine to travel in time and alternate universes
avoid at all cost any AH written by harry harrison!!!!
Donald Reaver
Donor
Surprised not to see "Lest Darkness Fall" by L. Sprague De Camp perhaps one of the most classic novels of the genre.
that is a classic
also "Gate of Worlds" by Andre Norton. Both got me interested in alternate history
Tsouras has a number of anthologies that are worth getting, I have them all. Quality of the scenarios vary from outstanding to ''eh" and so does the writing. Several on World War II, one each on World War I, American Civil War, the Napoleonic Wars and Cold War.
"Luftwaffe Victorious" by Mike Spicek is really really good
the "Alternate Generals" anthology by Harry Turtledove
All Gingrinch/Forsten "Gettysburg" trilogy is truly outstanding, their two "Pearl Harbor" books less so. "1945" was interesting although suffers from a rushed ending (a serious failing in the Tsouras books that are written by him)
Conroy is fun, so is Harry Harrison, but they are not very serious works. Although it is fun to see some of our British posters get really worked up about Tsouras and Harrison
I absolutely loved the David Flint "Rivers of War" series (two books), but then Sam Houston is a personal hero of mine.
SM Stirling may be an asshole (based on reports from this forum) but his Draka series and his Island in the Sea of Time series are really excellent reads. He falls into tropes entirely too often but those two series are well worth a read.
then there is the classic "Guns of the South", which is in my view the best Turtledove wrote. Reasonable people can disagree of course but it really is a fun one. I also liked his "Ruled Britannia" a lot (Spanish occupation of England after a successful invasion and it has William Shakespear as a character)