AH on wikipedia

[Max Sinister]

Check this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_history_(fiction)

I found lots of AH books there, many of which I never heard of so far.

This one seems particular interesting:

"It was followed by Vladimir Nabokov's Ada (1969) (full title, Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle), a story of incest that takes place within an alternate North America settled in part by Czarist Russia, and that borrows from Dick's idea of "alternate-alternate" history (the world of Nabokov's hero is wracked by rumors of a "counter-earth" that apparently is ours). Some critics believe that the references to a counter-earth suggest that the world portrayed in "Ada" is a delusion in the mind of the hero (another favorite theme of Dick's novels). But even if the Ada-world is regarded as a delusion, it is still alternate history, since Nabokov describes it in detail and makes it come alive artistically. (Since all AH works are imaginative fiction, it really matters little if the AH is presented as the author's fiction alone or as the author's fiction mediated through a delusional character.)"

 

[Diamond]

Nabokov wrote an AH novel?!? Well, if that doesn't give the genre some respectability, nothing will..

 

[Max Sinister]

Looks as if it's a lot to read, even for experienced readers - it's got 69 chapters and is his longest work. But if you want to read it, here it is (it's not only the original text, but annotated - you may want to read it as a book first, the author of the page recommends so):

http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/ada/index.htm

 

[Dr. Strangelove]

Yup, I've read it and it's an awesome novel . For many critics, it even overcomes Lolita as Nabokov's masterpiece.

The AH setting is only secondary, what mattered to Nabokov was Ada's love story spanning from 1870 to 1967, and he gives very few hints about that alternate world, and for sure he didn't care about plausibility or butterflies. From what I remember:

-The French Revolution failed miserably and England annexed France.
-The Americas are settled from the Middle Ages. The USA exist, but are a confederacy of duchys like OTL's HRE. Instead of Canada, we have "Russia". In OTL Russia, we have the Golden Horde, separated from the rest of Europe by the Gold Curtain (evident pun )
- Hence, America's cities are like the european ones, with big medieval old cities and palazzi. New York looks like Venice.
- Their technological level is some 60 years ahead of ours. There's already cinema in the 1800's, and, although the novel's first chapters are set in the 1870's, the technology is 1940'ish. There are enormous flying vessels instead of ships (you'll love this)

An awesome read, although frustrating as AH. But if you don't care about it, you'll enjoy it a lot.

 

[Diamond]

Well, I read Lolita and enjoyed it, though I've never read anything else by Nabokov. I think I'll give it a try.

*runs over to Amazon*