Abdul Hadi Pasha said:
Can suggest a good AH novel or series that is both realistic and interesting? I don't mean Turtledove, whom I don't care for, or the Draka thing which is so far-fetched as to be ASB.
Realistic AND interesting is difficult IMO
Two books I did NOT like were Fatherland by Robert Harris and K by Daniel Easterman. Fatherland is boring, unimaginative and predictable. K is melodramatic and predictable and annoyed me by having a 7 year-old girl in it who acted like an adult.
Warlord of the Air by Michael Moorcock I thought was a good read - interesting and funny - but I don't think it's meant to be serious - it's a satire on Victorian attitudes (and there are thinly discguised caricatures of both a US and a UK politician in there). It's certainly better than the two other Oswald Bastable books (and Oswald Bastable is based on a character from the E. Nesbit books - very enjoyable Edwardian children's fantasies which are themselves quite satirical at the expense of Victorian attitudes).
The Iron Dream is one of my favourite books too - it's not really AH, but if you like AH you'll probably like it. And if you like AH you'll probably like Eugene Byrne's books too. They're not realistic but they are funny. He's written three - Things Unborn, in which people from throughout history who died "before their time" start reappearing, ThigMOO, in which an educational experience which allows students to interact with virtual historical personalities (artificial intelligences) goes badly wrong when an AI of a socialist rabble-rouser discovers a way to undo the safety features that keep the AIs from escaping onto the internet. Oh, and the third is "Back in the USSA" about a socialist USA.
Some books I think you would like:
Resurrection Day by Brendan DuBois. A realistic and well-written AH thriller in which the US in 1972 is a de-facto British colony after the Soviet Union failed to back down in the Cuban Missile Crisis and there was a short nuclear war between the USA and the USSR.
Making History by Stephen Fry. Very well written. A young history student writing a thesis on Hitler's childhood becomes friends with an aging physics professor whose father was at Auschwitz. Using an experimental and not particularly impressive time-travel device the professor has invented, they try and remove Hitler from history. As usual in these "time travellers change history" books things don't work out exactly to plan. I've seen criticism of this book that the way history works out in the AH is unrealistic, but to make up for that this book has a wonderful description of someone from our world experiencing an AH and getting totally disorientated. I've always thought that if you did ever find yourself in an AH it wouldn't so much be the big historical changes that would confuse you but all the inevitable random cultural changes - slang, food, fashions etc. and this is the only AH book I've seen that really addresses that - anyone know of any others?
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick and Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore are both must reads.
Pastwatch by Orson Scott Card is IMO both realistic and interesting. In the future, a bunch of academics using a time-travel device are considering using it to change history - then they discover evidence that someone has already done so - i.e. our own history is the result of time meddlers. One of the best AH books I've read.
Pacific Empire by G. Miki Hayden is good - the POD is an earlier and more successful Japanese attack on the US leaving the US suing for peace after it is left defenceless. The book has no particular plot but is a series of rather low-key short stories. I certainly found it both enjoyable and realistic but your milage may vary.