Alternate History Books - Page 4

How Few Remain

Harry Turtledove

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 121 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

A stunning start to a lengthy series 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Good ol' Turtledove. Love him or hate him, in many ways he's responsible for the recent surge in alternate history stories. At his best he puts out books like Guns of the South, Ruled Britannia and In the Presence of Mine Enemies. At his worst... well, even at his worst he's still pretty darn readable.

Thankfully this book, which starts the mammoth so-called "Timeline 191" series, is one of the better books. Taking place in a world where the CSA survived the Civil War, and is now about to go to war against the USA again in 1881, the book is an excellent vision of what might have been.

Most fascinating in the novel are the uses of historical characters. Fredrick Douglass, frustrated at the continuation of slavery in the South. Abraham Lincoln, voted out of office in 1864 and now hated by the nation. Sammuel Clemmens, newspaper editor and all around smart-ass. Stonewall Jackson, the great Terror. And my personal favorite, Teddy Roosevelt, assembling Roosevelts Unauthorized Regiment to fight those dirty Canuks!

This book sets up many events that will come into play later. The Mormon uprising starts here. The Socialist Party begins to come into its own. Roosevelt and Custer make their first appearances. And we start to see the slow transformation of the United States into the sort of country that would, a few decades down the line, consider it entirely acceptable to, when a soldier is attacked, round up civilians and murder them as punishment.

This book holds up well as a stand-alone novel, but much better if you then go from this to the Great War books. It's probably the best of the series, which isn't saying THAT much because the other ones are pretty good, too. While the reader might not always agree with the tracks Turtledove takes the world onto in this book it is at least always an entertaining voyage, and there's far worse things to be.

Editorial Review:

From the master of alternate history comes an epic of the second Civil War. It was an epoch of glory and success, of disaster and despair. . . .

1881: A generation after the South won the Civil War, America writhed once more in the bloody throes of battle. Furious over the annexation of key Mexican territory, the United States declared total war against the Confederate States of America in 1881.

But this was a new kind of war, fought on a lawless frontier where the blue and gray battled not only each other but the Apache, the outlaw, the French, and the English. As Confederate General Stonewall Jackson again demonstrated his military expertise, the North struggled to find a leader who could prove his equal. In the Second War Between the States, the times, the stakes, and the battle lines had changed--and so would history. . .

Watch on the Rhine (Posleen War Series #7)

John Ringo, Tom Kratman

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Total reviews: 54 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The invaders are coming¿the Posleen, a seemingly unstoppable horde who have conquered one star system after another, literally feeding on their conquests. Earth¿s dubious allies, the Darhel, have given the humans a number of highly-advanced technological devices, including a process for rejuvenating the aged, including trained and proven soldiers who otherwise would be too old to fight. Rejuvenation may give a critical edge, since to survive, the Earth must use every resource at hand. Every resource . . .

In the dark days after the initial Posleen attack, but before the primary invasion, the Chancellor of Germany faces a critical decision. Over the years, with military cutbacks, the store of experienced German military personnel had simply dwindled. After the destruction of Northern Virginia, he realized that it was necessary to tap the one group he had sworn never, ever, to recall: the few remaining survivors of the Waffen SS. Has he made a devil¿s bargain, or is this a chance for the reviled SS at last to fight the good fight? And, perhaps, gain redemption. . . ?

Watch On the Rhine, a new chapter in the New York Times best-selling Posleen War saga, is perhaps the most unbiased, and brutal, look at the inner workings of the Waffen SS in history. Meticulously researched, it explores all that was good, and evil, about the most infamous military force in history using the backdrop of the Posleen invasion as a canvas.

Drive to the East (Settling Accounts, Book 2)

Harry Turtledove

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 59 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Harry Turtledove–the master of alternate history–has recast the tumultuous twentieth century and created an epic that is powerful, bold, and as convincing as it is provocative. In Drive to the East he continues his saga of warfare that has divided a nation and now threatens the entire world.

In 1914, the First World War ignited a brutal conflict in North America, with the United States finally defeating the Confederate States. In 1917, The Great War ended and an era of simmering hatred began, fueled by the despotism of a few and the sacrifice of many. Now it’s 1942. The USA and CSA are locked in a tangle of jagged, blood-soaked battle lines, modern weaponry, desperate strategies, and the kind of violence that only the damned could conjure up–for their enemies and themselves.

In Richmond, Confederate president and dictator Jake Featherston is shocked by what his own aircraft have done in Philadelphia–killing U.S. president Al Smith in a barrage of bombs. Featherston presses ahead with a secret plan carried out on the dusty plains of Texas, where a so-called detention camp hides a far more evil purpose.

As the untested U.S. vice president takes over for Smith, the United States face a furious thrust by the Confederate army, pressing inexorably into Pennsylvania. But with the industrial heartland under siege, Canada in revolt, and U.S. naval ships fighting against the Japanese in the Sandwich Islands, the most dangerous place in the world may be overlooked.


From the Hardcover edition.

American Front (The Great War, Book 1)

Harry Turtledove

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 120 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

When the Great War engulfed Europe in 1914, the United States and the Confederate States of America, bitter enemies for five decades, entered the fray on opposite sides: the United States aligned with the newly strong Germany, while the Confederacy joined forces with their longtime allies, Britain and France. But it soon became clear to both sides that this fight would be different--that war itself would never be the same again. For this was to be a protracted, global conflict waged with new and chillingly efficient innovations--the machine gun, the airplane, poison gas, and trench warfare.

Across the Americas, the fighting raged like wildfire on multiple and far-flung fronts. As President Theodore Roosevelt rallied the diverse ethnic groups of the northern states--Irish and Italians, Mormons and Jews--Confederate President Woodrow Wilson struggled to hold together a Confederacy still beset by ignorance, prejudice, and class divisions. And as the war thundered on, southern blacks, oppressed for generations, found themselves fatefully drawn into a climactic confrontation . . .

The Gladiator (Crosstime Traffic)

Harry Turtledove

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Soviet Union won the Cold War. The Russians were a little smarter than they were in our own world, and the United States was a little dumber and a lot less resolute. Now, more than a century later, the world's gone Communist, and capitalism is a bad word.
 
For Gianfranco and his friend Annarita, a couple of teenagers growing up in Milan, life in a heavily regimented, surveillance-rich command economy is just plain dreary. The eventual withering-away of the state doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon.
 
Annarita's a hard-working student and a member of the Young Socialists' League. Gianfranco is a lot less motivated--but on the other hand, his father's a Party apparatchik. The biggest excitement in their lives is a wargame shop called The Gladiator, which runs tournaments, and stocks marvelous complex games you can't find anywhere else.
 
Then, abruptly, the shop is shut down. Someone's figured out that The Gladiator's games are teaching counterrevolutionary capitalist principles. The Security Police are searching high and low for the shop's proprietors, who've not only vanished into thin air, but have left behind sets of fingerprints that aren't in the records of any government on earth.
 
Only one staffer is left: Gianfranco and Annarita's friend Eduardo. He's on the run, and he comes to them in secret with an astonishing story: he's a time trader from our own timeline, accidentally left behind when the store was evacuated. The only way Eduardo can get home to his own timeline is if Gianfranco and Annarita can help him reach one of the other time trader sites in this world--and the Security Police will be on their tails all the way there.

Ring of Fire (Assiti Shards)

Eric Flint

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Brilliant idea 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

A brilliant idea: both this book and the new series of which it is a part. All red-blooded Americans will like these stories, and probably many Germans, too.

This is a better reading book than Flint's "1632" or "1633." Those are the novels that introduced the idea, of a bunch of small-town West Virginians mysteriously transported back to 1632 in south German lands in the middle of the misery of the Thirty Years War, into a series. This volume is the first to consist of a number of short stories and a novela, each one focused on a single topic or set of characters that are much simpler to understand than the novels. The argumentation or plots are short and tight here. Each story is an entire capsule, rather than open-ended threads (as in the novels), within a saga that is gradually spreading to encompass (and rewrite the "history" of) all of Europe, and equally difficult to integrate. The "main line" of novels sprawls a good bit, each juggling numerous parallel threads--like real history-- which will all, hopefully, link up some day. In this collection we get entire stories of how some line of innovation got started after the Americans arrived down-time, such as naval ships, the dye industry, religious rapprochements, telegraphy, infiltration, and the propagation of the American way, seen as the only route to survival. The idea is a bit like Twain's The Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, but now for an entire town of 3500 facing and adapting to the brutal challenges of a strife-torn Europe.

The brilliant innovation of the series is its structure. Besides the novels, written by the creator Eric Flint and picked collaborators, Ring of Fire begins a line of anthologies that fill out the big picture developed in those huge novels. This anthology is not the usual passel of authors riffing on someone's created world, each in their own inimitable but clashing styles. It includes stories set in the world of "1632" submitted by unknown authors over email, taking advantage of an intense online community that has grown for the further development of this world. They produce a coherent collection of disparate stories, but linked by style and consistent background events, thanks to Flint's strong editorial hand and the cooperation of the writers. Significantly, some stories provide the backstory of major characters seen in the novels, while others show the contributions of minor characters to the fight for survival. Most remarkably, new characters are also introduced who will be allowed to become leading actors in the future main line novels. This series is a truly collaborative enterprise; the many authors of this anthology are not merely guest writers. Their stories spin in to, not spin out from, Flint's world of "1632." This structure is very generous, excitingly productive, and is unique in my reading experience.

While the novels contain major military actions, as one might expect from Flint's other books, this volume concentrates mostly on a great variety of civilian matters vital to the survival and then expansion of the community. The prose is so-so, quite literal, and just drives staight ahead. There also must be lots of pedantic history necessary to make sense of the specific problems and situations addressed here. Although this book should be read after "1632," the stories are not confined to a time line, and so can be read alongside any of the "1634: xx" novels. The Assiti Shards moniker has nothing to do with the series at present, but may eventually explain the mysterious initial time travel element.

Editorial Review:

The battle between democracy and tyranny is joined, and the American Revolution has begun over a century ahead of schedule. A cosmic accident has shifted a modern West Virginia town back through time and space to land it and its twentieth century technology in Germany in the middle of the Thirty Years War. History must take a new course as American freedom and democracy battle against the squabbling despots of seventeenth-century Europe. Continuing the story begun in the hit novels 1632 and 1633, the New York Times best-selling creator of Honor Harrington, David Weber, the best-selling fantasy star Mercedes Lackey, best-selling SF and fantasy author Jane Lindskold, space adventure author K. D. Wentworth, Dave Freer, co-author of the hit novels Rats, Bats & Vats and Pyramid Scheme (both Baen), and Eric Flint himself combine their considerable talents in a shared-universe volume that will be a "must-have" for every reader of 1632 and 1633.

Cities of the Red Night: A Novel

William S. Burroughs

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A true vision of the future or past 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Burroughs knew what he was talking about. This book along with the Place of Dead Roads was the final, most complete and coherant summation of the Burroughs vision/nightmare. Just by virtue of his personal style these books mix utopian essay, apocalyptic nightmare, gut wrenching horror, and valid cultural criticism. As far as experimental fiction goes, you won't find any more readable, in the Burroughs canon or anywhere else. A word of caution: these books are for thinking people; they are not brain dead entertainment with cutesy characters or happy endings. It is not easy reading. Burroughs regards the natural condition of humaity and civillization as ultimately dark and depraved. Few people want to believe that, and those who do may have a hard time coming to grips with such a pessimistic conclusion about human nature. Such a vision provokes and challengues us all. Those brave souls who, though cold, disoriented and terrified choose to light a candle with trembling hands and willingly descend the staircase into the forsaken cellar of Burroughs' mind will not return unscathed or unrewarded.

Editorial Review:

While young men wage war against an evil empire of zealous mutants, the population of this modern inferno is afflicted with the epidemic of a radioactive virus. An opium-infused apocalyptic vision from the legendary author of Naked Lunch is the first of the trilogy with The Places of the Dead Roads and his final novel, The Western Plains.

1634: The Ram Rebellion (The Assiti Shards)

Eric Flint, Virginia DeMarce

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 59 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

Not as good as I hoped! 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The early in this book are fun and enjoyable reads. The later stories I found slower with the exception of the final climax of the book. This scene builds up through several of the stories to the final event and it suddenly occurs and is done with. There is less explanation of these final events than I found to be satisfactory. But it is in a series that I really like so it was still enjoyable. For those who do not like the deep intrigue of politics this may not be a favorite after the first couple of stories.

Editorial Review:

The Thirty Years War continues to ravage 17th century Europe, but a new force is gathering power and influence: the Confederated Principalities of Europe, an alliance between Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, and the West Virginians from the 20th century led by Mike Stearns who were hurled centuries into the past by a mysterious cosmic accident. Inspired by the example of American freedom and justice, a movement in Franconia among the peasants, who have revolted several times even before the arrival from the future of the town of Grantville, an independent revolutionary movement has arisen, flying the banner of the head of a ram. The West Virginians fully approve of liberating the peasants from the nobility, but they are also aware of how revolutionary movements can lead to bloodbaths. And avoiding that deadly possibility will require all of their future knowledge and all their plain old American horse-trading diplomacy. . . .

1635: Cannon Law (Ring of Fire)

Eric Flint, Andrew Dennis

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 29 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Unworthy of a thrilling series 1 out of 5 stars.
4 of 7 people found this review helpful.

If you can avoid this book, do so. It is boring, unreasonable, and doesn't even end well. I like this series in general, but this book stays in Rome the whole time, and swaps all the interesting plot implications for some characterization and mediocre action. Even if you have the rest of this series, this one isn't worth your time--if you can't avoid it, mine's selling cheap in the used book section.

Editorial Review:

Rome, 1635, and Grantville's diplomatic team, headed by Sharon Nichols, are making scant headway now it has become politically inexpedient for Pope Urban VIII to talk to them any more. Sharon doesn't mind, she has a wedding to plan. Frank Stone has moved to Rome and is attempting to bring about the revolution one pizza at a time. Cardinal Borja is gathering votes to bring the Church's reformers to a halt in their tracks, on the orders of the King of Spain. Meanwhile, trouble is brewing in the streets, shadowy agitators are stirring up trouble and Spain's armies are massed across the border in the Kingdom of Naples, Cardinal Barberini wants the pamphleteers to stop slandering him and it looks like it's going to be a long, hot summer. Except that Cardinal Borja has more ambitions than his masters in Madrid know about, and has the assistance of Spain's most notorious secret agent to bring about his sinister designs.

Trick Baby: The Story of a White Negro (IGN Departement Maps)

Iceberg Slim

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Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

excellent read 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I loved reading Trick Baby. I read it within 24 hours, so whoever said it is slow I would have to disagree with. But let me warn you, it was a very, very depressing story. Do not buy this book unless you are prepared to have your heart ripped out! I won't give you a plot summary, but this is a story that deals with issues of love, lonliness and deciet. There are two types of people in the world: those who con and those who get conned. Overall, the book is bleak (antithesis of heart-warming) but very enlightening and entertaining. I would profoundly affected. Highly recommended.

Excellent Reading for the Less Informed 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

...Equipped with a slang term dictionary, this book has me spoiled.

It was good to take a break from the... "Sister-Sister-Fan-Me-At-The-Mall-Dissappearing-Blues-Aint-Like-Mine-Acts" sagas...
Truly poetry in motion as Ice Berg took me through the slums and gutter of the con game.

I truly fell in love with all "Trick Baby" characters as I learned more and more about concentrated 'White is Right' and Blue-Black phrases with no in betweens, amazingly how it applies to my world today, and frankly how somethings never changes.

This book is humorous and truly a gem. When it came to a close, I couldn't put it down, in awe that it was over, fiending for the next Robert Beck novel. So sorry I'd waited so long to get access to the spoken word of Iceberg.

-Sadgyrl
03/12/02

Editorial Review:

This novel charts the rise of White Folks, a white negro who uses his colour as his trump card in the tough game of the con. Blue-eyed, light-haired and white-skinned, White Folks was a successful con man, a hustler in the jungle of Southside Chicago where only the sharpest survived.