What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

I'm looking for good alternate history novels. For example, a book on what would happen if Hitler won the war. Except, not that, as I've ready way too many books with that plot. In fact, I'd rather avoid World War II altogether unless it's an amazing read.

I'm also not interested in links to lists of alternate history books. There are a lot of them out there, so I'm really hoping to hear from anyone who's read any that they would recommend.

Thanks!

The Shadow of Albion and Leopard In Exile by Andre Norton are an interesting read. Set in what would be Federal times IF there had been a U.S. I really believe that there would have been a third book, unfortunately Andre died before that happened. :o( But a good series.

If you don't mind YA and fantasy the Temeraire series is good. Set in the time of the Napeolanic Wars. His Majesty's Dragon Except that there are dragons that are part of the military scene in this series.

Times Without Number set in a world where the Spanish Armada did NOT get destroyed.

1632 while not exactly an alternate history book is a time travel book where, in later books, there is major damage to the time line.

Dying Bites vampires and werewolves in an alternate version of Earth. Interesting series

Magic Bites is book one in the UF Kate Daniels series. In that world about 30 or so years ago, magic suddenly returned with a bang, and things have been alternating between science and magic ever since.

I don't think you would consider this alternative history, but The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End by Ken Follett are extremely excellent books. The first takes place during the Anarchy of England and perfectly blends a fictional town/earldom and characters with the goings on of the war. The second book is set a couple centuries later in the same location with characters being the descendants of the first books characters. This book is set during the Black Death.
They may not being exactly what you are looking for, but I highly recommend them if you have an interest in that time period.

If you like thinky, I think you'll like The Years of Rice and Salt. Kim Stanley Robinson uses a conceit of reincarnation to essential give a whole overview of 700 years or so of his alternate history in which Europe didn't really emerge from the Dark Ages, and so much of the developments that we think of as "Western" are "Eastern" instead. This sounds all very abstract, but there's a playfulness that keeps things lively. And I really appreciated how Robinson truly inhabits the mindspace of his characters, and considers their cultural viewpoint.

Hard Magic

What if magic was discovered in the middle of the 19th century, and The Great War (WWI) was the first time where magic was heavily deployed in war and basically destroyed Germany way more then it was in WWI. You then have an international group of people that can use magic as a secret society that formed to protect the world from great evils. Now before you go ohh so it's WWII with magic but pacific front only...not really it's more akin to the cold war where basically magic has already invented it's own style of WMDs(The Tesla Peace Ray), which were used in WWI already. I highly recommend grabbing the audiobook if you do that stuff as Bronson Pinchot really nails it.

Footsteps in Time is the first book of the After Cilmeri series by Sarah Woodbury. It's alternate history/time travel about what would happen if The 'KING" of the Wales had not been defeated by Edward I of England. The stories are on the YA to NA level and are an enjoyable, easy read

Thanks for the recs so far! I've only heard of three of these, which is great. These all sound really interesting. I'm especially enamored with the idea of dragons in the Napoleonic wars.

Thanks again!

You could try The Yiddish Policemen's Union

OK, it has WWII as a jumping-off point, but the main story is set in Alaska, which in the book became a Jewish settlement instead of Palestine (apparently based on an actual suggested solution in the 1940s). The plot is a murder mystery but there are also many details about how world events were different because of the alternate course of history.

I recommend:
Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl by David Barnett
New Amsterdam by Elizabeth Bear
Anno Dracula by Kim Newman
and anything by Harry Turtledove

Murder and Magic Alternate History mystery series. Kind of Sherlock Holmes with Dr. Watson as a magician. In this one, Richard the Lionhearted did NOT die at Bosworths Field (wasn't that when he died?) But was seriously wounded, but recovered. As a result of that, John Lackland never took the throne of England, there was no Magna Charta and the Plantagenet's never died out, thus also eliminating the War of the Roses, the English Civil War, the division of Britain and France into separate nations. Oh yes, and somewhere around 1360 or so, a monk codified the Laws of Magic, and magic rules, while science drools. Er, sorry, couldn't resist. :o) Randall Garrett was an interesting man who died way too young. But his books and stories were great reads. (He wrote with Robert Silverberg under the pen name of Robert Randall as well, if you want to check out some of that teamwork's books.)

L. Sprague de Camp has a series where the MC bops around different parallel worlds. Check out his Complete Enchanter series. The Complete Compleat Enchanter (despite the title, there is actually at least one more story written after this was published.)

OH, and if you like light-hearted romances, try MaryJanice Davidson's Alaskan Royal Family is ok. It's set in a world where the U.S. never bought Alaska, instead the Russian colonists there rebelled against Mother Russia and declared themselves a kingdom, with the leader of the rebellion as their first king. The Royal Treatment is the first book in the series. They are an extremely fast, funny read.

(er, as you can probably tell, I like alternate history books too, or did you not realize that?)

Rachel wrote: "Thanks for the recs so far! I've only heard of three of these, which is great. These all sound really interesting. I'm especially enamored with the idea of dragons in the Napoleonic wars.

Thanks a..."

Do you want dragons in colonial America 1763? Try At the Queen's Command? Britain and America are given functional identities but that's what is is. Soldier's viewpoint.

Way more fantasy than alternate history is This Scepter'd Isle , a series with elvish interference with young Queen Elizabeth I.

There's recently been a huge number of steampunk ones with alternate histories centering around 19th century historical figures if you want to browse https://www.goodreads.com/genres/stea... and all the shelves and listopia said about that category. Wild Wild West, Queen Vuctoria, Abraham Lincoln.

I'm blanking out on another book recently that had parallel histories going, a Red London timeline, a White London timeline, etc. and an M.C. that was one of few individuals that could navigate all of them.

Genre page https://www.goodreads.com/genres/alte... shows some more.

If you're OK with sci fi, you might try Harry Harrison's West of Eden. It postulates a world where reptiles evolved as the dominant species; quite interesting and excellent world-building.

You might also try Replay, in which the main character gets caught in a time loop and keeps trying to change things, so there are several alternate histories involved.

Harry S. Turtledove's The Guns of the South has the South winning the Civil War.

For more modern takes, try It Can't Happen Here (fascist America) or The Iron Heel. Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged could be considered AU.

Norman Spinrad's The Iron Dream offers an AU in which the Nazis don't win the way because Hitler isn't a politician, he writes smutty sci fi :)

The Dracula Tape isn't quite AU, but it does offer an alternative interpretation of the Bram Stoker's classic -- without changing any of the actual events at all. Pretty impressive.

Steampunk-ish series that is romance, set in the Regency time period called the Iron Seas is another one with an interesting idea. The Iron Duke is the first book. In it, Wellington is an ex-pirate who destroyed a tower that was controlling the people of all of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. In this "world" Genghis Khan didn't stop his expansion of the Mongol empire until after he'd conquered all of Europe and the British Isles too. And Marco Polo was viewed as an insane idiot when he came back from China claiming that the Emperor was building fantastical weapons so that he could rule the world. It's a really interesting world.

(er, I did mention that I liked alternate history novels. And I don't really care what genre they are in.)

How about the thirteenth child? It's about a girl who's twin brother is a seventh son and she's the unlucky 13th, in a magical version of the 1800s. Between the harassment of the girl by her extended family in the east and a land grand school job offer for her (magic) professor dad they all move out west to "mill city" (I think this is the authors version of miniapolis) which is the last safe town befor the mamoth river which holds the magical wall which keeps out the columbian sphinxes and steam dragons of the frontier.

The Fellowship of the Talisman is another fantasy alt-history novel. It's a stand alone and is old, so might be a bit hard to find.

Some kind of alien (never explains if it's ET type alien, or just that the life-form is so different to ours) has been on Earth since the time of the Romans. They/it (it seems to be some kind of collective mind type thing) has prevented any advance from Medieval style society, thus none of the Crusades happened, I don't believe that there was a Mohammad, no world wars, no discovery of the Americas, no Spanish Armada, no English Empire etc. It's an interesting idea on what things would be like "now" if that had happened.

Underground Airlines hasn't been released yet but the NYT is recommending it. A modern day America where the Civil War never happened and slavery still exists.

Lobstergirl wrote: "Underground Airlines hasn't been released yet but the NYT is recommending it. A modern day America where the Civil War never happened and slavery still exists."

Ooh, neat. Must check this one out.

Them Bones by Howard Waldrop is my favorite alternate history, but it's pretty obscure. The basic idea is that in the 21st century (probably about now, actually) a team is sent back in time to WWII in an attempt to change history so World War III never happens. Something goes wrong, and most of the team is sent back several hundred years to before the Europeans colonized North America. They do not have a good time of it. The first guy to go through, the scout, is sent to an alternate present in which Europe never recovered from the Black Death so North America was never colonized.

There are three storylines. One is the soldiers in "our" past who piss off the natives. Another is the scout in the alternate present who joins a tribe and has to deal with encroaching Aztecs from Mexico. The third is a group of archaelogists in "our" 1930s who are finding evidence of the modern technology the group of soldiers left behind several hundred years ago.

Great book, highly recommended if you can find a copy.

Peter wrote: "Great book, highly recommended if you can find a copy."

And here some are. Yay, another one for my list :)

And the Devil Will Drag You Under is a stand-alone novel where the 2 mc's go bopping about through different alternate Earths. They are trying to save "our" Earth from destruction by an asteroid/comet (sorry, been more than a few years since I read this one). Some of the alts are, well, weird.

(As previously mentioned--several times--I do love my alt world books, and will read them no matter who wrote them or how weird they get.)

It's a steampunky type novel. I can't remember how the timeline is altered, but it's pretty awesome.

Ash: A Secret History is a medieval epic involving a Joan of Arc type character.

How about Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell? It really does a good job of having the feel of a historical account.

Following

This one just came out this year...I haven't read it.

Hystopia
By the early 1970s, President John F. Kennedy has survived several assassination attempts and—martyred, heroic—is now in his third term.