Modern Good Reads discussion

Has anyone read any alternate history books. I currently have several books by Harry Turtledove, but I haven't read them yet. I have read Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen and found it fascinating to delve into history on a "what if" basis.

It depends on what you consider alternate history. In fact, I wish there was a separate category on Amazon or B&N, etc., for fantasy alternate history. Because that I really like. Best example: Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy series. Technically, GRRM's series would probably fit here, since it's inspired by historical events. In other words, I like seeing the connections between a fantasy world and real history and mythology--sort of like a parallel universe!

I really loved "Fatherland" by Robert Harris, a wonderful alternate history "what-if" Germany had won WWII and Hitler was still alive.

It's set 20 years after WWII, a great mystery/spy thriller novel.

Check it out.

:)

I had no idea this was a genre, but it is intriguing! A few years ago I read WHAT IF? by Robert Cowley, and thought it was interesting. I will have to check out Harris and Kushiel.

M.G. wrote: "I had no idea this was a genre, but it is intriguing! A few years ago I read WHAT IF? by Robert Cowley, and thought it was interesting. I will have to check out Harris and Kushiel."

Don't forget Harry Turtledove. He has quite a few alternate history novels out there that my brother highly recommends. I am going to start reading his works soon.

I will add Turtledove to the list! So many good books, so little time . . .

One of the most applauded sci-fi books ever written was actually alternate history. Look it up. "Man in the High Castle" by Philip K. Dick tells of a sci-fi writer who lives in an America where we lost World War II. He dares to speculate what life would be like if the Allies had actually won the war.

But Turtledove is truly the modern-day master of alternate history.

"Guns of the South" I think is his best.

Glen wrote: ""Guns of the South" I think is his best."

I don't have that one, but I do have "How Few Remain". Have you read that one?

Yes. Another great book.

Of the Turtledove books, I like "Ruled Britannia" a lot. The setup: Spanish Armada succeeds. Spain rules England, but there is a revolt brewing. Very well done. I also enjoyed his "A Different Flesh", which has European colonizers finding ape-men (Homo erectus) instead of Indians when they reach the new world.

Another influential AH author: SM Stirling. I stay away from his Draka stuff, but "Island in the Sea of Time" and the two books that follow it are quite good. He takes modern-day Nantucket back to the bronze age, where it interacts with the local powers very realistically. Stirling is really good at historical technology. A couple of his other books toy with alternate history, including "Conquistador", where someone has been operating a secret portal to an alternate California where Europeans never arrived in the the New World, and "The Sky People" and "Court of the Crimson Kings", both set in a world where life on earth goes about the way it did historically until the late 1950s/early 1960s, when we discover that Mars and Venus are not only inhabitable, but have been terraformed and seeded with Earth life--Venus still has dinosaurs and primitive men. Of the two, Court of the Crimson Kings strikes me as far stronger--a very good read.

Other major authors: Eric Flint with his 163X series, which puts a contemporary West Virginia town into the middle of Europe's 30 years war. He has also written or co-authored several other AH stories.

Paul Melko has a couple of AH books out. I can't remember their names off the top of my head, but he does a good job of figuring out what might work at trans-dimensional trade goods.

Charles Stross's Merchant Prince series starts out strong, but gets seriously wobbly by book three or four. The idea is that a feudal society has discovered how to jump from their time to ours and has been cherry-picking the tech for quite some time, financing their efforts by transporting drugs through the alternate reality. He also has a sort-of AH series where Lovecraftian monsters are real and a secret agency called the Laundry tries to keep them out of our world. It's a weird mix of Dilbert, Cthulhu and James Bond, but it works well, at least for the first few books. I consider the latest of the series a little weak, but the first three are a LOT of fun.

If you want to go back a ways, Phillip Jose Farmer wrote some good AH and related books. "Two Hawks From Earth" has a pilot from our world fly into an alternate world where the New World is only a scattering of small islands and the Old World developed without us. Farmer's best, though was his World of the Tiers stories, where a human-like race called the Lords has used god-like powers to create "pocket universes", each tailored to the whims of their creators--including one with an inhabited Lavalite World that acts like a lava lamp--constantly changing shape, breaking apart and reforming. By the way, our Earth is part of one of those pocket universes. This is Farmer at his best--very imaginative and full of action.

This is probably already more than you want to know about alternate history fiction, but if you want to know more, there are annual awards for the best long and short-form AH. They're called "The Sidewise Awards" (NOT SideWAYS, as the head of the committee will tell you). They're named after a short story by Murray Leinster that many consider the first modern AH science fiction.

Philip K. Dick sounds like an interesting author. Can anyone tell us more about him? Glen, you seem to have read quite a few authors. Who is your favorite?

In historical fiction I like Jeff Shaara and his father Michael. In alternate history I like Turtledove, and in sci fi I like Orson Scott Card and about a dozen others.

The Man in the High Castle is an amazing work. The whole writing process is fascinating ! The I Ching plays an important role for the characters in the work , and PKD used it many many times to write his work.

Let's see... Man in the High Castle, Fatherland, and Guns of the South are all awesome. But I think the extended series by Harry Turtledove is pretty amazing too. From the Civil War to WWII, it follows a pretty strict and realistic path!

I loved Man in the High Castle but I found Guns of the South blatantly silly. Could not get through it. New Yesterdays by Jim Wright is pretty awesome though.

I wish there was more Canadian alt history! Is it even a thing?

What fascinates you about Alternate History books? For me it is the speculation of what could have happened and who knows, maybe would have.

LOL...my daughter teaches English and just HATES the concept of alternate history. She says it is stupid to talk about stuff that didn't happen as if it did. For me, that "what if" is what makes it interesting to me.

I am all about heroes, and what makes a simple man into a hero.

Glen wrote: "LOL...my daughter teaches English and just HATES the concept of alternate history. She says it is stupid to talk about stuff that didn't happen as if it did. For me, that "what if" is what makes it..."

Glen, I might understand your daughter's stance if she was a history teacher, and maybe really intent on historical accuracy. I'm a history teacher, but I like alt history because like you, I enjoy the "what if." But as an English teacher (which I've also been), what is her objection based on? It can't legitimately be that alt history tells a story of what didn't really happen, meaning that it is historically inaccurate and therefore invalid. I'd venture to say that 99% of historical fiction (as in not alt history) is full of historical inaccuracies. In essence, all historical fiction already is alt history. Creative license, and all that. I often say, when discussing how accurate a novel is historically, that if you want historical accuracy, read nonfiction. And even then, there are plenty of scholars who will say that it's wishful thinking to declare that you have depicted things as they really happened in a nonfiction history. It isn't actually possible to do that, you know, because it isn't possible to have all the witnesses and all the documents and everything etc. and to present absolutely every detail. A historian must pick and choose, and the picking and choosing ultimately creates the history told. So... maybe let your daughter know it's okay to relax and enjoy? ;)

Well, that might be more accepted by someone other than her old dad, since parents, of course, don't know anything...

R. Grey wrote: "What fascinates you about Alternate History books? For me it is the speculation of what could have happened and who knows, maybe would have."

I am a historian, and I love alt history. History tends toward the deterministic. Whatever happened we think in retrospect was the only thing that could have happened. But in the moment events are seldom so clear or so predictable. Hence the appeal of what might have happened.

Sophia's comments are thought provoking. Does anyone have any idea of what percentage of written history is accurate?

I bet most of our written history before film is probably colored by opinions and such. There is no way to know how much is true. Kind of gives me an idea. What about a vampire or other immortal that told the history of what you thought was true but wasn't. I guess I like alternate history for the what ifs. I always liked those find your own fate books. Of course I would flop and do both ways. To me Dystopian can be kind of alternate history...maybe an alternate fantasy history but still has the same kind of appeal. It is hard to explain. Fascinating question. I would love to see an essay on it lol.

R. Grey wrote: "Sophia's comments are thought provoking. Does anyone have any idea of what percentage of written history is accurate?"

You know the saying Grey, history is written by the victors.

Imagine the historical tale of Canaan as it would have been told by the Canaanites, had they been able to record what happened before they were wiped from the face of the earth. I guarantee that tale would read a little differently from the version in the old testament.

R. Grey wrote: "Sophia's comments are thought provoking. Does anyone have any idea of what percentage of written history is accurate?"

Hi R. Grey! I am flattered by your comment. :)

I would venture to say that no history is truly accurate, or 100% factual, for the reason Travis stated so well. The telling of history is inherently biased. The best historians, imo, are up front with their bias from the start, so you know what's what. It's not that there are no facts in history; of course there are. It's that someone has to decide which facts are important, and which aren't.

Of course history from the far past was changed as it was passed down by word of mouth, but isn't it interesting to note that in our age of advanced technology, history will still be changed by what people like and don't like.

A couple of good Alt. History books.

The Island Series is very good. Modern meets bronze age is an interesting combination and the characters are interesting, although it ends in the third book a bit abruptly it is still great. The stuff with Rorke's Drift I really dug.

If you like Alt history with A LOT of politics, the 1632/Assati Shards series by Eric Flint is good. The first book is action packed but after that there is a lot of political maneuvering mixed in.

Sophia, I'm a history teacher and I love alt history. Good stuff takes one variable and changes it. For example, Turtledove assumes that Lee's troop deployments aren't found by the federals in 1862 and Lee defeats McClellan. South wins the war. That's plausible.

One of my personal favorite alternative history books is "If the South had won the Civil War" by Mackinlay Kantor and Harry Turtledove.

It begins at the Battle of Gettysburg and follows through all the way until the end of World War II.