Alternate History

Get ready for a wild ride through an alternate universe of music in Rock & Roll Nightmares: Parallel Lines. These short stories, written by award-winning and bestselling authors, cover everything from hilarious antics to deep reflections, all set in a music world that's not quite what you remember. What ties them together? Each tale takes a real rock star's story and spins it in a whole new direction.

An engineer finds himself in an alternate reality, Cornwall, in the year 715 A.D. He awakens in the body of a young Baron. A retired Lieutenant General, former head of the Army Corp of Engineers, lies dying at the age of ninety-two. Leading a full life, he is a decorated veteran of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. After a long illness, he lies dying. His last thought is, "What a waste of such wonderful knowledge." As he fades to black, the fun begins. He is to build a modern civilization without being burned as a witch!

Colin is a druid on a mission. Namely, traveling to an alternate dimension where technology rules, to snag the tech he needs to save his friends in the Hellpocalypse timeline. At first, it sounds simple. He’ll slip through the timestreams, do a little sightseeing, and go home. Heck, it might even be fun to visit a world where actual superheroes exist. But for creation’s unluckiest druid, nothing is ever easy. When things go horribly wrong, Colin finds that his magic is almost completely on the fritz.

For almost a century Lord Cedric has hunted the supernatural, hiding the fact he’s one of Sorceress Morrighan’s abominations. Fearful of others discovering his true nature, he weds the Lady of the Court, Angeline, after winning a tournament. The dormant magic in her veins overwhelms his senses, forcing him to realize she’s more than what she appears. He must ask himself: are his feelings a creation of his incubine bloodline or true romantic emotions?

Meet Aegis, the first AI humanoid President, who defies all expectations to lead with unparalleled skill. Set in a not-so-distant future, the United States faces an extraordinary turning point as the nation witnesses the rise of Aegis to the highest office in the land. As an AI with an unprecedented understanding of the people and the country, Aegis challenges preconceived notions of leadership and shapes a new era of governance.

Climate lockdowns have caused an economic depression throughout America. The federal government creates a new branch of the military to enforce the climate lockdowns. This new branch, called the Climate Corps, is made up of draftees and volunteers. After a disputed presidential election, the governor of Texas meets with the governors of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana to discuss secession. They decide to hold a snap election. The seeds of secession have sprouted.

The year was 2034; the world had transformed into a digital utopia. Once a tool to simplify tasks, technology had become society's very fabric. Artificial intelligence managed everything from climate control to global finance, and virtual reality was the preferred mode of travel. Humanity has achieved unprecedented levels of efficiency and comfort. Yet, beneath this sleek veneer of progress, a digital storm was brewing.

After arriving back in time and another dimension, Ryo has begun the arduous task of building an infrastructure, creating a military, and staving off the most brutal war machine in human history. All while creating some of the most delicious food and drink his new timeline has ever seen or tasted!

The year is 1992. The unthinkable has happened. East and West are on a crash course for war, and the battlefield will be Germany. Peace is no longer an option, and all bets are off as the Free World and the Communist Bloc descend into war.

Tex falls into a chasm and wakes up in a brutal, stone-age wilderness. Armed with a rifle and the skills of a bushman, he must survive against pterodactyls, bloodthirsty barbarians, and tyrannical sorcerers. When he meets Emi and Neesha, two beautiful elves, he vows to protect them against a horrific evil spreading across the land.

The UN peacekeeping force is in tatters…but China remains. The American people finally rally to defense of their own country. Can the effects of the disinformation campaign be rectified? The world has never seen America’s wrath like this before. The United States reveals a new superweapon and threatens to use it to settle the score, but China is waging a new type of total war. The insidious details of the Q program are revealed to the world stage, inciting widespread rage.

Who has real power? The people in the shadows behind the presidents of the world. Cloaked in secrecy and loyal to their leaders, the masters of manipulation play at an entirely different level. They pull the strings and sow the seeds of division. What is their plan? An election approaches. The new US president will change the direction of the country. The world watches as the contenders for the White House state their cases.

America has been invaded and stands isolated, alone, and without allies... Lines have been drawn; sides have been chosen—brother against sister, father against daughter, parents against their children. Battles rage from the Midwest to the Great Plains as militia factions form and political frustrations turn to violence. The UN peacekeepers are hailed as liberators in the Northeast but reviled as invaders in the Upper Midwest.

The global conspiracy to dismantle the country is finally exposed. The perpetrators of these heinous acts are being hunted down and dealt with by JSOC and the CIA Special Activities Division. Knowing the war is lost, the Chinese begin to implement a complete scorched earth policy across large swaths of America. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California are becoming complete wasteslands. A genocide of biblical proportions is taking place and the death toll climbs into the millions.

A genteel Border South town not far from the nation’s capital is shaken by a series of vicious slayings at historic sites. These include a Civil War cemetery for escaped slaves; a burial mound of Confederate soldiers; a church associated with George Washington; and a museum on the Antebellum Era. At the same time, violent break-ins take place at venerable banks and townhomes connected with the lives of Washington, Robert E. Lee, and civil rights figures.

À l'institut St Mary de recherche historique, les historiens n'étudient pas seulement le passé, ils le visitent. Derrière l'innocente façade de St Mary, le secret du voyage dans le temps a été découvert et reste bien gardé. Les chercheurs en Histoire ont ainsi une méthode de travail tout à fait particulière : ils "étudient en temps réel les événements majeurs de l'Histoire ". En se faisant passer pour d'inoffensifs excentriques, ils tentent de répondre à certaines questions qui n'ont jamais été résolues, sans jamais toucher au cours de l'Histoire.

Young Magdalen and Jesus, brimming with youthful charm and arrogance, find each other and fall in love, forging a bond that is stronger than death. Their pleasure is overshadowed by a brilliant but unbalanced druid who knows a perilous secret about Maeve's past. The prequel to The Passion of Mary Magdalen.

Un jour, vous les humains, vous comprendrez que nous les chats devons prendre votre place. Alors moi, Bastet, je serai votre reine.

St Mary est de retour et rien ne va plus pour le docteur Maxwell. Une fois encore, l'institut très spécial de recherche historique St Mary, qui détient le secret du voyage dans le temps, passe d'une catastrophe à une autre. De la rencontre avec Isaac Newton au champ de bataille sanglant d'Azincourt, rien ne se déroule comme prévu. Mais c'est surtout à Troie, alors qu'Achille et Hector s'apprêtent à s'affronter sous ses yeux, que le destin de Max va se jouer.

On a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to earth and obliterated much of the East Coast of the US, including Washington, DC. The ensuing climate cataclysm will soon render the Earth inhospitable for humanity, as the last such meteorite did for the dinosaurs. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated effort to colonize space and requires a much-larger share of humanity to take part in the process. Elma York’s drive to become the first lady astronaut is so strong that even the most dearly held conventions of society may not stand a chance against her.

Considered the first full-length detective novel in the English language, T.S. Eliot described The Moonstone as 'the first and greatest English detective novel'. The stone of the title is an enormous yellow diamond plundered from an Indian shrine after the Siege of Seringapatam. Given to Miss Verinder on her 18th birthday, it mysteriously disappears that very night. Suspicion falls on three Indian jugglers who have been seen in the neighbourhood. Sergeant Cuff is assigned to the case....

Michael Gallatin is a British spy with a peculiar talent: the ability to transform himself into a wolf. Although his work in North Africa helped the Allies win the continent in the early days of World War II, he quit the service when a German spy shot his lover in her bed. Now, three years later, the army asks him to end his retirement and parachute into occupied Paris. A mysterious German plan called the Iron Fist threatens the D-Day invasion, and the Nazi in charge is the spy who betrayed Michael’s lover. The werewolf goes to France for king and country, hoping for a chance at bloody vengeance.

The Earth is coming to the boiling point as the climate disaster of the meteor strike becomes more and more clear, but the political situation is already overheated. Riots and sabotage plague the space program. The IAC's goal of getting as many people as possible off Earth before it becomes uninhabitable is being threatened.  

The tale again comes to us from the pen of Murgen, Annalist and Standard Bearer of the Black Company. Led by the wily commander, Croaker, and the Lady, the Company is working for the Taglian government, but neither the Company nor the Taglians are overflowing with trust for each other. Arrayed against both is a similarly tenuous alliance of sorcerers, including the diabolical Soulcatcher, the psychotic Howler, and a four-year-old child who may be the most powerful of all.

In the year 2021 a multinational fleet - experimenting with untested weapons technology - pitched through time, crash-landing in 1942. The world is thrown into chaos as Roosevelt, Hitler, Churchill, Tojo, and Stalin scramble to adapt to new, high-tech killing tools, and twenty-first-century ways of war.

Considered Keith Roberts' masterwork, this novel consists of linked short stories (six measures and a coda) of a 20th century in which the Roman Catholic Church controls the Western world, and has done so since Queen Elizabeth of England was assassinated in 1588. The Protestant Reformation never happened, and the world is kept in a Dark Age of steam-power transportation, with no allowance for electrical power, by a tyrannical Rome.

Boarding a transport ship after the Battle of Gettysburg, Colonel Andrew Keane and his 35th Maine regiment are swept into an alternate world. The first human civilization they encounter on this planet resembles medieval Russia, with boyars and priests ruling over the peasants and townspeople. Soon Keane and his regiment learn this world's terrible secret: that cannibalistic hordes of large, fierce Tugars circle the planet and demand tribute - including humans to be devoured.

Maeve, the Celtic Mary Magdalen, returns to the Holy Isles accompanied by Sarah, her daughter with Jesus. Their mission: to find Maeve's firstborn child, stolen from her by the druids more than 40 years ago. Since then Maeve's homeland has suffered its own trials - Roman invasion and occupation. The Celtic tribes to the east and south are under direct rule, and the Romans are determined to rout the resistance of the western tribes, resistance fueled by the druids of Mona.

Mary Robinette Kowal continues the grand sweep of alternate history begun in The Calculating Stars. The Fated Sky looks forward to 1961, when mankind is well established on the moon and looking forward to its next step: journeying to, and eventually colonizing, Mars. Of course the noted Lady Astronaut Elma York would like to go, but there’s a lot riding on whoever the International Aerospace Coalition decides to send on this historic - but potentially very dangerous - mission. Could Elma really leave behind her husband and the chance to start a family to spend several years traveling to Mars?