Alternate Fiction

The year is 1961. The Cold War is in full swing and the space race is on. Russia aims to send humanity to space. But what if space comes to humanity instead? Yuri Gagarin’s epic flight into space is disrupted when an alien Mothership jumps into orbit, causing a cosmic car crash that defies all odds. Everything changes. The US and USSR must quickly put aside their differences. In exchange for the Earth’s help in the rebuilding of their Mothership, the mysterious aliens, the Vulbathi, offer promises of technology beyond humanity's wildest dreams.

In this second thrilling installment of the Gunnie Rose series, Lizbeth Rose is hired onto a new crew for a seemingly easy protection job, transporting a crate into Dixie, just about the last part of the former United States of America she wants to visit. But what seemed like a straightforward job turns into a massacre as the crate is stolen. Up against a wall in Dixie, where social norms have stepped back into the last century, Lizbeth has to go undercover with an old friend to retrieve the crate, as what’s inside can spark a rebellion, if she can get it back in time.

It's 1974, and Jerry Stieglitz is a grad student in marine biology at UCLA with a side gig selling short stories to science fiction magazines, just weeks away from marrying his longtime fiancée. Then his life is upended by grim-faced men from three-letter agencies who want him to join a top-secret "Project Azorian" in the middle of the north Pacific Ocean—and they really don't take "no" for an answer. Further, they're offering enough money to solve all of his immediate problems.

16 years of peace and prosperity have passed since Lord Otori Takeo united the Three Countries. Takeo and his beloved consort, Kaede, have three daughters and a happy family life. Their success has attracted the attention of the distant Emperor and his general, the warlord Saga Hideki, who covet the wealth of the Countries. Meanwhile, the violent acts and betrayals of the past will not lie buried, and other secrets will not stay hidden. Everything that Takeo and Kaede have achieved is threatened.

On July 6, 1963, human history was forever altered. From the depths of space, a golden wave of light bathed everyone on Earth in rays that rendered them unconscious. Six days later, five billion people awakened with superpowers. For thirty-seven years now, superhumanity has managed to keep the peace. With some exceptions....

In Reconstruction-era America, vampire Henry Sturges is searching for renewed purpose in the wake of his friend Abraham Lincoln's shocking death. It will be an expansive journey that will first send him to England for an unexpected encounter with Jack the Ripper, then to New York City for the birth of a new American century, the dawn of the electric era of Tesla and Edison, and the blazing disaster of the 1937 Hindenburg crash.

Ten years have passed since Admiral Kolhammer's 21st-century battlefleet was dragged into a wormhole and thrown across oceans of time, emerging with disastrous consequences and shattering the history of the Second World War.

Up-timer Morris Roth and his Grand Army of the Sunrise stand at a crossroads. Military success against the Polish-Lithuanian magnates has all but guaranteed a continued push east into Ruthenian lands. There, Roth hopes to further his Anaconda Project so that tens of thousands of Jews are not slaughtered in what’s to become known as the Chmielnicki Pogrom of 1648.

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.

In Paula Goodlett and Gorg Huff's "Poor Little Rich Girls," we follow the continuing adventures of the teenage tycoons begun by Huff in "The Sewing Circle" (Gazette #1) and "Other People's Money" (Gazette #3). The focus in this story, however, is on the younger siblings - the so-called Barbie Consortium - and their down-timer associates and enemies.

Adolf Hitler is dead. Great Britain lies prostrate, subdued under a storm of poison gas and incendiaries that have turned the great city of London into a blazing abattoir. For RAF Squadron Leader Adam Haynes, London’s destruction is the nightmare outcome of years spent fighting the specter of Fascism. Getting out of England one step ahead of the Nazis, Adam embarks on a continent-spanning odyssey that will put him at odds with his former employers, his family, and all three of the Axis powers.

In an alternate Renaissance Italy where the church regulates magic and licenses magicians, fiery Fiametta Beneforte wants to be more than her goldsmith-mage father's unpaid apprentice. But when the Duchy of Montefoglia is laid under military and magical siege, she unexpectedly must join with Thur Ochs, a young Swiss miner and foundryman, to tap their skills in both metalwork and necromancy to rescue her father's soul and combat an evil sorcerer.

Endlich! Das neue große Werk von Bestseller-Autor Anthony Doerr (Alles Licht, das wir nicht sehen). Kinder, die an der Schwelle zum Erwachsenwerden stehen und sich in einer zerbrechenden Welt zurechtfinden müssen: Da sind Anna und Omeir während der Belagerung und Eroberung von Konstantinopel 1453. Seymour verübt aus fehlgeleitetem Idealismus einen Anschlag auf eine Bibliothek im heutigen Idaho. Und noch Konstance, die sich im Raumschiff "Argos" in der Zukunft auf dem Weg zu einem Exoplaneten befindet.

Sudden Death begins with a brutal tennis match that could decide the fate of the world. The bawdy Italian painter Caravaggio and the loutish Spanish poet Quevedo battle it out before a crowd that includes Galileo, Mary Magdalene, and a generation of popes who would throw Europe into the flames. In England, Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII behead Anne Boleyn, and her crafty executioner transforms her legendary locks into the most sought-after tennis balls of the time.

Wherever Hel looks, New York City is both reassuringly familiar and terribly wrong. As one of the thousands who fled the outbreak of nuclear war in an alternate US - an alternate timeline - she finds herself living as a refugee in our own not-so-parallel New York. The slang and technology are foreign to her, the politics and art unrecognizable. While others, like her partner Vikram, attempt to assimilate, Hel refuses to reclaim her former career or create a new life. Instead, she obsessively rereads Vikram's copy of The Pyronauts - a science-fiction masterwork in her world.

United States of Japan is set in a gripping alternate history where the Japanese Empire rules over America with huge robots. Is resistance possible in the form of subversive video games? Decades ago, Japan won the Second World War. Americans worship their infallible emperor, and nobody believes that Japan's conduct in the war was anything but exemplary. Nobody, that is, except the George Washingtons, a group of rebels fighting for freedom.

A cosmic accident sets the modern town of Grantville, West Virginia, down in war-torn 17th-century Europe and a new nation is forged. Now when United States of Europe ally King Gustavas of Sweden invades Poland, the U.S. of E. is dragged into a full-scale European war against ruthless opponents. Meanwhile Mike Stearns, wily and courageous leader of the up-time West Virginians, has been turned out of office in an election. But, like Churchill (before and after him) Stearns is not done yet.

"Man Riding West": Jim Gary had always tried to avoid trouble, but after he is forced to kill a Mexican gunman in a cantina showdown, trouble seems to seek him out. "Grub Line Rider": Most folks would call Kim Sartain an easygoing, peace-loving man, but the few who crossed the young drifter know there is nothing he likes better than a good fight. "Down the Pogonop Trail": Jeff Kurland didn’t have a gun; he didn’t have a chance. The rancher knew that even as he scanned the cabin for a weapon, any weapon. He was trapped with a killer who had a pistol in his hand and a bounty on his head

Private Franklin Grillo is a fresh-faced infantryman in the 101st Airborne. He's been dispatched to the Ardennes Forest outside of Bastogne to assist Baker Company against a surprise attack by the Germans. Outgunned, low on ammo, food, and supplies, the men along the new front are up against an army 10 times their size.

In these 34 intriguing episodes, leading historian Christopher Andrew rewrites history, considering what might have transpired if pivotal events had turned out differently. By altering a single, plausible fact, he explores alternative futures where the Spanish Armada landed on English soil, Pontius Pilate freed Jesus, the Nazis occupied Britain and many more.