Alternate Fiction

Joseph K. is an Everyman. His inconsequence makes doubly strange his arrest by an officer of the court, made with no formal charges or explanation. Disoriented and consumed with guilt for a "crime" he does not understand, Josef K. must justify his life to a "court" with which he cannot communicate. Through the court's relentless bureaucratic proceedings and absurd juxtapositions of different hypotheses of cause and effect, the whole rational structure of the world is undermined.

Late in the 26th century, the human race has advanced enough to accidentally trigger the Inhibitors---alien-killing machines designed to detect intelligent life and destroy it. The only hope for humanity lies in the recovery of a secret cache of doomsday weapons---and a renegade named Clavain who is determined to find them. But other factions want the weapons for their own purposes---and the weapons themselves have another agenda altogether.

Annie has always had high hopes for her future. But the reality of her life just isn’t measuring up. She loves her fiancé, Greg–doesn’t she? She’s going to get her degree and open her own business–won’t she? Then, a strange old woman shows up outside her house, and she seems to know a lot about Annie. An awful lot. Annie could tell the old woman to get lost. Yet there’s something about her Annie just can’t shake. And what she learns could change her life forever–but is it the life she envisioned?

A barely employed tech worker has never felt they belonged. Not in society, not even in their own family. Their days are filled with loneliness, a struggle to survive and a desperate search for connection—even if that connection is merely virtual. Now, a black-market hacker promises to open a new world for them, and it works—in ways no human has ever experienced. They find a world of wonder, of possibilities and of danger—where their new virtual reality could mean the end of their physical reality. And what they discover could change the fate of humankind—forever.

In the not-too-distant future, a 21-member crew launches from Earth. Their mission: to establish a temporary colony on Mars. Little do they know that colony will become permanent–and the last stand of the human race. Because, without warning, every single person left on Earth simply...vanishes. Now, a thousand years later, the resources needed to sustain life are running out, and the very existence of the Mars colony is threatened. Humankind has only one option–to return to its home planet.

What would happen if Imperial Rome never fell? Roma Eterna, spanning fifteen hundred years of global history, follows the reign of the Roman Empire from its inception to the present day. Empire continues to expand, creeping across the globe and through the annals of history from the conquest of the Mayans to the first circumnavigational voyage, and finally the attempt of the Hebrews to flee Rome’s tyranny by escaping to another planet.

New York Times best-selling author Eric Flint has received glowing critical praise for his Ring of Fire alternate history series. In this first installment, a West Virginia town is transported from the year 2000 to 1631 Germany at the height of the Thirty Years’ War. Thrust into conflict, the town residents must also contend with moral issues such as who should be considered a citizen.

Joe Colsco boarded a flight from San Francisco to Chicago to attend a national chemistry meeting. He would never set foot on Earth again. On planet Anyar, Joe is found unconscious on a beach of a large island inhabited by humans where the level of technology is similar to Earth circa 1700. He awakes amid strangers speaking an unintelligible language and struggles to accept losing his previous life and finding a place in a society with different customs, needing a way to support himself and not knowing a single soul.

Rising from the ashes of the computer and industrial ages is a brave new world. Survivors have banded together in tribal communities, committed to rebuilding society. In Oregon's Willamette Valley, former pilot Michael Havel's Bearkillers are warriors of renown. Their closest ally, the mystical Clan MacKenzie, is led by Wiccan folksinger Juniper MacKenzie.

This book is considered a prophetical novel foretelling the advent of nuclear weapons. A constant theme in Wells’ work, such as his 1901 nonfiction book Anticipations, was the role of energy and technological advance as a determinant of human progress. The novel opens with this: "The story of mankind is the history of the attainment of external power. Man is the tool-using, fire-making animal...."

After the assassination of FDR in the 1930s, the US collapses and is picked off by the UK, Canada, Mexico, and Russia. Gunnie Lizbeth Rose tries to piece out a life, running security on runs from Texoma across the border to Mexico, where work and prospects are stronger. When two Russian magicians come looking for a man named Alex Karkarov, they hire Lizbeth, but there are problems: The man they're looking for is dead, but he has a daughter they now need to find, as an ever-growing set of sorcerers and gunnies do not want them to succeed.

The Baltic War which began in the novel 1633 is still raging, and the time-lost Americans of Grantville - the West Virginia town hurled back into the seventeenth century by a mysterious cosmic accident - are caught in the middle of it. Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden and Emperor of the United States of Europe, prepares a counter-attack on the combined forces of France, Spain, England, and Denmark - former enemies which have allied in the League of Ostend to destroy the American threat to their power.

New York Times best-selling author Eric Flint’s 1632 presented listeners with a fascinating alternate history of the Thirty Years’ War, through the eyes of a West Virginia community tossed back in time to 17th-century Germany. Here, Flint teams up with acclaimed science fiction author David Weber to continue his epic tale. In 1633, the West Virginians attempt to use their modern-day knowledge to build a resistance against the forces of France, Spain, and England.

In the extraordinary Worldwar tetralogy, set against the backdrop of World War II, Harry Turtledove, whom Publishers Weekly has called the "Hugo-winning master of alternate SF," wove an explosive saga of world powers locked in conflict against an enemy from the stars.

What would you do if you woke up to a different life? Because that’s what happened to me. I woke up in a hospital bed with my family and friends telling me everything I knew was nothing more than a coma-induced dream. The girl I love. The baby we’re having…all of it ripped away. In their place is a house I don’t recognize and a girl I’ve never seen before who’s claiming she’s my fiancée. To everyone around me, it’s clear my mind twisted around my real life to create a false one. As weeks pass and a few crucial memories return, it’s easy to see they’re right.

During a perfect spring evening on Nantucket, a violent storm erupts and a dome of crawling, colored fire blankets the island. When the howling winds subside and the night skies clear, the stars appear to have shifted. The mainland has become a wilderness of unbroken forest, where tools of bronze and stone litter the beaches, and primitive natives scatter in terror.

On the eve of the U.S. invasion of Baghdad, as the world waits for war, a miles-high energy wave cordons a vast area from southern Canada to northern Mexico. In a moment, 99 percent of the U.S. population has been wiped from the face of the earth.

From "the master of alternate history" comes a new trilogy that reimagines a mid-20th century in which General MacArthur, without bothering to consult President Truman, detonates nuclear warheads in several Manchurian cities after China enters the Korean War. In his acclaimed novels of alternate history, Harry Turtledove has scrutinized the twisted soul of the 20th century, from the forces that set World War I in motion to the rise of fascism in the decades that followed.

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 20th 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 17th century Europe.

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 after carving a place for itself among the struggling powers of Western Europe, Grantville must throw up its eastern bulwarks against Dark Age domination. But the challenge for the down-time Eastern European horde is just as great: how to crawl out of a deeper feudal shadow than any in the West - and step into the light of freedom.