Every alternate history author seems to gravitate towards two big impossibilities: The CSA winning the Civil War and the Nazis winning WWII. The precise events differ from story to story, but one of those two results seem almost fore-ordained if the story’s first act is set immediately prior to the corresponding war.
I’m tired of that. Aside from the gross violence done to history and rationality by those outcomes (neither WWII nor the Civil War were ever that close) they’re quite tired now and they deserve a rest. Besides, it’s difficult to do WWII allohistory better than Dick’s Man in the High Castle or Kornbluth’s “Two Dooms” and most authors don’t even try. (Turtledove has monopolized Civil War allohistory for a while now, but I’ve never read his works. Via cultural osmosis I just get a faint whiff of Neo-Nazis with time machines, CSA infantrymen with AK-47s, and, for all I know, velociraptors stalking U.S. Grant’s whisky train.)
So what really good alternate history stories don’t even touch on WWII or the Civil War? I’m aware of The Years of Rice and Salt but I want Doper suggestions for stories that won’t make me want to puncture the author with a Minié ball or blow him up with a Panzerfaust.
Orson Scott Card’s “Alvin Maker” series, as well as having the whole “world in which magic works” thing going on, is also set in a world in which the British monarchy was never restored. It’s not entirely crucial to the story, but alternate-history elements pop up now and again. You only want to read the first three books, after that it gets a bit sucky.
Patricia Finney’s “Gloriana’s Torch” contains alternate-history elements in which the Spanish Armada succeeds in landing on English soil, and invading.
Your’re mixing three of Turtledove’s series/books here – quite understandably but erroneously.
The Guns of the South, a standlone novel, is the one that arms Confederate troops with AK-47s brought back, of course, in a time machine, but the sponsors of time travel and anacxhronistic ordnance were not Neonazis but Afrikaners unreconciled to the ending of apartheid, and seeing in a Southern victory the potential for support for their own cause.
A series of novels is set in a common allohistory, founded IIRC when the cigars wrapped in the battle plan are not found before Gettysburg. TTBOMK this one runs through the late 1800s and on through World War I (which is a fratricidal war in America as well). This is the one that includes that discredited ex-President and later Socialist Party leader, A. Lincoln.
The velociraptors are from the Worldwar series, in which a reptilian alien invasion interrupts World War II. Their vice is Ginger, not whisky.
Actually, that series goes on to the equivalent of WWII, with the CSA becoming a sort of alternate Nazi Germany. There are references in the final tetralogy to the European War, where Germany (which is an ally of the USA) is still run by the Kaiser.
Eric Flint’s been working on Trails of Glory series. The PoD is that Sam Houston isn’t injured during the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1812. (So it’s straight up alternate history with no time travel, ASB’s, or other SF elements.) Houston’s active presense changes the outcome of the War of 1812 and subsequent American history. The first two books in the series are 1812: The Rivers of War and 1824: The Arkansas War with two more books scheduled.
I can think of a few, although I don’t know how restrictive you are being.
The Heirs of Alexandria series: Deviation point: The burning of the Library at Alexandria is prevented. (also magic is real and so are gods, angels, and demons).
The Ring of Fire series: A small, modern West Virginian town is transported back to 1632 Germany during the 30 years war. There is a second series that has George Washington and the revolutionary army transported back to the the days of the Roman empire.
In addition a few short stories whose names and authors I can’t remember from Analog: One had a man from our time line end up in a world where the U.S. never entered WWI. The Germans won and by the 60s the U.S. was in a semi-cold war situation with them. The story I am thinking about had the displayed protagonist help the Americans develop a space program.
There were a few by the same author that had the Western Roman empire recover and retake the Eastern. If I remember correctly, one of the main factors was a lack of Christianity. One of the stories had a disgraced Roman in Mecca blocking the rise of Muhammad.
There is also S.M. Stirling’s Nantucket Trilogy, which begins with Island in the Sea of Time. By unexplained means, the island of Nantucket (along with the Coast Guard training windjammer, Eagle) is transported from A.D. 1998 back to 1250 B.C., approximately contemporary with the Trojan War and Exodus.
I just finished the second book, in which factions from the future end up backing locals in Greece, the Hittite Empire, Babylon, and Troy. Needless to say, none of modern history is going to end up where it went in our timeline.
The series is linked to his Emberverse books, which tell the story of the world Nantucket left behind in 1998. The phenomenon that sent the island back in time left the laws of physics changed on Earth, such that high energy densities are impossible. Electricity, explosives, gasoline and steam engines–All no longer work. The world is basically thrown back into a sort of medieval state of technology, with lots of modern knowledge, much of which is now useless.
I really like how these timelines are in one way linked, but are really mutually exclusive–They cannont actually be the same history, even though they both were kicked off by the same event.
He Walked Around the Horses by H. Beam Piper describes an alternate 1809. It’s in the public domain now, so you can read it for free via Project Gutenburg.
And not that you really care, but Turtledove doesn’t really make it so the South wins the war via overwhelming military victory. After a Southern victory at Gettysburg, the CSA is recognized by France and England and peace is forced on the US by the threat of having to fight a three-front war.
Strassia, I’d heard that Flint was going to do the Washington/Rome series, but has it actually started? I thought he was still busy with the other historical series. Please email me if you have the info!
The Lord Darcy novels by Randall Garrett are set in an alternate world where Richard the Lion Hearted lived. This resulted in the creation of the Angevin Empire which still exists into modern times, and the discovery of the Laws of Magic. The result is a somewhat technologically backwards culture, with magic taking up the slack in many ways. The Angevin Empire is presently in a cold war with the Polish Empire.
Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen by H Beam Piper is set in an alternate universe which diverged way back with different migration patterns.
Well, it was published in November 2006 so it’s not that overdue. Apparently there was a switch in publishers after the first two came out. I checked Flint’s website but he hasn’t updated his “forthcoming works” section since October 2007. His site does say he’s dropped plans for doing the Washington series.
-early hominids (somehow) migrate to America and south Asia. Native fauna adapts enough that Sapiens doesn’t later hunt everything to extinction, and true species level “races” exist.
-Norse succeed in colonizing North America.
-Time traveler or unsung genius introduces colder-climate innovations to northern Europe during Roman Empire. Empire either doesn’t fall or is replaced by a germanic/ celtic civilization that retains the central state.
-French retain holdings in 18th century North America, British colonies don’t rebel.
-Germany wins WW1
-Nuclear weapons aren’t possible, East and West fight a huge conventional WW3 in the '60s.
