Recommend alternate history series

That series starts out strong, but gets depressing for a couple books in the middle.

The Lord Darcy Series is great for those who love mysteries. A lot of other sleuths show up with slightly changed names. Lord Bontriuphe. James Le Lien.

The earlier Turtledove are good reads. Worldwar tetralogy, Southern Victory- 10 books, How Few Remain (1997)
The Great War trilogy
American Front (1998)
Walk in Hell (1999)
Breakthroughs (2000)
The American Empire trilogy
Blood and Iron (2001)
The Center Cannot Hold (2002)
The Victorious Opposition (2003)
The Settling Accounts tetralogy
Return Engagement (2004)
Drive to the East (2005)
The Grapple (2006)
In at the Death (2007)
While we are talking Turtledove, try:Household Gods (1999) — co-written with Judith Tarr.

Dies the Fire- what to say? Its a LOT like Wheel of Time. Starts good, then as the series goes on and became more popular the publishers kept asking for more, so Stirling started to drrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwww things out. I havent even bothered with the last two (or is it three?). The first few are good, but know there will never be a ending. If you can accept that, go ahead. But it’s more of a post apopcalyptic series than alt-hit. OTOH, you can get the HC for 1 cent each on Amazon.

Does it have to be a series?

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
The Gate of Time/Two Hawks from Earth by Philip José Farmer

That’s just those I’ve read.

If you stop reading the Dies the Fire series after A Meeting At Corvallis, it’s not all that bad. It’s after that it turns totally rancid.

I agree they’re fun. But fair warning, half the protagonists would make Honor Harrington say ‘Ok, that’s a little Mary Sue’.

Yeah, and it would be great if he actually did anything with any of those openings. Instead he keeps churning out more stuff in the Dies The Fire series.

I am up to Book 5 now of Emberverse.

I am hooked. It started out straightforward post-apoc scifi, took a quick turn into fantasy, and is now navigating the thermocline between them quite intriguingly.

Thanks so much!

Read the Nantucket trilogy first, then the original DtF trilogy - but stop at that point. Conquistador is my favourite of his other books, followed by the two LoC books (in which alien space bats terraformed Mars and Venus millions of years ago, planted them with life from Earth, and then came back from time to time to transfer newer life forms*).

  • For some reason the critters that were transplanted to Venus don’t seem to have done any evolving of their own.

Oh, another Harry.

Harry Harrison.

The Hammer and the Cross trilogy is a fun alternate series. Starting with the Viking world and Anglo-Saxon world and expanding it’s scope from there.

Don not read his Stars and Stripes series. It’s wretched.

I agree with this completely. I really enjoyed the first book then it went downhill every time after.

OP, have you thought about Newt Gingrich’s Gettysburg series? I read them over a decade ago, so I honestly don’t remember what I thought.

*Islands *is the prequel of sorts to Dies The Fire, though you don’t have to have read them first.

Two more AH favorites by authors who don’t normally write SF:

Fatherland by Robert Harris
Resurrection Day by Brendan DuBois

And one more that will probably be hard to find:

The Divide by William Overgard

Some Turtledove not mentioned yet are Days of Infamy and End of the Beginning, which explore what might have happened if the Japanese had followed up Pearl Harbor with a full scale invasion. I hope he never continues with that “series,” because the two books work quite well all by themselves.

“For Want of a Nail.” It’s a “history textbook” detaining what happened after the rebelling colonies lost the battle of Saratoga.

“If Lee Had Not Won the Battle of Gettysburg” was written by Winston Churchill. It’s a short work, you can find it online. One place - If Lee Had Not Won the Battle of..., by Winston Churc..., SCRIBNERS - The Unz Review

Surely one of the best books ever.

I also like the Heirs of Alexandria series, mostly set in an alternate Venice in the 1500s.

I read Temeraire for six books before losing interest and giving it up. They’re decent but to me started feeling a bit repetitive. The biggest weakness, I felt, was the characterization of the dragons - for the most part they’re written as being somewhat childlike (or at least intellectually lazy) which made them a lot less interesting to me. Because of it I never found myself really caring about the dragons as characters, I was only interested in how they changed the path of history. Your mileage may vary, of course.

I’ve got several Conroy novel on my Nook. They’re not bad.

My problem with Conroy’s books is that they were all the same. History twists, somebody end up fighting America, America kicks ass. The end.

In terms of alt-history books, I just finished reading “Underground Airlines”, which I liked. It’s set in the present, and the main character works undercover for the US Marshal’s Service tracking down runaway slaves.

A few more recommendations :

Jo Walton’s “Small Change” series (Britain makes a separate peace with Hitler, Fascists take over Britain)

The Yiddish Policeman Detectives Union by Michael Chabon (Israel is founded in Alaska )

Kim Stanley Robinson’s “The Years of Rice and Salt”. (The Black Death wipes out Europe)