Best of 2011

I know I said I would not post anything until 2012, but I thought I should take a moment and list some of the best of 2011.  Now there is nothing scientific about the selection criteria (I do not even limit winners to those works published in 2011) and I probably never will have any official rules if I do this again next year.  The one constant is that AH Weekly Update discussed them at some point.  This is still my opinion, so feel free to disagree (in fact I encourage it). 

Anyway here are the winners of the best alternate history for 2011:

Best Novel: I am going to have to go with When Angels Wept by Eric G. Swedin (certainly this is a greater honor then winning the Sidewise Award).  War Blogger, however, might disagree with me and go with East Wind Returns by William Peter Grasso.  They are both good books and I highly recommend that you read them if you get the chance. 

Best Anthology: While there were only two anthologies reviewed this year, I have to give the nod to Robert Cowley's What if? series.  It is still an excellent series of counterfactuals and a must read for any legitimate alternate historian.

Best Short Story: "Coil Gun" by Matthew Quinn gets the nod, but by default since we did not review any short stories separately this year.  Next year I will try and bring you more reviews of short stories.

Best Showcase: This is a difficult category to rate, especially since an online timeline does not get a showcase unless the reviewer already believes this is an excellent piece of alternate history.  So to make things simpler I am going to give it to the most viewed showcase, which is Dominion of Southern America by Glen from Alternatehistory.com.  Congrats!

Best Comic: Titan by Michael Tymczyszyn and Andy Stanleigh also gets the nod for best comic by default, but let me stress the fact that getting the nod this way does not mean it is a bad book.  It just means that we need to review more comics.

Best Television Show: I was not sure whether I should have changed the title of this category to "Worst" instead of "Best", but I decided to go with "Best" for sake of conformity.  I have to admit this year was a bad year when it came to watching alternate history on television, so as much as I hate to do this, I have to given the nod to Spike TV's Alternate History.  Sure it was overly dependent on bad special facts and loaded with implausible gibberish, it still managed to maintain a shred of dignity by not forcing me to stare at underage crotches!

Best Interview: Well this is a very difficult category to choose from.  I did some great interviews over this year and certainly Matthew Quinn would win if I just did it by the number of page views (by the way everyone should read the end of this interview where Matt gives some good advice about how to deal with arguments on the Internet).  Yet I think I will call it a tie and also give a nod to Dale Cozort, the long time alternate history fan who I just had a great time talking with.

Best Contributor: I cannot make this decision by myself, but if you look to your right you will see a poll where you can help select the best contributor of 2011.  I will announce the winner in two weeks time.

Well everyone I had a great time this year and I am very happy with how far this blog has come.  I look forward to making 2012 an even more remarkable year for Alternate History Weekly Update!

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Mitro is founder, editor and contributor of Alternate History Weekly Update. When he is not busy writing about his passion for alternate history, he spends his time working as a licensed attorney in the state of Illinois and dreams of being a published author himself one day.