New Releases 9/25/12

New paperbacks

By Force of Arms by Billy Bennett

Description from Amazon.

North America 1869: It has been six years since the South won the Civil War on the bloody fields of Gettysburg. An icy peace has descended across the continent. In the economically devastated North, war hero William Tecumseh Sherman has just been elected President of the United States. He is determined to pick up where the North left off six years ago, and restore the Union no matter the cost. Using Confederate and French military involvement in Mexico as a pretext for war, Sherman lights the fuse that once again causes America to explode into the fires of battle. The fragile peace is shattered and armies in blue and gray once again slaughter one another on an epic scale. In the South, the aging Confederate President Robert E Lee once again summons his daring strategic mind, his audacious spirit and his last reserves of strength to once again lead the embattled Confederacy. But the weapons of war have grown evermore terrible. The introduction of breech loading rifles and lethal Gatling Guns has made the battle field deadlier and more horrendous than ever before in history. By Force of Arms is an epic novel of the Second American Civil War. From Ironclads battling in the Gulf of California to the horrors of trench warfare in Virginia, from black Buffalo soldiers fighting for the Union in the wild west to Confederate partisans in Missouri led by the notorious and daring outlaw Jesse James, By Force of Arms shows the most horrible war in American history through the eyes of those forced to fight it. With the fate of a nation, a continent and ultimately the world itself in the balance, both sides struggle to win the victory by force of arms.

The Sacred Protocol by Hylton H. Smith

Description from Amazon.

The Sacred Protocol is the first volume in the Evilution Series. It is an alternate reality crime thriller. Two pivotal events in history have a very different outcome. The first is the Spanish Armada. The story swiftly moves to the all-embracing Iberian Republic in 2016, when the internet collapses suddenly. The crumbling of banks and regional governments is prevented by the somewhat miraculous appearance of a new, impregnable system. A slide to dystopian culture is averted. However, after a few years, investigation of a number of mysterious deaths of protestors against the new system is warranted. There appears at first to be little evidence to link the cases, but when progress is made, the deaths take a sinister twist. It becomes a race against time to prevent global implications of unimaginable consequence. The various investigating bodies must reluctantly work together as zero point approaches.

New e-books

Dreamer: A Prequel to the Mongoliad by Mark Teppo

Description from Amazon.

During the Fifth Crusade, the bloody siege of Damietta grinds to a stalemate and a young Christian soldier begins having visions…

Raphael of Acre, a young initiate of the Shield-Brethren, becomes a war hero during a vicious battle for control of a Muslim stronghold. One of his companions, Eptor, is wounded in the battle and falls under the influence of strange hallucinations. When a superior plots to manipulate Eptor’s visions into war propaganda, Raphael struggles between duty to the cause and duty to his faith. Unable to reconcile his roles as Christian and soldier, Raphael seeks out an unlikely source of counsel—the great pacifist Francis of Assisi.

Part of the Foreworld Saga, Dreamer confronts the paradox of using sword and fist in an effort to spread a message of humility and compassion.

A note on this story: Dreamer is included in The Mongoliad: Book Two Collector's Edition.

Gettysburg Redux by John R. Stuart

Description from Amazon.

An alternative version of the American Civil War!

For three bloody days in July 1863 two great American Armies pounded each other to pieces in Gettysburg. This novel follows the exploits of the military elite of both the Confederate and Federal high command and chronicles the hell on earth that was experienced by seven common Rebel soldiers. Could a single bullet change the course of history?

The Mongoliad: Book One by various authors

Description from Amazon.

With bonus material! This Kindle edition features extra content only found in the Collector’s Edition of The Mongoliad: Book One, including an illustrated character glossary, a Foreworld map, and Sinner, a prequel to the Mongoliad series.

The first novel to be released in The Foreworld Saga, The Mongoliad: Book One, is an epic-within-an-epic, taking place in 13th century. In it, a small band of warriors and mystics raise their swords to save Europe from a bloodthirsty Mongol invasion. Inspired by their leader (an elder of an order of warrior monks), they embark on a perilous journey and uncover the history of hidden knowledge and conflict among powerful secret societies that had been shaping world events for millennia.

But the saga reaches the modern world via a circuitous route. In the late 19th century, Sir Richard F. Burton, an expert on exotic languages and historical swordsmanship, is approached by a mysterious group of English martial arts aficionados about translating a collection of long-lost manuscripts. Burton dies before his work is finished, and his efforts were thought lost until recently rediscovered by a team of amateur archaeologists in the ruins of a mansion in Trieste, Italy. From this collection of arcana, the incredible tale of The Mongoliad was recreated.

Full of high adventure, unforgettable characters, and unflinching battle scenes, The Mongoliad ignites a dangerous quest where willpower and blades are tested and the scope of world-building is redefined.

A note on this edition: The Mongoliad began as a social media experiment, combining serial story-telling with a unique level of interaction between authors and audience during the creative process. Since its original iteration, The Mongoliad has been restructured, edited, and rewritten under the supervision of its authors to create a more cohesive reading experience and will be published as a trilogy of novels. This edition is the definitive edition and is the authors' preferred text.

To fans, authors and publishers...

Do you want to see your work given a shout out on our New Releases segment? Contact Mitro at ahwupdate at gmail dot com.  We are looking for works of alternate history, counterfactual history, steampunk, historical fantasy, time travel or anything that warps history beyond our understanding.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a volunteer editor for Alt Hist and a contributor to Just Below the Law. His fiction can be found at Echelon Press, Jake's Monthly and his own writing blog. When not writing he works as an attorney and enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana.