New Releases 4/7/15

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Hardcovers

Before Tomorrowland by Jeff Jensen, Damon Lindelof, Brad Bird and Jonathan Case

Based on the spellbinding world of the Walt Disney Studios film, Tomorrowland, this original prequel novel features a 20-page comic book and unlocks a place of unfathomable science and technology and the famous people behind it.

The year is 1939.

A secret society of extraordinary geniuses is about to share an incredible discovery with the world.

A misguided enemy--half man, half machine--will stop at nothing to prevent the group from giving this forbidden knowledge to humanity.

And a mother and son on vacation in New York City are handed a comic book infused with a secret code that will lead them straight into the crossfires of the conspiracy.

Grantville Gazette VII edited by Eric Flint

NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING SERIES. The seventh anthology of tales set in Eric Flint’s phenomenal Ring of Fire universe—all selected and edited by Flint.

A cosmic accident sets the modern West Virginia town of Grantville down in war-torn seventeenth century Europe. It will take all the gumption of the resourceful, freedom-loving up-timers to find a way to flourish in the mad and bloody beginning of the Renaissance. Are they up for it? You bet they are.

Edited by Eric Flint, and inspired by his now-legendary 1632, this is the fun stuff that fills in the pieces of the Ring of Fire political, social and cultural puzzle as supporting characters we meet in the novels get their own lives, loves and life-changing stories. The future and democracy have arrived with a bang.

The Holocaust Averted: An Alternate History of American Jewry, 1938-1967 by Jeffrey S. Gurock

The increasingly popular genre of “alternative histories” has captivated audiences by asking questions like “what if the South had won the Civil War?” Such speculation can be instructive, heighten our interest in a topic, and shed light on accepted history. In The Holocaust Averted, Jeffrey Gurock imagines what might have happened to the Jewish community in the United States if the Holocaust had never occurred and forces readers to contemplate how the road to acceptance and empowerment for today’s American Jews could have been harder than it actually was.

Based on reasonable alternatives grounded in what is known of the time, places, and participants, Gurock presents a concise narrative of his imagined war-time saga and the events that followed Hitler’s military failures. While German Jews did suffer under Nazism, the millions of Jews in Eastern Europe survived and were able to maintain their communities. Since few people were concerned with the safety of European Jews, Zionism never became popular in the United States and social antisemitism kept Jews on the margins of society. By the late 1960s, American Jewish communities were far from vibrant.

This alternate history—where, among many scenarios, Hitler is assassinated, Japan does not bomb Pearl Harbor, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt is succeeded after two terms by Robert A. Taft—does cause us to review and better appreciate history. As Gurock tells his tale, he concludes every chapter with a short section that describes what actually happened and, thus, further educates the reader.

Joe Steele by Harry Turtledove

New York Times bestselling author Harry Turtledove’s thought-provoking forays into the past have produced such intriguing “what-if” novels as Ruled Britannia, Days of Infamy, and Opening Atlantis. Now “the maven of alternate history” (The San Diego Union-Tribune) envisions the election of a United States President whose political power will redefine what the nation is—and what it means to be American….

President Herbert Hoover has failed America. The Great Depression that rose from the ashes of the 1929 stock market crash still casts its dark shadow over the country. Despairing and desperate, the American people hope one of the potential Democratic candidates—New York governor Franklin D. Roosevelt and California congressman Joe Steele—can get the nation on the road to recovery.

But fate snatches away one hope when a mansion fire claims the life of Roosevelt, leaving the Democratic party little choice but to nominate Steele, son of a Russian immigrant laborer who identifies more with the common man than with Washington D.C.’s wealthy power brokers.

Achieving a landslide victory, President Joe Steele wastes no time pushing through Congress reforms that put citizens back to work. Anyone who gets in his way is getting in the way of America, and that includes the highest in the land. Joe Steele’s critics may believe the government is gaining too much control, but they tend to find themselves in work camps if they make too much noise about it. And most people welcome strong leadership, full employment, and an absence of complaining from the newspapers—especially as Hitler and Trotsky begin the kind of posturing that seems sure to drag America into war.

Lincoln's Bodyguard: In A Heroic Act Of Bravery Saves Our Beloved President! John Wilkes Booth Killed In Act Of Treason by TJ Turner

In Lincoln’s Bodyguard, an alternative version of American history, President Lincoln is saved from assassination. Though he prophesied his own death—the only way he believed the South would truly surrender—Lincoln never accounted for the heroics of his bodyguard, Joseph Foster. A biracial mix of white and Miami Indian, Joseph makes an enemy of the South by killing John Wilkes Booth and preventing the death of the president. His wife is murdered and his daughter kidnapped, sending Joseph on a revenge-fueled rampage to recover his daughter. When his search fails, he disappears as the nation falls into a simmering insurgency instead of an end to the War. Years later, Joseph is still running from his past when he receives a letter from Lincoln pleading for help.  The President has a secret mission. Pursued from the outset, Joseph turns to the only person who might help, the woman he abandoned years earlier.  If he can win Molly over, he might just fulfill the President’s urgent request, find his daughter, and maybe even hasten the end of the War.

Nemo: River of Ghosts by Alan Moore

In a world where all the fictions ever written coalesce into a rich mosaic, it's 1975. Janni Dakkar, pirate queen of Lincoln Island and head of the fabled Nemo family, is eighty years old and beginning to display a tenuous grasp on reality. Pursuing shadows from her past - or her imagination - she embarks on what may be a final voyage down the vastness of the Amazon, a last attempt to put to rest the blood-drenched spectres of old. With allies and adversaries old and new, we accompany an aging predator on her obsessive trek into the cultural landscape of a strange new continent, from the ruined city of Yu-Atlanchi to the fabulous plateau of Maple White Land. As the dark threads in her narrative are drawn into an inescapable web, Captain Nemo leads her hearse-black Nautilus in a desperate raid on horrors believed dead for decades. Through the exotic spectacle of an imagined South America, Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill steer their fifty-year-long Nemo trilogy to its remarkable conclusion, borne upon a River of Ghosts.

The Outlandish Companion: Companion to Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, and Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon

#1 New York Times bestselling author Diana Gabaldon has captivated millions of readers with her critically acclaimed Outlander novels, the inspiration for the Starz original series. From the moment Claire Randall stepped through a standing stone circle and was thrown back in time to the year 1743—and into a world that threatens life, limb, loyalty, heart, soul, and everything else Claire has—readers have been hungry to know everything about this world and its inhabitants, particularly a Scottish soldier named Jamie Fraser.

In this beautifully illustrated compendium of all things Outlandish, Gabaldon covers the first four novels of the main series, including:

• full synopses of Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, and Drums of Autumn 
• a complete listing of the characters (fictional and historical) in the first four novels in the series, as well as family trees and genealogical notes
• a comprehensive glossary and pronunciation guide to Gaelic terms and usage
• The Gabaldon Theory of Time Travel, explained
• frequently asked questions to the author and her (sometimes surprising) answers
• an annotated bibliography
• essays about medicine and magic in the eighteenth century, researching historical fiction, creating characters, and more
• professionally cast horoscopes for Jamie and Claire
• the making of the TV series: how we got there from here, and what happened next (including “My Brief Career as a TV Actor”)
• behind-the-scenes photos from the Outlander TV series set

For anyone who wants to spend more time with the Outlander characters and the world they inhabit, Diana Gabaldon here opens a door through the standing stones and offers a guided tour of what lies within.

William Shakespeare's The Phantom of Menace: Star Wars Part the First by Ian Doescher

Join us, good gentles, for a merry reimagining of Star Wars: Episode 1 as only Shakespeare could have written it. The entire saga starts here, with a thrilling tale featuring a disguised queen, a young hero, and two fearless knights facing a hidden, vengeful enemy.

’Tis a true Shakespearean drama, filled with sword fights, soliloquies, and doomed romance . . . all in glorious iambic pentameter and coupled with twenty gorgeous Elizabethan illustrations. Hold on to your midi-chlorians: The play’s the thing, wherein you’ll catch the rise of Anakin!

The World According to Philip K. Dick: Future Matters edited by Alexander Dunst and Stefan Schlensag

As the first essay collection dedicated to Philip K. Dick in over two decades, this volume breaks new ground in science fiction scholarship and brings innovative critical perspectives to the study of one of the America's most influential authors. With contributions by major voices in literary and cultural studies, the book thoroughly situates Dick in the history of the twentieth century and includes sections on cultural theory, adaptation studies, as well as the first in-depth discussion of his last major work, The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick, only published in 2011.

Dick's academic reputation and general popularity continue to grow. A steady flow of films based on his novels and short stories, and several biographies and critical monographs over the last decade, testify to his global appeal. As the publication of three volumes of selected novels in the prestigious Library of America series and a 900-page hardback edition of his Exegesis show, Dick is now considered a canonical author in US literature. The essays commissioned for this volume examine novel aspects of Dick's oeuvre and revise our understanding of a writer who is now seen as a major literary and intellectual figure and often taken as representative of science fiction at large. At the same time, the conceptual and methodological arguments put forward by the authors –from Mark Bould's analysis of 'slipstream cinema' and Laurence Rickels' theorization of psychopathy to Marcus Boon's ontology of the withdrawn object – will be of interest to a wide audience in literary and cultural studies.

Paperbacks

By Tooth and Claw edited by Bill Fawcett

ORIGINAL TRADE PAPERBACK. New York Times best-selling authors S.M. Stirling, Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, and Jody Lynn Nye return with four novellas. The cat-like Mrem, our heroes, battle the deep reptilian intelligence of humanoid dinosaurs in a Bronze Age world. SEQUEL TO EXILED: CLAN OF THE CLAW.

Second entry in a series with four linked novellas from multiple best-sellers S.M. Stirling, Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint and Jody Lynn Nye! After the extinction asteroid does not strike Earth, the dinosaurs keep evolving–but so do the mammals. We mammals have achieved humanlike shapes, but now it’s cold-blooded, magic-using reptiles against the hot-blooded, hot-tempered descendants of cats.

In a heroic, Bronze Age world similar to 300, the Mrem Clans expand their rough-and-tumble territory, but now they face the Lishkash, reptilian masters of a cold-blooded empire of slave armies and magic. It’s mammalian courage and adaptation against reptile cunning in a clash of steel and will that determine who shall inherit the Earth.

The Diamond Conspiracy: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel by Philippa Ballantine and Tee Morris

For years, the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences has enjoyed the favor of Her Majesty the Queen. But even the oldest loyalties can turn in a moment…

Having narrowly escaped the electrifying machinations of Thomas Edison, Books and Braun are looking forward to a relaxing and possibly romantic voyage home. But when Braun’s emergency signal goes off, all thoughts of recreation vanish. Braun’s street-wise team of child informants, the Ministry Seven, is in grave peril, and Books and Braun must return to England immediately.

But when the intrepid agents finally arrive in London, the situation is even more dire than they imagined. The Ministry has been disavowed, and the Department of Imperial Inconveniences has been called in to decommission its agents in a most deadly fashion. The plan reeks of the Maestro’s dastardly scheming. Only, this time, he has a dangerous new ally—a duplicitous doctor whose pernicious poisons have infected the highest levels of society, reaching even the Queen herself...

Hyde by Daniel Levine

A New York Times Editors’ Choice and one of the Washington Post’s 5 Best Thrillers of the Year

“[A] knockout debut novel . . . As dark and twisted and alluring as the night-cloaked streets of nineteenth-century London, and this book is as much a fascinating psychological query as it is a gripping narrative.” —Benjamin Percy, author of Red Moon

Summoned to life by strange potions, Hyde knows not when or how long he will have control of “the body.” When dormant, he watches Dr. Jekyll from a remove, conscious of this other, high-class life but without influence. As the experiment continues, their mutual existence is threatened, not only by the uncertainties of untested science, but also by a mysterious stalker. Hyde is being taunted—possibly framed. Girls have gone missing; someone has been killed. Who stands watching in the shadows? In the blur of this shared consciousness, can Hyde ever be confident these crimes were not committed by his hand?

“A pleasure . . . Rich in gloomy, moody atmosphere (Levine’s London has a brutal steampunk quality), and its narrator’s plight is genuinely poignant.” —New York Times Book Review

Valour and Vanity by Mary Robinette Kowal

Acclaimed fantasist Mary Robinette Kowal has enchanted many fans with her beloved novels featuring a Regency setting in which magic--known here as glamour--is real. In Valour and Vanity, master glamourists Jane and Vincent find themselves in the sort of a magical adventure that might result if Jane Austen wrote Ocean's Eleven.

After Melody's wedding, the Ellsworths and Vincents accompany the young couple on their tour of the continent. Jane and Vincent plan to separate from the party and travel to Murano to study with glassblowers there, but their ship is set upon by Barbary corsairs while en route. It is their good fortune that they are not enslaved, but they lose everything to the pirates and arrive in Murano destitute.

Jane and Vincent are helped by a kind local they meet en route, but Vincent is determined to become self-reliant and get their money back, and hatches a plan to do so. But when so many things are not what they seem, even the best laid plans conceal a few pitfalls. The ensuing adventure is a combination of the best parts of magical fantasy and heist novels, set against a glorious Regency backdrop.

E-Books

Time Slip: A Stone Age Short by ML Banner

His invention would have changed the world...
if the world hadn't ended first.

By accident, Dr. Ron invented a time slip, a way to travel through time. When he finds out his wife is dying of a rare cancer and the cure is five years
away, he decides to slip forward in time and bring the cure back to the present. Only, this is a one-way trip and he arrives right after an apocalypse has brought the world back to a new Stone Age.

Survival for Dr. Ron, his wife and even that of the rest of the world, just became a race against the clock.

What is a Stone Age Short?

A stand-alone story which takes place within the world of Stone Age. Reading of any of the Stone Age Series is not compulsory to reading and enjoying a Stone Age Short.

To readers, authors and publishers...

Is your story going to be published in time for the next New Releases? Contact us 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 and a blogger on Amazing Stories. Check out his short fiction. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.