New Releases 9/6/16

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Hardcovers

Everfair: A Novel by Nisi Shawl

Everfair is a wonderful Neo-Victorian alternate history novel that explores the question of what might have come of Belgium's disastrous colonization of the Congo if the native populations had learned about steam technology a bit earlier. Fabian Socialists from Great Britian join forces with African-American missionaries to purchase land from the Belgian Congo's "owner," King Leopold II. This land, named Everfair, is set aside as a safe haven, an imaginary Utopia for native populations of the Congo as well as escaped slaves returning from America and other places where African natives were being mistreated.

Nisi Shawl's speculative masterpiece manages to turn one of the worst human rights disasters on record into a marvelous and exciting exploration of the possibilities inherent in a turn of history. Everfair is told from a multiplicity of voices: Africans, Europeans, East Asians, and African Americans in complex relationships with one another, in a compelling range of voices that have historically been silenced. Everfair is not only a beautiful book but an educational and inspiring one that will give the reader new insight into an often ignored period of history.

MJ-12: Inception by Michael J. Martinez

It is a new world, stunned by the horrors that linger in the aftermath of total war. The United States and Soviet Union are squaring off in a different kind of conflict, one that’s fought in the shadows, where there are whispers of strange and mysterious developments. . .

Normal people across the United States have inexplicably gained paranormal abilities. A factory worker can heal the sick and injured. A schoolteacher bends emotions to her will. A car salesman alters matter with a simple touch. A former soldier speaks to the dying and gains their memories as they pass on.

They are the Variants, controlled by a secret government program called MAJESTIC-12 to open a new front in the Cold War.

From the deserts of Nevada to the palaces of Istanbul, the halls of power in Washington to the dark, oppressive streets of Prague, the Variants are thrown into a deadly game of shifting alliances. Amidst the seedy underbelly of nations, these once-ordinary Americans dropped in extraordinary circumstances will struggle to come to terms with their abilities as they fight to carve out a place for themselves in a world that may ultimately turn against them.

And as the MAJESTIC-12 program will soon discover, there are others out there like them, some with far more malevolent goals.

Prince of Outcasts by SM Stirling

John Arminger Mackenzie wanted to be a troubadour, but fate made him the son of the king of Montival. His sister Princess Órlaith will deservedly inherit the throne of the High Kings, and it will only pass unto him in the event of her death, leaving the young Prince on an unknown path to discover his true role in the family.

The opportunity to prove his mettle comes when John’s ship, the Tarshish Queen, is caught in the fierce storm raised against the enemies of the alliance. When the clouds recede and the skies clear, John and his crew find themselves on the other side of the Pacific, in the island chains of the Ceram Sea, fighting to survive against vicious pirates and monstrous creatures of the deep, meeting new allies and mysterious enemies of this world and another.

Now, Prince John must seize his birthright and lead his people in battle against the darkest forces man and nature can conjure against them.

Paperbacks

101 Stumbles in the March of History: What If the Great Mistakes in War, Government, Industry, and Economics Were Not Made? by Bill Fawcett

An all-new compendium of 101 historic screw-ups from the author of 100 Mistakes that Changed History.

DID I DO THAT???

When asked to name a successor, Alexander the Great declared that his empire should go “to the strongest”. . . but would rival factions have descended into war if he’d been a little more specific?

What if the Vienna Academy of Art took a chance on a hopeful young student named Adolf Hitler?

If Pope Clement VII granted King Henry VIII an annulment, England would likely still be Catholic today—and so would America.

Bill Fawcett, author of 100 Mistakes That Changed History, offers a compendium of 101 all-new mammoth mistakes—from the ill-fated rule of Emperor Darius III to the equally ill-fated search for WMDs in Iraq—that will, unfortunately, never be forgotten by history.

E-Books

Our Heroes Through Tomorrow by Dan Gainor

Six scintillating stories from a modern master of speculative fiction!

Unintended Consequences: In a future where nuclear weapons no longer function, conventional warfare rears its ugly head as America becomes the target of a hostile invasion, and a young computer wiz finds himself in the thick of the fight.

We The People: A billionaire rancher seeks to rekindle the spirit of America... by cloning the Founding Fathers!

Soul Tracker: A science-fiction epic of alien worlds, conjoined souls, and one man's quest to become the ultimate warrior.

Original Sin: College students set out on a quest to prove that time travel is possible, only to find themselves stranded in an all too familiar past, with a crucial decision to make about altering fate.

Just Desserts: Aliens seek to neutralize the "human threat" through a virus that makes "zombies" all too real... only, what will be the true consequence of this bio-warfare?

Drawing A Line: In a future where humanity is conquered and fragmented amidst the stars, the last soldiers must hold the line between warrior and pirate as they struggle to fight for freedom and survival.

Ragnarok by Chris Nuttall

The Nazi Civil War rages on ...

The Provisional Government has scored a significant victory, driving the Waffen-SS back from Berlin and winning itself time to plot a counteroffensive. But Karl Holliston - the self-declared Fuhrer of the Greater German Reich - isn't about to give up so easily. As mighty armies prepare for the final campaign, winter sweeps down from the east and both side prepare their ultimate weapons, the fate of the world hangs in the balance ...

... And if the Reich burns, the rest of the world may burn too.

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.

* * *

Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Interview with Bill Fawcett, author of 101 Stumbles in the March of History (Plus an Excerpt)

I had the opportunity to interview historian Bill Fawcett who, along with other contributors, wrote the 101 Stumbles in the March of History. Check out our conversation below and keep scrolling to read an excerpt from the book.

Welcome to Alternate History Weekly Update, Bill. How would you describe yourself to someone you just met?

I suppose that I would say that I am someone who enjoys history and sharing the amazing things I discover about it. If forced to choose a title, I suppose “Pop Historian” might fit. Maybe that I am more than a little cynical because those in power never seem to learn from history and optimistic that history shows nations often overcome the worst of leaders and their mistakes… but not always.

What got you interested in alternate history?

I discovered science fiction and history spending my early summers reading in the shade of a tree in our front lawn. Whether it was Tom Swift Jr, Rick Brandt, boy scientist, and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet or accounts of battles and life in ancient times the road noise and neighborhood just disappeared. As I grew older I realized that much of the Science Fiction I loved was derived from events that actually occurred. Once I began writing and editing there was a real revelation. You can’t make it up story elements that are as amazing as what has really happened in the past. From Game of Thrones being loosely based on the equally cut throat events in the War of Roses or the campaigns of Belisarius being the inspiration for novels by David Drake, those writing SF and fantasy often use the past as a model. I suspect it was almost inevitable that the two should merge directly into what we now call Alternate History. I guess I’ve been imaging what would have happened if the Huns had conquered Rome or if Napoleon had left Moscow in time all my life. Back in the 1980s I helped put together with historian Dennis Showalter a “What If” book on WWII alternatives. From then on I was hooked.

What is 101 Stumbles in the March of History about?

So much of our history is the result not of great plans and brilliant strategies, but what happened when those went wrong.  Mistakes and their consequences are a great moving force through history, for the better or worse. Progress is never inevitable. I have done two other books for Penguin on great mistakes and how they affect history, these are the not too subtly named 100 Mistakes that Changed History and Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing: 100 More Mistakes That Lost Elections, Ended Empires, and Made the World What It Is Today. This  new book is a look at yet more history changing events and something more, what if.

What inspired you to create the book?

My editor at Penguin was generous enough to say that in this volume we could pull out the stops and also speculate on how life would be today if 101 of the worst mistakes in history had not been made. It was impossible to resist. I’ve been doing it in my head and in discussions with the other writers in earlier volumes for another publisher for years.

How did you find the other contributors to 101 Stumbles?

I did write about half the mistakes. A few other contributors are historians whom I had worked with before. They share the view that history is fascinating and can be written like it is both interesting and relevant. Beyond them I reached out to those who write Alternate History fiction. I was fortunate enough that some of the best, Harry Turtledove, Eric Flint, Mike Resnick, and Charles Gannon agreed to join in.  Their insight and unique approaches really add to the book.

Your story "The Last Crusader" is one of my personal favorite stories of yours. What inspired you to make Napoleon a priest?

I have always been fascinated by the Napoleonic Wars. They were really the last of the wars where the man, not the weapon, still made all the difference. The great uniforms and pomp don’t hurt either. The survival of Revolutionary France was a near thing. What if Bonaparte was on the other side of the equation?

If you lived in Corsica, a poor island controlled by France, there were only few ways to escape the poverty and really achieve something.  Beyond smuggling there was only the church or the army.  The story speculates that the ambitious Napoleon choose instead to become a priest. He would have quickly risen in the ranks of the Church. This would have meant he was sympathetic to the monarchies and nobility who supported the Catholic Church extensively. In the story we see Bishop Napoleon, a fiery speaker and émigré’ leader, successfully inspiring the Austrian and Russian troops to defeat the godless Revolutionary French at Austerlitz. Just one different choice by him as a young boy and it just might have been.

Are there any other projects that you are working on?

I am actually researching an alternate history where the very secular Kurds managed to be united as a single nation and the Middle East in the near future is a far different place. They are an amazing people, and tough as ISIS is constantly finding out. If the British had just drawn a few boundaries differently or the UN had lived up to their charter on borders and ethnic groups, it might have been. This will likely be for a military oriented SF novel.

Any advice for aspiring writers?

(Beyond keep you day job?)  My first bit of advice is write, often and anything. The second is to write about what you are passionate.  Learn the technical skill of writing, whether its fiction or non-fiction, the skill is necessary. It is like tennis or programming, you need to practice and get better. Those reading you want to enjoy and learn from what you write. What it really comes down to is do what you love, share what excites you and it will show. It will show in your books.

And now an excerpt from "Bad Omen" by Bill Fawcett, found in 101 Stumbles in the March of History:

It took two mistakes, both classical in all senses of the word, to bring down the world’s first democracy. There have been times when superstition in the form of omens and prophecies affected a battle, but there was one omen that lost Athens the entire Peloponnesian War. Athens had been winning a protracted war with Sparta and that city’s allies. It appeared to almost everyone that Sparta was about to lose and just one more push was needed. But military actions are expensive, particularly for Athens, which traditionally paid the rowers and other sailors. This meant they had the best and most enthusiastic crews, but this was costly. Then one of the city’s most ambitious and controversial figures, Alcibiades, began to push for Athens and its allies to invade Sicily and conquer Syracuse. The fabled treasury of Syracuse could then be used to finance the rest of the war.

No one, except the most conservative Athenians, cared that they were starting a second war with one of the other democratic cities on a distant island. They were defeating Sparta, how difficult could Syracuse be? Everyone expected to win quickly, long before a battered Sparta could react. Athens, as head of the Delian League, literally voted to open a second front against a powerful and rich enemy in the middle of another war.
…
From the beginning things did not go well in Sicily. The reason for this was the choice of commanders. At first it looked like Athens was going to make the traditional mistake of splitting command. Both the impulsive Alcibiades and perhaps the most reverent and hesitant noble in the city, Nicias, were put in command of the invasion of Sicily. Likely the idea was for the two to balance out each other. What happened was that, due to a scandal involving the destruction of sacred statues of Hermes just before they left, Alcibiades was recalled shortly after arriving. Since it appeared that he was about to be railroaded on the charge, Alcibiades sailed not home, but to Sparta—and changed sides.

Making a military decision, or rather not making it, for twenty-seven days on the basis of one general’s reverence for, and fear of, an omen, was the second mistake. Between the two mistakes, the Delian League and Athens turned near-certain victory into defeat. It took ten more years to lose. Athens held on and raised fleets whenever it could. But the Delian League had lost tens of thousands of soldiers, citizens, and sailors, and nearly its entire fleet in an unnecessary war. The city of Athens and its League were literally and monetarily spent. Eventually, the Spartan side, helped by the defections of Athens’ former allies, won the war and doomed the city. The Delian League was dissolved. Because of two mistakes: fighting a war on two fronts and allowing superstition to override military necessity, Athens was never again the center of Greece or its culture.

Your life would today be different had the Delian League prevailed, which it almost certainly would have if its ill-fated invasion of Syracuse had not happened. Greece might have united as a nation. Macedonia would not have been able to overwhelm a united Greece. Persia might well have hesitated to make its many invasions, or perhaps Alexander would have partnered with Greece to invade Persia and change the world. Or Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander might have been obscure footnotes in books about the Delian League’s defeat of Persia. Or there might be chapters about Persia defeating Greece. If Athens had been dominant for more centuries, then would democracy in some form have become the conventional form of government, not the exception, for the next twenty-five hundred years? That surely would have changed everything.

Weekly Update #246! Alternate Histories to Read in September

Editor's Note

It's hard to believe summer is ending. Although I am indoor kind of guy, I do love summer. The early sunrises, the barbecues, the festivals, the beach days, the picnics and the all-around beautiful weather that lets me read outside in comfort. I had a great time this summer and I will be sad to see it go.

Recommendations from last week include Sam McDonald's review of the anime: Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade. I am still surprised by the number of anime works that feature alternate history content and will probably need to sit down and watch some of them in the future. In the meantime, my thanks to Sam for bringing these obscure works of alternate history to my attention.

Don't forget that you can support The Update by buying through Amazon. Click on the banner to your right when you go to purchase something and we will get a little something something to fund our mission of bringing you the best alternate history news and reviews on the Internet. If you are looking for something to buy, may I recommend some of last week's new releases or maybe some of the books below?

Finally, I am posting this a little early due to my Labor Day plans. I hope no one minds (and I don't care if you do). Map Monday also may come out later than usual.

And now the news...

Books to Read in September

So there are a lot of good books coming out in September that I am excited to read. In fact I decided to preview a few of them in case you want to read along with me. The first one is Michael J. Martinez's MJ-12: Inception which is coming out tomorrow. Now you can already read my thoughts on the book by checking out my review on Amazing Stories, but here is the description from Amazon:

It is a new world, stunned by the horrors that linger in the aftermath of total war. The United States and Soviet Union are squaring off in a different kind of conflict, one that’s fought in the shadows, where there are whispers of strange and mysterious developments.

Normal people across the United States have inexplicably gained paranormal abilities. A factory worker can heal the sick and injured. A schoolteacher bends emotions to her will. A car salesman alters matter with a simple touch. A former soldier speaks to the dying and gains their memories as they pass on.

They are the Variants, controlled by a secret government program called MAJESTIC-12 to open a new front in the Cold War.

From the deserts of Nevada to the palaces of Istanbul, the halls of power in Washington to the dark, oppressive streets of Prague, the Variants are thrown into a deadly game of shifting alliances. Amidst the seedy underbelly of nations, these once-ordinary Americans dropped in extraordinary circumstances will struggle to come to terms with their abilities as they fight to carve out a place for themselves in a world that may ultimately turn against them.

And as the MAJESTIC-12 program will soon discover, there are others out there like them, some with far more malevolent goals.

Also coming out tomorrow is Bill Fawcett's 101 Stumbles in the March of History: What If the Great Mistakes in War, Government, Industry, and Economics Were Not Made? Although Bill wrote most of the essays in this book, there are many other contributors from the alternate history genre who are participating like Harry Turtledove, Eric Flint, Mike Resnick and Charles E. Gannon. I actually have a couple posts about the book coming out tomorrow, but in the meantime, here is the Amazon description:

DID I DO THAT???

When asked to name a successor, Alexander the Great declared that his empire should go “to the strongest”. . . but would rival factions have descended into war if he’d been a little more specific?

What if the Vienna Academy of Art took a chance on a hopeful young student named Adolf Hitler?

If Pope Clement VII granted King Henry VIII an annulment, England would likely still be Catholic today—and so would America. 

Bill Fawcett, author of 100 Mistakes That Changed History, offers a compendium of 101 all-new mammoth mistakes—from the ill-fated rule of Emperor Darius III to the equally ill-fated search for WMDs in Iraq—that will, unfortunately, never be forgotten by history.

Coming out tomorrow as well (the first Tuesday of any month is usually a big day for new releases) is a book I have been very excited to read: SM Stirling's The Prince of Outcasts. This is the next book in the Emberverse series, which I have gushed about on numerous occasions and I have even reread the first three books a couple of times. In case you are interested, here is the description from Amazon:

John Arminger Mackenzie wanted to be a troubadour, but fate made him the son of the king of Montival. His sister Princess Órlaith will deservedly inherit the throne of the High Kings, and it will only pass unto him in the event of her death, leaving the young Prince on an unknown path to discover his true role in the family. 

The opportunity to prove his mettle comes when John’s ship, the Tarshish Queen, is caught in the fierce storm raised against the enemies of the alliance. When the clouds recede and the skies clear, John and his crew find themselves on the other side of the Pacific, in the island chains of the Ceram Sea, fighting to survive against vicious pirates and monstrous creatures of the deep, meeting new allies and mysterious enemies of this world and another. 

Now, Prince John must seize his birthright and lead his people in battle against the darkest forces man and nature can conjure against them.

And now we get to our last, but certainly not least, book coming out in September that I wanted to talk about. Its What Ifs of Jewish History: From Abraham to Zionism edited by counterfactual historian, Gavriel D. Rosenfeld. I actually just started reading this book and I am enjoying it. Its even given me a few ideas for what if videos (like a Protestant Christian state founded in Palestine in a world where Germany won WWI). More on that later, but for now, here is the Amazon description:

What if the Exodus had never happened? What if the Jews of Spain had not been expelled in 1492? What if Eastern European Jews had never been confined to the Russian Pale of Settlement? What if Adolf Hitler had been assassinated in 1939? What if a Jewish state had been established in Uganda instead of Palestine? Gavriel D. Rosenfeld's pioneering anthology examines how these and other counterfactual questions would have affected the course of Jewish history. Featuring essays by sixteen distinguished scholars in the field of Jewish Studies, What Ifs of Jewish History is the first volume to systematically apply counterfactual reasoning to the Jewish past. Written in a variety of narrative styles, ranging from the analytical to the literary, the essays cover three thousand years of dramatic events and invite readers to indulge their imaginations and explore how the course of Jewish history might have been different.

Well I hope you guys find something to read this month and if it is any of the books I mentioned, please let me know what you think about them.

Video of the Week

Today's video of the week is AlternateHistoryHub's "What if Gunpowder Never Existed?":

And let's not forget my recent video where I asked what if the America First Committee kept America out of WWII?

You Should Also Check Out

• What Snopes has to say about whether the Star Spangled Banner enshrines slavery.
• Mussolini's message to future that was revealed under a Rome obelisk (via BBC).
• The alternate history map stolen by a Danish publishing company and put in an actual history textbook, which I may do a video about in the future. (via Kultur)
• Vice's profile of The Great War, the YouTube history series telling the story of WWI in real time and one of my favorite channels.
• What would have happened if Mark Hamill & Carrie Fisher didn’t want to return for Star Wars: Episode VII (via /Film).

* * *

Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.