New Releases 12/1/15

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Hardcovers

The Curse of Jacob Tracy: A Novel by Holly Messinger

St. Louis in 1880 is full of ghosts -- mangled soldiers, tortured slaves, the innocent victims of war -- and Jacob Tracy can see them all. Ever since Antietam, when he lay delirious among the dead and dying, Trace has been haunted by the country's restless spirits. The curse cost him his family, his calling to the church, and damn near his sanity. He stays out of ghost-populated cities as much as possible these days, guiding wagon trains West with his pragmatic and skeptical partner, Boz.

Then, just before the spring rush, Trace gets a letter from the wealthy and reclusive Sabine Fairweather. Sickly, sharp-tongued, and far too clever for her own good, Miss Fairweather needs a worthy man to retrieve a dead friend's legacy from a nearby town -- or so she says. When the errand proves far more sinister than advertised, Miss Fairweather admits to knowing about Trace's curse, and suggests she might be able to help him -- in exchange for a few more odd jobs.

Trace has no interest in being her pet psychic, but he's been searching eighteen years for a way to curb his unruly curse, and Miss Fairweather's knowledge of the spirit world is too tempting to ignore. As she steers him into one macabre situation after another, his powers flourish, and Trace begins to realize some good might be done with this curse of his. But Miss Fairweather is harboring some dark secrets of her own, and her meddling has brought Trace to the attention of something much older and more dangerous than any ghost.

Rich in historical detail and emotional depth, The Curse of Jacob Tracy is a fast-paced and inventive debut, an intriguing introduction to a bold new hero.

Paperbacks

Joe Steele by Harry Turtledove

The New York Times bestselling author of the Supervolcano trilogy envisions the election of a United States President whose political power will redefine what the nation is—and what it means to be American…

The Great Depression continues to cast its dark shadow over the country. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so the Democratic Party makes an interesting nomination for their Presidential candidate: California Congressman Joe Steele, the son of a Russian immigrant laborer who identifies more with the common man than with the wealthy power brokers in Washington D.C.

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. But Steele’s homeland political enemies pale in comparison to European tyrants whose posturing seems sure to drag America into war…

The Rising by Ian Tregillis

The second book in the Alchemy Wars trilogy by Ian Tregillis, an epic tale of liberation and war.

Jax, a rogue Clakker, has wreaked havoc upon the Clockmakers' Guild by destroying the Grand Forge. Reborn in the flames, he must begin his life as a free Clakker, but liberation proves its own burden.

Berenice, formerly the legendary spymaster of New France, mastermind behind her nation's attempts to undermine the Dutch Hegemony -- has been banished from her homeland and captured by the Clockmakers Guild's draconian secret police force.

Meanwhile, Captain Hugo Longchamp is faced with rallying the beleaguered and untested defenders of Marseilles-in-the-West for the inevitable onslaught from the Brasswork Throne and its army of mechanical soldiers.

Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind by Anne Charnock

History is storytelling. But some stories remain untold.

In fifteenth-century Italy, Paolo Uccello recognizes the artistic talent of his young daughter, Antonia, and teaches her how to create a masterpiece. The girl composes a painting of her mother and inadvertently sparks an enduring mystery.

In the present day, a copyist painter receives a commission from a wealthy Chinese businessman to duplicate a Paolo Uccello painting. Together, the painter and his teenage daughter visit China, and in doing so they begin their escape from a tragic family past.

In the twenty-second century, a painting is discovered that’s rumored to be the work of Paolo Uccello’s daughter. This reawakens an art historian’s dream of elevating Antonia Uccello, an artist ignored by history because of her gender.

Stories untold. Secrets uncovered. But maybe some mysteries should remain shrouded.

E-Books

Iron Tribune by Daniel Ottalini

Rome’s legions march ever onward in Daniel Ottalini’s Steam Empire Chronicles. Constantine Tiberius Appius leads his men back to Rome for a Triumph. But their respite is short lived, as they are soon sent east to face the ever-growing Mongol menace in Mesopotamia. With the Empire under attack from without, treachery and political maneuvering threaten to topple Rome from within. Constantine and his men have no choice. They must defeat the Mongols and their new weapons or die trying in IRON TRIBUNE.

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, a blogger on Amazing Stories and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not writing he works as an attorney, 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 and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

New Releases 4/15/14

You can support The Update by clicking the banner on the top right or the links below if you are purchasing through Amazon!

Paperbacks

Age of Shiva by James Lovegrove

Zachary Bramwell, better known as the comics artist Zak Zap, is pushing forty and wondering why his life isn t as exciting as the lives of the superheroes he draws. Then he s shanghaied by black-suited goons and flown to Mount Meru, a vast complex built atop an island in the Maldives. There, Zak meets a trio of billionaire businessmen who put him to work designing costumes for a team of godlike super-powered beings based on the ten avatars of Vishnu from Hindu mythology. The Ten Avatars battle demons and aliens and seem to be the saviours of a world teetering on collapse. But their presence is itself a harbinger of apocalypse. The Vedic fourth age of civilisation, Kali Yuga, is coming to an end, and Zak has a ringside seat for the final, all-out war that threatens the destruction of Earth.

E-books

Antioch Burns by Daniel Ottalini

When a scouting expedition goes disastrously wrong, Marius Quinctius Regillus finds himself in a horde of trouble. With the Mongols encircling the grand fortress city of Antioch, Regillus and his men are trapped between a governor’s ambitions and the Mongolian weaponry. With nowhere to turn, can they save the city, or will Antioch Burn?

Discover a new threat to the industrial Imperium of Rome in Antioch Burns, the latest novella by award-winning author Daniel Ottalini.

Audio

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

Cherie Priest's long-awaited steampunk debut, Boneshaker, opens in the early days of the Civil War when rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born.

But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.

Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue’s widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenaged boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history.

His quest will take him under the wall and into a city teeming with ravenous undead, air pirates, criminal overlords, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive.

Games

War of the Vikings by Paradox

War of the Vikings delivers the next generation of Paradox’s close quarter combat focused brands that moves the setting to the Viking Age. All of these factors enabled us to create a game experience that has an increased intensity, improved accessibility, and more intuitive combat experiences ensuring you’re always presented with interesting choices.

Launch onto the battlefields of the Viking Age in intense close quarter combat, where skill beats strength and the possibility of death is always one opponent away.

To fans, 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 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.

Adding Some Steam to your History: Incorporating Steampunk into Alternate History Worlds

Guest post by Daniel Ottalini.

I am tired of Victorian England.

I say this in the nicest possible way. I’m tired of every novel I read involving chaps with quirky British accents and a fading (or perhaps, resurgent) sense of empire. You see, I love reading steampunk novels, and I’m here to say that please, for the love of everything, take steampunk out of England.

Granted, by origination, steampunk is the use of steam-powered technology in more advanced than historically accurate ways onto a western industrialized civilization, almost always focused on the British Victorian Era. But how can we expand this tight beam focus? Surely, writers such as Cherie Priest and others have managed to include the American Wild West into the steampunk genre, and done so quite successfully, but where are the other worlds? Within those two areas we've covered one smallish island and a mere quarter of the United States. Alternate history is an amazing opportunity to expand and create new worlds incorporating both genres. I know because I write steampunk alternate history novels. (Maybe I should have said that before!)

I’ll admit up front, it is very easy for such a combination to go wrong. Part of the beauty of an alternate history is its plausibility. The strands of fate and time can be amazingly complicated and are balanced upon the edge of the simplest of choices. If a writer is not careful, the steampunk side of a novel can overwhelm the historical side, or simply not make sense. In this way, I am always teetering on the brink and always weighing my options. But what I am mostly concerned about is this – How much is too much steampunk?

As an author, I want to stay true to the roots of my series, The Steam Empire Chronicles, that of a Roman Empire surviving into the 19th century, dominating its traditional stomping grounds and beyond. The first novel, Brass Legionnaire, introduces people to the world, one where the empire has survived the barbarian invasions and thrived instead of collapsing.

To make the story plausible, I chose a distant point of divergence, the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Julius Caesar, to lay my foundation. It allowed me to play for time, and assume that many of the advances adopted by western civilizations in our timeline would have been accepted as well. But how to make it my own? Or more correctly, how to make it my world’s own version of technology?

Quite simply, I researched. I've got books on mechanical inventions from the 1800s sitting next to texts about the Roman Army next to The Steampunk Bible. What I did not do was write a story, decide I wanted it to be ‘steampunk’ and plop down an airship for my characters to go gallivanting off in.

That’s not steampunk, and that certainly isn’t good alternate history (See the latest Three Musketeers movie for proof). Every creation and part of a story should belong in the plot. If they have airships, why? How? Mechanical creatures or machines? Why and how? In The Peshwar Lancers, S.M. Stirling’s airships are mandatory because of the massive change in Earth’s climate. The technology must fit both the world and the people. My Romans have airships that simply look like the standard trireme with an airbag atop it. Why? Because technologically wise, they knew how to build ships, and floating ships would probably be designed in a similar way, especially at first (minus the oars, of course).

In Brass Legionnaire, the reader is thrown into the technology aspect of my world right away, with the building of a mechaniphant, a Roman warmachine modeled after the terrifying elephants of Hannibal’s army, something that had a major impact on the Roman psyche. It’s included because it is logical. Not just because I wanted a giant machine (which I did) but also because it is something that the Romans would have been impressed by, and would have wanted to create their own, improved, version of nature’s creation. Just as their Scandinavian opponents in my second novel, Copper Centurion, have created their own warmachine based on wolves.

So if you’re planning on adding some steam to your cup of alternate history, the key thing is to plan. If you’re already doing research (which you should be!) then examine closely famous inventors and technologies of the era to include or modify. The reader should know that the technology used is a common occurrence, part of the world from the beginning. I wish you good luck in your travels, and remember, it is good to be unique, but even better to make sense.

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Daniel Ottalini is a teacher, author, amateur historian who was raised by both the History & Discovery Channel. His parents are very proud of decision to write about alternate history, in hopes that he will stop bothering them about it. His second novel, Copper Centurion, will be available on May 1st in both ebook and print versions. You can learn more about him at www.danielottalini.com or follow him on twitter @dottalini.