New Releases 12/10/13

Paperbacks

The Doctor and the Dinosaurs by Mike Resnick

Description from Amazon.

Welcome to a Steampunk wild west starring Doc Holliday, with zombies, dinosaurs, robots, and cowboys.

The time is April, 1885. Doc Holliday lies in bed in a sanitarium in Leadville, Colorado, expecting never to leave his room again. But the medicine man and great chief Geronimo needs him for one last adventure. Renegade Comanche medicine men object to the newly-signed treaty with Theodore Roosevelt. They are venting their displeasure on two white men who are desecrating tribal territory in Wyoming. Geronimo must protect the men or renege on his agreement with Roosevelt. He offers Doc one year of restored health in exchange for taking on this mission.

Welcome to the birth of American paleontology, spearheaded by two brilliant men, Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh, two men whose genius is only exceeded by their hatred for each other's guts.

Now, with the aid of Theodore Roosevelt, Cole Younger, and Buffalo Bill Cody, Doc Holliday must save Cope and Marsh not only from the Comanches, not only from living, breathing dinosaurs, but from each other. And that won't be easy.

The Memoirs of JFK: If Kennedy Had Survived by Leonard Gross

Description from Amazon.

THE MEMOIRS OF JFK imagines that John F. Kennedy survived Dallas, that he served two terms and then wrote a flawed memoir in which he fails to confront many of the questions that had arisen in the aftermath of the assassination attempt. A worried publisher sends a seasoned ghostwriter to try to persuade Kennedy to deal with these omissions. Their combat is the engine of this novel. Although THE MEMOIRS OF JFK is an invention, both its factual aspects and post-assassination conjectures are informed by the author's interviews with some 50 sources-many of them members of Kennedy's administration, some of them journalists he favored, a few of them close friends. No one, of course, can know for certain what decisions Kennedy would have taken, but given the nature of the man and his expressed intent, the world described in the novel is one we might well have lived in had he survived Dallas.

The Secret Zombie History of the World: Best of Tomes of the Dead, Volume 3 by Toby Venables, Paul Finch and Matthew Sprange

Description from Amazon.

The untold stories behind Zombie outbreaks of the past! Vikings, knights and Napoleon's Armies!

Fear strikes the hardiest of souls as Vikings must confront zombies in The Viking Dead! Medieval knights are under zombie-siege in the soon-to-be-filmed Stronghold! And thrill as the English fleet finds death is no bar to battle for Napoleon’s forces in Death Hulk!

Venus on the Half-Shell by Philip Jose Farmer

Description from Amazon.

Simon Wagstaff narrowly escapes the Deluge that destroys Earth when he happens upon an abandoned spaceship. A man without a planet, he gains immortality from an elixir drunk during an interlude with a cat-like alien queen. Now Simon must chart a 3,000-year course to the most distant corners of the multiverse, to seek out the answers to the questions no one can seem to answer.

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. His new short story "Road Trip" can be found in Forbidden Future: A Time Travel Anthology. 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.

New Releases 2/26/13

Hardcover

The Mongoliad: Book Three by Neal Stephenson,  Erik Bear, Greg Bear, Joseph Brassey, Nicole Galland, Cooper Moo, Mark Teppo and Mike Grell

Description from Amazon.

This handsome hardcover edition of The Mongoliad: Book Three features exquisite foil stamping, deckled edges, a ribbon marker, an illustrated character glossary, and a Foreworld map printed on the end- sheets. It also includes Seer: A Foreworld SideQuest. This short story was previously available only digitally and sets up characters and events in The Mongoliad.

The final book of the Mongoliad trilogy from Neal Stephenson and company tells the gripping personal stories of medieval freedom fighters to form an epic, imaginative recounting of a moment in history when a world in peril relied solely on the courage of its people.

The shadow of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II hangs over the shattered Holy Roman Church as the cardinals remain deadlocked, unable to choose a new pope. Only the Binders and a mad priest have a hope of uniting the Church against the invading Mongol host. An untested band of young warriors stands against the dissolute Khan, fighting for glory and freedom in the Khan’s sadistic circus of swords, and the brave band of Shield- Brethren who set out to stop the Mongol threat single-handedly race against their nemesis before he can raise the entire empire against them. Veteran knight Feronantus, haunted by his life in exile, leads the dwindling company of Shield-Brethren to their final battle, molding them into a team that will outlast him. No good hero lives forever. Or fights alone.

Paperbacks

Angels of Vengeance by John Birmingham

Description from Amazon.

When an inexplicable wave of energy slams into North America, the world is plunged into turmoil—as wars erupt, borders vanish, and the great and powerful fall.

Against this dramatic backdrop, three very different women navigate the chaos. Deep in a South American jungle, special agent Caitlin Monroe will stop at nothing to discover how a master terrorist escaped a secret detention center in French Guadeloupe to strike a fatal blow in New York City. Sofia Peiraro, a grieving teenager trying to rebuild her life in Kansas City, is drawn back to Texas by a vicious murder. And in the fashionable bars and boutiques of Darwin, the seething, growing freeport in Australia’s deep north, the British-born aristocrat-turned-smuggler Lady Julianne Balwyn hides a pistol in the small of her lovely back. She is hunting for the man who is hunting her. As these women fight for survival, justice, and revenge, humanity itself struggles toward its better angels—and to purge its worst demons.

Check out all of our reviews for the Wave trilogy (Without Warning, After America and Angels of Vengeance).

Any Day Now: A Novel by Terry Bison

Description from Amazon.

This tour de force, road movie of a novel is a poignant excursion into the last days of the Beats and the radicalized culture of the 1960s, from Kentucky to New York City and beyond. Written in a voice that is warmhearted and hauntingly original, Any Day Now is the story of Clay, a small-town boy whose future is all mapped out. It travels as far as an isolated New Mexico commune under threat from a national revolution, with Clay battling to find his place in the new America -- and hoping desperately to forget what happened back East with the girl he loved.

Bisson, whose prose brings to life this wild tale in the vein of Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, has written a transcendent commentary on America's civil liberties and the perils of growing up, then and now.

Gideon's Angel by Clifford Beal

Description from Amazon.

He came back to kill a tyrant. He found the Devil instead. An amazing historical novel with a supernatural twist set after the English Civil War. This is the stunning debut from Clifford Beal.

He came back to kill a tyrant. He found the Devil instead.

1653: The long and bloody English Civil War is at an end. King Charles is dead and Oliver Cromwell rules the land as king in all but name. Richard Treadwell, an exiled royalist officer and soldier-for-hire to the King of France and his all-powerful advisor, the wily Cardinal Mazarin, burns with revenge for those who deprived him of his family and fortune. He decides upon a self-appointed mission to return to England in secret and assassinate the new Lord Protector. Once back on English soil however, he learns that his is not the only plot in motion.

A secret army run by a deluded Puritan is bent on the same quest, guided by the Devil’s hand. When demonic entities are summoned, Treadwell finds himself in a desperate turnaround: he must save Cromwell to save England from a literal descent into Hell. But first he has to contend with a wife he left in Devon who believes she’s a widow, and a furious Paris mistress who has trailed him to England, jeopardising everything. Treadwell needs allies fast. Can he convince the man sent to forcibly drag him back to Cardinal Mazarin? A young king’s musketeer named d’Artagnan.

Black dogs and demons; religion and magic; Freemasons and Ranters. It’s a dangerous new Republic for an old cavalier coming home again.

London Darkness: War of the Devices by Christopher Stocking

Description from Amazon.

Fifteen years have passed since the events with Caiden and the forces of Partum Chaos transpired, and the League of Inventors is flourishing with Ryker and Adelina as Head Inventors. London's defenses are at peak performance, and all seems well for Ryker; his wife, Celia; and Lance, their fifteen-year-old son. But, when a mysterious Frenchman arrives with talks of impending war, American musicians in the forest, and strange automatons, Ryker must figure out who is his friend, and who is his foe in order to save what he has worked so hard to create.

Reality Check by Eric Garrison

Description from Amazon.

When a quantum supercomputer's "reality simulator" program causes temporary insanity in its beta-testers, Lee Green rolls up his sleeves and dives into a virtual world to debug the problem. Only he discovers that place is more real than anyone imagined. He finds alternate versions of his friends in that mad science reality, their lives and relationships very different from those in the "real" world. Quantum entanglements become romantic entanglements as he meets his love again in each new dimension. Lee must save these other lives, decide which destiny is truly his, and what he's willing to sacrifice to get there.

Secrets of the Fire Sea by Stephen Hunt

Description from Amazon.

The isolated island of Jago is the only home Hannah Conquest has ever known. But her carefree existence comes to an abrupt halt when her guardian, Archbishop Alice Grey, is brutally murdered. Someone desperately wants to suppress a secret kept by the archbishop, and if the attempts on Hannah's own life are any indication, the killer believes that Alice passed the knowledge to her ward before her head was separated from her neck.

Meanwhile, a deadly power struggle is brewing on Jago. And as Hannah digs deeper into the mystery Alice left behind, assisted by two rather different detectives, she must race to unravel a chain of ancient riddles in order to save not just her own life, but her island home itself!

Secrets of the Fire Sea is a rollicking tale of high adventure and derring-do set in Stephen Hunt’s Victorian-style clockwork world filled with steammen and aliens, fantastical creatures and dastardly villains…and some remarkable heroes that steampunk fans will cheer for.

E-books

Bully! by Mike Resnick

Description from Amazon.

In March 1909, Theodore Roosevelt went on a safari to central Africa. In this fictionalized account of that trip, Mike Resnick takes us on an amusing “what-if” with Roosevelt deciding to “liberate” the native Africans from Belgian rule and to set up a model democratic state in the heart of Africa.

Check out my review of the anthology The Other Teddy Roosevelts which contains this short story.

Seer by Mark Teppo

Description from Amazon.

When a merchant appears at the Catalonian chapter house of the Shield-Brethren, seeking to hire guards for his caravan, young Andreas is suspicious. Knights with his martial prowess are above protecting mere cargo wagons. Yet Andreas’s wanderlust outweighs his concern, and soon the group is headed to the merchant’s mountain village—and into great danger.

As the caravan approaches, a woman suffering from terrifying visions feverishly paints her latest revelation—in her own blood. The image horrifies her fellow villagers, who fear an imminent attack, or worse, the return of the brutal Inquisition. But when Andreas deciphers the painting’s true meaning, it may forever impact his wandering ways, his unspoken fears, and his very future with the Shield-Brethren.

Following Sinner and Dreamer, this Foreworld SideQuest reveals the painful truth that sometimes seeing what is to come is far worse than not knowing.

Audio

The Beast of Calatrava by Mark Teppo

Description from Amazon.

After a battle left Ramiro Ibáñez de Tolosa’s face terribly disfigured, the knight of the Order of Calatrava abandoned his sword for a pastoral existence. But his beastly appearance horrifies all those who cross his path — with the exception of his adoring and pregnant wife. Can he keep Louisa and their unborn child safe from the war that is coming to Iberia? As Ramiro prepares for his child’s birth, Brother Lazare of the Cistercian order searches for a means to inspire men as he travels with the crusading Templars. He seeks swords of legend — named blades carried by heroes of old — believing such symbols have the ability to rally men in a way no king could ever accomplish. But when he learns of the stories told of the mysterious monster that haunts the Iberian battlefields, he wonders what sort of power this new legend might contain — the legend of a man whose scarred face and cold demeanor cannot hide his heroic soul.

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.

* * *

Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger on Amazing Stories and a volunteer editor for Alt Hist magazine. His fiction can be found at Echelon Press, Jake's Monthly and The Were-Traveler. 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.

Are you going to Chicon 7?

When you are on the road of life, you can become so obsessed with reaching your destination, you blind yourself to the myriad other paths to take.  If you are lucky, however, someone will come along and point out the road less traveled.

That person was my brother, John.

It happened last Sunday.  We were standing on Montrose Beach listening to a classic rock cover band and drinking some beer.  I was feeling pretty pleased with myself.  I had finished the 5K obstacle course known as Beach Dash.  While my time could have been better, just completing the race was something I would not have accomplished 40 lbs ago.  So I was in a good mood and quite chatty.  I mentioned to my brother how much I looked forward to attending Chicon 7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention, and see the Sidewise Awards for Alternate History be presented.  My brother, who is well aware of my obsession with alternate history, asked if I would be attending as a member of the press because of my blog. I laughed and said no, I could not qualify as a member of the press.  He asked why not.

That is when I realized I did not have an answer for him.  Why couldn't I apply for a press pass?  Do I know for sure whether blogs qualify?  

On Monday I checked out the Chicon site and discovered that for a blogger to be considered a member of the press, the blog "must be sufficiently on topic (or potentially so), and has been established at least 6 months."  Having just celebrated the one-year anniversary of a blog dedicated to alternate history I realized that Alternate History Weekly Update qualified.  Feeling  I had nothing to lose (I was going to attend regardless) I sent in my application and waited to hear back.

Yesterday, Chris M. Barkley, the press relations coordinator, informed me that I would be receiving a press pass for the convention.

This is really cool.  What started as something to keep me writing, even I had nothing to say, has given me so much more.  I read amazing books I would have passed over.  I meet and talk to interesting people who would have remained strangers to me had I remained silent.  Now I am attending an SF convention as a member of the press!  I get to see the Hugo Awards be presented and maybe even meet Mike Resnick. More importantly I get to hang out with authors and fans of alternate history when I go see who wins the Sidewise Awards this year.

So on to the big question: are you going to Chicon 7?  Maybe all of us AH fans can meet up to discuss our favorite what ifs and what have you.  It would also be cool to meet some of the readers of the blog in person.  I know a few places in the city, having lived and worked here  most of my life, that could accommodate a group of us.  Let me know if you are interested and who knows, maybe this will become an annual thing.  Meanwhile, I will keep you updated on Chicon news as it becomes available.

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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.

Weekly Update #63

Editor's Note

I know I say this every week, but we really do have a lot of good stuff coming down the pipeline.  Besides our usual recurring posts, we have a new guest contributor, the winner of the Four Pictures Writing Contest, a review of Tom Horn vs. The Warlords of Krupp and a preview of the next book in my reading list.

Don't want to jinx myself (I am knocking on my desk as I write this), but at our current rate of page views, it looks like we can break last month's record and maybe even surpass 10,000 page views in one month!  Thanks to all of our fans and new readers for making this possible.

And now the news...

More Canadian Alternate Histories

With Tyler's profile on how Canada is portrayed in alternate history being so popular, I decided to share some counter-factual articles on the Great White North that came to my attention last week.

The first two deal with the War of 1812, yet come to different conclusions.  Jesse Greenspan on History.com posted an article discussing the reasons for America's failure to conquer Canada during the war.  After listing the mishaps by American soldiers during the beginning of the war, Greenspan goes on to quote John R. Grodzinski, a history professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, who said “[h]ad [the invasion of Canada] in 1813 been better coordinated, the British really would have been stretched thin and might have collapsed." If this is true the war might have ended with Britain cutting its losses and ceding parts or all of Canada.  Would this be a good thing for the United States?  Part of the reason the war in north went worse then expected was America's misplaced belief that the Canadians would welcome them as liberators? How would Canadians take to being occupied by a foreign country?  More importantly, how would politics in the United States handle the influx of so many potential free states?  Could the American Civil War happen earlier over a crisis involving the first Canadian free state to enter the Union?

Compare Greenspan's article to Gaelen Foley's article about a British victory in the War of 1812.  In it she speculates that if the United States lost the war, the country would have been annexed by Britain, absorbed into Canada and the last surviving founding fathers executed.  American culture would have disappeared, but on the plus slavery would have ended without the American Civil War.  Though the article provides a nice counterpoint to the one above, it is not very plausible.  The idea that Britain was interested in annexing a country the size of the United States over a maritime dispute is unlikely.  Foley also ignores American designs on expanding north in Canada, which likely would not exist had America lost the war because there would be no reason to form a confederation if the threat from Canada's southern neighbor disappeared.  Meanwhile here line that "[m]aking a slave of an American is just about the worst thing you can do to us" is very patriotic, but will likely not go over well with the millions of Americans whose ancestors were enslaved by other Americans during this period.

Finally we have the 10th province of Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador, which on July 22, 1948 (then the Dominion of Newfoundland) voted on whether to become independent or join Canada.  In OTL, the dominion voted by a close margin to join Canada, but what if they did not?  Frank Jacobs at The New York Times explains that more was riding on the vote then what you would expect.  Due to the dispute with Quebec over Newfoundland's border, their were fears that the question of Newfoundland sovereignty would encourage Stalin to meddle in North American affairs.  Could there have been a Newfoundland missile crisis?  Luckily, Ottawa, Washington and London were keen to avoid such a scenario and encouraged the locals to vote for confederation.  Just goes to show you that the seemingly insignificant and forgotten events of history could cause drastic changes to our history if the outcome went different way.

Submissions Wanted

Here at Weekly Update, we like to encourage writers out there to take their ideas out of the Internet and put them into print.  To help you do that I would like to share two upcoming chances to be published:

• Here Be Monsters is looking for unpublished works of fiction in any genre under 10k words to be submitted by July 30th.  Authors will receive $30 and a free copy of the anthology.
• The New York Review of Science Fiction is accepting features and reviews for future issues.  Complete submission guidelines can be found here.

Need some advice on how to write?  Check out this insightful and humorous article by Chuck Wending called "25 Bad Writer Behaviors".  Sadly I do a couple of these behaviors, so I highly recommend that you read it before you make the same mistakes again.

Things to do

Step away from your computer and go see what is happening in the real world:

July 16-August 11: Thieftaker author DB Jackson is out on a book tour.  See this page to find where and when he will in your town.

July 17, 21 and 26: See "Flight of Fancy" a steampunk ballet in Washington, DC.

July 18, 20, 24, 26, 22 and 28: See a steampunk retelling of Wizard of Oz in Waterloo, Iowa.

July 19: The next meeting of the Steampunk Club at the Hammond Public Library in Wisconsin.

Going to Worldcon this year?  I plan to go to see the Sidewise Awards be presented.  Before you go, read this beginner's guide to Worldcon, written by this year's guest of honor Mike Resnick.  Have fun!

Links to the Multiverse

Articles

NCAA Football 13 Heisman Mode Inspires What-Ifs And Daydreaming by Jason Kirk at SB Nation.

Steampunk Soars Into Mainstream By Marianne Kushi at NBC San Diego.

What If?: A Brief Alternate History of Oregon Football by Nathan Roholt at Fish Duck.

Writers Anonymous by Geoffrey Wilson at Write Unboxed.

Interviews

John Joseph Adams at SF Signal.

Harry Turtledove at Del Rey.

Books

Parallel Worlds: The Grass Isn't Always Greener, But it is More Fun by John Denardo at Kirkus Reviews.

Book Report: Agent of Byzantium by Harry Turtledove (1987) done by Musings From Brian J. Noggle.

Spying for the angels in a post-steampunk world by Gwenn Ansell at Mail & Guardian.

Comics

Triumph Chronicles Steampunk Adventures of Bombastic Lord Cockswain by Hugh Hart at Wired.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – Century: 2009 – review by James Smart at The Guardian.

Films

Alex Proyas To Direct Adaptation Of 'Hellboy' Creators 'Joe Golem And The Drowning City' by Cain Rodriguez at Indiwire.

Going out: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Rianne Hill Soriano at Her Word.

Television

Review - Zipang, Episode 1 by Sebastian Breit at The War Blog.

Games

EU Heads Up – Dokuganryu Armour, Steampunk, nDreams Sale Bundles, Tron Sale and much more by Alpha Zone 4.

US Heads Up – Steampunk Collection, Weddings, Raves and much more by Alpha Zone 4.

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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.

Review: The Other Teddy Roosevelts by Mike Resnick

Theodore Roosevelt was an amazing man.  He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements.  His resume reads: President of the United States, naturalist, explorer, cowboy, hunter, author, soldier, vampire hunter, detective and filibuster.  OK, maybe I made those last three careers up.  To find those Roosevelts you need to read The Other Teddy Roosevelts by Mike Resnick.

The Other Teddy Roosevelts  is a collection of short stories Resnick wrote over his career, each starring the former American president.  You can tell that Resnick is enamored by Roosevelt.  The beginning and end of the anthology is given to OTL information about Roosevelt, including many quotes and factoids about this larger than life American politician.  Nevertheless, Resnick makes a relevant point about Roosevelt: he may be a real person, but his life reads like an old sci-fi pulp action hero.

All of the stories are arranged chronologically and one can almost believe that they are all set in the same alternate universe, until they read some of the stories set near the end of Roosevelt's life.  While all of the stories are alternate history, many are borderline and others fail to give the reader a complete picture of the alternate universe.  Probably the best example of alternate history in the anthology is "Bully!", where the point of divergence happens when Roosevelt takes up the OTL offer to seize the Congo from the Belgians with only 50 men to back him up.  Although successful at first, Roosevelt soon runs into the problem of convincing the natives that American democracy is more preferable than their traditional tribal ways.

Other tales include "The Bull Moose at Bay" (Roosevelt won the 1912 election), "The Light That Blinds, the Claws That Catch" (Roosevelt's first wife Alice does not die in 1884) and "Over There" (Roosevelt reforms the Rough Riders to fight in World War I).  While all alternate histories, the stories do not expand past the point of divergence and tease you about how the world is different.  For example in "The Bull Moose at Bay" we are told that Roosevelt managed to prevent what would have been World War I from lasting longer than a year.  How exactly did he manage that accomplishment without the help of a combat-ready squadron of alien space bats at his command?

Nevertheless, that does not ruin the stories or take away from the fact that Theodore Roosevelt was truly a remarkable man.  It is a shame that American history classes pass over his accomplishments, usually only focusing on his charge up San Juan Hill, the Great White Fleet, the Panama Canal and his famous slogan "speak softly and carry a big stick".  I personally had to do my own research to truly appreciate his accomplishment.  I recommend Edmund Morris' The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt for anyone who wants to start learning more about one of the greatest American presidents the United States ever had.

In conclusion, though light on actual alternate history, this anthology of short stories on Theodore Roosevelt was an excellent read for those knowledgeable or ignorant of Theodore Roosevelt's life.  He truly was a real-life action hero and Resnick's stories manage to capture that perfectly.

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Matt Mitrovich is a long-time fan of alternate history, founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update and a volunteer editor for Alt Hist magazine. His fiction can be found at Echelon Press, Jake's Monthly and The Masquerade Crew. 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.