RIP: Robert F. Dorr (1938-2016)

I recently learned that Robert F. Dorr, award-winning author and retired diplomat, passed away last Sunday. For those who didn't know him, Robert published over 70 books, hundreds of short stories, and plenty of non-fiction, with a focus on international affairs, the military and war. He was also known for his many opinion pieces where, among other things, he called for the closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and for supporting the ability for homosexuals to serve openly in the military.

Robert even wrote for The Update if you can believe it. When promoting his 2014 novel, Hitler's Time Machine, he submitted "History, Alternate History and Hitler's Time Machine". Check it out when you get the chance, because even if he wasn't famous for alternate history, he still contributed to our genre and had a love for history. What more do you need in an alternate historian?

Robert, thanks for looking at my blog and giving it a chance. My deepest sympathies to his family, friends and fans.

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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.

RIP: Adrienne Martine-Barnes (1942-2015)

It sucks when you have to learn about new alternate historians only after they have passed away. File 770 announced yesterday that author Adrienne Martine-Barnes has passed away. Although mostly know for here work int he Darkover series, she also contributed to the alternate history genre.

According to Uchronia, she is the author of The Swords Sequence (The Fire Sword, The Crystal Sword, The Rainbow Sword and The Sea Sword), which is sometimes called Chronique D'Avebury. This four book series is set in a universe where the English royal succession is changed after Henry II and the Crusades never happened. Additionally, gods, magic and time travel also exist. Admittedly, I wasn't able to find much regarding this late 1980s book series, so if anyone who follows this blog has read them, please share your thoughts in the comments.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Adrienne's friends and family.

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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.

RIP: Wolfgang Jeschke (1936-2015)

German SF author, Wolfgang Jeschke, passed away on June 10 according to File 770. Born in 1936, Wolfgang also edited numerous anthologies, won the Harrison Award for international achievements in science fiction and was the Guest of Honor at ConFiction, the 1990 Worldcon in The Hague.

He is perhaps best known for his debut novel The Last Day of Creation, which is actually an alternate history. It tells the story of an attempt by the United States to steal Arabian oil from the past, but they are interrupted by people from other timelines. The novel won the Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis award and the real-time strategy game Original War is loosely based off it. He also wrote The Cusanus Game which is primarily a time travel story, but it does include some alternate history involving technological advancement in Europe being jump-started in the 1400s.

It is always a sad day when we lose an alternate historian, but Wolfgang is an example that alternate history is not just a product of Anglo-America and proves people all across the world ask the most important question: what if? Wolfgang you will be missed.

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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.

RIP: Tanith Lee (1947-2015)

Yesterday it was announced that British SF&F author Tanith Lee passed away. According to Wikipedia, she was the author of over 90 novels and 300 short stories, a children's picture book (Animal Castle) and many poems. She also wrote two episodes of the BBC science fiction series Blake's 7. The fact that she managed to write all of that and overcome dyslexia is doubly impressive. She was also the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award best novel award for her book Death's Master.

Tanith contributed to the alternate history genre as well. According to Uchronia she is the author of Piratica: Being a Daring Tale of a Singular Girl's Adventure Upon the High Seas and Piratica II: Return to Parrot Island. Set in an alternate 1800s in a world where Great Britain is a republic and France is a monarchy, the alternate history content is minimal, but having not read either book I can't really comment anymore on the series. If you have read one or both of the books, please let us know what you thought of them in the comments.

That being said, it is always a sad day when we lose another alternate historian. If the reactions across the Internet are telling, Tanith was obviously an important woman to many people whose work took people on amazing journeys. Tanith, you will be missed.

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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.

RIP: Terry Pratchett (1948-2015)

It is with a heavy heart that I must announce the death of Terry Prachett. Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett was an author and satirist probably best known for his Discworld fantasy series, which has sold over 80 millions copies in 37 languages. He announced in 2007 that he was suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's disease and his passing was reported today by the BBC and numerous SF sites.

According to Uchronia, Pratchett's entrance into alternate history came rather late in his career when he published The Long Earth series with co-author Stephen Baxter. The series was a unique take on the multiverse since instead of an infinite series of parallel Earths with alternate human histories, we were instead presented with Earths that had alternate geological and climate histories and lightly populated by primitive humanoids. The series highlighted Pratchett's fantasy and Baxter's hard SF backgrounds rather well and you can check out my review of the first two novels over at Amazing Stories.

Sadly I have not read The Long Mars yet, but I hope to complete the series in the next few weeks. The Internet is full of people pouring out their grief for the loss of Terry Pratchett and I only wish that I could read more of his works before he died. My prayers go out to Terry's family, friends and fans, and it is my sincere wish that his influence will be felt on all the generations to come.

RIP: Suzette Haden Elgin (1936-2015)

It is with a heavy heart that I must announce the passing of Suzette Haden Elgin after a long battle with dementia. For those who do not know her, Elgin is an American science fiction author and linguist who founded the Science Fiction Poetry Association and is an influential figure in the field of science fiction constructed languages. She has one work of alternate history recognized by Uchronia, the short story "Hush My Mouth".

Published in multiple anthologies and languages, "Hush My Mouth" is set in the world where both sides of the American Civil War refused to use black soldiers and thus the war dragged on many years longer than in our timeline. Eventually the black slaves revolted and expelled the whites from the South and form a "New Africa". The various factions, however, could not agree on what should be the official language of the country, each preferring their own tribe's native language. Thus they are forced to use English, the language of their enslavers, because of their pride. Nevertheless, one group protests this decision by refusing to speak a single work until the New Africans choose their own language.

"Hush My Mouth" captures Elgin's background as a linguist and when I first read it in The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories, I considered it one of the best entries in that anthology. I was hoping to reread it in preparation for a review I planned to write in February and so I was shocked to learn of Elgin's passing. Someone who can make such a beautiful. yet effective, message is certainly a treasure and her death is a loss to us all.

RIP: Robert Conroy (1938–2014)

Alternate history lost one of its most prolific writers with the passing of Robert Conroy, who died on December 30 due to thymus cancer. Conroy, who has won and been nominated for several Sidewise Awards, is best known for his novel-length military alternate history works. His bibliography includes Rising Sun, Himmler's War and Red Inferno: 1945. Before his death Conroy finished two more novels that will be published in 2015, 1882: Custer in Chains and Germanica.

Although I never read any books by Conroy, I had every intention of doing so soon not only because his multiple award nominations, but also the number of fans I talked to who stated that it was Conroy who got them interested in alternate history. He will be missed by many.

R.I.P. Harry Harrison (1925-2012)

American science fiction author Harry Harrison passed away today. Born on March 12, 1925, he is best known for his character the Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! (1966); the latter was the basis for the film Soylent Green (1973).

Although he was best known for his general science fiction, Harrison was a prolific alternate history writer. Readers of Weekly Update have heard Chris Nuttall and myself discuss his alternate American Civil War Stars and Stripes trilogy, where the early death of Price Albert removes his moderating influence over the Trent Affair leading to not only British intervention in the Civil War, but also a war to regain the lost colonies.

Now I won't mince words, Stars and Stripes wasn't Harrison's best work, but I also want to go on record and say he was still a good author. My favorite Harrison novel has to be the The Hammer and the Cross. The novel is the first in a series following a half-English, half-Danish bastard slave named Shef who sides with the Vikings invading England to save the woman he loves in 865 AD. He ends up king of a religiously-tolerant and technologically advanced northern England. The sequel novels, which I have not read yet, describe Shef's campaign in Scandinavia and his conflicts with the Holy Roman Empire. I highly recommend the first novel and I hope to share my views of the entire series in the near future.

If you listened to my episode on Dissecting Worlds, you probably heard Kehaar and Matt Farr also mention their own favorite Harrison works (after ripping into Stars and Stripes). I believe they mentioned The Stainless Steel Rat and A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! While Stainless Steel Rat is non-allohistorical series, the second volume of the series (The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World) involves the hero travelling back in time to fix history after discovering a world where Napoleon conquered England. A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! meanwhile, involves a very divergent world that includes an Islamic Spain, an early death for Louis XI and a failed American Revolution. There the main character is trying to build an tunnel connecting North America with Britain and was chosen by you the readers as having some of the best dialogue in alternate history.

Other alternate history novels by Harrison include A Rebel in Time (where a racist army officer goes back in time to help the Confederacy, pre-dating Turtledove's Guns of the South by almost a decade) and the Eden trilogy (where intelligent dinosaurs have colonized the New World only to discover another sapient species already there). Harrison also wrote a lot of short fiction set in alternate timelines including "Letter from the Pope", "Down to Earth", "Run from the Fire" and "The Wicked Flee".

While I might not have always agreed with his speculation about the past, I can't deny that Harrison had a profound affect on the genre. He was a prolific writer who showed that history could be fun and entertaining.  He will be missed by all of us who dream of other whens.

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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.

R.I.P. Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury passed away today at the age of 91.  For those who do not know, Bradbury was a celebrated American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles (1950) and The Illustrated Man (1951).  Bradbury also contributed to the alternate history genre with his short story "A Sound of Thunder" a classic work of science fiction that truly encapsulated how the butterfly effect works.

I read Bradbury's classic Fahrenheit 451 when I was a teenager and it had an effect on me much like Orwell's 1984.  Speculative fiction lost one of the greats today.  Mr. Bradbury, you will be missed.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a volunteer editor for the Alt Hist magazine and a contributor to Just Below the Law. One of his short stories will be published in the upcoming Echelon Press anthology, Once Upon a Clockwork Tale (2013). When not writing he works as an attorney in the state of Illinois and enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana.