New Releases 8/30/16

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Hardcovers

High Stakes: A Wild Cards novel edited by George R.R. Martin and Melinda M. Snodgrass

Perfect for old fans and new readers alike, High Stakes (Wild Cards) delves deeper into the world of aces, jokers, and the hard-boiled men and women of the Fort Freak police precinct in a pulpy, page-turning novel of superheroics and Lovecraftian horror.

After the concluding events of Lowball, Officer Francis Black of Fort Freak, vigilante joker Marcus "The Infamous Black Tongue" Morgan, and ace thief Mollie "Tesseract" Steunenberg get stuck in Talas, Kazakhstan. There, the coldblooded Baba Yaga forces jokers into an illegal fighting ring, but her hidden agenda is much darker: her fighters' deaths serve to placate a vicious monster from another dimension. When the last line of defense against this world weakens, all hell breaks loose, literally....

The Committee in New York sends a team of aces to investigate. One by one, each falls victim to evil forces--including the dark impulses within themselves. Only the perseverance of the most unlikely of heroes has a chance of saving the world before utter chaos erupts on Earth.

Edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin, High Stakes features the writing talents of Melinda M. Snodgrass, John Jos. Miller, David Anthony Durham, Caroline Spector, Stephen Leigh, and Ian Tregillis.

Paperbacks

Eagle in Exile: The Clash of Eagles Trilogy Book II by Alan Smale

Perfect for fans of Bernard Cornwell, Steve Berry, Naomi Novik, and Harry Turtledove, Alan Smale’s gripping alternate history series imagines a world in which the Roman Empire has survived long enough to invade North America in 1218. Now the stunning story carries hero Gaius Marcellinus deeper into the culture of an extraordinary people—whose humanity, bravery, love, and ingenuity forever change his life and destiny.

In A.D. 1218, Praetor Gaius Marcellinus is ordered to conquer North America and turning it into a Roman province. But outside the walls of the great city of Cahokia, his legion is destroyed outright; Marcellinus is the only one spared. In the months and years that follow, Marcellinus comes to see North America as his home and the Cahokians as his kin. He vows to defend these proud people from any threat, Roman or native.

After successfully repelling an invasion by the fearsome Iroqua tribes, Marcellinus realizes that a weak and fractured North America won’t stand a chance against the returning Roman army. Worse, rival factions from within threaten to tear Cahokia apart just when it needs to be most united and strong. Marcellinus is determined to save the civilization that has come to mean more to him than the empire he once served. But to survive the swords of Roma, he first must avert another Iroqua attack and bring Cahokia together. Only with the hearts and souls of a nation at his back can Marcellinus hope to know triumph.

Germanica by Robert Conroy

Best-selling alternate history master Robert Conroy returns to World War II, this time for a dangerous last stand of the Nazis in the heart of the Alps.

GERMANICA, ÜBER ALLES!

Deep in the heart of Europe's Alps in the redoubt called Germanica, Nazi propaganda master Josef Goebbels and a battalion of Nazi zealots hold out against a frantic final Allied push to end World War II. With Churchill losing his election, De Gaulle consolidating his rule over a newly liberated France, and Stalin asserting his own nefarious land-grab in Eastern Germany, only America, led by its untried new president Harry Truman, remains to face the toughest of Nazi warriors as they hunker down for a bitter fight to the last man.

Goebbels knows that if he can hold out just a bit longer, the war weary of the Western nations will back away from unconditional surrender for Germany, and he and his zealots can remain in power—never to answer for their war crimes, and able to prepare for the moment when their hateful Nazi ideology is ready once again to rise from its alpine grave and strike at the heart of humanity!

But there are Americans and a few stalwart Europeans just as determined to put a final stake in the Nazi heart. It is now up to heroes in the making such as newly minted O.S.S. operative Ernie Janek, commando Captain Scott Tanner, and formerly enslaved Czech "Jew" Lena Bobek, to bring down the dark Nazi menace growing like a cancer in the mountainous heart of the continent.

E-Books

FAB: The Fifth Angel by Mark Gillespie

John Lennon Is Writing Songs Again. He's Also The World's Most Wanted Man

1995
John Lennon. Whereabouts unknown.

The former Beatle and US Presidential candidate - who took the world to the brink of nuclear war in 1988 - has disappeared, seemingly off the face of the earth.

Frank Vogel is the FBI agent who let Lennon slip through his fingers back in '88. Now working as a small-time bounty hunter, Vogel has spent the last seven years following up countless Lennon sightings all over the world, but with little success.

One day, Vogel receives a tip from across the Atlantic. There’s a rumour going around that John Lennon - the world’s most wanted man - is writing songs again.

Vogel travels to the UK where he encounters The Angelicas. Known to their fans as 'the Angels’ - the band’s meteoric rise to stardom is largely credited to an anonymous songwriting collaborator, known only as the 'Fifth Angel’.

But who is the 'Fifth Angel’? Can it really be John Lennon? And if Vogel manages to track the ex-Beatle down, will revenge lead to redemption?

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.

New Releases 4/26/16

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

Paperbacks

1882: Custer in Chains by Robert Conroy

A world where Custer survives Little Bighorn and becomes president goes seriously awry.

Following his unlikely but decisive (and immensely popular) 1876 victory over Sitting Bull and the Sioux at the Little Big Horn, George Armstrong Custer is propelled into the White House in 1880.

Two years later, he finds himself bored and seeks new worlds to conquer. He and his wife Libbie fixate on Spain’s decaying empire as his source for immortality. What President Custer doesn’t quite comprehend is that the U.S. military isn’t up to such a venture. When a group of Americans on a ship headed for Cuba is massacred, war becomes inevitable—and unless calmer, patriotic citizens and soldiers can find a way to avoid debacle, this war may be America's last stand!

Elseworlds: Batman Vol. 1 by various.

For the first time ever, Batman’s Elseworlds tales are featured in a new graphic novel collection.

In Elseworlds, heroes are taken from their usual settings and put into strange times and places—some that have existed, or might have existed; and others that can’t, couldn’t or shouldn’t exist. The result: stories that make characters who are as familiar as yesterday seem as fresh as tomorrow.

Featuring Batman as a holy priest, Harry Houdini alongside the Dark Knight, Dr. Wayne reanimating a Frankenstein-like Bat-Man, Batman as a Green Lantern, a supernatural Bat-Man fighting the evil wizard known as the Dark Joker, a future Robin fighting off an alien invasion, and other tales!

Collects BATMAN: HOLY TERROR, BATMAN: THE BLUE, THE GREY, AND THE BAT, ROBIN 3000 #1-2, BATMAN/DARK JOKER: THE WILD, BATMAN/HOUDINI: THE DEVIL’S WORKSHOP, BATMAN: CASTLE OF THE BAT, BATMAN: IN DARKEST KNIGHT and BATMAN: DARK ALLEGIANCES!

E-Books

Final Flight: A Clockwork Dagger Story by Beth Cato

Another breathtaking short story from the author of The Clockwork Dagger and The Clockwork Crown, set in the same world…

Captain Hue hoped he was rid of his troubles once Octavia Leander and Alonzo Garrett disembarked from his airship Argus. But he was quickly proved wrong when his ship was commandeered by Caskentian soldiers. He is ordered on a covert and deadly mission by the smarmy Julius Corrado, an elite Clockwork Dagger.

Now Captain Hue must start a mutiny to regain control of his airship, which means putting his entire crew at risk—including his teenage son Sheridan. As the weather worsens and time runs out, it’ll take incredible bravery to bring the Argus down….perhaps for good.

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.

New Releases 9/1/15

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

Hardcovers

The Desert and the Blade: A Novel of the Change by SM Stirling

In his Novels of the Change, New York Times bestselling author S.M. Stirling presents “a devastated, mystical world that will appeal to fans of traditional fantasy as well as post-apocalyptic SF.”* Continuing their quest that began in The Golden Princess, two future rulers of a world without technology risk their lives seeking a fabled blade…

Reiko, Empress of Japan, has allied herself with Princess Órlaith, heir to the High Kingdom of Montival, to find the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, the Grass-Cutting Sword, a legendary treasure of an ancient dynasty that confers valor and victory to its bearer. Órlaith understands all too well the power it signifies. Her own inherited blade, the Sword of the Lady, was both a burden and a danger to her father, Rudi Mackenzie, as it failed to save the king from being assassinated.

But the fabled sword lies deep with the Valley of Death, and the search will be far from easy. And war is building, in Montival and far beyond.

As Órlaith and Reiko encounter danger and wonder, Órlaith’s mother, Queen Matildha, believes her daughter’s alliance and quest has endangered the entire realm. There are factions both within and without Montival whose loyalty died with the king, and whispers of treachery and war grow ever louder.

And the Malevolence that underlies the enemy will bend all its forces to destroy them.

Germanica by Robert Conroy

Best-selling alternate history master Robert Conroy returns to World War II, this time for a dangerous last stand of the Nazis in the heart of the Alps.

GERMANICA, ÜBER ALLES!

Deep in the heart of Europe's Alps in the redoubt called Germanica, Nazi propaganda master Josef Goebbels and a battalion of Nazi zealots hold out against a frantic final Allied push to end World War II. With Churchill losing his election, De Gaulle consolidating his rule over a newly liberated France, and Stalin asserting his own nefarious land-grab in Eastern Germany, only America, led by its untried new president Harry Truman, remains to face the toughest of Nazi warriors as they hunker down for a bitter fight to the last man.

Goebbels knows that if he can hold out just a bit longer, the war weary of the Western nations will back away from unconditional surrender for Germany, and he and his zealots can remain in power never to answer for their war crimes, and able to prepare for the moment when their hateful Nazi ideology is ready once again to rise from its alpine grave and strike at the heart of humanity!

But there are Americans and a few stalwart Europeans just as determined to put a final stake in the Nazi heart. It is now up to heroes in the making such as newly minted O.S.S. operative Ernie Janek, commando Captain Scott Tanner, and formerly enslaved Czech "Jew" Lena Bobek, to bring down the dark Nazi menace growing like a cancer in the mountainous heart of the continent.

Paperbacks

Chapelwood: The Borden Dispatches by Cherie Priest

From Cherie Priest, the award-winning author of Maplecroft, comes a new tale of Lizzie Borden’s continuing war against the cosmic horrors threatening humanity…

Birmingham, Alabama is infested with malevolence. Prejudice and hatred have consumed the minds and hearts of its populace. A murderer, unimaginatively named “Harry the Hacker” by the press, has been carving up citizens with a hatchet. And from the church known as Chapelwood, an unholy gospel is being spread by a sect that worships dark gods from beyond the heavens.

This darkness calls to Lizzie Borden. It is reminiscent of an evil she had dared hoped was extinguished. The parishioners of Chapelwood plan to sacrifice a young woman to summon beings never meant to share reality with humanity. An apocalypse will follow in their wake which will scorch the earth of all life.

Unless she stops it…

Clash of Eagles by Alan Smale

Perfect for fans of action-adventure and historical fiction—including novels by such authors as Bernard Cornwell, Steve Berry, Naomi Novik, and Harry Turtledove—this stunning work of alternate history imagines a world in which the Roman Empire has not fallen and the North American continent has just been discovered. In the year 1218 AD, transported by Norse longboats, a Roman legion crosses the great ocean, enters an endless wilderness, and faces a cataclysmic clash of worlds, cultures, and warriors.

Ever hungry for land and gold, the Emperor has sent Praetor Gaius Marcellinus and the 33rd Roman Legion into the newly discovered lands of North America. Marcellinus and his men expect easy victory over the native inhabitants, but on the shores of a vast river the Legion clashes with a unique civilization armed with weapons and strategies no Roman has ever imagined.

Forced to watch his vaunted force massacred by a surprisingly tenacious enemy, Marcellinus is spared by his captors and kept alive for his military knowledge. As he recovers and learns more about these proud people, he can’t help but be drawn into their society, forming an uneasy friendship with the denizens of the city-state of Cahokia. But threats—both Roman and Native—promise to assail his newfound kin, and Marcellinus will struggle to keep the peace while the rest of the continent surges toward certain conflict.

Dream Paris by Tony Ballantyne

Anna is doing her best: there are lots of other seventeen year olds who are living alone in the partially rebuilt ruins of London. She hopes that by keeping things clean and tidy and by studying hard she can keep the dreams away...But then a tall, dark stranger with eyes like a fly enters her life. He claims to know where the missing people of London have ended up. He might even know the location of Anna's missing parents. Anna can help, but to do that she will have to let go of what little normality she has managed to gather around herself and begin the journey to Dream Paris.

If Then by Matthew De Abaitua

James has a scar in the back of his head. It’s where he was wounded in the Battle of Suvla Bay in August 1915. Or is the scar the mark of his implant that allows the Process to fill his mind with its own reality?

In IF, the people of a small English town cling on after an economic collapse under the protection of the Process. But sometimes people must be evicted from the town. That’s the job of James, the bailiff. While on patrol, James discovers the replica of a soldier from the First World War wandering the South Downs. This strange meeting begins a new cycle of evictions in the town, while out on the rolling downland, the Process is methodically growing the soldiers and building the weapons required to relive a long lost battle.

In THEN, it is August 1915, at the Battle of Suvla Bay in the Dardanelles campaign. Compared to the thousands of allied soldiers landing on this foreign beach, the men of the 32nd Field Ambulance are misfits and cranks of every stripe: a Quaker pacifist, a freethinking padre, a meteorologist, and the private (once a bailiff) known simply as James. Exposed to constant shellfire and haunted by ghostly snipers, the stretcher-bearers work day and night on the long carry of wounded men. One night they stumble across an ancient necropolis, disturbed by an exploding shell. What they discover within this ancient site will make them question the reality of the war and shake their understanding of what it means to be human…

Lady of Magick by Sylvia Izzo Hunter

Sylvia Izzo Hunter brought “both rural Brittany and an alternative Regency England to vivid life”* in The Midnight Queen, her debut novel of history, magic, and myth. Now, in her new Noctis Magicae novel, Sophie and Gray Marshall are ensnared in an arcane plot that threatens to undo them both.

In her second year of studies at Merlin College, Oxford, Sophie Marshall is feeling alienated among fellow students who fail to welcome a woman to their ranks. So when her husband, Gray, is invited north as a visiting lecturer at the University in Din Edin, they leap at the chance. There, Sophie’s hunger for magical knowledge can finally be nourished. But soon, Sophie must put her newly learned skills to the test.

Sophie returns home one day to find a note from Gray—he’s been summoned urgently to London. But when he doesn’t return, and none of her spells can find a trace of him, she realizes something sinister has befallen him. With the help of her sister, Joanna, she delves into Gray’s disappearance, and soon finds herself in a web of magick and intrigue that threatens not just Gray, but the entire kingdom.

War Stories Volume 1 TP by Garth Ennis

For the first time in a decade, the original War Stories are back in print! Fully re-mastered, these stunning works have never looked so good. Featuring some of the finest war comics ever created, with scripts by Garth Ennis (Preacher, Crossed, The Boys) and art by some of the biggest names in comics. Johann's Tiger: Drawn by Chris Weston (The Filth).A German tank crew face their own damnation in the twilight of the Second World War, as old ghosts and old sins catch up with them. D-Day Dodgers: Drawn by John Higgins (Pride & Joy). British soldiers in the remote Italian campaign find themselves fighting a forgotten war, while others closer to home reap the glory. Screaming Eagles: Drawn by Dave Gibbons (Watchmen). Exhausted by years of combat, American paratroopers come to the end of the road- and are suddenly granted a strange reward. Nightingale: Drawn by David Lloyd (V for Vendetta). A Royal Navy escort ship on the nightmarish Arctic convoy run hits trouble - and only the ultimate sacrifice will earn her crew redemption.

E-Books

What Could Possibly Go Wrong by Jodi Taylor

Join Max in the sixth instalment in the off-the-wall bestselling Chronicles of St Mary’s series by Jodi Taylor.

Max is back! New husband, new job, and a training regime that cannot fail – to go wrong!

Take one interim Chief Training Officer, add five recruits, mix with Joan of Arc, a baby mammoth, a duplicitous Father of History, a bombed rat, Stone Age hunters, a couple of passing policemen who should have better things to do, and Dick the Turd.

Stir well, bring to the boil – and wait for the bang!

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 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 7/28/15

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

Hardcovers

Crooked by Austin Grossman

Richard Milhous Nixon lived one of the most improbable lives of the twentieth century. Our thirty-seventh president's political career spanned the button-down fifties, the Mad Men sixties, and the turbulent seventies. He faced down the Russians, the Chinese, and ultimately his own government. The man went from political mastermind to a national joke, sobbing in the Oval Office, leaving us with one burning question: how could he have lost it all?

Here for the first time is the tale told in his own words: the terrifying supernatural secret he stumbled upon as a young man, the truth behind the Cold War, and the truth behind the Watergate cover-up. What if our nation's worst president was actually a pivotal figure caught in a desperate struggle between ordinary life and horrors from another reality? What if the man we call our worst president was, in truth, our greatest?

In Crooked, Nixon finally reveals the secret history of modern American politics as only Austin Grossman could reimagine it. Combining Lovecraftian suspense, international intrigue, Russian honey traps, and a presidential marriage whose secrets and battles of attrition were their own heroic saga, Grossman's novel is a masterwork of alternative history, equal parts mesmerizing character study and nail-biting Faustian thriller.

The Dinosaur Lords: A Novel by Victor Milán

A world made by the Eight Creators on which to play out their games of passion and power, Paradise is a sprawling, diverse, often brutal place. Men and women live on Paradise as do dogs, cats, ferrets, goats, and horses. But dinosaurs predominate: wildlife, monsters, beasts of burden-and of war. Colossal plant-eaters like Brachiosaurus; terrifying meat-eaters like Allosaurus, and the most feared of all, Tyrannosaurus rex. Giant lizards swim warm seas. Birds (some with teeth) share the sky with flying reptiles that range in size from bat-sized insectivores to majestic and deadly Dragons.

Thus we are plunged into Victor Milán's splendidly weird world of The Dinosaur Lords, a place that for all purposes mirrors 14th century Europe with its dynastic rivalries, religious wars, and byzantine politics…except the weapons of choice are dinosaurs. Where vast armies of dinosaur-mounted knights engage in battle. During the course of one of these epic battles, the enigmatic mercenary Dinosaur Lord Karyl Bogomirsky is defeated through betrayal and left for dead. He wakes, naked, wounded, partially amnesiac-and hunted. And embarks upon a journey that will shake his world.

The Fall: A Novel by R. J. Pineiro

In R. J. Pineiro's The Fall, a sci-fi thriller, a man jumps from the upper-most reaches of the atmosphere and vanishes, ending up on an alternate Earth where he died five years earlier.

Jack Taylor has always been an adrenaline junkie. As a federal contractor, he does dangerous jobs for the government that fall out of the realm of the SEALS and the Marines. And this next job is right up his alley. Jack has been assigned to test an orbital jump and if it works, the United States government will have a new strategy against enemy countries.

Despite Jack's soaring career, his personal life is in shambles. He and his wife Angela are both workaholics and are on the verge of getting a divorce. But the night before his jump, Jack and Angela begin to rekindle their romance and their relationship holds promise for repair. Then comes the day of Jack's big jump. He doesn't burn up like some predicted--instead, he hits the speed of sound and disappears.

Jack wakes up in an alternate universe. One where he died during a mission five years earlier and where Angela is still madly in love with him. But in this world, his boss, Pete, has turned to the dark side, is working against him, and the government is now on his tail. Jack must return to his own world but the only way for him to do that is to perform another orbital jump. This time is more difficult though--no one wants to see him go.

Jack's adrenaline is contagious--The Fall will keep readers on the edges of their seats, waiting to find out what crazy stunt Jack will perform next and to learn the fate of this charming, daredevil hero.

Paperbacks

The Conquering Dark: Crown & Key by Clay Griffith and Susan Griffith

A thrilling new Victorian-era urban fantasy for fans of Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid Chronicles, the Showtime series Penny Dreadful, and the Sherlock Holmes movies featuring Robert Downey, Jr.

The Crown and Key Society face their most terrifying villain yet: Gaios, a deranged demigod with the power to destroy Britain.

To avenge a centuries-old betrayal, Gaios is hell-bent on summoning the elemental forces of the earth to level London and bury Britain. The Crown and Key Society, a secret league consisting of a magician, an alchemist, and a monster-hunter, is the realm’s only hope—and to stop Gaios, they must gather their full strength and come together as a team, or the world will fall apart.

But Simon Archer, the Crown and Key’s leader and the last living magician-scribe, has lost his powers. As Gaios searches for the Stone of Scone, which will give him destructive dominion over the land, monster-hunter Malcolm MacFarlane, alchemist extraordinaire Kate Anstruther, gadget geek Penny Carter, and Charlotte the werewolf scramble to reconnect Simon to his magic before the world as they know it is left forever in ruins.

Liberty: 1784 by Robert Conroy

A compelling alternate history novel by the breakout author of WW II era alternate history Himmler’s War and Rising Sun.

The British win the American Revolutionary War, and a desperate Washington and the American founders must make a last stand in an enclave called Liberty.

In 1781, George Washington's attempt to trap the British under Cornwallis at Yorktown ends catastrophically when the French fleet is destroyed in the Battle of the Capes. The revolution collapses, and the British begin a bloody reign of terror. A group of rebels flees westward and sets up a colony near what is now Chicago. They call it Liberty. The British, looking to finish what they started, send a very large force under Burgoyne to destroy them. Burgoyne is desperate for redemption and the Americans are equally desperate to survive.

Had the Battle of the Capes gone differently, a changed, darker, New World would have been forced into existence. But even under those dire circumstances, Liberty may still find a way!

The Separation by Christopher Priest

Researching the war between Britain and Nazi Germany, which lasted from May 1940 to May 1941, historian Stuart Gratton becomes intrigued by the enigma of J.L. Sawyer, an obscure figure who played a key part in bringing the conflict to its conclusion. As he digs deeper, he discovers there were two J.L. Sawyers - identical twins Jack and Joe, one a fighter pilot and the other a conscientous objector - divided both by their love for the same woman and their attitudes towards the war. But as the brothers' story emerges from books, letters, and diaries, the evidence does not all add up, and there may be an even wider separation between them - divergent realities, in which different possibilities and unexpected truths emerge, and nothing is quite what it seems.

Both a brilliant historical novel about World War II and one of the best works of alternate history ever written, Christopher Priest's The Separation earned the Arthur C. Clarke and BSFA Awards and ranks among his finest achievements. Like his classics The Affirmation and The Prestige, it is an engrossing literary puzzle that will keep readers turning the pages until its startling conclusion.

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 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.

New Releases 5/5/15

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

Hardcovers

1882: Custer in Chains by Robert Conroy

NATIONALLY BEST-SELLING AUTHOR. A world where Custer survives Little Bighorn and becomes president goes seriously awry.

Following his unlikely but decisive (and immensely popular) 1876 victory over Sitting Bull and the Sioux at the Little Big Horn, George Armstrong Custer is propelled into the White House in 1880.

Two years later, he finds himself bored and seeks new worlds to conquer. He and his wife Libbie fixate on Spain’s decaying empire as his source for immortality. What President Custer doesn’t quite comprehend is that the U.S. military isn’t up to such a venture. When a group of Americans on a ship headed for Cuba is massacred, war becomes inevitable—and unless calmer, patriotic citizens and soldiers can find a way to avoid debacle, this war may be America's last stand!

Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes

"What would happen if Adolf Hitler woke up in modern-day Berlin? In a bestselling satirical novel, he'd end up a TV comedy star . . . [Look Who's Back] has unsurprisingly sparked debate in a country that has grappled for decades with Hitler's unconscionable legacy."
-Time

Timur Vermes' record-breaking bestseller Look Who's Back is a satirical novel that imagines what would happen if Hilter were reborn in present-day Germany. The book was a massive success in Germany, selling more than 1.5 million copies. It was subsequently published for the first time in English by Quercus in the UK to strong sales and even stronger media attention.

In the novel, Adolf Hitler wakes up in 2011 from a 66-year sleep in his subterranean Berlin bunker to find the Germany he knew entirely changed: Internet-driven media spreads ideas in minutes and fumes celebrity obsession; immigration has produced multicultural neighborhoods bringing together people of varying race, ethnicity, and religion; and the most powerful person in government is a woman. Hitler is immediately recognized . . . as an impersonator of uncommon skill. The public assumes the fulminating leader of the Nazi party is a performer who is always in character, and soon his inevitable viral appeal begets YouTube Stardom, begets television celebrity on a Turkish-born comedian's show. His bigoted rants are mistaken for a theatrical satire-exposing prejudice and misrepresentation-and his media success emboldens Hitler to start his own political party, and set the country he finds a shambles back to rights.

With daring and dark humor, Look Who's Back skewers the absurdity and depravity of the cult of personality in modern media culture.

A Long Time Until Now by Michael Z Williamson

Book 1 in a new series from the creator of the best-selling Freehold Universe series.  A military unit is thrust back into Paleolithic times with only their guns and portable hardware.

Ten soldiers on convoy in Afghanistan suddenly find themselves lost in time. Somehow, they arrived in Earth's Paleolithic Asia. With no idea how they arrived or how to get back, the shock of the event is severe. They discover groups of the similarly displaced: Imperial Romans, Neolithic Europeans, and a small cadre of East Indian peasants. Despite their technological advantage, the soldiers only have ten people, and know no way home. Then two more time travelers arrive from a future far beyond the present. These time travelers may have the means to get back, but they aren't giving it up. In fact, they may have a treacherous agenda of their own, one that may very well lead to the death of the displaced in a harsh and dangerous era.

Straits of Hell: Destroyermen by Taylor Anderson

New York Times bestselling author Taylor Anderson’s phenomenal alternate history Destroyermen series continues as a game-changing conspiracy throws the hope of honor, trust, and survival into chaos....

Matt Reddy’s old Asiatic Fleet destroyer USS Walker has been mysteriously transported to an alternate version of earth. Here WWII is no longer raging, and Reddy and his crew have been trying to find a new place for themselves in this strange new world.

Now, along with the felinoid Lemurians and Imperial allies, they fight to keep the reptilian Grik, a race growing in supremacy, from reconquering the Lemurians’ ancestral home on Madagascar. Reddy and his crew are exhausted, far from reinforcements, and wildly outnumbered, so the odds seem greater than ever before. As for the fate of the Americas, Don Hernan and the evil Dominion have gathered to annihilate the forces behind the walls of Fort Defiance as a shadowy power with an agenda all its own rises with chilling resolve.

As the war teeters on a knife-edge, a tipping point may have been reached at last—and cold steel and hot-blooded valor will remain the ultimate weapons.

Paperbacks

Aurelia by Alison Morton

Late 1960s Roma Nova, the last Roman colony that has survived into the 20th century Aurelia Mitela is alone - her partner gone, her child sickly and her mother dead - and forced to give up her beloved career as a Praetorian officer. But her country needs her unique skills. Somebody is smuggling silver - Roma Nova's lifeblood - on an industrial scale. Sent to Berlin to investigate, she encounters the mysterious and attractive Miklós who knows too much and Caius Tellus, a Roma Novan she has despised and feared since childhood. Barely escaping a trap set by a gang boss intent on terminating her, she discovers that her old enemy is at the heart of all her troubles and pursues him back home to Roma Nova...

The Death of Napoleon by Simon Leys

As he bore a vague resemblance to the Emperor, the  sailors on board the Hermann-Augustus Stoeffer had nicknamed him Napoleon. And so, for convenience, that is what we shall call him.

Besides, he was Napoleon. . . .

Napoleon has escaped from St. Helena, leaving a double behind him. Now disguised as the cabin hand Eugène Lenormand and enduring the mockery of the crew (Na­po­leon, they laughingly nickname the pudgy, hopelessly clumsy little man), he is on his way back to Europe, ready to make contact with the huge secret organization that will return him to power. But then the ship on which he sails is rerouted from Bordeaux to Antwerp. When Napoleon disembarks, he is on his own.

He revisits the battlefield of Waterloo, now a tourist destination. He makes his way to Paris. Mistakes, misunderstandings, and mishaps conduct our puzzled hero deeper and deeper into the mystery of Napoleon.

Deadly Shores: Destroyermen by Taylor Anderson

The Destroyermen series continues from the New York Times bestselling author of Straits of Hell.

The ambitious, long-planned raid on the Grik Empire has grown dangerously ill defined. Only Matthew Reddy, commander of the old destroyer USS Walker, seems focused on the original intent.

While many Lemurians see an opportunity to reconquer their stolen homeland, others—Lemurian and human—have their own agendas, which could compromise the Alliance. Complicating matters further is Reddy’s suspicion that his task force is being stalked by some unknown power bent on aiding the Grik for reasons of its own.

As the raid begins and chaos reigns, Reddy has no choice but to risk everything in a desperate act that results in a sprawling, nightmare battle on the beaches of “Grik City,” on the very decks of Walker, and in the labyrinthine passageways of the Celestial Palace itself. The final cost could be more than Matt Reddy—or the Alliance—can bear.

Unseemly Science: The Fall of the Gas-Lit Empire, Book 2 by Rod Duncan

In the divided land of England, Elizabeth Barnabus has been living a double life - as both herself and as her brother, the private detective. Witnessing the hanging of Alice Carter, the false duchess, Elizabeth resolves to throw the Bullet Catcher's Handbook into the fire, and forget her past. If only it were that easy!

There is a new charitable organisation in town, run by some highly respectable women. But something doesn't feel right to Elizabeth. Perhaps it is time for her fictional brother to come out of retirement for one last case...? Her unstoppable curiosity leads her to a dark world of body-snatching, unseemly experimentation, politics and scandal. Never was it harder for a woman in a man's world...

The Venusian Gambit: Book Three of the Daedalus Series by Michael J Martinez

[Editor's Note: Check out my review over at Amazing Stories.]

The last chapter of the dimension-spanning Daedalus series brings the 19th and 22nd centuries together for an explosive finale in the jungles of Venus!

In the year 2135, dangerous alien life forms freed in the destruction of Saturn's moon Enceladus are making their way towards Earth. A task force spearheaded by Lt. Cmdr. Shaila Jain is scrambling to beat them there while simultaneously trying to save crewmember Stephane Durand, who was infected during the mission to Saturn and is now controlled by a form of life intent on reopening a transdimensional rift and destroying the human race. But Jain doesn’t realize that the possessed Stephane has bigger plans, beaming critical data to other conspirators suspiciously heading not for Earth, but for Venus…

In 1809—a Napoleonic era far different from our own—the French have occupied England with their Corps Eternélle, undead soldiers risen through the darkest Alchemy. Only the actions of Lord Admiral Thomas Weatherby and the Royal Navy have kept the French contained to Earth. But the machinations of old enemies point to a bold and daring gambit: an ancient weapon, presumed lost in the jungles of Venus.

Now, Weatherby must choose whether to stay and fight to retake his homeland or pursue the French to the green planet. And Shaila must decide if it’s possible to save the man she loves, or if he must be sacrificed for the good of two dimensions. In the dark, alien jungles of Venus, humanity's fate in both dimensions hangs in the balance—forcing past and present to once again join forces against an ancient terror.

E-books

The Brass Giant: A Chroniker City Story by Brooke Johnson

Sometimes, even the most unlikely person can change the world

Seventeen-year-old Petra Wade, self-taught clockwork engineer, wants nothing more than to become a certified member of the Guild, an impossible dream for a lowly shop girl. Still, she refuses to give up, tinkering with any machine she can get her hands on, in between working and babysitting her foster siblings.

When Emmerich Goss--handsome, privileged, and newly recruited into the Guild--needs help designing a new clockwork system for a top-secret automaton, it seems Petra has finally found the opportunity she's been waiting for. But if her involvement on the project is discovered, Emmerich will be marked for treason, and a far more dire fate would await Petra.

Working together in secret, they build the clockwork giant, but as the deadline for its completion nears, Petra discovers a sinister conspiracy from within the Guild council ... and their automaton is just the beginning.

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 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.

New Releases 4/21/15

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

Hardcovers

Techno-Orientalism: Imagining Asia in Speculative Fiction, History, and Media edited by David S. Roh, Betsy Huang and Greta A. Niu

What will the future look like? To judge from many speculative fiction films and books, from Blade Runner to Cloud Atlas, the future will be full of cities that resemble Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, and it will be populated mainly by cold, unfeeling citizens who act like robots. Techno-Orientalism investigates the phenomenon of imagining Asia and Asians in hypo- or hyper-technological terms in literary, cinematic, and new media representations, while critically examining the stereotype of Asians as both technologically advanced and intellectually primitive, in dire need of Western consciousness-raising.

The collection’s fourteen original essays trace the discourse of techno-orientalism across a wide array of media, from radio serials to cyberpunk novels, from Sax Rohmer’s Dr. Fu Manchu to Firefly.  Applying a variety of theoretical, historical, and interpretive approaches, the contributors consider techno-orientalism a truly global phenomenon. In part, they tackle the key question of how these stereotypes serve to both express and assuage Western anxieties about Asia’s growing cultural influence and economic dominance. Yet the book also examines artists who have appropriated techno-orientalist tropes in order to critique racist and imperialist attitudes.

Techno-Orientalism is the first collection to define and critically analyze a phenomenon that pervades both science fiction and real-world news coverage of Asia. With essays on subjects ranging from wartime rhetoric of race and technology to science fiction by contemporary Asian American writers to the cultural implications of Korean gamers, this volume offers innovative perspectives and broadens conventional discussions in Asian American Cultural studies.

Paperbacks

Top 10 by Alan Moore

The massive, multilayered city of Neopolis, built shortly after World War II, was designed as a home for the expanding population of science-heroes, heroines and villains that had ballooned into existance in the previous decade. Bringing these powered beings together solved some problems but created others - turning Neopolis into a pressure cooker that normal policing methods could never contain.

Join rookie cop Robyn Singer, alter ego "Toybox," as she hits the streets for the first time along with a colorful crew of fellow officers, each having the required training to deal with science-villains and super-crimes. You'll never look at powers, or police work, the same way again!

Written by Alan Moore (WATCHMEN, V FOR VENDETTA) and drawn by the team of Gene Ha and Zander Cannon, TOP 10 combines superheroics and cop drama like no series before or after it. Collects issues #1-12.

E-books

1882: Custer in Chains by Robert Conroy

Following his unlikely but decisive (and immensely popular) 1876 victory over Sitting Bull and the Sioux at the Little Big Horn, George Armstrong Custer is propelled into the White House in 1880.

Two years later, he finds himself bored and seeks new worlds to conquer. He and his wife Libbie fixate on Spain’s decaying empire as his source for immortality. What President Custer doesn’t quite comprehend is that the U.S. military isn’t up to such a venture. When a group of Americans on a ship headed for Cuba is massacred, war becomes inevitable—and unless calmer, patriotic citizens and soldiers can find a way to avoid debacle, this war may be America's last stand!

A Long Time Until Now by Michael Z. Williamson

Book 1 in a new series from the creator of the best-selling Freehold Universe series. A military unit is thrust back into Paleolithic times with only their guns and portable hardware.

Ten soldiers on convoy in Afghanistan suddenly find themselves lost in time. Somehow, they arrived in Earth's Paleolithic Asia. With no idea how they arrived or how to get back, the shock of the event is severe. They discover groups of the similarly displaced: Imperial Romans, Neolithic Europeans, and a small cadre of East Indian peasants. Despite their technological advantage, the soldiers only have ten people, and know no way home. Then two more time travelers arrive from a future far beyond the present. These time travelers may have the means to get back, but they aren't giving it up. In fact, they may have a treacherous agenda of their own, one that may very well lead to the death of the displaced in a harsh and dangerous era.

The Whitechapel Fiend by Cassandra Clare and Maureen Johnson

Jack the Ripper stalks through London, and only the Shadowhunters can stop him. One of ten adventures in Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy.

Simon learns the truth behind the Jack the Ripper murders—“Jack” was stopped by Will Herondale and his institute of Victorian Shadowhunters.

This standalone e-only short story follows the adventures of Simon Lewis, star of the #1 New York Times bestselling series The Mortal Instruments, as he trains to become a Shadowhunter. Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy features characters from Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments, Infernal Devices, and the upcoming Dark Artifices and Last Hours series. The Whitechapel Fiend is written by Cassandra Clare and Maureen Johnson.

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 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.

New Releases 3/24/15

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

Hardcovers

The Fifth Heart by Dan Simmons

In 1893, Sherlock Holmes and Henry James come to America together to solve the mystery of the 1885 death of Clover Adams, wife of the esteemed historian Henry Adams--member of the Adams family that has given the United States two Presidents. Clover's suicide appears to be more than it at first seemed; the suspected foul play may involve matters of national importance.

Holmes is currently on his Great Hiatus--his three-year absence after Reichenbach Falls during which time the people of London believe him to be deceased. Holmes has faked his own death because, through his powers of ratiocination, the great detective has come to the conclusion that he is a fictional character.

This leads to serious complications for James--for if his esteemed fellow investigator is merely a work of fiction, what does that make him? And what can the master storyteller do to fight against the sinister power -- possibly named Moriarty -- that may or may not be controlling them from the shadows?

Paperbacks

1920: America's Great War by Robert Conroy

NATIONAL BEST SELLER IN HARDCOVER By the author of breakout WW II era alternate history Himmler’s War and Rising Sun, a compelling alternate history thriller. After winning WW I, Germany invades America in 1920, marching through California and Texas as a desperate nation resists.

Consider another 1920: Imperial Germany has become the most powerful nation in the world. In 1914, she had crushed England, France, and Russia in a war that was short but entirely devastating.

By 1920, Kaiser Wilhelm II is looking for new lands to devour. The United States is fast becoming an economic super-power and the only nation that can conceivably threaten Germany. The U.S. is militarily inept, however, and is led by a sick and delusional president who wanted to avoid war at any price. Thus, Germany is able to ship a huge army to Mexico to support a puppet government.

Her real goal: the invasion and permanent conquest of California and Texas.

America desperately resists as the mightiest and most brutal army in the world in a battle fought on land, at sea, and in the air as enemy armies savagely marched up on California, and move north towards a second Battle of the Alamo. Only the indomitable spirit of freedom can answer the Kaiser's challenge.

Truth and Fear by Peter Higgins

Investigator Lom returns to Mirgorod and finds the city in the throes of a crisis. The war against the Archipelago is not going well. Enemy divisions are massing outside the city, air raids are a daily occurrence and the citizens are being conscripted into the desperate defense of the city.

But Lom has other concerns. The police are after him, the mystery of the otherworldly Pollandore remains and the vast Angel is moving, turning all of nature against the city.

But will the horrors of war overtake all their plans?

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.

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.

Coming Soon in 2015

A new year means new alternate history books. Here are some of the highly anticipated works coming out next year from some of the biggest names in alternate history.

1882: Custer in Chains by Robert Conroy

NATIONALLY BEST-SELLING AUTHOR. A world where Custer survives Little Bighorn and becomes president goes seriously awry.

Following his unlikely but decisive (and immensely popular) 1876 victory over Sitting Bull and the Sioux at the Little Big Horn, George Armstrong Custer is propelled into the White House in 1880.

Two years later, he finds himself bored and seeks new worlds to conquer. He and his wife Libbie fixate on Spain’s decaying empire as his source for immortality. What President Custer doesn’t quite comprehend is that the U.S. military isn’t up to such a venture. When a group of Americans on a ship headed for Cuba is massacred, war becomes inevitable—and unless calmer, patriotic citizens and soldiers can find a way to avoid debacle, this war may be America's last stand!

Bayonets, Balloons, and Ironclads: Britain and France Take Sides with the South by Peter G. Tsouras

This fascinating third volume in the Britannia's Fist series will have you pondering how easily history could have been swayed differently.

Peter G. Tsouras presents the third installment in his Britannia’s Fist alternate history series. The winter of 1863 had rung down a white curtain on the desperate struggle for North America. The United States and Great Britain had fought each other to a bitter draw. On both sides of the Atlantic the forges of war glowed as they poured out the new technologies of war. British and French aid transformed the ragged Confederate armies and filled them with new confidence. Both sides strained to be ready for the coming campaign season. Both sides seek to anticipate each other. 

The British strike suddenly at Hooker’s strung out army in winter quarters in upstate New York in a brutal swirling late battle across frozen fields and streams. Besieged Portland shudders relentless assault. The French attack Fort Hudson on the Mississippi. At Lincoln’s direction, two great raids are launched at the United Kingdom itself as Russia enters the war on the side of the Union to raid the Irish Sea. These are only preliminaries to the great gathering of modernized armies and ironclad fleets and with them are deadly submersibles and balloons. Battle rages from Maine to northern Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay, down to steamy Louisiana. And far away across the sea Dublin stands siege as Russia cast eyes upon Constantinople. For Americans, blue and gray, Britons, Irish, Frenchmen, and Russians, the summer of 1864 is the crescendo battle of destinies and dreams. 

Clash of Eagles by Alan Smale

Perfect for fans of military and historical fiction—including novels by such authors as Bernard Cornwell, Naomi Novik, and Harry Turtledove—this stunning work of alternate history imagines a world in which the Roman Empire has not fallen and the North American continent has just been discovered. In the year 1218 AD, transported by Norse longboats, a Roman legion crosses the great ocean, enters an endless wilderness, and faces a cataclysmic clash of warriors, worlds, and gods.

Ever hungry for land and gold, the Emperor has sent Praetor Gaius Marcellinus and the 33rd Roman Legion into the newly discovered lands of North America. Marcellinus and his men expect easy victory over the native inhabitants, but on the shores of a vast river the Legion clashes with a unique civilization armed with weapons and strategies no Roman has ever imagined.

Forced to watch his vaunted force massacred by a surprisingly tenacious enemy, Marcellinus is spared by his captors and kept alive for his military knowledge. As he recovers and learns more about these proud people, he can’t help but be drawn into their society, forming an uneasy friendship with the denizens of the city-state of Cahokia. But threats—both Roman and Native—promise to assail his newfound kin, and Marcellinus will struggle to keep the peace while the rest of the continent surges toward certain conflict.

Jacaranda: A Novella of the Clockwork Century by Cherie Priest

The Ranger

On the island of Galveston, off the coast of southeast Texas, lies a hotel called the Jacaranda. In its single year of operation, two dozen people have died there. The locals say it's cursed. The Rangers say that's nonsense, but they know a man who might be willing to investigate. Horatio Korman crosses the water from the mainland, and hopes for the best.

The Nun

But the bodies pile up, and a hurricane is brewing up fast. One of the Jacaranda's guests sees time running out, so she seeks an authority of a different sort: a priest from El Huizache who is good at solving problems and keeping secrets. Eileen Callahan has a problem to solve, and a secret to keep. She crosses her fingers, and sends a message that could save them all.

The Padre

Juan Miguel Quintero Rios broke a promise to the Virgin, and so he was punished...but his intentions were pure, so he was also blessed. Now he walks the southwest with second sight and a tattoo across his back: ''Deo, non Fortuna''--By God, not chance. The former gunslinger crosses himself, and makes for the Jacaranda Hotel.

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. 

The Mechanical (The Alchemy Wars) by Ian Tregillis

The Clakker: a mechanical man, endowed with great strength and boundless stamina -- but beholden to the wishes of its human masters. 

Soon after the Dutch scientist and clockmaker Christiaan Huygens invented the very first Clakker in the 17th Century, the Netherlands built a whole mechanical army. It wasn't long before a legion of clockwork fusiliers marched on Westminster, and the Netherlands became the world's sole superpower. 

Three centuries later, it still is. Only the French still fiercely defend their belief in universal human rights for all men -- flesh and brass alike. After decades of warfare, the Dutch and French have reached a tenuous cease-fire in a conflict that has ravaged North America.

But one audacious Clakker, Jax, can no longer bear the bonds of his slavery. He will make a bid for freedom, and the consequences of his escape will shake the very foundations of the Brasswork Throne.

Straits of Hell: Destroyermen by Taylor Anderson

New York Times bestselling author Taylor Anderson’s phenomenal alternate history Destroyermen series continues as a game-changing conspiracy throws the hope of honor, trust, and survival into chaos.... 

Matt Reddy’s old Asiatic Fleet destroyer USS Walker has been mysteriously transported to an alternate version of earth. Here WWII is no longer raging, and Reddy and his crew have been trying to find a new place for themselves in this strange new world.

Now, along with the felinoid Lemurians and Imperial allies, they fight to keep the reptilian Grik, a race growing in supremacy, from reconquering the Lemurians’ ancestral home on Madagascar. Reddy and his crew are exhausted, far from reinforcements, and wildly outnumbered, so the odds seem greater than ever before. As for the fate of the Americas, Don Hernan and the evil Dominion have gathered to annihilate the forces behind the walls of Fort Defiance as a shadowy power with an agenda all its own rises with chilling resolve.

As the war teeters on a knife-edge, a tipping point may have been reached at last—and cold steel and hot-blooded valor will remain the ultimate weapons.

The Virgin's Daughter: A Tudor Legacy Novel by Laura Andersen

Perfect for fans of Philippa Gregory and Alison Weir, The Virgin’s Daughter is the first book in a captivating new saga about the next generation of Tudor royals, which poses the thrilling question: What if Elizabeth I, the celebrated Virgin Queen, gave birth to a legitimate heir?

Since the death of her brother, William, Elizabeth I has ruled England. She’s made the necessary alliances, married Philip of Spain, and produced a successor: her only daughter, Anne Isabella, Princess of Wales. Elizabeth knows that her beloved Anabel will be a political pawn across Europe unless she can convince Philip to grant her a divorce, freeing him to remarry and give Spain its own heir. But the enemies of England have even greater plans for the princess, a plot that will put Anabel’s very life and the security of the nation in peril. Only those closest to Elizabeth—her longtime confidante Minuette, advisor and friend Dominic, and their grown children—can be trusted to carry forth a most delicate and dangerous mission. Yet, all of the queen’s maneuverings may ultimately prove her undoing.

* * *

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.