New Releases 11/11/14

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Paperbacks

The Mammoth Book of Gaslit Romance edited by Ekaterina Sedia

A fantastic collection of stories of love and intrigue that focus on the trappings of the popular Victorian era, enlivened with fantastical elements and incorporating some noir and detective pieces, by O. M. Grey, Leanna Renee Hieber, N. K. Jemisin, Eliza Knight, Sarah Prineas, Delia Sherman, Genevieve Valentine and many more.

Full list of contributors: Vivian Caethe; Leanna Renee Hieber; Seth Cadin; Tiffany Trent; Eliza Knight; Sara Harvey; Rick Bowes; Genevieve Valentine; Nisi Shawl; Maurice Broaddus; Ella D’Arcy; E. Catherine Tobler; Sarah Prineas; Barbara Roden; Mary Braddon; Mae Empson; Caroline Stevermer; Delia Sherman; Tansy Roberts; N. K. Jemisin; O.M. Grey.

The Traders' War: A Merchant Princes Omnibus by Charles Stross

The Traders' War -- an omnibus edition of the third and fourth novels in Charles Stross's Merchant Princes series.

Miriam was an ambitious business journalist in Boston. Until she was fired—then discovered, to her shock, that her lost family comes from an alternate reality. And although some of them are trying to kill her, she won’t stop digging up secrets. Now that she knows she’s inherited the family ability to walk between worlds, there’s a new culture to explore.

Her alternate home seems located around the Middle Ages, making her world-hopping relatives top dogs when it comes to “importing” guns and other gadgets from modern-day America. Payment flows from their services to U.S. drug rings—after all, world-skipping drug runners make great traffickers. In a land where women are property, she struggles to remain independent. Yet her outsider ways won’t be tolerated, and a highly political arranged marriage is being brokered behind her back. If she can stay alive for long enough to protest.

The Wayward Eight: A Contract to Die For by Robert E. Waters

Ex-Confederate officer Captain Marcus Wayward and his infamous “Eight” are on a deadly mission. The Union has contracted them to find and kill the most notorious scientist in the world; Doctor Burson Carpathian, who resides somewhere in the forested interior of Arizona. Carpathian is protected by an undead horde of his own construction, and powered by the miracle fuel RJ-1027, they will defend him to the death. 

The chance for Wayward and his mercenaries to acquire fame, fortune, and immortality on such a mission is too great to refuse. The journey is fraught with perils and pitfalls – outlaws, Union troopers, thrill-seekers, Shifters of the Warrior Nation, and even other mercenaries hell-bent on finding and killing Carpathian first. When a shadowy force known as the Dark Council gets involved, the way becomes even deadlier. But the biggest challenge for Captain Wayward could very well be his own people, who begin to question the nature of the mission as it unravels.

E-books

1636: The Barbie Consortium by Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett

Prequel to 1636: The Viennese Waltz. The Barbies are rising. After their West Virginia town is transported to 1630s continental Europe, a group of teenage girls discover that bringing future technology and future business practices to a backward Europe just emerging from the Middle Ages can be very lucrative indeed—and might even change the course of empire.

The Mind's Eye by Christopher Nuttall

For centuries, men have been dreaming of telepathy, the power to read and influence the minds of others. Now, all around the world, telepaths are finally starting to appear. Men and women are developing awesome powers with the potential to dramatically change society. Governments are soon starting to become aware of them, even recruiting them, while striving to keep knowledge of their abilities hidden from the general public. Academic researchers too are discovering telepaths and it isn’t long before awareness of their existence starts to spread. But non-telepaths, ordinary people, don’t want to have their minds read or controlled; the telepaths soon find themselves widely regarded with fear and hatred. Inevitably, some of them want to fight back. 

In this alternative history, albeit set in the near-future, Christopher Nuttall explores the likely impact of the appearance of telepathic abilities in some members of the human race. While telepathy and related psionic abilities have long been a mainstay of science-fiction, the impact of their emergence has not been as well imagined as, say, that of fantastic mutations. Almost everyone has something to hide, thoughts they wouldn’t want made public. Governments have secrets they wish to keep, whether for national security or just to hold on to power. How would the general populace react to mind-readers in their midst? How would telepaths respond when threatened by a frightened mob, or constrained by politicians fearful of the disclosure of scandals and long-buried secrets. Intelligence agencies would be both alarmed at the threats and intrigued by the possibilities. Would all nations respond in the same way? 

And then there’s the endless possibilities for criminals and terrorists…

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.

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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.

Weekly Update #66

Editor's Note

Wow, okay, a lot of stuff to get through in this editorial.  Let's start by recapping last months's big milestones.  First up, we broke our monthly page view record yet again.  We now stand at 10,500 page views in the month of July.  Yes, you read that right.  Not only do we have a new monthly record, but we exceeded 10,000 page views in one month.  Weekly Update is really coming into its own and I could not be more happy about it.  In honor of this accomplishment I have revised our advertising policy.  Anyone trying to sell a book or other geek merchandise should check it out.

Enough about the blog, our last poll is finished and Then Everything Changed by Jeff Greenfield was voted the most likely candidate to win the long-form Sidewise Award this year, but only by one vote. Second place went to Himmler's War by Robert Conroy. Considering how unscientific the poll was, those two are certainly the favorites this year, but either could win.

Speaking of the Sidewise Awards, friend of the blog Steven H Silver was kind enough to email me that the presentation of the Sidewise Awards is tentatively scheduled for Friday, August 31 at 9:00 pm.  I know what I will be doing after work that day and if you would like to know who wins the moment it is announced, follow me on Twitter (@ahwupdate) and look for posts marked #Sidewise as I Tweet about the top award in alternate history.  Meanwhile, don't forget to vote in our new poll on the top right corner of the blog.

A lot of good stuff coming up this week.  Later this afternoon I share my favorite steampunk photos from last week and tomorrow I share the new releases of the week.  Wednesday we have friend of the blog Dale Cozort and Elsewhen Press making some important announcement.  Thursday I showcase two new steampunk-themed games and Friday I hope to have my review of The Kronos Interference posted.

It has been a long time, but I got a new country to fill in on my reader map.  Welcome to our new reader from Paraguay.

And now the news...

Battle of the Book Review Blogs

Thought I was done squawking about Weekly Update? Think again.

A while back I mentioned that I had entered Weekly Update into Underground Book Reviews first annual website competition: Battle of the Book Review Blogs. Even though voting ends Sept 3rd, there is no excuse not to vote early.  Trust me, it is completely painless to vote in this competition.  You don't have to pay anything or give Underground any of your information.  Just click on the button for "Alternate History Weekly Update" and hit vote.

First place and honorable mention will be showcased on Underground Book Reviews and receive a personalized virtual award.  Winner will also be given the opportunity to do an interview, guest post and/or guest review on Underground Book Reviews. Last time I checked Weekly Update was in third place, so we got a lot of campaigning ahead of us.

If you would like to see Weekly Update gain greater prominence on the web, click on this link now and vote.  I and all of the contributors to Weekly Update will greatly appreciate it. More importantly, if Weekly Update wins or gains an honorable mention, I will do another marathon run of double-posting in the month of September.

Want to have double the amount of alternate history content?  It can only happen if you go and vote.

Things to Do

You can find a lot of fun things on the Internet, but the real world can be just as big and exciting (though it has a lot less cats).  Here are few more things to add to your to-do list:

Aug 6 to Sept 1: Paseo Originals Art Gallery (Oklahoma City, OK) has a new steampunk inspired exhibition, “The Mind’s Eye.” featuring the creative visions of artists Jan Brieschke and Brett McDanel.

Sept 8-9: The steampunk themed "Roots of Motive Power Kinetic Carnivale" is happening where you can see authentic steam-powered machinery in Willits, California.

Submissions Wanted

Here at Weekly Update, we encourage aspiring alternate history writers to seek out venues besides forums and wikis to showcase their creative ideas.  Here are some new publications currently seeking submissions.

• Crossed Genres Magazine is looking for submissions for their next issue that meet their theme: boundaries. Deadline is September 30th and submissions should be 1k-6k in length.
• The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts is looking for scholarly articles on steampunk.  Those interested should submit their 500 word proposals by Oct 1, 2012.
• Allegory Magazine (fantasy, SF, horror, non-fiction) is looking for submissions for their next two issues.  Submissions should be between 500-5000 words in length (non-fiction has a max of 2k words) and the deadlines are Oct 31st and Feb 28th.
• Glimmer Train is holding a contest for new writers asking them to submit works of fiction ranging from 1500 to 12k words in length.  Winners are announced quarterly, click here for more information.

Links to the Multiverse

Articles

Aether Brigade: Steampunk on parade by Tom Kellar at The Union.

Australian newspaper rebrands the Koreas as ‘Naughty’ and ‘Nice’ Korea by Cameron Smith at Yahoo! Sports.

More What-Might-Have-Beens by WMATA Rage.

The Strangest “About the Author” Section of All Time (?) at Portable Homeland.

Books

Book Monday Guest Review — The Greyfriar done by Vivian at Steamed!

Book reviews: Ring of Fire III, by Eric Flint done by Jo Jones at Helium.

Review: “The Peshawar Lancers” by S.M. Stirling by Confessions of a Bibliomaniac….

URBAN FANTASY STEAMPUNK: Bannon and Clare 1: The Iron Wyrm Affair - Lilith Saintcrow done by Dros Delnoch at Falcata Times.

What if Abraham Lincoln Wasn’t Assassinated? Welcome to Stephen L. Carter’s Alternate History by Joe Muscolino at Everyday eBook.

Films

Axe to Grind: The Making of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Trevor Hogg at Flickering Myth.

Sammamish teen making steampunk version of ‘The Raven’ needs help by Caleb Heeringa at Sammamish Review.

Television

Review - Zipang, Episode 5: KUSAKA'S CHOICE by Sebastian Breit at The War Blog.

Games

An Iberian Winter: Crusader Kings II Diary Part One by Adam Smith at Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Dishonored Gets An Incredible List Of A-List Actors To Go All Steampunk by Evan Narcisse at Kotaku.

Podcasts

Celebrating What Might Have Been and What Never Was In July With Alternate History by Broadly Speaking.

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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.