Weekly Update #246! Alternate Histories to Read in September

Editor's Note

It's hard to believe summer is ending. Although I am indoor kind of guy, I do love summer. The early sunrises, the barbecues, the festivals, the beach days, the picnics and the all-around beautiful weather that lets me read outside in comfort. I had a great time this summer and I will be sad to see it go.

Recommendations from last week include Sam McDonald's review of the anime: Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade. I am still surprised by the number of anime works that feature alternate history content and will probably need to sit down and watch some of them in the future. In the meantime, my thanks to Sam for bringing these obscure works of alternate history to my attention.

Don't forget that you can support The Update by buying through Amazon. Click on the banner to your right when you go to purchase something and we will get a little something something to fund our mission of bringing you the best alternate history news and reviews on the Internet. If you are looking for something to buy, may I recommend some of last week's new releases or maybe some of the books below?

Finally, I am posting this a little early due to my Labor Day plans. I hope no one minds (and I don't care if you do). Map Monday also may come out later than usual.

And now the news...

Books to Read in September

So there are a lot of good books coming out in September that I am excited to read. In fact I decided to preview a few of them in case you want to read along with me. The first one is Michael J. Martinez's MJ-12: Inception which is coming out tomorrow. Now you can already read my thoughts on the book by checking out my review on Amazing Stories, but here is the description from Amazon:

It is a new world, stunned by the horrors that linger in the aftermath of total war. The United States and Soviet Union are squaring off in a different kind of conflict, one that’s fought in the shadows, where there are whispers of strange and mysterious developments.

Normal people across the United States have inexplicably gained paranormal abilities. A factory worker can heal the sick and injured. A schoolteacher bends emotions to her will. A car salesman alters matter with a simple touch. A former soldier speaks to the dying and gains their memories as they pass on.

They are the Variants, controlled by a secret government program called MAJESTIC-12 to open a new front in the Cold War.

From the deserts of Nevada to the palaces of Istanbul, the halls of power in Washington to the dark, oppressive streets of Prague, the Variants are thrown into a deadly game of shifting alliances. Amidst the seedy underbelly of nations, these once-ordinary Americans dropped in extraordinary circumstances will struggle to come to terms with their abilities as they fight to carve out a place for themselves in a world that may ultimately turn against them.

And as the MAJESTIC-12 program will soon discover, there are others out there like them, some with far more malevolent goals.

Also coming out tomorrow is Bill Fawcett's 101 Stumbles in the March of History: What If the Great Mistakes in War, Government, Industry, and Economics Were Not Made? Although Bill wrote most of the essays in this book, there are many other contributors from the alternate history genre who are participating like Harry Turtledove, Eric Flint, Mike Resnick and Charles E. Gannon. I actually have a couple posts about the book coming out tomorrow, but in the meantime, here is the Amazon description:

DID I DO THAT???

When asked to name a successor, Alexander the Great declared that his empire should go “to the strongest”. . . but would rival factions have descended into war if he’d been a little more specific?

What if the Vienna Academy of Art took a chance on a hopeful young student named Adolf Hitler?

If Pope Clement VII granted King Henry VIII an annulment, England would likely still be Catholic today—and so would America. 

Bill Fawcett, author of 100 Mistakes That Changed History, offers a compendium of 101 all-new mammoth mistakes—from the ill-fated rule of Emperor Darius III to the equally ill-fated search for WMDs in Iraq—that will, unfortunately, never be forgotten by history.

Coming out tomorrow as well (the first Tuesday of any month is usually a big day for new releases) is a book I have been very excited to read: SM Stirling's The Prince of Outcasts. This is the next book in the Emberverse series, which I have gushed about on numerous occasions and I have even reread the first three books a couple of times. In case you are interested, here is the description from Amazon:

John Arminger Mackenzie wanted to be a troubadour, but fate made him the son of the king of Montival. His sister Princess Órlaith will deservedly inherit the throne of the High Kings, and it will only pass unto him in the event of her death, leaving the young Prince on an unknown path to discover his true role in the family. 

The opportunity to prove his mettle comes when John’s ship, the Tarshish Queen, is caught in the fierce storm raised against the enemies of the alliance. When the clouds recede and the skies clear, John and his crew find themselves on the other side of the Pacific, in the island chains of the Ceram Sea, fighting to survive against vicious pirates and monstrous creatures of the deep, meeting new allies and mysterious enemies of this world and another. 

Now, Prince John must seize his birthright and lead his people in battle against the darkest forces man and nature can conjure against them.

And now we get to our last, but certainly not least, book coming out in September that I wanted to talk about. Its What Ifs of Jewish History: From Abraham to Zionism edited by counterfactual historian, Gavriel D. Rosenfeld. I actually just started reading this book and I am enjoying it. Its even given me a few ideas for what if videos (like a Protestant Christian state founded in Palestine in a world where Germany won WWI). More on that later, but for now, here is the Amazon description:

What if the Exodus had never happened? What if the Jews of Spain had not been expelled in 1492? What if Eastern European Jews had never been confined to the Russian Pale of Settlement? What if Adolf Hitler had been assassinated in 1939? What if a Jewish state had been established in Uganda instead of Palestine? Gavriel D. Rosenfeld's pioneering anthology examines how these and other counterfactual questions would have affected the course of Jewish history. Featuring essays by sixteen distinguished scholars in the field of Jewish Studies, What Ifs of Jewish History is the first volume to systematically apply counterfactual reasoning to the Jewish past. Written in a variety of narrative styles, ranging from the analytical to the literary, the essays cover three thousand years of dramatic events and invite readers to indulge their imaginations and explore how the course of Jewish history might have been different.

Well I hope you guys find something to read this month and if it is any of the books I mentioned, please let me know what you think about them.

Video of the Week

Today's video of the week is AlternateHistoryHub's "What if Gunpowder Never Existed?":

And let's not forget my recent video where I asked what if the America First Committee kept America out of WWII?

You Should Also Check Out

• What Snopes has to say about whether the Star Spangled Banner enshrines slavery.
• Mussolini's message to future that was revealed under a Rome obelisk (via BBC).
• The alternate history map stolen by a Danish publishing company and put in an actual history textbook, which I may do a video about in the future. (via Kultur)
• Vice's profile of The Great War, the YouTube history series telling the story of WWI in real time and one of my favorite channels.
• What would have happened if Mark Hamill & Carrie Fisher didn’t want to return for Star Wars: Episode VII (via /Film).

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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 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.

Coming Soon in 2016

A new year means new alternate history books. Here are some of the highly anticipated works coming out in 2016 that you can preorder. Below you will see some names you recognize and some newcomers to our ranks.

1635: A Parcel of Rogues by Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis

Book #20 in the multiple New York Times best-selling Ring of Fire series.

When the diplomatic embassy from the United States of Europe was freed from the Tower of London during the Baltic War, most of its members returned to the continent. But some remained behind in Britain: Oliver Cromwell and a few companions, including the sharpshooter Julie Sims, her Scot husband Alex Mackay, and Cromwell’s Irish-American self-appointed watchdog Darryl McCarthy.

Soon, the hunt is on for the most notorious rebel in English history, with King Charles himself demanding Cromwell’s head. The new chief minister Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork, brings over from Ireland a notorious crew of cutthroats led by the man called Finnegan to track down and capture the escapees from the Tower.

The hunt passes through England and into Scotland, where the conflict between Cromwell and his companions and their would-be captors becomes embroiled in Scotland’s politics, which are every bit as savage and ruthless as Finnegan and his men. To make things still more conflicted and confused, the time Darryl McCarthy spends fighting alongside Cromwell forces him against his will to admire and respect—and even like—the man, despite Cromwell’s demonic reputation among all self-respecting Irish nationalist families like Darryl’s own.

It’s a Gordian knot anywhere you look—until Julie Sims brings out her rifle. Now it’s the turn of Scot partisans and English lords and Irish toughs to learn the lesson already learned on the continent:

A safe distance isn’t what you think it is. Not after the American angel of death spreads her wings.

At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

Blood In the Water: Destroyermen by Taylor Anderson

Taylor Anderson’s enthralling New York Times bestselling series of alternate history continues as game-changing revelations upend the Grand Alliance in a potentially cataclysmic war.

Ever since the USS Walker came from another world war to defy the terrifying Grik and diabolical Dominion, Matt Reddy and his crew have given their all to protect the oppressed Lemurians. But with the Walker in desperate need of repairs just as the Grik’s First General is poised to strike, Reddy is desperate.

With more enemies than ever before arrayed against them, the crew of the Walker needs new allies. That means combing the lethal wilds of Madagascar to find the Lemurians’ fabled ancestors, as well as the enigmatic dwellers east of the Pass of Fire. But what Reddy’s crew unearths may be more than they can handle—discoveries so shattering they could tilt the balance of the war in either direction.

But Reddy’s greatest adversary is from his past: a madman named Kurokawa whose single-minded mission of revenge will shake the Alliance to its core and raise the stakes to the most personal and terrifying levels Reddy has ever faced.

A Criminal Magic by Lee Kelly

THE NIGHT CIRCUS meets THE PEAKY BLINDERS in Lee Kelly's new magical realism, crossover novel.

Magic is powerful, dangerous and addictive - and after passage of the 18th Amendment, it is finally illegal.

It's 1926 in Washington, DC, and while Anti-Sorcery activists have achieved the Prohibition of sorcery, the city's magic underworld is booming. Sorcerers cast illusions to aid mobsters' crime sprees. Smugglers funnel magic contraband in from overseas. Gangs have established secret performance venues where patrons can lose themselves in magic, and take a mind-bending, intoxicating elixir known as the sorcerer's shine.

Joan Kendrick, a young sorcerer from Norfolk County, Virginia accepts an offer to work for DC's most notorious crime syndicate, the Shaw Gang, when her family's home is repossessed. Alex Danfrey, a first-year Federal Prohibition Unit trainee with a complicated past and talents of his own, becomes tapped to go undercover and infiltrate the Shaws.

Through different paths, Joan and Alex tread deep into the violent, dangerous world of criminal magic - and when their paths cross at the Shaws' performance venue, despite their orders, and despite themselves, Joan and Alex become enchanted with one another. But when gang alliances begin to shift, the two sorcerers are forced to question their ultimate allegiances and motivations. And soon, Joan and Alex find themselves pitted against each other in a treacherous, heady game of cat-and-mouse.

A CRIMINAL MAGIC casts a spell of magic, high stakes and intrigue against the backdrop of a very different Roaring Twenties.

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 the Cahokia together. Only with the hearts and souls of a nation at his back can Marcellinus hope to know triumph.

Fallout: The Hot War by Harry Turtledove

One act of folly. One poor decision. One moment of rage. The novels of Harry Turtledove show history balancing on single moments. In his astounding new novel, the unthinkable has come to pass. The Cold War turns hot—and the United States and the Soviet Union unleash their nuclear arsenals upon each other. Millions die. Millions more are displaced. Germans battle side by side with Americans, Polish freedom fighters next to Russian fascists. The genie is out of the bottle. And there’s no telling what fresh hell will come next.

At the heart of Fallout are Harry Truman and Josef Stalin. Even as Joe McCarthy rises in power, the president is focused elsewhere, planning to cut off the head of the Soviet threat by taking out Stalin. It’s a daring gambit, but the Soviets have one of their own. Meanwhile, Europe’s weak sisters, France and Italy, seem poised to choose the winning side, while China threatens to overrun Korea. With Great Britain ravaged and swaths of America in ruins, leaders are running out of options. When the United States drops another series of bombs to slow the Russian advance in Europe, Stalin strikes back—with horrifying results.

These staggering events unfold through the eyes of a sprawling cast of characters: a Holocaust survivor in a displaced persons’ camp in Washington; the wife of a bomber pilot and her five-year-old daughter starting a new existence on their own; a savage Soviet fighter waging war by his rules; a British pub owner falling in love with an American pilot. In the masterly hands of Harry Turtledove, this epic chronicle of war becomes a story of human struggle. As the armies of the world implode, the next chapter will be written by the survivors—those willing to rise up for an uncertain future.

League of Dragons by Naomi Novik

Naomi Novik delivers the final adventure in a New York Times bestselling series that has won fans of Napoleonic-era military history, Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novels, and Patrick O’Brian’s seafaring adventures. Since His Majesty’s Dragon, Capt. William Laurence and his fearless dragon, Temeraire, have been battling Napoleon and his armies . . . and now the time has come to stop him for good.

Paper and Fire: The Great Library by Rachel Caine

In Ink and Bone, New York Times bestselling author Rachel Caine introduced a world where knowledge is power, and power corrupts absolutely. Now, she continues the story of those who dare to defy the Great Library—and rewrite history...

With an iron fist, The Great Library controls the knowledge of the world, ruthlessly stamping out all rebellion, forbidding the personal ownership of books in the name of the greater good.

Jess Brightwell has survived his introduction to the sinister, seductive world of the Library, but serving in its army is nothing like he envisioned. His life and the lives of those he cares for have been altered forever. His best friend is lost, and Morgan, the girl he loves, is locked away in the Iron Tower and doomed to a life apart.

Embarking on a mission to save one of their own, Jess and his band of allies make one wrong move and suddenly find themselves hunted by the Library’s deadly automata and forced to flee Alexandria, all the way to London.

But Jess’s home isn't safe anymore. The Welsh army is coming, London is burning, and soon, Jess must choose between his friends, his family, or the Library willing to sacrifice anything and anyone in the search for ultimate control...

United States of Japan by Peter Tieryas

A spiritual sequel to The Man In The High Castle, focusing on the New Japanese Empire, from an acclaimed author and essayist.

The Axis won WWII and now, in the late 1980s, the Japanese Empire rules over the western US states, their power assured by technological superiority (giant mecha, etc.) But when a video game emerges that posits a world where the allies won, a game censor and an Imperial Government agent discover truths about the empire that make them question their loyalty.

What Ifs of Jewish History: From Abraham to Zionism edited by Gavriel Rosenfeld

What Ifs of Jewish History offers a compelling counter-factual history of the Jewish past. With chapters ranging from the analytical to the literary, leading Jewish historians address thousand years of dramatic events and invite readers to indulge their imaginations and explore how the course of Jewish history might have been different.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger on Amazing Stories and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.