New Releases 2/2/16

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Hardcovers

A Criminal Magic by Lee Kelly

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.

[Editor's Note: Check out my review of A Criminal Magic on Amazing Stories.]

Paperbacks

Clockwork Chronicles: Vampire Extraordinaire by Quinn Langston

A Clockwork Army Colonel Julian Hawthorne has set in motion a maniacal plan to rule the world with a clockwork army of human automatons. And as a vampire, he has the wealth and all the time in the world to achieve his mad goal. Lord Sebastian Hawthorne is equally determined to stop his brother in his tracks. Sebastian has never forgiven Julian for making him a vampire. But unlike Julian, Sebastian sees humans as more than cattle to be dominated...and bled dry. With the help of Theodosia Ambrose, clockwork expert, he vows to thwart his brother's plans at any cost. Even his own immortal life. A Clockwork Victim In 1850s London, most mortals are not aware that vampires walk amongst them. Lord Sebastian Hawthorne, himself a vampire, intends to keep it that way. Unfortunately, when someone begins killing off well-known citizens-in gruesome ways-all signs point to a newborn vampire unable to control the bloodlust. Marcus Dwyer, a fellow vampire, admits to turning a woman for companionship, and now she's out of control. Together, Marcus, Sebastian and Theo, Sebastian's human friend, set out to catch the rogue killer before she exposes their secret.

The Custodian of Marvels: The Fall of the Gas-Lit Empire, Book Three by Rod Duncan

You’d have to be mad to steal from the feared International Patent Office. But that’s what Elizabeth Barnabus is about to try. A one-time enemy from the circus has persuaded her to attempt a heist that will be the ultimate conjuring trick.

Hidden in the vaults of the Patent Court in London lie secrets that could shake the very pillars of the Gas-Lit Empire. All that stands in Elizabeth’s way are the agents of the Patent Office, a Duke’s private army and the mysterious Custodian of Marvels.

Rod Duncan returns with the climactic volume ofThe Fall of the Gas-Lit Empire, the breathtaking alternate history series that began with the Philip K. Dick Award-nominated The Bullet-Catcher’s Daughter.

The Eterna Files by Leanna Renee Hieber

Welcome to The Eterna Files, written by Leanna Renee Hieber, "the brightest new star in literature"(True-Blood.net)

London, 1882: Queen Victoria appoints Harold Spire of the Metropolitan Police to Special Branch Division Omega. Omega is to secretly investigate paranormal and supernatural events and persons. Spire, a skeptic driven to protect the helpless and see justice done, is the perfect man to lead the department, which employs scholars and scientists, assassins and con men, and a traveling circus. Spire's chief researcher is Rose Everhart, who believes fervently that there is more to the world than can be seen by mortal eyes.

Their first mission: find the Eterna Compound, which grants immortality. Catastrophe destroyed the hidden laboratory in New York City where Eterna was developed, but the Queen is convinced someone escaped―and has a sample of Eterna.

Also searching for Eterna is an American, Clara Templeton, who helped start the project after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln nearly destroyed her nation. Haunted by the ghost of her beloved, she is determined that the Eterna Compound―and the immortality it will convey―will be controlled by the United States, not Great Britain.

Rasputin Volume 2 by Alex Grecian & Riley Rossmo

What really happened at that fateful dinner and how did Rasputin survive his plunge into the icy river in 1916? All is revealed as a new life begins for the “mad monk” at Ellis Island.

Collects RASPUTIN #6-10.

The Sea Is Ours: Tales from Steampunk Southeast Asia edited by Jaymee Goh and Joyce Chng

Steampunk takes on Southeast Asia in this anthology

The stories in this collection merge technological wonder with the everyday. Children upgrade their fighting spiders with armor, and toymakers create punchcard-driven marionettes. Large fish lumber across the skies, while boat people find a new home on the edge of a different dimension. Technology and tradition meld as the people adapt to the changing forces of their world. The Sea Is Ours is an exciting new anthology that features stories infused with the spirits of Southeast Asia’s diverse peoples, legends, and geography.

E-Books

The Airship (Steam World Book 2) by Cassandra Leuthold

One treasure. One voyage. Two rivals.

In the spring of 1901, Amelia Harlow boards a revolutionary steampunk airship for its first cross-ocean flight. Her fellow passengers trade worried whispers about a paroled murderess traveling with them, but Amelia doesn’t fear her. She didn’t come for the unique experience or abundant amenities. The woman owns a singular map Amelia could sell for a fortune if she can steal it.

Running into Darius Shank poses the biggest challenge. The thieving lover who once cost Amelia everything eyes the same target. Rekindling their close but vindictive teamwork, Amelia must appease Darius while staying one step ahead of him. She doesn’t plan to leave without the map or expect a new, forbidden romance to complicate her mission.

The map’s profit would do more than set Amelia back on her feet, but eagerness could draw the wrong attention in such tight quarters. To keep Darius from hurting her innocent acquaintances or herself, Amelia plots her moves wisely. She has six days to secure a brilliant future or lose the chance of a lifetime.

Alt.History 102 edited by Samuel Peralta and Nolie Wilson

Alt.History repeats itself... From the creator of the #1 bestselling Future Chronicles anthology series comes a collection that turns the world you know upside down.

In Alt.History 102 - the follow-up to the bestselling Alt.History 101 - twelve top speculative fiction authors re-imagine the world - as one where a beautiful actress becomes a spy for the Allied forces, as one where the Internet is tightly held only by an elite few, as one where the Native American population is resistant to European diseases - and nine other compelling stories charting the histories of our world.

Enter worlds so much like our own, yet so different - where everything you know... is history.

Decisive Darkness: Part One - Majestic by Paul Hynes

In August 1945, Japan was hit with two nuclear weapons. This, along with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, caused the government to surrender.

What if it had not?

Paul Hynes imagines a world in which a fanatical junta takes over Japan and pledges a fight to the bitter end. Using real-world plans relating to the invasion of the Home Islands, along with an extensive knowledge of American, British, Soviet and Japanese attitudes and capabilities at the time, Hynes crafts a story of harrowing losses, desperate measures, and unspeakable horror for the civilian population.

Diverge and Conquer (Look to the West Book 1) by Tom Anderson

History can turn on the smallest of things. In the history we know, King George II’s son Prince Frederick was an obscure footnote of history. Hated by his father (who threatened to exile him to the American colonies), his political career cut short when he was fatally struck by a cricket ball, of all things. The Prince never became King Fred and instead the throne passed to his inexperienced son, George III, who proceeded to lose America.

But what if one tiny slight—a trip on a coronation carpet, a misplaced laugh—had tipped George II over the edge and he had made good on his threat? What if, in the year George Washington was born, the American colonies had found themselves home to an exiled Prince stripped of his inheritance? And what if that Prince had ambitions to reclaim his birthright by any means necessary, including with the help of his colonial subjects…?

The Look to the West series begins with the story of Frederick and the very different America that results from his exile, but it is a tale that encompasses the whole world. Every action we take has unforeseen impacts: a revolutionary South America, a defeated Prussia, a divided India, a European Enlightenment transformed by phlogiston theory, Cugnot steam engines and Linnaeus’ Theory of Evolution. Diverge and Conquer covers the history of this world from the time of Frederick to the era when Europe is torn apart by a French Revolution very different to the one we know—and hints at a mysterious future to come…

The Loud Blast That Tears The Skies by Chris Nash

1908. The United Kingdom stands upon the cusp of a tumultuous century; a century of far-reaching political, social, and economic change. That change will accelerate rapidly within a few short years, as Liberals found the welfare state and reform the British constitution, and as a Sarajevo gunman plunges the world into total war.

But what if the meteor that harmlessly crashed into remote Siberian forest in the summer of 1908, had instead brought death and destruction to Edwardian London? What if the British Empire, at the height of her confidence and hubris, lost both her capital and her government? What kind of world would have emerged?

In 'The Loud Blast That Tears The Skies', Chris Nash explores a world where First World War generals rebuilt a shattered Britain, where blood is shed not in the fields of Flanders, but in the streets of London and Glasgow. A world where German engineering put a man on the Moon, and threatens mankind with annihilation. A world where British diaspora preach libertarianism from the American west, and where old Russian revolutionaries are fêted in exile. Told from the perspective of a British political history, it is the tale of a world whose leaders are very different from those we knew - but yet who are sometimes strangely familiar.

Making Murder Sound Respectable by Bob Mumby

“Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” – George Orwell

The Fascist and Communist dictatorships left a bloody stain on the 20th Century, leaving tens of millions dead in their wake and a bitter taste in the mouth for hundreds of millions more when they encounter those ideologies. But what if they had never got the opportunity to do that damage?

A world where the Russian Revolution didn’t produce a Communist superpower, and Hitler never found success at the ballot box. A world where the political fears and tensions of the 1930s continued, unmolested by the pressures of total global war.

In 'Making Murder Sound Respectable', Bob Mumby explores this world through a very different British election night, from the perspective of a group of students watching the results on television. While they worry about what kind of curry they want, events unfold in the background that reveal a glimpse of a radically different world. Communist and Fascist thugs clash in the streets, and foreign commentators pontificate on whether the Union Party has strayed too far from Oswald Mosley’s principles, while far from Britain’s shores the forces which have been contained for a century may yet be unleashed.

The Plague Policeman by Anthony Jones

Versailles 2002. Capital of the French Empire, the most powerful nation on the face of the Earth. A mysterious man found murdered in an alley close to the Palace of Versailles, the very heart of Empire, throws doubt on its security and, before long, on the very future of humanity as a species.

Njabulo ('Jab') de Voggeveen. Doctor of medicine. Hunter of diseases. Expatriate Zulu. Slightly out of his depth, but nonetheless drafted in by the French government to find the origin of the mystery man and stop those responsible for him from creating more.

Jab must search from the seedy underbelly of Paris, across the climate change-altered landscape of an Earth very different from our own, to the glittering palaces of the great and powerful of the French Empire. On the way he must overcome danger, death and corruption at all levels to fulfil his mission. It will not be easy, but it will be interesting!

With Iron And Fire by David Wostyn

The year is 1912, and the history of China takes a different turn.

The president of the newly-founded Republic of China dies suddenly, before the fledgling regime has had time to take root. As a compromise between the militarist and republican factions, a former reformist leader is chosen to replace him. But he has his own agenda…

What if the Republic of China had died in infancy? 'With Iron and Fire' is the tale of a China that might have been—one in which a new imperial dynasty takes over after a short interregnum, and the descent into warlordism and civil war that wracked the country for decades in history as we know it is pre-empted.

A stable government allows China to become a regional power once again. When the Russian revolution comes, it joins the foreign intervention on the side of the Whites—and once the dust has settled, finds itself with a client state in Eastern Siberia. But China’s very resurgence puts it on a collision course with another rising Asian power: the Empire of Japan. Their rivalry is bound to engulf Asia in flames.

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.

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.

* * *

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.