New Releases 2/26/13

Hardcover

The Mongoliad: Book Three by Neal Stephenson,  Erik Bear, Greg Bear, Joseph Brassey, Nicole Galland, Cooper Moo, Mark Teppo and Mike Grell

Description from Amazon.

This handsome hardcover edition of The Mongoliad: Book Three features exquisite foil stamping, deckled edges, a ribbon marker, an illustrated character glossary, and a Foreworld map printed on the end- sheets. It also includes Seer: A Foreworld SideQuest. This short story was previously available only digitally and sets up characters and events in The Mongoliad.

The final book of the Mongoliad trilogy from Neal Stephenson and company tells the gripping personal stories of medieval freedom fighters to form an epic, imaginative recounting of a moment in history when a world in peril relied solely on the courage of its people.

The shadow of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II hangs over the shattered Holy Roman Church as the cardinals remain deadlocked, unable to choose a new pope. Only the Binders and a mad priest have a hope of uniting the Church against the invading Mongol host. An untested band of young warriors stands against the dissolute Khan, fighting for glory and freedom in the Khan’s sadistic circus of swords, and the brave band of Shield- Brethren who set out to stop the Mongol threat single-handedly race against their nemesis before he can raise the entire empire against them. Veteran knight Feronantus, haunted by his life in exile, leads the dwindling company of Shield-Brethren to their final battle, molding them into a team that will outlast him. No good hero lives forever. Or fights alone.

Paperbacks

Angels of Vengeance by John Birmingham

Description from Amazon.

When an inexplicable wave of energy slams into North America, the world is plunged into turmoil—as wars erupt, borders vanish, and the great and powerful fall.

Against this dramatic backdrop, three very different women navigate the chaos. Deep in a South American jungle, special agent Caitlin Monroe will stop at nothing to discover how a master terrorist escaped a secret detention center in French Guadeloupe to strike a fatal blow in New York City. Sofia Peiraro, a grieving teenager trying to rebuild her life in Kansas City, is drawn back to Texas by a vicious murder. And in the fashionable bars and boutiques of Darwin, the seething, growing freeport in Australia’s deep north, the British-born aristocrat-turned-smuggler Lady Julianne Balwyn hides a pistol in the small of her lovely back. She is hunting for the man who is hunting her. As these women fight for survival, justice, and revenge, humanity itself struggles toward its better angels—and to purge its worst demons.

Check out all of our reviews for the Wave trilogy (Without Warning, After America and Angels of Vengeance).

Any Day Now: A Novel by Terry Bison

Description from Amazon.

This tour de force, road movie of a novel is a poignant excursion into the last days of the Beats and the radicalized culture of the 1960s, from Kentucky to New York City and beyond. Written in a voice that is warmhearted and hauntingly original, Any Day Now is the story of Clay, a small-town boy whose future is all mapped out. It travels as far as an isolated New Mexico commune under threat from a national revolution, with Clay battling to find his place in the new America -- and hoping desperately to forget what happened back East with the girl he loved.

Bisson, whose prose brings to life this wild tale in the vein of Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, has written a transcendent commentary on America's civil liberties and the perils of growing up, then and now.

Gideon's Angel by Clifford Beal

Description from Amazon.

He came back to kill a tyrant. He found the Devil instead. An amazing historical novel with a supernatural twist set after the English Civil War. This is the stunning debut from Clifford Beal.

He came back to kill a tyrant. He found the Devil instead.

1653: The long and bloody English Civil War is at an end. King Charles is dead and Oliver Cromwell rules the land as king in all but name. Richard Treadwell, an exiled royalist officer and soldier-for-hire to the King of France and his all-powerful advisor, the wily Cardinal Mazarin, burns with revenge for those who deprived him of his family and fortune. He decides upon a self-appointed mission to return to England in secret and assassinate the new Lord Protector. Once back on English soil however, he learns that his is not the only plot in motion.

A secret army run by a deluded Puritan is bent on the same quest, guided by the Devil’s hand. When demonic entities are summoned, Treadwell finds himself in a desperate turnaround: he must save Cromwell to save England from a literal descent into Hell. But first he has to contend with a wife he left in Devon who believes she’s a widow, and a furious Paris mistress who has trailed him to England, jeopardising everything. Treadwell needs allies fast. Can he convince the man sent to forcibly drag him back to Cardinal Mazarin? A young king’s musketeer named d’Artagnan.

Black dogs and demons; religion and magic; Freemasons and Ranters. It’s a dangerous new Republic for an old cavalier coming home again.

London Darkness: War of the Devices by Christopher Stocking

Description from Amazon.

Fifteen years have passed since the events with Caiden and the forces of Partum Chaos transpired, and the League of Inventors is flourishing with Ryker and Adelina as Head Inventors. London's defenses are at peak performance, and all seems well for Ryker; his wife, Celia; and Lance, their fifteen-year-old son. But, when a mysterious Frenchman arrives with talks of impending war, American musicians in the forest, and strange automatons, Ryker must figure out who is his friend, and who is his foe in order to save what he has worked so hard to create.

Reality Check by Eric Garrison

Description from Amazon.

When a quantum supercomputer's "reality simulator" program causes temporary insanity in its beta-testers, Lee Green rolls up his sleeves and dives into a virtual world to debug the problem. Only he discovers that place is more real than anyone imagined. He finds alternate versions of his friends in that mad science reality, their lives and relationships very different from those in the "real" world. Quantum entanglements become romantic entanglements as he meets his love again in each new dimension. Lee must save these other lives, decide which destiny is truly his, and what he's willing to sacrifice to get there.

Secrets of the Fire Sea by Stephen Hunt

Description from Amazon.

The isolated island of Jago is the only home Hannah Conquest has ever known. But her carefree existence comes to an abrupt halt when her guardian, Archbishop Alice Grey, is brutally murdered. Someone desperately wants to suppress a secret kept by the archbishop, and if the attempts on Hannah's own life are any indication, the killer believes that Alice passed the knowledge to her ward before her head was separated from her neck.

Meanwhile, a deadly power struggle is brewing on Jago. And as Hannah digs deeper into the mystery Alice left behind, assisted by two rather different detectives, she must race to unravel a chain of ancient riddles in order to save not just her own life, but her island home itself!

Secrets of the Fire Sea is a rollicking tale of high adventure and derring-do set in Stephen Hunt’s Victorian-style clockwork world filled with steammen and aliens, fantastical creatures and dastardly villains…and some remarkable heroes that steampunk fans will cheer for.

E-books

Bully! by Mike Resnick

Description from Amazon.

In March 1909, Theodore Roosevelt went on a safari to central Africa. In this fictionalized account of that trip, Mike Resnick takes us on an amusing “what-if” with Roosevelt deciding to “liberate” the native Africans from Belgian rule and to set up a model democratic state in the heart of Africa.

Check out my review of the anthology The Other Teddy Roosevelts which contains this short story.

Seer by Mark Teppo

Description from Amazon.

When a merchant appears at the Catalonian chapter house of the Shield-Brethren, seeking to hire guards for his caravan, young Andreas is suspicious. Knights with his martial prowess are above protecting mere cargo wagons. Yet Andreas’s wanderlust outweighs his concern, and soon the group is headed to the merchant’s mountain village—and into great danger.

As the caravan approaches, a woman suffering from terrifying visions feverishly paints her latest revelation—in her own blood. The image horrifies her fellow villagers, who fear an imminent attack, or worse, the return of the brutal Inquisition. But when Andreas deciphers the painting’s true meaning, it may forever impact his wandering ways, his unspoken fears, and his very future with the Shield-Brethren.

Following Sinner and Dreamer, this Foreworld SideQuest reveals the painful truth that sometimes seeing what is to come is far worse than not knowing.

Audio

The Beast of Calatrava by Mark Teppo

Description from Amazon.

After a battle left Ramiro Ibáñez de Tolosa’s face terribly disfigured, the knight of the Order of Calatrava abandoned his sword for a pastoral existence. But his beastly appearance horrifies all those who cross his path — with the exception of his adoring and pregnant wife. Can he keep Louisa and their unborn child safe from the war that is coming to Iberia? As Ramiro prepares for his child’s birth, Brother Lazare of the Cistercian order searches for a means to inspire men as he travels with the crusading Templars. He seeks swords of legend — named blades carried by heroes of old — believing such symbols have the ability to rally men in a way no king could ever accomplish. But when he learns of the stories told of the mysterious monster that haunts the Iberian battlefields, he wonders what sort of power this new legend might contain — the legend of a man whose scarred face and cold demeanor cannot hide his heroic soul.

To fans, authors and publishers...

Do you want to see your work given a shout out on our New Releases segment? Contact Mitro 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, a blogger on Amazing Stories and a volunteer editor for Alt Hist magazine. His fiction can be found at Echelon Press, Jake's Monthly and The Were-Traveler. 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.

Review: "Angels of Vengeance" by John Birmingham

Grade: A-

Angels of Vengeance by John Birmingham is the latest (and last?) novel in the trilogy that began with Without Warning.  Some backstory, our tale begins when a dome of energy descends onto North America on the eve of the Iraq War, covering most of the continent. Millions perish and anyone who attempts to enter the dome disappears as well.  The United States of America (except for Alaska, Hawaii, and a small enclave around Seattle) is destroyed, along with  large chunks of Canada and Mexico (plus the Bahamas but no one mentions them at all, so screw it).  While some mourn or celebrate the loss of life, it becomes clear that a world without America is a bad place indeed. The world economy collapses and the global environment is ruined as nuclear reactors fail and fires rage in the depopulated North America with no one around to stop them.

The story continues in After America.  The dome is gone and the North American wilderness is open for recolonization.  The United States is struggling to retake its lost homeland from gangsters, pirates, scavengers and Islamist fighters fleeing the irradiated Middle East (after Israel carried out the Samson Option), which comes to a climax in the epic Battle of New York.  A greater threat, however, comes from Texas where a mad former general will either remake America in his own image or force the country into a bloody civil war.  In the rest of the world, the geopolitical situation is fluid and new powers our testing the old order.

Angels of Vengeance concludes many of the story lines began in the previous two books.  While Birmingham uses many point of views to tell the story, there are three characters who are the primary plot movers, our "angels".  First, we have Echelon agent Caitlin Monroe, or "Commando Barbie" as some call her.  She is on the hunt for the terrorist who instigated the civil war in France and the Battle of New York.   She really wants him dead and will go anywhere and do anything to accomplish her goal.  Second, we have Sofia Peiraro, a teenage girl who witnessed the murder of her family in Texas and survived the trek north to Kansas City with her father, only to learn that he has been murdered.  She suspects it was ordered by General "Mad Jack" Blackstone, governor of Texas, and she is now heading south to avenge her family.  Finally there is Julianne Balwyn, a British-born aristocrat turned smuggler. She is being stalked through Darwin, Australia, now a cyberpunk-esque free port in this changed world, by hitmen ordered to take her and her friends out by someone powerful with a score to settle.  To stop him, Jules will have no choice but to put herself in the open and let her hunters strike.

I have enjoyed Birmingham's works for three main reasons: bringing techno-thrillers to alternate history, not being afraid to kill off important characters and the use of strong female characters in a genre dominated by men.  He did not disappoint me in this novel and I especially was amused by how Microsoft dominates the tech world with their smart phones having that annoying paper clip, Microsoft Where? and people saying "go MSN it."  More importantly, the entire series has been a plausible and very descriptive scenario on what was likely to happen if the United States were to disappear.  It also had good character development and, of course, action.

If I had any real complaint it was how James Kipper turned out.  I felt that he went from a reluctant rebel, to idealistic leader and finally to naive politician.  Considering the events of After America I found it odd how he evolved into someone who could not be bothered with making the hard choices.  Since he is only a minor character in this novel, however, his presence does not do enough to ruin the story, but it is disappointing to see one of my favorite characters lose what made me like the guy in the first place.

I guess the last thing to talk about is whether or not this novel is a conclusion to the series.  Certainly the final epilogue leaves it open for more books and there is still so much going on in the world that could be covered.  The ending, however, might just be the only plausible way to end such a story.  Life does not stop for the characters just because the book ends.  There are no real happy endings, only life going on, with its pitfalls and promises.  I really did enjoy the series and I hope those reading this review who have not read the series will go and pick out these books to read.

Also if anyone wants to make a map of what they think the world of Without Warning looks like, I would love to post it on Weekly Update.

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Mitro is founder, editor and contributor of Alternate History Weekly Update. When he is not busy writing about his passion for alternate history, he spends his time working as a licensed attorney in the state of Illinois and dreams of being a published author himself one day.

New Releases 4/10/2012

New Books (Hardcover and e-book)

Angels of Vengeance by John Birmingham

Description from Amazon.

When an inexplicable wave of energy slammed into North America, millions died. In the rest of the world, wars erupted, borders vanished, and the powerful lost their grip on power. Against this backdrop, with a conflicted U.S. president struggling to make momentous decisions in Seattle and a madman fomenting rebellion in Texas, three women are fighting their own battles—for survival, justice, and revenge.

Special agent Caitlin Monroe moves stealthily through a South American jungle. Her target: a former French official now held prisoner by a ruthless despot. To free the prisoner, Caitlin will kill anyone who gets in her way. And then she will get the truth about how a master terrorist escaped a secret detention center in French Guadeloupe to strike a fatal blow in New York City.

Sofia Peiraro is a teenage girl who witnessed firsthand the murder and mayhem of Texas under the rule of General Mad Jack Blackstone. Sofia might have tried to build a life with her father in the struggling remnants of Kansas City—if a vicious murder hadn’t set her on another course altogether: back to Texas, even to Blackstone himself.

Julianne Balwyn is a British-born aristocrat turned smuggler. Shopping in the most fashionable neighborhood of Darwin, Australia—now a fantastic neo-urban frontier—Jules has a pistol holstered in the small of her lovely back. She is playing the most dangerous game of all: waiting for the person who is hunting her to show his face—so she can kill him first.

Three women in three corners of a world plunged into electrifying chaos. Nation-states struggling for their survival. Immigrants struggling for new lives. John Birmingham’s astounding new novel—the conclusion to the series begun in Without Warning and After America—is an intense adventure that races from the halls of power to shattered streets to gleaming new cities, as humanity struggles to grasp its better angels—and purge its worst demons.

Unholy Night by Seth Grahame-Smith

Description from Amazon.

From the author of the New York Times bestselling Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, comes UNHOLY NIGHT, the next evolution in dark historical revisionism.

They're an iconic part of history's most celebrated birth. But what do we really know about the Three Kings of the Nativity, besides the fact that they followed a star to Bethlehem bearing strange gifts? The Bible has little to say about this enigmatic trio. But leave it to Seth Grahame-Smith, the brilliant and twisted mind behind Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to take a little mystery, bend a little history, and weave an epic tale.

In Grahame-Smith's telling, the so-called "Three Wise Men" are infamous thieves, led by the dark, murderous Balthazar. After a daring escape from Herod's prison, they stumble upon the famous manger and its newborn king. The last thing Balthazar needs is to be slowed down by young Joseph, Mary and their infant. But when Herod's men begin to slaughter the first born in Judea, he has no choice but to help them escape to Egypt.

It's the beginning of an adventure that will see them fight the last magical creatures of the Old Testament; cross paths with biblical figures like Pontius Pilate and John the Baptist; and finally deliver them to Egypt. It may just be the greatest story never told.

Recommended Past Releases

Taft 2012 by Jason Heller

Description from Amazon.

HE'S BACK.
AND HE'S THE BIGGEST THING IN POLITICS.

He is the perfect presidential candidate. Conservatives love his hard-hitting Republican résumé. Liberals love his peaceful, progressive practicality. The media can’t get enough of his larger-than-life personality. And all the American people love that he’s an honest, hard-working man who tells it like it is.

There’s just one problem. He is William Howard Taft . . . and he was already president a hundred years ago. So what on earth is he doing alive and well and considering a running mate in 2012?

A most extraordinary satire, Jason Heller’s debut novel follows the strange new life of a presidential Rip Van Winkle: a man who never even wanted the White House in the first place, yet finds himself hurtling toward it once more—this time, through the media-fueled madness of 21st-century America.

Editor's Note

If you are a fan, author or publisher and want to see your work given a shout out on our New Releases segment, contact Mitro at ahwupdate@gmail.com.  We are looking for works of alternate history, counterfactual history, steampunk, historical fantasy, time travel or anything that warps history beyond our understanding.

* * *

Mitro is founder, editor and contributor of Alternate History Weekly Update. When he is not busy writing about his passion for alternate history, he spends his time working as a licensed attorney in the state of Illinois and dreams of being a published author himself one day.

Weekly Update #26

Editor's Note

We beat our monthly page view record from August!  This could not have been done without the help of our fans.  Our new record (that I have every intention of beating in November) is at 10:53 AM CST...3360!

In the meantime, I am reading Prologue by Greg Ahlgren.  It is an alternate history/time travel novel where scientists and rebels from a timeline where the Soviet Union won the Cold War attempt to change history by travelling back to the 1960s and preventing President Kennedy from making the choices that led to America's defeat.  An intriguing POD, I hope to post a review of the novel eventually and Greg has graciously agreed to do an interview as well.  Along with that upcoming interview, author Dale Cozort has also agreed to an interview.  So you have two interviews to look forward to in the near future.

This week Korsgaard will be doing a showcase on Green Antarctica and I will also be posting another Airship Update.  Sorry I do not have more info on future posts, but I promise that if you keep an eye out for new posts you will not be disappointed.

And now the news..,

Coming Soon: Wild Cards film

Syfy Films, the theatrical division created in December 2010 as a joint venture between Syfy and Universal Pictures, has acquired the screen rights to Wild Cards.  For those who do not know, Wild Cards is a science fiction and superhero anthology series set in a shared universe. The series was created by a group of New Mexico science fiction authors, but it is mostly pulled together and edited by best-selling author George R. R. Martin (who will be an executive producer on the film) with assistance by Melinda Snodgrass, also a contributor to the series (who will be writing the screenplay and be executive producer as well). 

The POD is as follows: in 1946, a genetically-tailored virus from outer space was released in Earth's stratosphere, killing many but giving super powers to others.  The series documents many effects of the virus during the ensuing decades as super-heroes and super-villains appear all over the world, but history does not change as much as you would think.  Nevertheless, with comic books movies and Martin's Game of Thrones being so popular, this alternate history may have a good chance of being made.

John Birmingham Update!

John Birmingham has been busy recently.  His new novel Angels of Vengeance, the final book in a trilogy chronicling the events that happened after a wave of energy wipes out human life across much of North America on the eve of the Iraq War, is going to be published in Australia.  Those in the States, however, will have to wait until April 10, 2012 to get their issue.

In the meantime, you can read an excerpt from the novel and catch an interview with Birmingham on Shearer's Books Blog.

Alternate History on reddit

You can find alternate history communities everywhere on the Internet, and reddit is no exception.  For those who do not know, reddit is a social news website where the registered users submit content, which could either be links or a text "self" post. Other users then vote the submission "up" or "down," which is used to rank the post and determine its position on the site's pages and front page.  The site is divided into "subreddits" where people can post specific types of content.

So what alternate history related subreddits are there?  Well first there is HistoricalWhatIf, which acts as the Alternatehistory.com of reddit.  Users can post what ifs and other users can discuss them in the comment section.  No links though, if you want to post links to other AH sites you will have to go to Uchronie or Althistory.  You may notice that I have begun posting links to Alternate History Weekly Update in those two subreddits, so that is another place to stay updated on what is happening on this blog.

Finally, we have the subreddit for the proposed film Rome, Sweet Rome.  Some of you may remember a recent Weekly Update how a pitch for an alternate history film was picked up after it received significant number of votes of reddit.  If you want to stay updated on that film, you can do so by subscribing to that subreddit.

Perhaps in the future I will make a subreddit for Alternate History Weekly Update...

Convention Update: Stirling at CoreCon

Those alternate historians living in and around Fargo, ND/Moorhead, MN should check out CoreCon, which is scheduled for May 4-6, 2012.  Alternate history author S. M. Stirling will be the guest of honor and since he generally does not leave the West Coast all that often, now is the time to take advantage of his foray into the cold MidWest and go and meet him.

Links to the Multiverse

Articles

Counterfactual: What if David Davis Had Been Elected Leader of the Conservative Party in 2005? by Iain Dale at Dale & Co.

Counterfactual: What If The UK Had Not Gone to War in Iraq in 2003? by Tony McNulty at Dale & Co.

Get a sneak peek at the multiverse by Alan Boyle at msnbc.

Waiting For New Universes by Adam Frank at NPR.

Books

Atlantis and Other Places (audiobook) by Harry Turtledove reviewed by Jackson District Library.

The Big Switch by Harry Turtledove reviewed by Books for a Buck.

The Greyfriar (Vampire Empire #1) by Clay Griffith & Susan Griffith reviewed by Dawn at Absolute Forest of Words.

Comics

Ben Towle gives steampunk a fresh twist by Brigid Alverson at CBR.

The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists by Seth reviewed by Ian Daffern at Quill & Quire.

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Mitro is founder, editor and contributor of Alternate History Weekly Update. When he is not busy writing about his passion for alternate history, he spends his time working as a licensed attorney in the state of Illinois and dreams of being a published author himself one day.