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Alternative histories (Fiction)

  • Author:
    Butler, Octavia E.
    Summary:

    As the acclaimed Patternist science fiction series begins, two immortals meet in the long-ago past-and mankind's destiny is changed forever. For a thousand years, Doro has cultivated a small African village, carefully breeding its people in search of seemingly unattainable perfection. He survives through the centuries by stealing the bodies of others, a technique he has so thoroughly mastered that nothing on Earth can kill him. But when a gang of New World slavers destroys his village, ruining his grand experiment, Doro is forced to go west and begin anew. He meets Anyanwu, a centuries-old woman whose means of immortality are as kind as his are cruel. She is a shapeshifter, capable of healing with a kiss, and she recognizes Doro as a tyrant. Though many humans have tried to kill them, these two demi-gods have never before met a rival. Now they begin a struggle that will last centuries and permanently alter the nature of humanity.

  • Author:
    Crosbie, Lynn
    Summary:

    Does true love have supernatural power? Where Did You Sleep Last Night is a love story about a teenage girl who embarks on a relationship with Kurt Cobain. Evelyn Gray is a sad and lonely sixteen-year-old from Carnation, Washington who is terrorized by her classmates at school. She spends most of her time in her room reading, writing letters to dead people, listening to old records and talking to the poster of Kurt Cobain above her bed. Her mother is an alcoholic grunge relic from Seattle, whose recollections, books and music help ignite Evelyn’s love for Cobain—a love so painfully strong that it summons the deceased singer to her side. When Evelyn is taken to the hospital after an overdose, she awakens to find Cobain—who has little to no memory of his former life—convalescing in the bed beside her. Once united, they quickly become addicted to drugs and each other. Cobain—renamed Celine Black—and Evelyn escape the hospital and run off together, determined to have everything they want. Inevitably, they become infamous musicians, but despite their mutual devotion, the couple is tormented by strong passion and jealousy. As their celebrity grows, their relationship becomes more excessive, and an episode of sexual violence explodes, shockingly, into murder. A highly original work of haute fan fiction, written in Crosbie’s poetic and emotionally evocative prose, Where Did You Sleep Last Night is an imaginative, surprisingly funny, and touching novel about the adamant persistence of love.

  • Author:
    Norris, Kate
    Summary:

    Teenage Winnie can see splits, the moment when outcomes in the multiverse diverge. In the middle of WWII, and afraid of what her ability could be used for, she keeps it hidden. Only her father knows. But he has a plan.

  • Author:
    Lalumière, Claude
    Summary:

    Somewhere in the Mediterranean lies the mysterious archipelago of Venera, a city-state drenched in erotic romanticism, fuelled by atavistic ritual, and suffused with surreal adventure and intrigue. Outside forces repeatedly attempt to steal its most closely guarded treasure: the secret of the sacred spice vermilion, and its power to alter consciousness and perhaps even reality. Venera Dreams chronicles the city-state's mythic history through antiquity, Roman times, the Renaissance, the Victorian era, the twentieth century, the present, and the far future.

  • Author:
    Tieryas, Peter
    Summary:

    Decades ago, Japan won the Second World War. Americans worship their infallible Emperor, and nobody believes that Japan's conduct in the war was anything but exemplary. Nobody, that is, except the George Washingtons - a shadowy group of rebels fighting for freedom. Their latest subversive tactic is to distribute an illegal video game that asks players to imagine what the world might be like if the United States had won the war instead. Captain Beniko Ishimura's job is to censor video games, and he's tasked with getting to the bottom of this disturbing new development. But Ishimura's hiding something ... He's slowly been discovering that the case of the George Washingtons is more complicated that it seems, and the subversive videogame's origins are even more controversial and dangerous than the censors originally suspected.

  • Author:
    Griffin, Daniel
    Summary:

    A fast-paced literary eco-thriller about the power of resistance, the fine line between activism and terrorism, and what happens when things go too far. Set in 1993 on Vancouver Island, a group of idealistic young activists, determined to do whatever it takes to protect the environment, turn to sabotage. But in a single moment everything they've worked for goes horribly wrong, when a night watchman at a logging company warehouse is killed in an explosion that they set. Two Roads Home follows these activists as their lives-- and their cause-- spiral out of control. Author Daniel Griffin deftly reimagines history: what if, instead of the legendarily peaceful and successful Clayoquot Sound protests of the 1990s, things had gone too far? How far is too far, when it comes to protesting what one sees as injustice? And what happens when that line is crossed?

  • Author:
    Sisco, Cody
    Summary:

    Tortured Echoes is Volume Two of the Resonant Earth saga that began in Broken Mirror. When bioinformatics whiz Victor Eastmore at long last gains control over his frightening mirror resonance syndrome, the data egg his grandfather gave him opens, revealing a posthumous message: Victor, I was murdered. Victor’s best hope for finding justice lies in New Venice, a tourist town in the Louisiana Territories where his family’s company is exploring new treatment options for so-called “Broken Mirrors” and the stim addicts who experience similar symptoms—blank outs, synesthesia, and euphoria. Only by confronting Samuel Miller, the MRS “patient zero” who was responsible for the Carmichael Massacre, can Victor learn the truth. To do that, Samuel must first be weaned off Personil, the drug that keeps his mirror resonance syndrome in check. Can Victor learn the data egg’s darkest secrets without unleashing a violent madman? Meanwhile, a cult dedicated to the sanctity and purity of human life disrupts New Venice with protests and vandalism. When they take an interest in stopping BioScan from medicating MRS patients, including Samuel Miller, Victor finds himself with unlikely allies and divided loyalties. As pressure builds for the nations of the American Union to pass new legislation to control Broken Mirrors, Victor must become an effective advocate for people with MRS or risk being institutionalized along with them. A fast-paced sequel to Broken Mirror, Tortured Echoes continues the sci-fi detective saga of Resonant Earth. In this installment, fans of Broken Mirror will finally get answers to their questions: Why was Jefferson Eastmore killed? How did it happen? Who was responsible? Revisit the world of self-driving cars, stunsticks, brainhackers, and herbalism with Victor, Elena, Ozie, Tosh, and Karine, and several new figures that might help Victor chart a new course for his future, or condemn him to madness.

  • Author:
    Novik, Naomi
    Summary:

    A dazzling blend of military history, high-flying fantasy, and edge-of-your-seat adventure, Naomi Novik's Temeraire novels, set in an alternate Napoleonic era in which intelligent dragons have been harnessed as weapons of war, are more than just perennial bestsellers-they are a worldwide phenomenon. Now, in Tongues of Serpents, Naomi Novik is back, along with the dragon Temeraire and his rider and friend, Captain Will Laurence.Convicted of treason despite their heroic defense against Napoleon's invasion of England, Temeraire and Laurence-stripped of rank and standing-have been transported to the prison colony at New South Wales in distant Australia, where, it is hoped, they cannot further corrupt the British aerial Corps with their dangerous notions of liberty for dragons. Temeraire and Laurence carry with them three dragon eggs intended to help establish a covert in the colony and destined to be handed over to such second-rate, undesirable officers as have been willing to accept so remote an assignment-including one former acquaintance, Captain Rankin, whose cruelty once cost a dragon its life.Nor is this the greatest difficulty that confronts the exiled dragon and rider: Instead of leaving behind all the political entanglements and corruptions of the war, Laurence and Temeraire have instead sailed into a hornet's nest of fresh complications. For the colony at New South Wales has been thrown into turmoil after the overthrow of the military governor, one William Bligh-better known as Captain Bligh, late of HMS Bounty. Bligh wastes no time in attempting to enlist Temeraire and Laurence to restore him to office, while the upstart masters of the colony are equally determined that the new arrivals should not upset a balance of power precariously tipped in their favor.Eager to escape this political quagmire, Laurence and Temeraire take on a mission to find a way through the forbidding Blue Mountains and into the interior of Australia. But when one of the dragon eggs is stolen from Temeraire, the surveying expedition becomes a desperate race to recover it in time-a race that leads to a shocking discovery and a dangerous new obstacle in the global war between Britain and Napoleon.

  • Author:
    Yanagihara, Hanya
    Summary:

    #1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - From the author of the classic A Little Life- a bold, brilliant novel spanning three centuries and three different versions of the American experiment, about lovers, family, loss and the elusive promise of utopia. In an alternate version of 1893 America, New York is part of the Free States, where people may live and love whomever they please (or so it seems). The fragile young scion of a distinguished family resists betrothal to a worthy suitor, drawn to a charming music teacher of no means. In a 1993 Manhattan besieged by the AIDS epidemic, a young Hawaiian man lives with his much older, wealthier partner, hiding his troubled childhood and the fate of his father. And in 2093, in a world riven by plagues and governed by totalitarian rule, a powerful scientist's damaged granddaughter tries to navigate life without him-and solve the mystery of her husband's disappearances.   These three sections are joined in an enthralling and ingenious symphony, as recurring notes and themes deepen and enrich one another: A townhouse in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village; illness, and treatments that come at a terrible cost; wealth and squalor; the weak and the strong; race; the definition of family, and of nationhood; the dangerous righteousness of the powerful, and of revolutionaries; the longing to find a place in an earthly paradise, and the gradual realization that it can't exist. What unites not just the characters, but these Americas, are their reckonings with the qualities that make us human: Fear. Love. Shame. Need. Loneliness.   To Paradise is a fin de siecle novel of marvelous literary effect, but above all it is a work of emotional genius.  The great power of this remarkable novel is driven by Yanagihara's understanding of the aching desire to protect those we love-partners, lovers, children, friends, family and even our fellow citizens-and the pain that ensues when we cannot.

  • Author:
    Vonnegut, Kurt
    Summary:

    According to Kurt Vonnegut's alter ego, the old science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, a global timequake will occur on February 13, 2001, at 2:27 p.m. It will be the moment when the universe suffers a crisis of conscience: Should it go on expanding indefinitely, or collapse and make another great big BANG' For its own cosmic reasons, it decides to back up a decade to 1991, giving the world a 10-year case of deja vu, making everybody and everything do exactly what they'd done during the past decade, for good or ill, a second time. As a character in, and a brilliant chronicler of, this bizarre event, Kurt Vonnegut casts his wicked wit and his unique perspective on life as he's lived it and observed it, for more than seventy years.

  • Author:
    Robinson, Kim Stanley
    Summary:

    History teaches us that a third of Europe's population was destroyed by the Black Death. But what if the plague had killed 99 percent of the population instead? Robinson rewrites history and probes the most profound questions as only he can.

  • Author:
    Blackwood, Gary L.
    Summary:

    In 1777, having been kidnapped and taken forcibly from England to the American colonies, fifteen-year-old Creighton becomes part of developments in the political unrest there that may spell defeat for the patriots and change the course of history.

  • Author:
    Butler, Paul
    Summary:

    The Widow’s Fire explores the shadow side of Jane Austen’s final novel Persuasion, disrupting its happy ending and throwing moral certainties off balance. We join the action close to the moment when Austen draws away for the last time and discretely gives an overview of the oncoming marriage between heroine Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth. This, it transpires in The Widow’s Fire, is merely the beginning of a journey. Soon dark undercurrents disturb the order and symmetry of Austen’s world. The gothic flavor of the period, usually satirized by Austen, begins to assert itself. Characters far below the notice of Anne, a baronet’s daughter, have agendas of their own. Before long, we enter into the realm of scandal and blackmail. Anne Elliot must come to recognize the subversive power of those who have been hitherto invisible to her — servants, maids and attendants — before she can defend her fiancé from an accusation too dreadful to be named. Captain Wentworth himself must learn the skills of living on land; the code of honour and secrecy which has protected him on deck no longer applies on the streets of Bath.

  • Author:
    Turtledove, Harry
    Summary:

    War is brewing yet again as the U.S.A. struggles to occupy Canada, and the C.S.A. begins forcing blacks into concentration camps.

  • Author:
    Metcalfe, Zack
    Summary:

    Sick of covering weddings, birthdays, and protests, photographer Madelyn Hathaway grabs her camera and heads out in the forests of Nova Scotia, looking for inspiration. She finds it and more when her foray into nature photography leads her to discover something thought lost to history. As her husband and friends step in to manage the repercussions, Madelyn delves into an exploration of freedom, history, and responsibility to the natural world that culminates in a decision to fight for what she believes is right. Though it might be too late.

  • Author:
    Roth, Philip
    Summary:

    In 1940, Charles A. Lindbergh, heroic aviator, is elected president. Shortly thereafter, he negotiates an "understanding" with Adolf Hitler. For one boy growing up in Newark, the election is the first in a series of ruptures that threaten to destroy his small, safe corner of America.

  • Author:
    Harrow, Alix E.
    Summary:

    When the Eastwood sisters join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to delve into the oldest magics and draw new alliances in aims of turning the women's movement into the witch's movement.

  • Author:
    Dick, Philip K.
    Summary:

    The basis for the Amazon Original series.

    It’s America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco, the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some twenty years earlier the United States lost a war—and is now occupied by Nazi Germany and Japan.

    This harrowing, Hugo Award–winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to wake.

    “The single most resonant and carefully imagined book of Dick’s career.” —New York Times

  • Author:
    Grahame-Smith, Seth
    Summary:

    In Reconstruction-era America, Vampire Henry Sturges is searching for renewed purpose after the death of his friend Abraham Lincoln in this century-spanning journey through an alternate American twentieth century.

  • Author:
    Turtledove, Harry
    Summary:

    Soon after their successful return to Rhodes, cousins Menedemos and Sostratos find that Greece is a dangerous place after the death of Alexander. Various factions fight and vie for power, and the neutrality of Rhodes itself is threatened as opposing forces maneuver for advantage in the eastern Mediterranean.

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