Alternative histories website

This is by no means news, but I'm fascinated to learn of a website for books about or set in alternative histories. I've enjoyed some books in this genre in the distant past, for example SS-GB by Len Deighton and, some years later, the eerily similar Fatherland by Robert Harris. Maybe the rest of the world knows about this site and I'm the last to know, but in case there are a few others like me, here it is: Ucronia, the alternate (sic) history list. In short, the site is "a bibliography of over 2900 novels, stories, essays and other printed material involving the "what ifs" of history......one or more past events are changed and the subsequent effects on history somehow described. This description may comprise the entire plotline of a novel, or it may just provide a brief background to a short story. Perhaps the most common themes in alternate history are "What if the Nazis won World War II?" and "What if the Confederacy won the American Civil War?" For more about alternate history and this bibliography, please read the extended introduction."

One listing is an anthology of alternative history crime stories by Lou Anders (see here). Looking round the site, I can't always quite see where science fiction ends and alternative history begins, but there are plenty of gems to be found. Here is one title by an excellent author that sounds intriguing: Robert Barnard: Mozart Mysteries. "What if during a visit to England to show off his prodigy son to the English court, Leopold Mozart decided to remain in England as a result of being accidentally overpaid by a royal courtier?" I've never come across these titles, possibly because they were written under a pseudonym, but I shall have to look out for them now.

Comments

[Julie]

Excellent! I'm forwarding this to my husband, who loves alternate history. :)

[Robert]

You might be interested in this new one http://uchronia.net/bib.cgi/label.html?id=chabyiddis. The Yiddish Policemen's Union, by Michael Chabon.

I'm a big SF fan, and like crime fiction, so had high hopes for this award winning novel. However, it didn't have enough SF in it for me and should be filed in crime at the bookshop rather than SF in my opinion.

It's basically a story about a hard drinking maverick cop with ex-wife issues solving a mysterious murder, but in a city that doesn't exist in our reality. That bit is OK, but I was put off by quite how much assumed knowledge I was expected to have about the Jewish religion and its customs and the Yiddish language.

It wasn't for me, but I think a lot of people do like it.

Robert

[Norm]

Thanks for this post Maxine, and the link to Ucronia.

[Henry Gee]

What a great idea! The Yiddish Policemens' Union is a book on my wishlist ... but one of the finest Alternate Histories I've seen is The Alteration by Kingsley Amis, set in 1976 in an England in which the Reformation never happened.

[maxine]

I remember that book, Henry, and now you mention it, it reminds me of Philip Pulman, in whose England electricity never happened, and the Church dominates. Now straying into Harry Potter wizarding/muggle world territory: have your alternative and "real" history happening in parallel at the same time (hope that isn't an oxymoron).

[Ruth]

I've come across a new author in the alternate history genre that you might also enjoy. A.K. Kuykendall's first book Conspirator's Odyssey: The Evolution of the Patron Saint is an excellent blend of fact and fiction that makes it hard to tell where one leaves off and the other begins.

[maxine]

Thank you, Ruth.