Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book List - Alternative History Books/Series

Club Book Lists  My Book Lists  Watched Lists  
<?=$who;?> Alternative History Books/Series Books set in worlds where history has diverged from the actual history of the world. For series, please list only the first book. Edit
List created by Elizabeth B. (Cattriona) - on Jul 10, 2010
List Votes: 6 Books: 26 Contributors: 6 Watchers: 10 List Type: Open
1
Cattriona
Elizabeth B. (Cattriona) -
Dies the Fire (Change, Bk 1) (Emberverse, Bk 1) by S. M. Stirling
The Change occurred when an electrical storm centered over the island of Nantucket produced a blinding white flash that rendered all electronic devices and firearms inoperable -- and plunged the world into a dark age humanity was unprepared to face... Michael Havel was flying over Idaho en...  more

Book Votes: 4
2
jscrappy
Janelle C. (jscrappy)
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
In an astonishing feat of empathy and narrative invention, our most ambitious novelist imagines an alternate version of American history. In 1940 Charles A. Lindbergh, heroic aviator and rabid isolationist, is elected President. Shortly thereafter, he negotiates a cordial...  more

Book Votes: 3
3
fantasyisbetter
Tasula W. (fantasyisbetter)
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
For Kivrin, preparing an on-site study of one of the deadliest eras in humanity's history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it meant...  more

Book Votes: 3
4
Cattriona
Elizabeth B. (Cattriona) -
His Majesty's Dragon (Temeraire, Bk 1) by Naomi Novik
From Publisher's Weekly: In this delightful first novel, the opening salvo of a trilogy, Novik seamlessly blends fantasy into the history of the Napoleonic wars. Here be dragons, beasts that can speak and reason, bred for strength and speed and used for aerial support in battle. Each nation has...  more

Book Votes: 2
5
Cattriona
Elizabeth B. (Cattriona) -
Farthing (Small Change, Bk 1) by Jo Walton
Over a summers weekend in 1949 -- but not our 1949 -- the upper-crust "Farthing set," the group that overthrew Churchill and negotiated peace with Hitler eight years before, enjoys a country retreat. Lucy is a minor daughter of two politicians in the group; since her marriage to a...  more

Book Votes: 2
6
Cattriona
Elizabeth B. (Cattriona) -
In the Garden of Iden (The Company, Bk 1) by Kage Baker
A world where the future of commerce is the past.  In the twenty-fourth century, the Company discovered time travel and immortality and preserves works of art and extinct forms of life (for profit of course).  It recruits orphans from the past, renders them all but immortal, and...  more

Book Votes: 2
7
jscrappy
Janelle C. (jscrappy)
Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove
Northern Virginia is ragged and ill-equipped. The battle of Gettysburg has broken the back of the Confederacy and decimated its manpower.Then Andries Rhoodie, a strange man with an unplaceable accent, approaches Lee with an extraordinary offer. Rhoodie demonstrates an amazing rifle; its rate of...  more

Book Votes: 2
8
Cattriona
Elizabeth B. (Cattriona) -
The Rift by Walter Jon Williams
It starts with the dogs. They won't stop barking.... And then the earth shrugs -- 8.9 on the Richter scale in the world's biggest earthquake since 1755. It hits New Madrid, Missouri, a sleepy town on the Mississippi. Seismologists had predicted the disaster... but no one listened. Within...  more

Book Votes: 1
9
Cattriona
Elizabeth B. (Cattriona) -
The Year the Cloud Fell (Fallen Cloud, Bk. 1) by Kurt R. A. Giambastiani
The Year the Cloud Fell will please not only SF and fantasy fans, but also lovers of historical and revisionist Western fiction. In 1886, the U.S. Army experimental dirigible A. Lincoln is making a scouting flight above the Unorganized Territory when a terrific thunderstorm strikes the craft to...  more

Book Votes: 1
10
CrazyaboutFantasy
Mark J. (CrazyaboutFantasy) -
The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
As Bold Bardash, a military horseman, rides west across the steppe and on to the Magyar Plain, he comes across a town in which everyone lies dead.  Long dead.  Plague has struck Europe.  So die the ancestors of Da Vinci, Newton, and Shakespeare.  An alternate history of the...  more

Book Votes: 1
11
fantasyisbetter
Tasula W. (fantasyisbetter)
To Say Nothing of the Dog : How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last by Connie Wi...
In her first full-length novel since her critically acclaimed Doomsday Book Connie Willis, winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, once again visits the unpredictable world of time travel.  But this time the result is a joyous journey into a past and future of comic mishaps and...  more

Book Votes: 1
12
Cattriona
Elizabeth B. (Cattriona) -
Island in the Sea of Time (Island in the Sea of Time, Bk 1) by S. M. Stirling
During a perfect spring evening on Nantucket a violent storm erupts and a dome of crawling, colored fire blankets the island. When the howling winds subside and the night skies clear, the stars appear to have shifted. The mainland has become a wilderness of unbroken forest, where tools of bronze...  more

Book Votes: 0
13
Cattriona
Elizabeth B. (Cattriona) -
Household Gods by Judith Tarr & Harry Turtledove
Nicole Gunther-Perrin is a modern young professional, proud of her legal skills but weary of the daily grind, of childcare, and of sexist coworkers and her deadbeat ex-husband. Then after one exceptionally awful day, she awakens to find herself in a different life, that of a widowed tavernkeeper...  more

Book Votes: 0
14
Cattriona
Elizabeth B. (Cattriona) -
The Family Trade (Merchant Princes, Bk 1) by Charles Stross
Miriam Beckstein is happy in her life. She's a successful reporter for a hi-tech magazine in Boston, making good money doing what she loves. When her researcher brings her iron-clad evidence of a money-laundering scheme, Miriam thinks she's found the story of the year. But when she takes...  more

Book Votes: 0
15
Cattriona
Elizabeth B. (Cattriona) -
The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
Ancient Egyptian magic reaches into the London of 1810 as literary scholar Brendan Doyle heads there from the late 20th century via a time-travel device. the centuries collide in a chiaroscuro of stories in this enormous, fantastical book. Horrobin the clown presses beggars to work, often...  more

Book Votes: 0
16
Cattriona
Elizabeth B. (Cattriona) -
1632 by Eric Flint
1632 is an alternate history written by Eric Flint, the author of Mother of Demons, which was selected by Science Fiction Chronicle as one of the best novels of 1997. Flint is also the co-author, with David Drake, of the acclaimed Belisarius series: An Oblique Approach, In the Heart of...  more

Book Votes: 0
17
Cattriona
Elizabeth B. (Cattriona) -
Alternate Empires (What Might Have Been, Vol 1) by Gregory Benford (Editor) & Mar...
THE UNIVERSE NEXT DOOR  What would have happened if history had been different...if the major events that shaped our times had occured in a different way...or had not occurred at all?  In this stellar anthology collection, twelve of science fiction's most imaginative minds have...  more

Book Votes: 0
18
jscrappy
Janelle C. (jscrappy)
The Leader by Guy Walters
Great Britain, 1937, and the British population has yielded to a regime of terror, enforced by Mosley's secret police. But there are those who would rather die than surrender their freedom. Captain James Armstrong is one such man.

Book Votes: 0
19
WhidbeyIslander
Ron K. (WhidbeyIslander) - ,
Bring the Jubilee (Alternate History Masterpiece) by Ward Moore
"[WARD MOORE IS] ONE OF THE BEST AMERICAN WRITERS." --Ray Bradbury                      The United States never recovered from The War for Southern Independence. While the neighboring...  more

Book Votes: 0
20
fantasyisbetter
Tasula W. (fantasyisbetter)
Anno Dracula by Kim Newman
In 1885, Count Dracula, after four hundred years' brooding in his Transylvanian Castle, came to London, intent on spreading the pestilence of vampirism to the heart of Victoria's Britain. The monster was defeated and destroyed by Professor Van Helsing and his stout-hearted companions, and the...  more

Book Votes: 0
21
fantasyisbetter
Tasula W. (fantasyisbetter)
Snake Agent (Detective Inspector Chen, Bk 1) by Liz Williams
You were supposed to go to Heaven, but ended up in one of the many Chinese hells instead. Who you gonna call? Nobody, you're dead. Luckily, in future Singapore, Detective Chen is on the case. Specializing in supernatural crimes, Chen finds himself in hell teaming up with a demon cop to solve the...  more

Book Votes: 0
22
fantasyisbetter
Tasula W. (fantasyisbetter)
Something from the Nightside (Nightside, Bk 1) by Simon R. Green
John Taylor is not a private detective per se, but he has a knack for finding lost things. That's why he's been hired to descend into the Nightside, an otherworldly realm in the center of London where fantasy and reality share renting space and the sun never shines. For John Taylor, there's...  more

Book Votes: 0
23
Cattriona
Elizabeth B. (Cattriona) -
Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague De Camp
The Roman Empire had spread order, knowledge, and civilization throughout the ancient world. When Rome fell, the light of reason flickered out across the Empire. The Dark Ages had begun; they would last a thousand years. Could a man from the 20th century prevent the fall of Rome? When lightning...  more

Book Votes: 0
24
fantasyisbetter
Tasula W. (fantasyisbetter)
Souls in the Great Machine (Greatwinter, Bk 1) by Sean McMullen
The great Calculor of Libris was forced to watch as Overmayor Zarvora had four of its components lined up against a wall and shot for negligence. Thereafter, its calculations were free from errors, and that was just as well-for only this strangest of calculating machines and its two thousand...  more

Book Votes: 0
25
Cattriona
Elizabeth B. (Cattriona) -
Timeshare (Timeshare, Bk 1) by Joshua Dann
Have you ever wished you could go back to the good old days? At Timeshare Unlimited, you can. It's a very special travel agency where -- if you make it through a careful screening process -- you can arrange an extended voyage to the past, no passport required. You can go the tourist...  more

Book Votes: 0
26
Judyh
Judy H. (Judyh) - ,
Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus (Pastwatch, Bk 1) by Orson Scott Ca...
In one of the most powerful and thought-provoking novels of his remarkable career, Orson Scott Card interweaves a compelling portrait of Christopher Columbus with the story of a future scientist who believes she can alter human history from a tragedy of bloodshed and brutality to a world filled...  more

Book Votes: 0

List Comments

Type your comment about this list into the box below, then click the Save button(Must be logged in)
Note: There is a 255-character limit for each comment:
Comment added 3/7/11 by M. m. B. (m1brown):
The majority of these books are not Alternative History Books/Series, they are time travel and fantasy/magic stories and seriously miscategorized, this list need serious revising by people who actually know what Alternative History Books/Series are.

Comment added 7/23/10 by Mark J. (CrazyaboutFantasy) - :
'The Years of Rice and Salt' by Kim Stanley Robinson is a great Alternative History book.

Comment added 7/14/10 by PhoenixFalls - , :
Makes sense!

Comment added 7/12/10 by Elizabeth B. (Cattriona) - :
Phoenix -- I debated that issue myself, then decided to include the questionable titles, rather than leave off some good books that would still be of interest in this genre :-)

Comment added 7/11/10 by PhoenixFalls - , :
Bah, this 255-character limit is annoying! The posts are meant to be read from the bottom up. . . :P

Comment added 7/11/10 by PhoenixFalls - , :
do not mean as a critique of the list, but just something I thought of when I saw it. . . :)

Comment added 7/11/10 by PhoenixFalls - , :
one we know) but some (like In the Garden of Iden) are actually secret history (as in, on the surface their history looks exactly like ours, but we are shown that underneath our history there are other things going on than we think. . . a distinction I do

Comment added 7/11/10 by PhoenixFalls - , :
I have a minor quibble, because I like subdividing genres like nobody's business. Most of these titles are alternate history (as in, taking history as we know it and changing a major or minor event and thus creating a totally separate timeline from the on