Must-read Alternate History

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I love Alternate History, so I'm asking the Codex bros on what good must-read Alternate History book I should read.

The man in the High Castle, but you probably know that already.

http://www.uchronia.net/

I don't know if it's a must-read but Fatherland by Robert Harris is pretty good.

alternate history is like the ghetto of sci-fi. The website listed has a comprehensive list though

What's the name of the one based on some African super power named after Francis Drake? The nation was called Drakonz or something lame and it was basically a kids fantasy about how awesome this alternate empire was and how not even the Nazis or Soviets or Americans could defeat the awesome DRAKE armiez. I read some parody of it, of course.

Domination of the Draka

infamous among readers of that noxious stuff because the bad guys win, basically everytime, being the real draw. Will to power and that shit

I read 1632, yes even the grantville gazette don't judge me.
I even read island in the sea of time

God i've read the Belissarius series!
*shoots self*

My preferred alternate history:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Unreason

BTW, probably the best 'alternate history' fantasy writers are those that work around the real events and follow them strictly but add a alternate fantastic explanation for the stuff. Since you were asking for fantasy, look up Tim Powers Phelot. He's not a outstanding writer (books can be pretty boring at first) but they heat up towards the end. Anubis Gate and On Stranger Tides are usually well regarded.

His trilogy was even a kind of ghost story iirc.

There is also Tom Holt, that is kinda known for comic stuff but does interesting work similar to Tim Powers in some books (ex: A Song for Nero)

Ahh yes, and reading the Wiki page for it is hilarious. A nation made up of British slave owners, Confederates, and Icelanders (presumably to add some aryanism)



TOTAL DOMINATION

People love blackbeard for alternate history apparently. On Stranger Tides is about him (and it was also majorly ripped of by two significant cultural franchises)

If you read the 'Island in the sea of time' by the same author, you'll realize he's just providing what the audience wants - in those books the situation gets 'similar' but from the opposite 'undomesticated snowman' angle where a alliance of the island (Nantucket lol) and a proto-england bronze age hippies and persia defeats a large greek/some other ones i forget autocracy. Villains are cartoonish evil as usual, but this time the heroine is a lesbian Horacio Hornblower (no pun intended).

Odysseus is on it, how could i not read it?

I liked Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union; but really it's just a detective story set in an alternate history setting. Also, it's about 99% about jews, so if you're going to be a toughie internet nazi bitch about that kind of thing don't even bother looking at it.

The Man in the High Castle is probably one of the best...

I think the Man in the High Castle is a bit overrated, I don't know how it fares among other alternate history books, but I wouldn't put it very high in my favorite PKD novels list. It's probably so famous because it's the only PKD novel that has won the Hugo award, which is a shame.

A Colder War is pretty neat, if that counts.

+1 for Chabon

I also suggest Bring The Jubilee

well, theres Harry Turtledowe, Harry Winter (swedish author), John Ringo (the watch on the rhine) Greg Bear and many others.

i remember reading a great fanmade 10+ pages story on the net in my old alt-history heydays on how Finland won the winter war after Sweden joined in and gained Karelia, Murmansk and occupied large parts of Novgorod into the 1980's together with Sweden and a victorious Nazi-Germany, and the main story was some murder mystery while a big political meeting between Sweden, Germany and Finland about Novgorods independence was being held in Helsingfors.

cant for my life remember the title or author anymore, i wished i had saved it to txt after i read it.

there where also the exaggerated ones, like the one where Karl XII won at Poltava and Sweden went on to conquer all of Russia, inventing the machinegun some 100 years earlier, invading Canada or the one where some natives in the Pacific revolted against american rule and won and at the end of the story was about to invade L.A. and many others i have read and scoffed at.

This is it, the worst book.

My thought process:

"Hmm, traveling back in time that far, it will be interesting to see how the inhabitants of the town struggle to adjust to their new circumstances and survive."

But nope, no struggling, just lots of wankery about how awesome moderns are. The language barrier gets like one short paragraph, for example.

I think the grantville gazette is better than the main series now, and that is saying something.

The reason is that the books written by Eric Flint tend to digress on boring narrative streams about 'tolerance of religion' and how everyone on 1600 admires it (villains excepted) and oh, isn't it a great idea about separation on church and state? Then there are the rants about rate of fire 'MORE DAKKA' (which is actually the greatest sin of alternate history in general)
American wankery that doesn't even make sense considering america today, much less europe during and after the 30 years war

At least the gazette still has sensawunda from the 1600'ers which is what originally drew me

Basically if you want to read some (uptimer goes downtime) alternate history you are begging to have some old-fashioned conquerin' to read (even if you're not looking for it) because the audience loves thems some unbalanced warfare and gore. Add up some cultural fellatio towards uptime institutions and you've got the basic recipe

The granddaddy of this sub-sub-genre is Lest Darkness Falls by S. Camp. It's at least bearable since it focuses on technology.

Can recommend neither Man in the High Castle nor Yiddish Policemen. YPU had an interesting setting (Israel relocated to Alaska, basically) but the basic story was pretty banalshitboring and didn't really make good use of the setting. Also, the final confrontation with a man who was basically Ollie North crossed with George W. Bush was facepalm-inducing and really shows that the book was written by a Democrat during the Bush era and was deeply out of place.

Man in the High Castle had a more interesting setting but simply failed to captivate me. The various stories just didn't seem interesting to me and the overarching plot seemed muddled and confused. I can today not remember much about it apart from rocket travel and a preoccupation with I Ching.

A book I CAN recommend is SS-GB by Len Deighton. Set in a world where America never entered WW2 and the world was subsequently split between the Japanese and Germans, it concerns a political murder mystery set in German-controlled London shortly after the war. The setting is very well done and the occasional mentions of political power struggles between top Nazis when Hitler's health starts and an impending conflict with America provide interesting background meat to the storyline. Get it.

Was just about to suggest it

Bah. 1632 series is great, even with the Grantville Gazette series (prior to number 30th). The key is, you need to relax and enjoy the meandering nature of that stuff. In 1632 series I only hate the latest, 1635 Papal Stakes. I blame the new author who dont have the compatiblity.

Even the sub series about Ram movement in Franconia. You really need to change gear in your thinking to learn to like it.

I admit they are pretty much an acquired taste.

Harry Turtledove got a series about alien invasion hitting Earth right before the end of WW2. Pretty interesting in the scope, but not enough for a 3rd reread.

Eric Flint's 2-book series on 1814 war (rivers of war, and arkansas war) is also a pretty good read. My introduction to a few US local figures, like Sam Houston, Andrew Jackson, and a peek into US politic.

i only read it because of the Swedish parts. although i kinda suspect he made Gustavus alot more ...i dunno, "chippy"? then he prob was in reality.