Recommended reading on alternate history

Discussions on alternate history, including events up to 20 years before today. Hosted by Terry Duncan.
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Panzer Leader
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#16

Post by Panzer Leader » 31 Mar 2007, 06:39

Well anyways here is a scenario in which WWI breaks out in 1905.

http://www.althist.com/great_war_in_1905.htm

panzerkrieg
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#17

Post by panzerkrieg » 03 Apr 2007, 19:17

http://www.amazon.com/Future-Wars-World ... 0446364215

I like this one .....esp. the wars in middleeast and against N korea


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#18

Post by konig15 » 14 Apr 2007, 00:20

Worldwar by Harry Turtledove is always a fun read:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/104 ... s=Worldwar

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#19

Post by Panzer Leader » 28 Apr 2007, 21:48

Rising Sun Victorious: The Alternate History of How the Japanese won the Pacific

By Peter Tsouras

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#20

Post by iansemmens » 24 May 2007, 08:53

A choice for some light hearted reading is Zach Parsons, My Tank is Fight. All about the wacky inventions that never made it in World War 2, and he writes brief narratives on what he believed would have happened had they been successful.

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#21

Post by Panzer Leader » 09 Jun 2007, 20:39

I have a couple of WWII alternate books to add to the list.


IF HITLER HAD WON (The Plans He Made, The Plans He Carried Out, The Plans He Hoped To Achieve)
By Richard Richard Osborne

Hitler Triumphant: Alternate Decisions of World War II
By Peter Tsouras

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#22

Post by Stahlschmidt » 29 Jun 2007, 10:27

I like the Alternative Luftwaffe series by John Baxter, He also does a couple of books on an alternative Kriegsmarine with aircraft carriers and one on alternative Australian Air force and navy air arm, Jolly good reads

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#23

Post by Spitfire10001 » 07 Jul 2007, 00:55

There's a book i don't remember the name of but it is set in 1962 and Hitler is still alive, wish i'd brought it now, (damn)!!!!

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#24

Post by phylo_roadking » 07 Jul 2007, 20:59

"Marching through Georgia" S.M. Stirling The "Draka" - a ubermenschen civilisation orginating in South Africa by combining the Boers with rump Confederate diehards exiled from the US and Tories from Post-1776 USA instead of them going to Canada...end up dominating Africa and headimg for Europe via mountain passes in Russian Georgia held by the Wehrmacht...superior technology and physical strength meets a similarly-motivated enemy...

"1945" by NEWT GINGRICH - yes, that's right...LOL - Hitler DOESN'T declare war on the US on 8th December 1941. The US defeats Japan conventionally then turns isolationist; Hitelr decides to remove the Manhattan Project from the gameboard by dropping Otto Skorzeny on Oak Ridge and bombing Los Alamos! But its all a diversion as he launches a suprise attack on Scotland from Norway - commanded by Rommel - while on the quiet George Patton makes ready for a fast dash across the Atlantic before the fires are out in Oak Ridge....setting the scene for a sequel that was never written :-( Skorzeny is stymied by a Naval Intelligence good guy and the local sheriff, a middle-aged WWI veteran called....Alvin York.....!

"Ruled Britannia" by Harry Turtledove. The Spanish Armada is successful, the Catholic Spain rule England, Elizabeth is a prisoner in the tower, everyone has been forced to convert to Catholicism...and at the same time as the Spanish approach a rabble-rousing playwright called William Shakespeare to write a play to celebrate the Spanish victory....the English resistance approach him to write a play that will rouse loyal Neglishmen and spark off a popular rising agains the invaders....

"The Man In The High Tower" by Philip K Dick (Blade Runner) - a group of hippy citizens in a post-Nazi conquest USA travel to see a famous clairvoyant, suffering from confusion caused by glimpses into a parallel world where the germans were defeated and the US is a free country - glimpses provided by Tao readings and the I Ching!!!

Need I even mention "Fatherland" by Robert Harris??? :-)

"Roads Not Taken" a collection of short alternative histories edited by Gardner Dozois and Stanley Schmidt

"Pavane" by Keith Laumer. A late 1960s Armada Alternative. Its three hundred years after the Armada arrived and the Spanish conquered England, and as the 20th century dawns, steam traction engines pull road trains through a rural landscape while the Inquisition tries to suppress a dreaded new technology - petroleum....

"All The King's Men" can't remember the author, one paperback edition in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Sealion is successful and whats left of the Auxiliary Units go underground - to reemerge and be the cadre behind a new Resistance. In the week before the final mass rising and American invasion, the leader of the resistance has to chaperone a VIP on a morale-boosting trip around all the places he was seen before the Germans won - George VI....some historical military inaccuracies, but still a real gem.

"When The Kissing Had To Stop" by Constantine Fitzgibbon. Classic 1960s novel of a Britain that goes nuclear-free...then its Socialist government collapses under Russian pressure and the UK is overthrown.

Any of the Larry Bond/Harold Coyle/Eric L. Harry Cold War alternative military fictions.

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#25

Post by Panzer Leader » 07 Jul 2007, 23:17

Spitfire10001 wrote:There's a book i don't remember the name of but it is set in 1962 and Hitler is still alive, wish i'd brought it now, (damn)!!!!
Fatherland?

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#26

Post by phylo_roadking » 31 Jul 2007, 21:17

One i forgot - and its a classic! "1901" by Robert Conroy; the Kaiser's army invades.....Long Island and New York! in an attempt to build an overseas empire, the Germans occupy Long Island with the intention of holding it to ransom in return for Amercia ceeding her overseas possessions to Germany! Red in tooth and claw, and based on actual plans drawn up around the time by the Prussian general staff.

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#27

Post by soldat_m56 » 01 Aug 2007, 18:50

In the Presence of Mine Enemies by Harry Turtledove is good one. Jews try to escape detection in modern-day Nazi Berlin by hiding in plain sight. There is also major political turmoil within the German government.

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#28

Post by phylo_roadking » 01 Aug 2007, 23:47

Nick, is that a "new" Turtledove? I'm not familiar with the title.

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#29

Post by Potsdamerplatz » 02 Aug 2007, 00:02

Some works of fiction which I am happy to recommend to everyone:

THE BERKUT
by Joseph Heywood

A "What If" scenario which begins in the ruins of Berlin in 1945. An SS Colonel flies into Berlin to fake the death of Adolf Hitler and spirit the real Hitler to safety. However a Russian investigator and an OSS officer both rumble the conspiracy and begin the hunt for Hitler in post-war Germany.

Although a work of fiction, this book has meticulous attention to historical detail.

THE LEADER AND THE DAMNED
by Colin Forbes

Another "What If" scenario. This time Hitler is killed in a plane crash in 1943 at Wolf's Lair and Martin Bormann must substitute a doppelganger to take the role of the real Hitler.
'The time bomb which was to kill Adolf Hitler was assembled at Smolensk with great care...'

In 1943 Hitler was at the height of his powers. At his side constantly was Martin Bormann. On his mind constantly was the war against the beleaguered might of Stalin's Russia.

After 13th March 1943 records show a drastic change in his behaviour and personality. This was the date of a bomb attack on his private plane.

If Hitler was destroyed on that date who was the man in the Berlin Bunker in May 1945?

How did Martin Bormann succeed in keeping the anti-Nazi generals from seizing the Reich?

And who was Woodpecker - the Soviet spy at the pinnacle of the Nazi war machine?

Colin Forbes' blistering novel retraces the last two years of a world at war, following the story of a British wing-commander who knew too much and a German secretary who knew much more.. to expose the most startling theory yet about the death throes of the Third Reich...

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#30

Post by soldat_m56 » 02 Aug 2007, 15:25

phylo_roadking wrote:Nick, is that a "new" Turtledove? I'm not familiar with the title.
It is not that new. The book was published in 2003. And it is really set in 2009, so it is not quite present day yet.

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