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which alternative history books are the best?
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Samurai
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Posts: 141 		  Quote Guess Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: which alternative history books are the best?
    Posted: 22-May-2008 at 04:11
By best, I mean most plausible. I know alot are BS. Which ones are written the best.
Could have some SciFi element in it if its incorporated well and the rest of it is based on solid history.
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Posts: 3387 		  Quote Aelfgifu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-May-2008 at 19:05
I don't know a lot of alternative history books, but a very good one I read was Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy. It quite realistically tells of a Soviet invasion into Europe, and the subsequent events, from the point of view of a lot of different characters in all sorts of factions and positions.

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Posts: 591 		  Quote Peteratwar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23-May-2008 at 08:44
Turtledove has done varying ones.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Aug-2008 at 06:05
Willim Forstchen & Newt Gingrich wrote an trilogy about the South winning Gettysburg and the rest of the war from that point.
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Posts: 7035 		  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Aug-2008 at 16:55
I'm just re-reading The Once and Future King by T.H.White. It's not a serious alternative history book in the sense of really trying to answer the question '"hat would have happened if..." But it is an alternate history in which the land of Malory's Morte d'Arthur is real, and the Angevin succession a fable.
 
And it has a wealth of knowledge about heraldry, weaponry, wild life, field sports and hunting. As well as a fascinating version of an old story. And a plethora of arguments against violence, and aggressive war.
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Posts: 1409 		  Quote Parnell Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Aug-2008 at 18:12
Not really sure what you mean by alternative history, but sometimes anti-mainstream historiography makes it way into the mainstream. I read 'Origins of the Second World War' by AJP Taylor last year for college, his arguments are now regarded as pretty mainstream thought but back then were groundbreaking and controversial...
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Posts: 0 		  Quote Erasmus Folly Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23-Aug-2008 at 13:13
Certainly one of the best is The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick. This novel won the Hugo award for best SF novel in 1963. It was not the first alternative history novel but it helped define the genre.
 
                 
 

The novel is set in the former United States in 1962, fifteen years after the Axis Powers defeated the Allies in World War II and after the U.S. surrendered to Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. Germany and Japan have occupied the US with the dividing line at the Rocky Mountains.

A truely excellent read.
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Posts: 2120 		  Quote Maharbbal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Aug-2008 at 14:21
I'd say the Plot against America by Philip Roth and Fatherland by Robert Harris both based in a 1960s world after a Nazi victory during WWII. In both cases the US has gone a step closer toward dictatorship under the rule of Kennedy (the father not JFK). One is set in the US, the other in Germany. Both excellent int their own genre. 
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Posts: 1109 		  Quote Count Belisarius Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Aug-2008 at 15:24
The belisarius series by David drake and Eric flint is a truly excellent read.


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Posts: 102 		  Quote Caoimhe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Sep-2008 at 19:42
Niall Ferguson's, Virtual history: alternatives and counterfactuals is an alright one.
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Posts: 2419 		  Quote JanusRook Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Sep-2008 at 20:30




All of these are by Robert Cowley and they are all very good reads, they use a bunch of short (10 pages or so) essays to describe different historical scenarios. I'd recommend these for sure.
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Posts: 8 		  Quote chean Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Mar-2009 at 16:46
One of my favourites is Harry Turtledove's 'The Two Georges'. The basic plot is a detective story set in an America that never left the British Empire. It's a pretty good story and has quite an interesting view of an alternate America.
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Posts: 4620 		  Quote opuslola Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Nov-2009 at 16:44
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=2&oq=faren&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBR_enUS315US315&q=fahrenheit+451

A Ray Bradbury classic! There is also a movie version, which is very good!
I feel the usage of "Alternative History" is miss-applied here! It should also include histories which disagree how the past is already arraigned! In that case, there are dozens also.
http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/history/
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