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You Are Here: Home > History Books > Iceland History > Item 152
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Roads Not Taken
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by Gardner Dozois and Stanley Schmidt
Sales Rank: 133824
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List Price: $6.99
$1.90
At Amazon
on 6-21-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Mass Market Paperback with 336 pages
Published by: Del ReyEdition: 1st Edition May 27, 1998
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0345421949
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0345421944
Book Dimensions:
6.7 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
Weighs: 5.6 ounces
Product Review
Although none of the stories in this anthology take place in the future, they qualify as science fiction (or perhaps speculative fiction would be more accurate) because at the heart of each one lies the question "What if?" Only in this case, instead of a question like "What if we had faster-than-light travel?" all the questions revolve around alternative historical events. What if the Chinese had colonized America before the Europeans? What if Joseph McCarthy had become president? As in science fiction, the question is the seed from which the author extrapolates a future and a narrative.
The stories in this anthology cover a wide range of other pasts and presents. Highlights include "Must and Shall" by Harry Turtledove, the modern master of alternative history. His fictional present stems from an alternative Civil War, one that the North still won, but in a very different manner. Gene Wolfe presents a timeline in which World War II is settled by an automobile race, and Robert Silverberg looks at a modern-day world in which the Roman Empire never fell. This anthology will definitely appeal to those who enjoy the curious mental frisson that comes from exploring worlds that are in many ways similar to our own, but also quite different. --Brooks Peck
Book Description
Alternate History: The What-If? fiction that has finally come into its own! Shedding light on the past by exploring what could have happened, this bold genre tantalizes your imagination and challenges your perceptions with thrilling reinventions of humanity's most climactic events. Enter worlds that are at once fanciful and familiar, where fact and fiction meld in a provocative landscape of infinite possibilities. . . .
"An Ink from the New Moon" by A. A. Attanasio
"We Could Do Worse" by Gregory Benford
"The West Is Red" by Greg Costikyan
"The Forest of Time" by Michael F. Flynn
"Southpaw" by Bruce McAllister
"Over There" by Mike Resnick
"An Outpost of the Empire" by Robert Silverberg
"Aristotle and the Gun" by L. Sprague de Camp
"Must and Shall" by Harry Turtledove
"How I Lost the Second World War and Helped Turn Back the German Invasion" by Gene Wolfe
With these dazzling stories, discover just how different things might have been!
Reader Reviews
This is a good one-stop source for short-form Alternate History. Although most of the stories are fairly recent, there are also a few classics thrown into the mix. The almost-inevitable Turtledove story is "Must and Shall". Like many of his other works, this tells about the results of an alternate American Civil War. Abraham Lincoln is assassinated while touring the front in 1864. The North still wins, but Lincoln's successor institutes a harsh, vengeful Reconstruction. In the 1940s, the Southern States are still under military occupation, and full of resentment. Surprisingly, this one of the least interesting stories in the book. The premise is good and the story is readable, but the plot is below Turtledove's usual standards. There is also a Robert Silverberg tale ("An Outpost of the Empire") in which the Roman Empire never fell. The protagonist, a Venetian woman of Byzantine descent, must come to terms with her new Roman governor. It is a decent love story with a good sense of "otherness", but nothing special as far as AH goes. Most of the stories, however, explore less conventional themes. A. A. Attanasio's atmospheric "Ink from the New Moon" tells the tale of an alternate 15th century in which North America has been extensively colonized by Chinese religious outcasts. The protagonist, in a letter to his dead wife, tells of his encounter with three ships bearing strange, bearded men. In "We Could do Worse", Gregory Benford tells the chilling tale of a dystopian alternate USA ruled by Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon. One of the strangest of the stories, and one of the best, is "The West is Red", by Greg Costikyan. Due to a slight difference in human nature, Communism turns out to be much more effective than Capitalism. As the Cold War draws to a close, Russia and China have become the most prosperous countries in the world, while the poverty-stricken US finally prepares to go Communist. The fundamental difference in the nature of the world also leads to some interesting and unexpected changes in fields like computer science. Very imaginative. I'm capitalist to the core, but I loved it all the same! "How I Lost the Second World War", by Gene Wolfe, makes a great closing story. The plot is too weird to describe, but suffice to say that it takes place in an alternate version of the '30s, and involves Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Dwight Eisenhower, an automobile race, a strategic wargame, and an early invention of the transistor. The above is just a sample of what this anthology has to author. There are many other fine stories by many other fine authors. All of them are well worth reading. Go buy it today!
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Roads Not Taken
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Price: $1.90
Updated on 6-21-2008.
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