July SFFKit : Alternative history

This month is for alternative history. Let us swin in not so familiar waters with novels such as :

- Stone spring by Stephen Baxter
- Ink and steel and New Amsterdam by Elizabeth Bear
- The man in the high castle by Philip K. Dick
- The dragon waiting by John M. Ford
- The hammer and the cross by Harry Harrison
- Any book by Guy Gavriel Kay but the Fionavar Tapestry and Ysabel
- Gloriana by Michael Moorcock
- The glory of the empire by Jean d'Ormesson, a French novel I'm partial to
- Pavane by Keith Roberts
- The years of rice and salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
- Roma eterna by Robert Silverberg
- Clash of eagles by Alan Smale
- Farthing de Jo Walton

Don't forget the wiki

I hope to read She Who Became The Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan, set in China.

>2 MissBrangwen: Now, that's a good idea ! I didn't think of it but I have it in my TBR pile. This would be a good occasion to read it.

>3 h-mb: I purchased it recently and saw "alternative history" among the tags when I entered it into my LT library, so I immediately noted it down for this KIT!

I'm going to be reading The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon. I'm not much for alternate history, generally speaking, but this has been on my TBR for ages, so it seems like a perfect time to get to it.

I'm planning to read Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford.

It's a bit of a stretch, but I might read Journey to Where by Steven Paul Leiva, in which scientists experimenting with time travel end up in a world where dinosaurs evolved intelligence so homo sapiens did not evolve.

Most if not all of Vlad Ben Avorham's books are alternate history. I'll probably read something by him.

How are we defining alternative history? If a book is generally 'in present day', but a significant historical event from our history happened differently — or not at all — is it still alternative history?

I would say so, yes. The book is set in a parallel present that differs from our own because of the altered history. That’s a fairly common approach in alt history stories, probably more common than stories centered on the actual moment of divergence.

>9 GraceCollection: Yes, that counts as alternative history. The determining element is the change in the past.

I finished Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford.

It is perhaps a bit of a stretch to call Tom Carson's Gilligan's Wake an alternate history, but it does offer some ahistorical explanations for particular events, and since I've already finished a more conventional book in the genre, I'm going to toss this one in as well.

The August thread is here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/372316

I read Alternate Tyrants, one of several "Alternate X" anthologies edited by Mike Resnick in the 1990s.

Read Written on the dark by Guy Gavriel Kay

I read one of Aliette de Bodard's Xuya stories, Butterfly, Falling At Dawn, set in a world where the Chinese were the first colonists to reach North America. Now (our 2006), North America is split between Xuya, the former Chinese colonies, on the West Coast; the United States, the former English colonies on the East Coast; and the Aztecs' Mexica Empire.

I've finished a reread of The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay, still a 5* read. Love Kay's writing.

I read She Who Became The Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan. I must say that I did not totally love it, although I expected to do so, but it is definitely worth reading.

Yes! I finished A Song for Arbonne for this challenge.

>18 staci426: I'm with you there, Staci!

>20 threadnsong: I read A Song for Arbonne for the first time two years ago and I think it has surpassed Lions as my favorite of his so far. I've been slowly working my way through a reread of his books in publication order and filling in ones I've missed over the years.

>21 staci426: I never thought of reading them in publication order. I finally read Tigana a couple of years ago. Song for Arbonne was my first after his Fionavar Tapestry series.