List of alternate history fiction
Appearance
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This is a list of alternate history fiction, sorted by type.
Novels by date of publication
Before 1800
- 1490 Tirant lo Blanch by Joanot Martorell, a knight from Brittany stops the Turks from taking Constantinople.
19th century
- 1836 Histoire de la Monarchie universelle: Napoléon et la conquête du monde (1812–1832) (History of the Universal Monarchy: Napoleon And The Conquest Of The World) by Louis Geoffroy, Napoleon's First French Empire emerging victorious in the French invasion of Russia in 1811 and in an invasion of England in 1814, later unifying the world under Bonaparte's rule.
- 1845 P.'s Correspondence by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a New Englander is treated as a madman because of being able to perceive a different reality in which long-dead famous people are still alive (though not necessarily well) in 1845: the poets Burns, Byron, Shelley, and Keats, the actor Edmund Kean, the British politician George Canning and even Napoleon Bonaparte.[1]
- 1895 Aristopia by Castello Holford, the earliest settlers in Virginia discover a reef made of solid gold and are able to build a Utopian society in North America.
1930s
- 1931 If It Had Happened Otherwise edited by J. C. Squire, a collection of alternate history essays.
- 1939. Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp, an American archaeologist is transported to 6th century Rome (AD 535).
1950s
- 1952 The Sound of His Horn by John William Wall, a British naval lieutenant awakens in a Nazi controlled world 102 years on from World War II.
- 1953 Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore, the South was not defeated in the American Civil War because it won the Battle of Gettysburg.
1960s
- 1962 The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, set in a world where the Axis powers won World War II.
- 1964 Farnham's Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein, a direct nuclear hit on a fallout shelter sends the occupants far into the future where racism and slavery are the rule of the day by the decadent but technologically advanced African culture that has survived.
- 1966 The Gate of Time by Philip José Farmer, an Iroquois combat pilot finds himself in a world where the New World is underwater and Native Americans settled in Eastern Europe.
- 1967 The Gate of Worlds by Robert Silverberg, the Black Death of the 14th century kills three-fourths of the European population. Seven centuries later, the main powers are Russia, Turkey, the Aztecs, the Incas, and Japan.
- 1968 The Last Starship from Earth by John Boyd, Jesus Christ became a revolutionary agitator and assembles an army to overthrow the Roman Empire, and established a theocracy that has lasted until the twentieth century.
- 1968 Pavane by Keith Roberts, Queen Elizabeth I of England was assassinated, and in the ensuing disorder, the Spanish Armada was successful in suppressing Protestantism.
- 1969 The Bomb That Failed (British, The Last Year of the Old World) by Ronald W. Clark, The failure of the Trinity test in June 1945 leads to an American invasion of Japan.
1970s
- 1970 All Evil Shed Away by Archie Roy, Due to the assassination of Winston Churchill in 1940, Nazi Germany wins World War II and is locked in a cold war with the United States.
- 1971 Lighter than a Feather by David Westheimer, The Americans invade Japan in November 1945 as part of Operation Downfall.
- 1972 The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad, Adolf Hitler emigrates from Germany to America and used his modest artistic skills to become first a pulp-SF illustrator and later a science fiction writer.
- 1972 Tunnel Through the Deeps by Harry Harrison, Moors won the battle of Navas de Tolosa on July 16, 1212 on the Iberian peninsula, John Cabot discovered America, and George Washington was shot as a traitor.
- 1973 For Want of a Nail by Robert N. Sobel, the American Revolution failed and the British colonies become the Confederation of North America (CNA), while the defeated rebels go into exile in Spanish Tejas, eventually founding the United States of Mexico (USM).
- 1973 The Ultimate Solution by Eric Norden, a world resulting from a total Nazi and Imperial Japanese victory in World War II and partition of the world between them.
- 1974 Das Königsprojekt by Carl Amery, the Roman Catholic church attempts to restore the House of Stuart to the English throne by altering history through the use of a time machine invented by Leonardo da Vinci.
- 1975 Hitler has Won by Frederic Mullally, alternate 1942. Japan struck north rather than south, Russia fell, Germany is unassailable in Europe. A plot to defeat the Roman Catholic church and install Hitler as the new Pope.
- 1976 The Alteration by Kingsley Amis, Martin Luther, rather than beginning the Protestant Reformation, became pope.
- 1978 And Having Writ… by Donald R. Bensen, four aliens arrive on Earth in 1908 and try to advance human technology so they could return home.
- 1978 Gloriana by Michael Moorcock, Queen Gloriana rules over "Albion", an alternative British Empire that rules over America and Asia.
- 1978 SS-GB by Len Deighton, is a detective novel set in 1941 Britain in which the Germans have successfully occupied the country.
1980s
- 1980 The Divide by William Overgard, a novel set in 1976, thirty years after Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan have defeated the United States during World War II.
- 1980 The Moscow Option by David Downing, depicts what would have happened if the German Army had conquered Moscow at the end of 1941.
- 1982-2005 Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Although this is primarily a fantasy and time travel series with elements of steampunk, there are interludes of alternate history. E.g., in one volume, a single scene is set in a world where Spiro Agnew became the 38th US President.
- 1983 The Burning Mountain: A Novel of the Invasion of Japan by Alfred Coppel, during World War II, a lightning strike at the Trinity test postpones deployment of the atomic bomb, forcing the U.S. to invade Japan.
- 1983 The Dragon Waiting: A Masque of History by John M. Ford, fantasy alternate history combining vampires, the Medicis, and the convoluted English politics surrounding Edward IV and Richard III.
- 1983 A Rebel in Time by Harry Harrison, a racist colonel wants to change history by helping the CSA win the American Civil War.
- 1983 Trinity's Child by William Prochnau, depicts a nuclear war waged between the United States of America and the Soviet Union.
- 1984 The Bush Soldiers by John Hooker, the Japanese have successfully conquered and occupied most of the coastal fringe of Australia.
- 1984 West of Eden by Harry Harrison, the asteroid that struck Earth 65 million years ago causing the mass extinction level event which wiped out most of the reptiloids never happened.
- 1985 The Proteus Operation by James P. Hogan, a group of military commandos, diplomats, and scientists travel back to 1939. They try to prevent the Axis Powers from winning World War II.
- 1987 Agent of Byzantium by Harry Turtledove Imperial Byzantine special agent Basil Argyros is sent on various missions in an alternate universe where Muhammad became a Christian saint.
- 1987 Budspy by David Dvorkin, The assassination of Adolf Hitler by a group of conspirators leads to a Germany that dominates much of the world by the 1980s.
- 1987 In Search of the Epitaph by Bok Koh-il, In 1909, Itō Hirobumi survives his assassination attempt by An Jung-geun and succeeds in a complete Japanization of Koreans, which leads to the Empire of Japan dominating Korea by 1987.
- 1988 Alternities by Michael P. Kube-McDowell[2]
- 1988 The Armor of Light by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett, in which Sir Philip Sidney and Christopher Marlowe have survived their historical deaths to battle witchcraft in the courts of Elizabeth I and James VI.
- 1988 A Different Flesh by Harry Turtledove, the ancestors of the Native Americans never crossed into the New World, leaving the Pleistocene biosphere intact at the time of the 17th century AD.
- 1988 Fire on the Mountain by Terry Bisson, John Brown succeeded in his raid on Harpers Ferry and touched off a slave rebellion in 1859
- 1988 Gray Victory by Robert Skimin, taking place in an alternate 1866 where the Confederacy won its independence and has placed Jeb Stuart on trial for losing the Battle of Gettysburg.
- 1988 The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution by Dougal Dixon, a book chronicling the world had the dinosaurs not died out 65 million years ago but instead had kept the mammals in small rodent-like forms.
1990s
- 1990 The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine takes on the roles of modern computers a century early.
- 1990 The World Next Door by Brad Ferguson, people from a world that experienced nuclear war in 1962 interact with people from a world that did not.
- 1990 A World of Difference by Harry Turtledove, the 4th planet of our solar system, named Minerva instead of Mars, is larger and contains intelligent alien life.
- 1992 Fatherland by Robert Harris, set in the 1960s in a Germany which won World War II.
- 1992 The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove, the Confederate Army is supplied with AK-47s by early-21st century white supremacist South African time-travelers.
- 1992 Konpeki no Kantai by Yoshio Aramaki. In an alternative World War II that lasts ten years, Japan becomes a stronger naval power thanks to Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto who appears several years in the past despite dying in the actual World War II. Later adapted into two OVA series, in which at first Japan defeats the Western Allies in the Pacific but eventually teams up with them to fight Nazi Germany.
- 1992 Resurrections from the Dustbin of History by Simon Louvish. Following Rosa Luxemburg's successful 1918 revolution in Germany, Hitler flees to the USA. He becomes a senator for Illinois, and his son Rudolph runs for president in 1968 on a racist platform. Trotsky defeats Stalin in Russia, while Mussolini hangs on to power in Italy.
- 1993 Anti-Ice by Stephen Baxter, explosive scientific discovery made in the 1850s advances technology.
- 1993 Aztec Century by Christopher Evans, Cortez changed sides at the onset of the Conquistador era in the early 16th century, leading to the repulsion of Spanish invasion and occupation of Central America.
- 1993 Down in the Bottomlands by Harry Turtledove, at the end of the Miocene period, the Mediterranean stays dry to the present day.
- 1993 Elvissey by Jack Womack, a dystopian 2033 where a Machiavellian multinational corporation has plans for world domination.
- 1993 The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump by Harry Turtledove, fantasy with an alternate history undercurrent. History unfolded much as it did in our world, except that magic took the place of science. E.g., Adolf Hitler waged a brutal war in the 20th century with magic weapons, Werner Heisenberg defined the uncertainty principle of Thaumaturgy, and flying carpets take the place of automobiles. However, there are some fundamental differences, e.g., the United States and Mexico are both ruled by hereditary monarchies. Most importantly, the gods of all mythologies and religions are literal, proven beings, who coexist in a henotheistic world in relative harmony - a breach in this latter harmony is central to the novel's main conflict.
- 1994 Disaster At D-Day by Peter Tsouras. Erwin Rommel stays in France and organizes a much tougher defense of the Normandy coast against the Allied invasion using theater reserves ordered deployed by Adolf Hitler. The success of the German counterattack, plus additional factors such as bad weather and heavy damage to Allied logistics, forces the Allies to agree to an armistice with the Germans. The plot continues in the story "Rommel versus Zhukov," Tsouras' contribution to the 2002 anthology Third Reich Victorious.
- 1995 1901 by Robert Conroy, depicts a hypothetical war between Germany and the United States at the start of William McKinley's second term as President.
- 1995 1945 by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen, Germans perfected long-range jet aircraft by the end of World War II and conducted successful raids in North America against the US nuclear program.
- 1995 December 7, 1941: A Different Path by David L. Alley, Instead of bombing Pearl Harbor, the Japanese join Germany in attacking the Soviet Union.
- 1995 Dead, Mr. Mozart by Bernard Bastable, Wolfgang Mozart settled in England as a young man and never returned to his native Austria. As a respected but fairly impoverished composer and piano teacher in the 1820s (30 years after his death in our timeline), he is unwillingly pulled into a scandalous intrigue involving close relatives of King George IV. Later followed by a sequel, Too Many Notes, Mr. Mozart.
- 1995 The Two Georges by Harry Turtledove and Richard Dreyfuss, King George III of Great Britain and George Washington reached a settlement where the 13 Colonies remained within the British Empire with increased autonomy and virtually all of their grievances redressed.
- 1996 Attentatet i Pålsjö skog by Hans Alfredson, Swedish communists blow up a German train passing through Sweden, killing Eva Braun who was on board.
- 1996 Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle, the physics of this world and its surrounding cosmos are based on the physics of Aristotle and ancient Chinese Taoist alchemy.
- 1996 Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card, in which scientists from the future travel back to the 15th century to prevent the European colonization of the Americas.
- 1996 Voyage by Stephen Baxter. The United States conducts a Mars landing in 1986 as a result of inspiration by John F. Kennedy, who survived the assassination attempt on him in 1963.
- 1997 Back in the USSA by Eugene Byrne and Kim Newman, the United States experienced a communist revolution in 1917 and became a communist superpower, while Russia did not.
- 1997 K is for Killing by Daniel Easterman, Charles Lindbergh is elected president rather than Franklin Delano Roosevelt and a fascist organization calling itself the Amero-Aryan Alliance is brought to power and turns the country into a police state, complete with slavery, concentration camps, and ghettos.
- 1997 Making History by Stephen Fry, a time traveler creates a history in which Adolf Hitler was never conceived, let alone born.
- 1999 Battle Royale by Koushun Takami. Japan is a police state that terrorizes the populace by forcing children to kill each other in something called "The Program."
- 1999 Resurrection Day by Brendan DuBois, where the Cuban Missile Crisis ended in a brief nuclear exchange between the U.S. and Soviet Union that wiped out several cities and has led to America being under military rule.
2000s
- 2000 Fox on the Rhine by Douglas Niles and Michael Dobson, Heinrich Himmler takes over as leader after Hitler is assassinated in 1944 and arranges a cease-fire with the Soviet Union to free German forces. He then appoints Erwin Rommel to command over the German forces in Western Europe.
- Fox at the Front (2003) - Taking place immediately after Fox on the Rhine, Rommel and George Patton work together to get the Allies to Berlin ahead of the Soviets.
- 2001 After Dachau by Daniel Quinn, Germany wins World War II and eventually all non-whites are killed off.
- 2001 The Children's War by J.N. Stroyar, in World War II Germany does not attack the Soviet Union and develops a nuclear weapons program.
- A Change of Regime (2004)
- 2001 The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding, Victorian London is overrun by the wych-kin, demonic creatures that have rendered the city uninhabitable south of the river, and which stalk the streets after dark.
- 2002 Ice by Shane Johnson, the Apollo 19 mission suffers a major system failure, forcing its crew to strike out on their own.
- 2002 The Peshawar Lancers by S. M. Stirling, in 1878 a meteor shower devastates Europe and North America forcing the European empires to relocate their population to their colonies.
- 2002 Ruled Britannia by Harry Turtledove, the Spanish Armada conquers England and forces Shakespeare to write a play about Philip II. At the same time he is secretly writing a play for the English underground resistance.
- 2002 The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson, the Black Death of the 14th century kills 99% of the people in Europe and over the next seven centuries, India, China and the Islamic world come to dominate the planet.
- 2003 Cold War Hot: Alternate Decisions of the Cold War edited by Peter G. Tsouras, a collection of alternate history scenarios in the Cold War.
- 2003 Collaborator by Murray Davies, set in a Nazi occupied Great Britain centering on a former POW and life in occupied Britain.
- 2003 Conquistador by S.M. Stirling, an inter-dimensional gateway is discovered in California, which gives access to an alternate Earth in which the empire of Alexander the Great flourishes, and where Europeans never discovered America.
- 2003 In the Presence of Mine Enemies by Harry Turtledove, a family of secret Jews hide in Berlin two or three generations after a Nazi victory in World War II.
- 2003 Roma Eterna by Robert Silverberg, the Red Sea did not part before Moses and as a result, the Roman Empire grew and prospered without the influence of Christianity.
- 2004 Airborn by Kenneth Oppel, airships, rather than airplanes, are used extensively for world travel.
- 2004 The Plot Against America by Philip Roth, Charles Lindbergh is elected President of the United States in 1940 and collaborates with Nazi Germany.
- 2005 Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, sterile clones are bred for their organs in what appears to be an alternate version of the 1990s.
- 2006 1862 by Robert Conroy, depicts what might have happened if England had entered the American Civil War on the side of the Confederacy due to the RMS Trent incident.
- 2006 Half Life by Shelley Jackson, the atomic bomb resulted in a genetic preponderance of conjoined twins, who eventually become a minority subculture.
- 2007 1945 by Robert Conroy, depicts what could have happened if the United States had to invade Japan in World War II despite using the atomic bomb.
- 2007 Ice by Jacek Dukaj, the First World War never occurred and Poland is still under Russian rule.
- 2007 Mainspring by Jay Lake, a young clockmaker's apprentice, who is visited by the Archangel Gabriel is told that he must take the Key Perilous and rewind the Mainspring of the Earth.
- 2007 Russian Amerika by Stoney Compton, Alaska is still owned by Russia.
- 2007 The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon, during World War II, a temporary Yiddish-speaking settlement for Jewish refugees was established in Alaska in 1941.
- 2007 Macarthur's War by Douglas Niles and Michael Dobson. The US defeat in Midway forces Douglas MacArthur to take over the Allied command in the Pacific and later launch the invasion of Japan. Isoroku Yamamoto also serves as Japan's war minister.
- 2008 The Execution Channel by Ken MacLeod, Al Gore is elected president in 2000 and the 9/11 attacks involved different targets.
- 2008 The Man With the Iron Heart by Harry Turtledove, a German insurgency at the end of World War II.
- 2008 Without Warning by John Birmingham, On the eve of the Iraq War in March 2003, an energy field appears in North America, wiping out all human and animal life within it.
- 2009 1942 by Robert Conroy, A third wave of airstrikes on Pearl Harbor forces the American fleet to abandon the base, opening up the Hawaiian islands to Japanese invasion.
- 2009 The Infinities by John Banville, In one of an infinite number of universes, Mary, Queen of Scots, executed her cousin Elizabeth, England is a Catholic nation, Sweden is bellicose, Wallace's Theory of Evolution has been discredited, and cold fusion is the principal source of energy.
- 2009 The Age of Ra by James Lovegrove envisions a world where the Ancient Egyptian gods have defeated all other Pantheons and now rule over the world.
2010s
- 2010 After America by John Birmingham, sequel to Without Warning.
- 2010 Red Inferno: 1945 by Robert Conroy, the Allied advance on Berlin causes a paranoid Stalin to attack the American troops, forcing the Allies and a semi-rehabilitated Germany to work together to fight off the Soviet threat.
- 2011 The Afrika Reich by Guy Saville, the British are defeated at Battle of Dunkirk allowing the Nazis to conquer Europe and then Africa.
- 2011 Castro's Bomb, by Robert Conroy, depicts Fidel Castro seizing control of Soviet nuclear bombs during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
- 2011 11/22/63 by Stephen King, the protagonist stops the Kennedy assassination, and upon returning to 2011 learns that Kennedy won a second term, but later history saw the US drop a nuclear bomb on Hanoi, India and Pakistan go to nuclear war with each other, Maine leaves the US and joins Canada, Miami is hit with a nuclear bomb, martial law was imposed, and President Hillary Clinton is trying to hold the nation together. Meanwhile, as a result of history being changed, time-space is fraying and the world is physically tearing itself apart.
- 2012 Age of Aztec by James Lovegrove, envisions a world where the Aztec Empire conquered the globe, beginning with the defeat of Hernán Cortés by Moctezuma II.
- 2012 Dominion by C. J. Sansom, Lord Halifax rather than Winston Churchill takes over the war effort in 1940, surrendering Britain to be a satellite state of Nazi Germany.
- 2012 Faultline 49 by David M. Danson, reporter David Danson travels through U.S.-occupied Canada in search of the principal provocateur in the Canadian-American War (a conflict instigated by the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center bombing in Edmonton, Alberta).
- 2012 Himmler's War by Robert Conroy, Hitler is killed by a random Allied bombing in 1944, allowing Heinrich Himmler to become the leader of Germany and push new advances on the Allies.
- 2012 The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln by Stephen L. Carter, Abraham Lincoln survives his assassination and, two years later, faces an impeachment trial.
- 2012 Kirov by John Schettler, the first novel in the longest running alternate history of WWII ever written, follows the saga of the Russian battlecruiser Kirov displaced in time to the 1940s, where its intervention radically alters the history of WWII. (20 linked series novels, and still continuing.)
- 2012 The Mirage by Matt Ruff, Christian fundamentalists hijack airplanes and fly them into buildings in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab States declares a War on Terror and invades the U.S.
- 2012 Rising Sun by Robert Conroy, imagines that the Battle of Midway is a defeat for the U.S. Navy, paving the way for Japan to attack the West Coast of the United States.
- 2012 Pact Ribbentrop - Beck by Piotr Zychowicz, Hitler makes a pact with Poland, so after conquering West Europe, Poles join him in 1941 attack on Soviet Union and defeat it together, dividing its territory.
- 2012 North Reich, by Robert Conroy, considers if Britain had surrendered to Nazi Germany, and had a fascist regime installed across the Commonwealth and Empire, with Canada becoming a base from which Germany prepares to launch a war against the United States.
- 2013 Fallout, by Todd Strasser, The Cuban Missile Crisis leads to World War Three. Twelve-year-old Scott and his family must squeeze into a small fallout shelter with six uninvited neighbors and somehow survive without enough food or water for the next two weeks.
- 2014 Artam: One Reich, One Race, a Tenth Leader by Volkmar Weiss, the first Leader was killed in a plane crash in November 1941, the Reich did not declare war on the United States.
- 2014 Napoleon in America, by Shannon Selin, imagines what might have happened if Napoleon Bonaparte had escaped from exile on St. Helena and wound up in the United States.
- 2014 Time and Time Again, by Ben Elton, the main character travels back in time to stop Gavrilo Princip assassinating Franz Ferdinand in 1914. He wants to prevent WWI saving millions and setting the twentieth century on a less destructive path. However, the outcome is wholly unanticipated.
- 2015 The Madagaskar Plan by Guy Saville, the British are defeated at Battle of Dunkirk allowing the Nazis to conquer Europe and Africa and implement the Madagascar Plan.
- 2015 Clash of Eagles by Alan Smale - first part of the Hesperian Trilogy. The Roman Empire never fell. In 1218, the Roman Emperor dispatch the 33rd Roman Legion to conquer the recently discovered North American continent.
- 2016 Azanian Bridges by Nick Wood is set in a contemporary South Africa where apartheid is still enforced.
- 2016 Manifest Destiny: Lincoln Sneezed by Brian Boyington Lincoln survives John Wilkes Booth's assassination attempt.
- 2017 Eagle in Exile by Alan Smale - second part of the Hesperian Trilogy and sequel to Clash of Eagles.
Novel series
- 1632 series by Eric Flint, an entire modern West Virginia town is transported in time and space to Germany during the Thirty Years' War.
- 1632 (2000)
- 1633 (2002)
- 1634: The Galileo Affair (2004)
- 1634: The Ram Rebellion (2006)
- 1635: The Cannon Law (2006)
- 1634: The Baltic War (2007)
- 1634: The Bavarian Crisis (2007)
- The Anaconda Project (2008-)
- 1635: The Dreeson Incident (2008)
- 1635: The Eastern Front (2010)
- 1636: The Saxon Uprising (2011)
- The Danish Scheme (2013)
- The Age of Unreason by Gregory Keyes, alchemy really works thanks to Isaac Newton.
- Newton's Cannon (1998)
- A Calculus of Angels (1999)
- Empire of Unreason (2000)
- The Shadows of God (2001)
- Anno Dracula series by Kim Newman, the heroes of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula fail to stop Count Dracula's conquest of Great Britain, resulting in a world where vampires are common and increasingly dominant in society.
- Anno Dracula (novel) (1992)
- The Bloody Red Baron (1995)
- Dracula Cha Cha Cha aka. Judgment of Tears (1998)
- Johnny Alucard (TBA)
- Arabesk trilogy by Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Woodrow Wilson brokered an earlier peace to World War I so that it never expanded outside of the Balkans.
- Pashazade (2001)
- Effendi (2002)
- Felaheen (2003),
- Axis of Time series by John Birmingham, an American-led UN Multinational Force arrives uptime from 2021 via a wormhole that was accidentally generated as a byproduct of a scientific experiment to the year 1942.
- Weapons of Choice (2004)
- Designated Targets (2005)
- Final Impact (2007)
- The Belisarius series by David Drake and Eric Flint, opposing factions from the future influence early times through intermediaries for their own purposes: the 'good' side operating through the Byzantine general Belisarius and the 'evil' side operating through the Indian state of Malwa.
- An Oblique Approach (1998)
- In the Heart of Darkness (1998)
- Destiny's Shield (1999)
- Fortune's Stroke (2000)
- The Tide of Victory (2001)
- The Dance of Time (2006)
- Civil War Series by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen, Robert E. Lee wins the Battle of Gettysburg.
- Crosstime Traffic Series by Harry Turtledove, travel between parallel universes is possible.
- Gunpowder Empire (2003) - A world where the Roman Empire never fell and has technology equal to that of the age of Napoleon.
- Curious Notions (2004) - The Central Powers of WW1 won prior to American entry into the conflict and conquered the isolationist USA in the 1950s.
- In High Places (2006) - The Black Death was far more virulent across Europe, leading to a world dominated by Muslims.
- The Disunited States of America (2006) - The USA was unable to agree to a full constitution following victory in the War of Independence, leading to every state becoming a different country by the early 1800s.
- The Gladiator (2007) - The Soviet Union was able to win the Cold War and remake the entire world in their image.
- The Valley-Westside War (2008) - Nuclear War in 1967 lead to the collapse of society.
- Days of Infamy series (2004) by Harry Turtledove - Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor extends to capture Hawaii
- The Domination series by S.M. Stirling, the early entry of the Netherlands on the American side of the American Revolution, causes them to lose the Cape Colony to Britain, which renames it the Crown Colony of Drakia after Sir Francis Drake and settles Loyalists and British mercenaries there who absorb the Boers to set up a slavery-based empire called the Domination of the Draka.
- Marching Through Georgia (1988)
- Under the Yoke (1989)
- The Stone Dogs (1990)
- Drakon (1995)
- Elemental Masters by Mercedes Lackey An alternate Edwardian Earth is home to magicians who have control over the four elements.
- The Serpent's Shadow(2001)
- The Gates of Sleep (2002)
- Phoenix and Ashes (2004)
- The Wizard of London (2005)
- Reserved for the Cat (2007)
- Unnatural Issue (2011)
- Home From the Sea (2012)
- Elemental Magic (2012)
- Steadfast (2013)
- Elementary (2013)
- Blood Red (2014)
- From A High Tower (2015)
- The Emberverse series by S. M. Stirling, an event called "The Change" in 1998 causes electricity, guns, explosives, internal combustion engines and steam power to stop working.
- Dies the Fire (2004)
- The Protector's War (2005)
- A Meeting at Corvallis (2006)
- The Sunrise Lands (2007)
- The Scourge of God (2008)
- The Sword of the Lady (2009)
- The High King of Montival (2010)
- Tears of the Sun (2011)
- Lord of Mountains (2012)
- The Given Sacrifice (2013)
- The Small Change trilogy by Jo Walton, the United Kingdom made peace with Nazi Germany (against Winston Churchill's wishes).
- Farthing (2006)
- Ha'penny (2007)
- Half a Crown (2008)
- Fireball Trilogy by John Christopher, two cousins are transported into an alternate history Earth through a mysterious fireball where the Roman Empire never fell.
- Fireball (1981)
- New Found Land (1983)
- Dragon Dance (1986)
- Germanicus trilogy by Kirk Mitchell, Rome never fell, after Pontius Pilate pardons Joshua bar-Joseph (Christ), and the Romans win a decisive victory at Teutoberg Forest and Latinize Greater Germania.
- Procurator (1984)
- The New Barbarians (1986)
- Cry Republic (1989)
- The Hammer and the Cross series by Harry Harrison, Vikings rebel against the harsh rule of the Catholic Church.
- The Hammer and the Cross (1993)
- One King's Way (1995)
- King and Emperor (1997)
- Hannibal series by John Maddox Roberts, the Carthaginians won the Second Punic War against the Romans.
- Hannibal's Children (2002)
- The Seven Hills (2005)
- Heirs of Alexandria series by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint and Dave Freer, set in a renaissance Europe where the Library of Alexandria was not destroyed by a Christian mob and the now sainted Hypatia of Alexandria and John Chrysostom shaped religious thought, significantly altering how the Church developed.
- The Shadow of the Lion (2002)
- This Rough Magic (2003)
- A Mankind Witch (2005)
- The Hot War series by Harry Turtledove, in response to Chinese intervention in the Korean War, President Harry S. Truman orders the use of atomic weapons against Manchuria in 1951 leading to a full-scale nuclear war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
- Bombs Away (2015)
- Fallout (2016)
- Armistice (2017)
- Insh'Allah series by Steven Barnes, shows an alternate world in which Carthage destroyed Rome, with Europe remaining tribal and an Islamic-dominated Africa colonizing the New World.
- Lion's Blood (2002)
- Zulu Heart (2003)
- Kirov series by John Schettler, several novels that depict the powerful Russian battlecruiser, Kirov, a heavy nuclear guided missile cruiser that is sent back in time 80 years to 1941 (from 2021) and becomes involved in World War II.
- Lord Darcy series by Randall Garrett, a number of short stories and one novel (Too Many Magicians) based on the premise that King Richard I of England returned safely from France and that Roger Bacon had codified the laws of magic.
- Too Many Magicians (1967)
- Murder and Magic (1979)
- Lord Darcy Investigates (1981)
- Ten Little Wizards (1988)
- A Study in Sorcery (1989)
- Lord Darcy (2002)
- The Lords of Creation by S. M. Stirling, an ancient alien civilization makes Mars and Venus habitable and seeds them with Earth life.
- The Sky People (2006)
- In the Courts of the Crimson Kings (2008)
- Nantucket series by S. M. Stirling, the island of Nantucket gets sent back in time to the Bronze Age circa 1250 BC.
- Island in the Sea of Time (1998)
- Against the Tide of Years (1999)
- On the Oceans of Eternity (2000)
- A Nomad of the Time Streams trilogy by Michael Moorcock, a series of novels featuring a grown-up version of E. Nesbit's Oswald Bastable (from The Story of the Treasure Seekers and other books) who experiences a variety of alternate realities that have diverged from his own time-line.
- Warlord of the Air (1971)
- The Land Leviathan (1974)
- The Steel Tsar (1977)
- North American Confederacy series by L. Neil Smith, One single word in the Declaration of Independence differs and Albert Gallatin joins the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 to the benefit of the farmers, rather than the fledgling United States government. This results in the rebellion to become a Second American Revolution. This eventually leads to George Washington being overthrown and executed by firing squad for treason, Gallatin being declared the second president, the U.S. Constitution being declared null and void, and revised version of the Articles of Confederation being ratified, but with a much greater emphasis on individual and economic freedom. These actions eventually lead to the US merging with its neighbors as the North American Confederacy, a libertarian society in the 1890s.
- The Probability Broach (1980)
- The Nagasaki Vector (1983)
- The Venus Belt (1980)
- Their Majestys' Bucketeers (1981)
- Tom Paine Maru (1984)
- The Gallatin Divergence (1985)
- Brightsuit MacBear (1988)
- Taflak Lysandra (1989)
- The American Zone (2001)
- Operation Otherworld by Poul Anderson, the existence of God has been scientifically proven and magic has been harnessed for the practical needs of the adept by the degaussing of cold iron, while the United States is part of an alternate Second World War against the Islamic Khalifate, which has invaded the United States.
- Operation Chaos (1971)
- Operation Luna (2000)
- Pacific War Series by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen, alternate Pacific War.
- Pearl Harbor: A Novel of December 8th (2007)
- Days of Infamy (2008)
- The Pantheon Series by James Lovegrove imagines alternate Earths where the gods of ancient myth and legend are real and play an active role in human affairs.
- The Age of Ra (2009)
- The Age of Zeus (2010)
- The Age of Odin (2011)
- The Age of Aztec (2012)
- The Age of Voodoo (2013)
- The Age of Godpunk (2013)
- The Age of Shiva (2014)
- Red Gambit by Colin Gee, the Soviet Union extended World War II (or started World War III) by continuing to roll across Europe after the defeat of Germany in World War II.
- Opening Moves
- Breakthrough
- Stalemate
- Impasse
- Sacrifice
- Initiative
- Endgame (in progress)
- The series covers a renewed war in Europe, one that is initiated by the Soviet Union. The Western Allies are caught unprepared and both ground and air forces take heavy hits as the Red Army moves inexorably westwards. The series is written as a history, using fictional and real life characters to describe the events of 1945 through to 1947.[3][4][5][6]
- Romanitas Trilogy by Sophia McDougall, the Roman Empire survived to contemporary times.
- Romanitas (2005)
- Rome Burning (2007)
- Savage City (2010)
- The Sky Crawlers series by Hiroshi Mori, follows the journeys and tribulations of a group of young fighter pilots involved in dogfight warfare, and is set during an alternate historical period.
- None But Air (2004)
- Down to Heaven (2005)
- Flutter into Life (2006)
- Cradle the Sky (2007)
- The Sky Crawlers (2001)
- Sky Eclipse (TBA)
- The Southern Victory Series by Harry Turtledove, the South won the American Civil War in 1862 due to not losing the copy of Special Order 191, resulting in the USA and CSA continuing to exist and battling through this timeline's versions of the Franco-Prussian War, the First World War and the Second World War.
- How Few Remain (1997)
- The Great War Trilogy
- American Front (1998)
- Walk in Hell (1999)
- Breakthroughs (2000)
- The American Empire Trilogy
- Blood and Iron (2001)
- The Center Cannot Hold (2002)
- The Victorious Opposition (2003)
- The Settling Accounts Tetralogy
- Return Engagement (2004)
- Drive to the East (2005)
- The Grapple (2006)
- In at the Death (2007)
- Stars and Stripes trilogy by Harry Harrison, Prince Albert dies prematurely and Britain becomes involved in the American Civil War.
- Stars and Stripes Forever (1998)
- Stars and Stripes in Peril (2000)
- Stars and Stripes Triumphant (2002)
- The Tales of Alvin Maker by Orson Scott Card, a North America where people wield magic, or knacks, and the revolution was only partly successful.
- Seventh Son (1987)
- Red Prophet (1988)
- Prentice Alvin (1989)
- Alvin Journeyman (1995)
- Heartfire (1998)
- The Crystal City (2003)
- Master Alvin (TBA)
- Temeraire series by Naomi Novik, the Napoleonic Wars are fought with an air force of dragons.
- His Majesty's Dragon (2006)
- Throne of Jade (2006)
- Black Powder War (2006)
- Empire of Ivory (2007)
- Victory of Eagles (2008)
- Tongues of Serpents (2010)
- Crucible of Gold (2012)
- Blood of Tyrants (2013)
- League of Dragons (Forthcoming, 2015)
- TimeRiders series by Alex Scarrow, three people who have been rescued moments before death are recruited into a secret agency in order to prevent time travel from unraveling history.
- TimeRiders (2010)
- TimeRiders: Day of the Predator (2010)
- TimeRiders: The Doomsday Code (2011)
- TimeRiders: The Eternal War (2011)
- TimeRiders: Gates of Rome (2012)
- TimeRiders: City of Shadows (2013)
- TimeRiders: The Pirate Kings (2013)
- TimeRiders: The Mayan Prophecy (2013)
- TimeRiders: The Infinity Cage (2014)
- Trail of Glory series by Eric Flint, Sam Houston was not injured at the beginning of the War of 1812, and substantially revises the history of the Trail of Tears.
- 1812: Rivers of War (2005)
- 1824: The Arkansas War (2006)
- Worldwar & Colonization Series by Harry Turtledove, aliens with a feudal caste system and 1990s style technology calling themselves the "Race" invade Earth in the middle of World War II, forcing the Allied and Axis Forces to put aside their differences and battle this new threat.
- Worldwar Tetralogy
- In the Balance (1994)
- Tilting the Balance (1995)
- Upsetting the Balance (1996)
- Striking the Balance (1996)
- Colonization Trilogy
- Second Contact (1999)
- Down to Earth (2000)
- Aftershocks (2001)
- Homeward Bound (2004)
- Worldwar Tetralogy
- www series by Marcin Ciszewski, a battalion of Polish soldiers, armed with modern weaponry and equipment, accidentally travel from year 2007 to year 1939, partaking in September Campaign, later fighting German and Soviet invaders in conspiracy.
- www.1939.com.pl (2008)
- www.1944.waw.pl (2009)
- Major (2010)
- www.ru2012.pl (2011)
- www.afgan.com.pl (2015)
- Kapitan Jamróz (2016)
Anthologies
- 1932 If It Had Happened Otherwise, edited by J. C. Squire.
- 1989 Alternate Empires, edited by Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg.
- 1989 Alternate Heroes, edited by Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg.
- 1991 Alternate Wars, edited by Gregory Benford.
- 1992 Alternate Americas, edited by Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg.
- 1992 Alternate Presidents, edited by Mike Resnick.
- 1992 Alternate Kennedys, edited by Mike Resnick
- 1993 Alternate Warriors, edited by Mike Resnick
- 1994 Alternate Outlaws, edited by Mike Resnick
- 1995-2006 Greenhill's Alternate Decisions, a series of alternate history essays edited by various authors.
- 1996 War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches, edited by Kevin J. Anderson.
- 1997 Alternate Tyrants, edited by Mike Resnick.
- 1998 Alternate Generals, edited by Harry Turtledove.
- 1999 What If?, edited by Robert Cowley.
- 2001 What If? 2, edited by Robert Cowley.
- 2003 What Ifs? of American History, edited by Robert Cowley.
- 2006 Futures Past, edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois.
- 2009 Other Earths, edited by Nick Gevers and Jay Lake.
- 2009 Columbia & Britannia, edited by Brian A. Dixon and Adam Chamberlain.
Short stories and novellas
- 1934 Sidewise in Time by Murray Leinster, sections of the Earth's surface begin changing places with their counterparts in alternate timelines.
- 1937 The Curfew Tolls by Stephen Vincent Benét, a portrait of Napoleon if he had been born in the 1730s.
- 1948 He Walked Around the Horses by H. Beam Piper, diplomat Benjamin Bathurst arrives in a timeline where the British defeated the American rebels.
- 1952 Sail On! Sail On! by Philip José Farmer, the Earth is flat and Aristotle's axiom that objects of different weights drop with different velocities is true.
- 1958 Two Dooms by C. M. Kornbluth, the Axis powers win the Second World War.
- 1960 Delenda Est by Poul Anderson, renegade time travelers meddle in the outcome of the Second Punic War, bringing about the premature deaths of Publius Cornelius Scipio and Scipio Africanus at the Battle of Ticinus in 218 BC, and thus creating a new timeline in which Hannibal destroys Rome in 210 BC.
- 1987 The Forest of Time by Michael Flynn, the Thirteen Colonies, after getting independent of Britain, did not succeed in creating the United States but developed into separate and mutually hostile nation-states which often fight bitter wars with each other.
- 1987 Thor Meets Captain America by David Brin, the Nazis are championed by the Norse Pantheon.
- 1987 Why I Left Harry's All-Night Hamburgers by Lawrence Watt-Evans, a young man tells his story about growing up working at a greasy spoon diner to travelers from alternate versions of Earth.
- 1988 The Last Article by Harry Turtledove, a Nazi invasion of India and the brutal reaction of the Germans to the nonviolent resistance and pacifism of Gandhi and his followers.
- 1991 Red Reign by Kim Newman, the original short story that Anno Dracula is based on.
- 1997 The Undiscovered by William Sanders, William Shakespeare lives among the Cherokee and tries to produce a version of Hamlet for them.
- 1998 The Twelfth Album by Stephen Baxter, The Beatles don't split up and produce twelfth album called God.
- 2000 A Colder War by Charles Stross, the follow-up expedition in Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness has occurred, and inexorably fuses the Cold War and Cthulhu Mythos.
- 2000 Watching Trees Grow by Peter F. Hamilton, the Roman Empire never fell.
- 2002 The Daimon by Harry Turtledove, Greek philosopher Socrates aids the Athenian general Alkibiades in defeating the Spartans.
- 2002 Shikari in Galveston by S. M. Stirling, set in the same background as The Peshawar Lancers, but occurs several years earlier.
- 2003 The Cuban Missile Crisis: Second Holocaust by Robert L. O'Connell, the 1962 Cuban missile crisis developed into war.
- 2008 A Murder in Eddsford by S. M. Stirling, a murder mystery set in Post-Change Britain in The Emberverse series.
- 2008 Something for Yew by S. M. Stirling, another Rutherston and Bramble mystery.
- 2008 Beatle Rhett by Walter Rimler, The Beatles on another timeline[citation needed]
Role-playing/board games
- 1988 Sky Galleons of Mars, set in an alternate Victorian Era where the major nations of Earth are extending their colonial interests on Mars and Venus.
- 1988 Space: 1889, set in an alternate Victorian Era where the major nations of Earth are extending their colonial interests on Mars and Venus.
- 1991 "Reich Star", set in a 2134 where the Axis powers won World War II
- 1993 Forgotten Futures, settings inspired by Victorian and Edwardian science fiction and fantasy.
- 1998 Crimson Skies, the United States crumbles into many hostile nation-states following the effects of the Great War, Prohibition, and the Great Depression.
- 1999 Brave New World, superhero game set in a fascist United States of America living in a perpetual state of martial law since the 1960s.
- 1999 GURPS Alternate Earths and GURPS Alternate Earths II
- 2002 Godlike: Superhero Roleplaying in a World on Fire, 1936-1946, set in an alternate history version of World War II where people known as Talents have developed unexplained powers.
- 2005 GURPS Infinite Worlds
- 2007 DUST by Paolo Parente. World War II begins in 1939 like in real-life, but continues well into 1947 with three factions vying for global domination: the Allies (United States, Britain, and the French Empire), the Axis (Nazi Germany [after Adolf Hitler's assassination in 1943], Italy, and Japan) and the Sino-Soviet Union (the USSR and Communist China). A UFO crash in Antarctica the same year the war begins results in the discovery of a new mineral called VK, which helps bolster the development of advanced mechanoid vehicles.
- 2008 Gear Krieg. Technological developments during the 1920s (including J. Walter Christie's invention of a bipedal mecha system) leads to a World War II where all major powers are equipped with more advanced military equipment than in reality.
Comics
- 1986 Captain Confederacy by Will Shetterly and Vince Stone, a superhero is created for propaganda purposes in a world in which the Confederate States of America won their independence.
- 1986 Watchmen by Alan Moore, the United States has costumed adventurers and the country is edging closer to nuclear warfare with the Soviet Union. The point of divergence comes in the 1930s but does not affect larger history until the 1960s.
- 1989 Baker Street by Gary Reed and Guy Davis, it features an alternative Sherlock Holmes world where the values and class system of Victorian era England carried over into a late 20th Century where World War II never occurred.
- 1991 Batman: Holy Terror by Alan Brennert, set in a world where Oliver Cromwell lived ten years longer than he should have, and America is a commonwealth nation run by a corrupt theocratic government.
- 1995-ongoing Astro City by Kurt Busiek et alia, in an early installment, a man travels back in time and prevents the Challenger space shuttle from exploding in 1986, and one of the rescued crew later sires a descendant who will save all mankind from disaster in the future.
- 1997 Wonder Woman: Amazonia by William Messner-Loebs, in 1888, Queen Victoria and most of her family are murdered by an arsonist. A distant American cousin, "Jack Planters", becomes King and rules the British Empire with a misogynistic atmosphere. In the 1920s, an analog of Wonder Woman leads a popular uprising against King Jack's rule.
- 2001 Ministry of Space by Warren Ellis, soldiers and operatives of the United Kingdom reached the German rocket installations at Peenemünde ahead of the U.S. Army and the Soviets, and brought all the key personnel and technology to England.
- 2002 Scarlet Traces by Ian Edginton, Britain was able to develop alien technology, abandoned after the abortive Martian invasion of The War of the Worlds, to establish economic and political dominance over the remainder of the world.
- 2003 Arrowsmith by Kurt Busiek, the United States is actually the United States of Columbia, magic is real, and the First World War is fought with and by dragons, spells, vampires and all other kinds of magical weapons and beings.
- 2003 Superman: Red Son by Mark Millar, Superman is raised in the Soviet Union, and his presence upsets the balance of the Cold War.
- 2003 Shin Konpeki no Kantai (New Deep Blue Fleet) by Yoshio Aramaki. A manga sequel set three years after Konpeki no Kantai, the series depicts World War III between a new republican Japan facing Nazi Germany in a final battle for the fate of the world.[7]
- 2003 The Life Eaters by David Brin, comic based on Brin's novella Thor Meets Captain America.
- 2003 Marvel: 1602 and its sequels set Marvel Comics' heroes and villains in the early 17th century due to an alternate Captain America of an alternate dystopian future was transported to the past that alter the time scape, which includes surviving dinosaurs that lives mostly in America.
- 2004 Ex Machina by Brian K. Vaughan, is set in a world in which a superhero called the Great Machine becomes mayor of New York after intervening in the September 11 attacks — mitigating the death toll by saving the entire South Tower of the World Trade Center.
- 2006 General Leonardo by Erik Svane and Dan Greenberg is a French-language graphic novel series in which Leonardo Da Vinci manages to build his avant-garde war machines, with the Vatican confiscating them in order to mount a Crusade to recapture Jerusalem
- 2006 Roswell, Texas by L. Neil Smith and Rex F. May, Davy Crockett survived the Alamo and Santa Anna didn't, and in which an expanded Texas eventually became the "Federated States of Texas" rather than one of the United States.
- 2008 Aetheric Mechanics by Warren Ellis, set in 1907, during a war in the air between Britain and Ruritania.
- 2008 - 2011 Chotto Edo Made, set in a world where the Tokugawa shogunate never ended
- 2009 Grandville, by Bryan Talbot, set in a world in which France won the Napoleonic Wars. It also features elements of steampunk.
- 2009 Storming Paradise, by Chuck Dixon, the first detonation of the atomic bomb at Trinity was exploded prematurely, killing prominent nuclear physicists such as Robert Oppenheimer. This forces the loss of reproducing the atomic bomb and having President Truman to initiate the bloody Allied invasion of Japan in Operation Downfall.
- 2011 Flashpoint
Films
- 1936 Things to Come, Earth becomes a dictatorship after a deadly plague wipes out most of its inhabitants following a thirty-year war.
- 1966 It Happened Here, Nazi Germany successfully invades and occupies the United Kingdom during World War II.
- 1989 Kiki's Delivery Service, taking place (according to director Hayao Miyazaki) in a Europe where the World Wars were averted.
- 1991 Edward II, based on the Marlovian play, in the 1990s, England is ruled by a weak king, who is then deposed in a coup led by a quasi-fascist group.
- 1994 Fatherland, a movie based on the 1992 novel about an Axis victory in World War II.
- 1995 Richard III (1995 film), based on a Shakespeare play, England is ruled by a quasi fascist regime in the 1930s.
- 1995 White Man's Burden, in an alternate America where African Americans and Caucasian Americans have reversed cultural roles.
- 1996-ongoing Independence Day franchise, Earth was attacked in the 1990s by an alien invasion, and society was subsequently rebuilt using tools and knowledge captured from the enemy. The original 1996 film was not alternate history, but the second film Independence Day: Resurgence (2016) and a planned third film are.
- 1997 Starship Troopers, director Paul Verhoeven has stated that this is set centuries after an Axis victory in World War II.
- 1998 Six-String Samurai, the USSR launched several nuclear warheads at the U.S. in 1957, reducing most of the United States to an inhospitable desert.
- 1998 World War III, Gorbachev was overthrown in early October 1989 (with hard-line Communists still firmly in control of almost all of their satellite states), Soviet and East German troops opened fire on demonstrators in Berlin and Leipzig, and the new Soviet regime precipitated a third World War.
- 2001 The One, a serial killer targets his own doppelgangers in various alternate universes. We briefly visit a world where Al Gore became the 43rd US President.
- 2002 Timequest, a man travels through time to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
- 2002 2009 Lost Memories, the Korean peninsula is still a part of the Japanese empire, as Ito Hirobumi was never assassinated, and the Empire of Japan sides with the Allies against Nazi Germany.
- 2002 Nothing So Strange, covers the assassination of Microsoft chairman Bill Gates on December 2, 1999.
- 2003 The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, based loosely on a comic book of the same name, an espionage thriller set in 1899, in a steampunk world where technology advanced faster than in ours. The point of divergence is not revealed.
- 2004 C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America, the Confederate States won the American Civil War, annexed the United States, and still maintain slavery in the year 2004.
- 2004 Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, set around 1939 in a world more advanced than ours, although the point of divergence is not revealed. World War II does not occur; instead all humanity is held in fear by an army of giant robots created by a reclusive mad scientist.
- 2004 The Incredibles, an animated adventure set in a mid 20th century where technology and culture resemble our 2004. This advanced state is implicitly due to the existence of superheroes. The chronology is not emphasized in the plot, but can be gleaned from calendars and newspapers visible at various moments throughout the film.
- 2009 Watchmen, film adaptation of the comic book of the same name, Richard Nixon remains President in 1985, years after the USA definitively won the Vietnam War.
- 2009 Inglourious Basterds, a group of Jewish-American soldiers manage to assassinate Hitler.
- 2009 The Invention of Lying, human beings never evolved the mental trait of deceit, and progress to the modern world without ever having heard of dishonesty, fiction, or belief in any God(s) or religion whatsoever.
- 2011 Resistance, based on the same-titled novel, after the June 1944 Normandy Invasion fails, the British Isles come under a German occupation.
- 2014 Big Hero 6, San Francisco was rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake with a Japanese motif, and renamed San Fransokyo.
- 2014 Predestination - based on the 1950s novella "All You Zombies" which was written as a future history - space travel technology in the 1960s seems to be somewhat more advanced than in our history, and New York was hit by massive terror attacks in the 1970s. A squadron of time-traveling enforcers attempt to correct history.
- 2015 The Good Dinosaur, the K-T extinction is averted, and dinosaurs live long enough to develop a kind of agricultural civilization.
TV shows
- 1963–2014 Doctor Who has made extensive use of alternative history, especially (but not exclusively) since its relaunch in 2005. These include Inferno, Day of the Daleks, Pyramids of Mars (a brief glimpse of a dead Earth), Father's Day, Rise of the Cybermen. As well as Doomsday, the result is a "what if" scenario starting from the series three Christmas Special The Runaway Bride, through Smith and Jones, Voyage of the Damned, and several other episodes of series four.
- 1966–2005 Star Trek has used the theme several times. Examples include: TOS- The City on the Edge of Forever (alternate World War II outcome); Animated Series- "Yesteryear"; NG- "Yesterday's Enterprise". Enterprise- "Storm Front" where Nazis seized East Coast of America. Also, the universe of "Mirror, Mirror", while in the original episode was just implied to be a parallel universe, was in later episodes shown to be an alternate history.
- 1978 An Englishman's Castle. A 3-part BBC mini-series focusing on television writer Peter Ingram, who lives in a present-day Britain in which Nazi Germany won World War II.
- 1983. Blackadder. Secret history: upon the death of Richard III in 1485 at Battle of Bosworth Field, Richard IV is crowned king of England, but this has (according to the prologue) been censored out of official histories by Henry VII, leaving the history we know.
- 1985 Otherworld. A family is transported to an alternate Earth while exploring the Great Pyramid of Giza.
- 1987 Amerika was an ABC TV miniseries about life in the United States after a bloodless takeover engineered by the Soviet Union.
- 1995–2000 Sliders. A gang of scientists, a musician and others as travellers who "slide" between parallel worlds by use of a wormhole referred to as an "Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky bridge". First episode was Soviet-ruled America after Soviets seized Americas. Other episodes were many alternate Earths as British America, Ancient Egyptian-ruled America, Spanish America, Druids-controlling America, Atomic Bombs never existed, and others.
- 1995 Spellbinder. In an alternate world where static electricity is used as a power source.
- 1997 Spellbinder: Land of the Dragon Lord. Sequel to original TV show.
- 1997 Red Dwarf. The episode Tikka to Ride deals with a timeline in which John F Kennedy was never assassinated.
- 1999 Blackadder: Back and Forth. A spoof of Doctor Who where a time traveling Blackadder's meddling with history causes changes including a French victory at the Battle of Waterloo.
- 2001 Princess of Thieves. This retelling of the Robin Hood legend takes the legend's customary historical exaggeration to extremes, by ending with Richard the Lionheart being succeeded as King of England, not by his brother John Lackland, but by his son Philip of Cognac.
- 2003-04 Evil Con Carne takes place in the year 2002 where the League of Nations still existed.
- 2004–05 Zipang. A Japanese warship is sent back in time to World War II, altering much of the situation at Midway, but also alters the loss of USS Wasp (CV-7), in which she is destroyed by a Tomahawk missile instead of being lost to a submarine.
- 2006 The Boondocks: Return of the King, Martin Luther King, Jr. survives his assassination, ending up in a 32-year coma.
- 2006 Code Geass. Britannia, the descendant of what was once Britain, is the primary world power and conquers Japan through the use of mecha called knightmares; an exiled Britannian prince named Lelouch leads the Japanese resistance against them.
- 2011 Futurama. In the episode All the Presidents' Heads, during a trip back in time, Fry accidentally causes Paul Revere to misdirect the American Revolutionaries, creating a timeline in which the American Revolution failed, and Great Britain went on to conquer all of North America, renaming it "West Britannia".
- 2013 What If...? Armageddon 1962. John F. Kennedy is assassinated in December 1960, and under Lyndon B. Johnson's leadership, the Cuban Missile Crisis snowballs into nuclear war.
- 2015 The Man in the High Castle (TV series). Based on the book with the same title, the show portrays a 1962 in which the Axis powers won World War II and divided the Americas.
- 2015 Ascension (TV series). In 1963 The U.S. Government launches a covet space mission sending 600 volunteers aboard the USS Ascension self-sustaining [generation ship], on what should be a century-long voyage to colonize a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri to assure the survival of the human race from the escalation of Cold War.
- 2016 11.22.63. Based on the book 11/22/63 by Stephen King, in which the main character goes back in time trying to save JFK and altering the course of events.
Plays
- 1946 Peace In Our Time by Noël Coward, Nazi Germany successfully invades Britain in World War II.
- 2000 The Madagascar Plan by Brian Borowka. Nazi Germany resettles the Jews on Madagascar.[8]
- 2001 The Adventures of Stoke Mandeville, Astronaut and Gentleman by Fraser Charlton and Nikolas Lloyd. British developed space travel during the reign of Queen Victoria.
- 2006 Picasso's Closet by Ariel Dorfman. An alternate history of Picasso's life (and possibly death) in Paris during World War II.[9]
- 2007 Universal Robots by Mac Rogers. Robots take over Czechoslovakia and eventually the world just before World War II in a thought-provoking script that raises questions about the future of humanity and science.[10]
Video games
- 1996 Command & Conquer: Red Alert series, a series of computer real time strategy video games set in an alternate timeline, created when Albert Einstein travels back to the past and eliminates Adolf Hitler in an attempt to prevent World War II from taking place. This plan indirectly backfires and results in an unchecked Soviet invasion of Europe by Joseph Stalin in 1946.
- 1997 Fallout (series), a series of role playing video games set in a post-apocalyptic United States where the world's timeline diverges after World War II, in which the cultural basis and technological aspects of the 1950s and the "World of Tomorrow" remains a part of everyday life.
- 1999 Crimson Skies, PC game based on the original board game, the United States collapses during the Great Depression, leading to the rise of 23 nation-States in the former U.S. and Canada, new airplane and zeppelin technologies, and rampant air piracy.
- 2000 Gunparade March, in which an alien invasion occurs in 1945, before the end of World War II. The series lead to the creation of an anime series.
- 2002 Iron Storm, set in a world where World War I lasts more than half a century.
- 2003 Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, video game sequel to PC game.
- 2003 Enigma: Rising Tide, the British passenger ship Lusitania was not sunk by a German U-boat in World War I.
- 2003 Freedom Fighters, set in an alternate Cold War where the Soviet Union drops the atomic bomb on Berlin in 1945 and eventually invades the United States in likely early 2000s.
- 2006 Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday, contains a scenario involving Soviet forces attacking Allied forces in 1945, starting World War III.
- 2006 Resistance: Fall of Man, set in 1951 Britain as human resistance forces attempt to drive out an alien species of unconfirmed origin called the Chimera.
- 2007 War Front: Turning Point, set in an alternate version of World War II in which Adolf Hitler died during the early days of the war, and a more effective leadership arose to command Germany during the conflict.
- 2007 World in Conflict, set in 1989 during the social, political, and economic collapse of the Soviet Union. However, the Soviet Union pursued a course of war to remain in power.
- 2008 Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, set in the time where Soviets successfully eliminated Albert Einstein, turning the war on the Soviet favors, but also the rise of the Empire of the Rising Sun, Japanese armies that will almost crush both Allies and Soviets.
- 2008 The Crossing, a parallel universe that has the Knights Templar seizing the French throne.
- 2008 Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, it depicts the invasion of the United States by Nazi Germany during the 1950s.
- 2009 Damnation, set in the early part of the twentieth century after the American Civil War has spanned over several decades, where steam engines replace internal combustion engines.
- 2013 Timelines: Assault on America, features an alternative history of World War II where Germany invades North America.
- 2013 BioShock Infinite, set mostly in Columbia, a floating American city, during an alternate 1912.
- 2014 Wolfenstein: The New Order, set in an alternate 1960 where Nazi Germany won World War II and now rules the entire world and the Moon.
- 2016 Homefront: The Revolution, takes place in an alternate timeline in the year 2029 where there is a North Korean occupation of the United States
See also
- American Civil War alternate histories
- Axis victory in World War II
- List of fictional British monarchs
- List of fictional timelines
- List of fictional universes
- List of science fiction novels
- List of steampunk works
- Uchronia: The Alternate History List
References
- ^ Robert B. Schmunk. "Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "P.'s Correspondence"". Uchronia: The Alternate History List. Retrieved 24 November 2008.
- ^ Review of Alternities
- ^ "THE RED GAMBIT SERIES BOOK COVERS". redgambitseries.com. Retrieved 24 January 2014.
- ^ "Opening Moves (The Red Gambit Series) [Kindle Edition]". amazon.com. Retrieved 24 January 2014.
- ^ "Opening Moves - The First Book in the Red Gambit Series". goodreads.com. Retrieved 24 January 2014.
- ^ "Stalemate: The Third book in the Red Gambit Series (Paperback)". tower.com. Retrieved 24 January 2014.
- ^ http://www.tokuma.jp/comics/tokuma-comics/1176095845136
- ^ Barry Cohen (2000-09-15). "Writer explores alternate history in new play". Jewish News of Greater Phoenix. Retrieved 2008-09-26.
- ^ Peter Marks (2006-06-27). "'Picasso's Closet': An Artist With No Place to Hide". Washington Post. Retrieved 2008-09-26.
- ^ "Plays by Mac Rogers". doollee.com. Retrieved 2008-09-26.
External links
- Uchronia lists over 2000 works of alternate history.
- Library Thing: Alternate History lists books most often tabbed as alternate history.