Worlds That Weren't
by Harry Turtledove
from Roc
Alternate history is the branch of speculative fiction that explores what might have happened if history had taken a different turn. The obvious changes, like the Nazis winning World War II, have filled innumerable novels. Fortunately, the anthology Worlds That Weren't avoids the obvious with its four fine new novellas from four superior authors: Harry Turtledove, S.M. Stirling, Mary Gentle, and Walter Jon Williams.
The collection opens with "The Daimon," written by Harry Turtledove, AH's best-known practitioner. In Turtledove's turning point, the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates chooses to accompany General Alkibiades to war instead of remaining in Athens, and sets Alkibiades on a triumphant, terrible new course.
Set in the British India-dominated alternate history of The Peshawar Lancers, S.M. Stirling's novella is a rousing old-fashioned adventure. "Shikari in Galveston" follows a hunting safari through a regressed American frontier that might have given even Daniel Boone pause.
A prequel to her Book of Ash tetralogy, Mary Gentle's novella "The Logistics of Carthage" concerns Christian warriors serving pagan Turks in a North Africa conquered by Visigoths instead of Vandals, and is the strongest story in Worlds That Weren't.
The collection concludes with "The Last Ride of German Freddie," in which Nebula Award winner Walter Jon Williams considers what might have happened if the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had taken himself and his superman theories to the Wild West. --Cynthia Ward
In this collection of novellas, four masters of alternate history turn back time, twisting the facts with four brilliant excursions into what might have been.
Ilario: The Lion's Eye: A Story of the First History, Book One (Ilario)
by Mary Gentle
from Eos
Abandoned and alone, the fosterling Ilario grows up as the King's Freak, surrounded by all the pomp, intrigue, and danger of the Iberian court. Fleeing a failed treacherous attack, Ilario crosses the sea to Carthage, where the mysterious Penitence shrouds the sky in darkness. There, a strange and awful destiny awaits the would-be painter, one that spans continents and kingdoms.
Filled with intrigue, sex, and mystery, Ilario: The Lion's Eye is a stunning tale of secret histories and self-discovery. The adventure continues in Book Two: The Stone Golem.
Ilario: The Stone Golem: A Story of the First History, Book Two (Ilario)
by Mary Gentle
from Eos
The dramatic conclusion to Ilario: The Lion's Eye!
Fleeing a surprise treacherous murder attempt, the former King's Freak and would-be painter Ilario has run to Carthage, the city-state under perpetual darkness, in search of freedom. But strange plots are afoot, and a tenuous, complicated alliance with a bookseller-turned-spy will lead Ilario from the shrouded land into tense negotiations and intrigues in seductive, mercurial Venice, from a fraught return to Iberia to a final confrontation with family . . . and destiny.
A Secret History: The Book Of Ash, #1 (Book of Ash)
by Mary Gentle
from Eos
Mary Gentle first came to prominence with the lovingly conceived and beautifully written SF novel Golden Witchbreed. Its sequel, Ancient Light, then took the world and premise built into the first novel and deconstructed it thoroughly. Gentle's latest plays some of the same tricks with reader expectations.
In a typical fantasy milieu, the mud and blood of a military camp in 15th-century Europe, a scarred and beautiful 8-year-old girl kills her two adult rapists. She is Ash. In unflinching prose, Gentle describes the child's treatment in a men's camp, then the teenager's hard lessons in the art and craft of war, and finally the young woman's rise to command a mercenary army. Ash, it seems, is not only strong and fast but has the advantage of hearing a voice that instructs her on troop deployment. To the well-versed SF reader, the voice begins to sound suspiciously like a tactical computer.
Just as the reader gets ready to reassign the book to time travel SF, Gentle inserts--in what are purported to be excerpts from a 21st-century scholar's e-mail conversation with his publisher--hints that perhaps the novel belongs in the alternate history category. By now Ash and her army are embroiled in war and politics up to their fluted breastplates (armor, like all the historical detail, is minutely and accurately described), and if swords and poleaxes were not enough, she now faces golems and the Carthaginian army. Amazingly, Gentle makes this impossible mix believable, and by the end of the novel it is apparent that this is the beginning of a most interesting series. --Luc Duplessis
There is more than one history of the world . . .
In the mid-fifteenth century there was Burgundy, the jewel of Europe-opulent and powerful, the undisputed center of an uncivilized world.
In an epoch of war and madness there was Ash. A girl born in mud and dung, she slew her first men while only eight. Scarred and ravaged, but still beautiful, she rose up to lead a great mercenary army before the age of twenty--and followed a sacred voice wise in the bloody ways of battle to a pinnacle unattainable to even the most potent of legends.
In a time when empires and alliances shifted like sand--when Mithras the bull was worshipped freely alongside the Christ--a great cloud arose out of Africa to darken the sun. The Visigoths came with their terrible machines-powered by magic or a science unknown to this day--and aimed their irresistible might toward the rich Burgundian prize, wrenching the wheel of civilization in an unknown and unexpected direction. And with their coming, one incomparable warrior raised on Destiny's ash heap became more that anyone thought one woman could ever be.
The Wild Machines:: The Book Of Ash, #3 (Book of Ash, No 3)
by Mary Gentle
from Eos
ASH
by Mary Gentle
from Gollancz
For the beautiful young woman Ash, life has always been arquebuses and artillery, swords and armour and the true horrors of hand-to-hand combat. War is her job. She has fought her way to the command of a mercenary company, and on her unlikely shoulders lies the destiny of a Europe threatened by the depredations of an Infidel army more terrible than any nightmare.
White Crow (Gollancz)
by Mary Gentle
from Gollancz
Lost Burgundy:: The Book Of Ash, #4 (Book of Ash, No 4)
by Mary Gentle
from Eos
There is more than one history of the world...
In a barbarous age in a world now forgotten, an extraordinary figure stood formidable on the European battlefield--a remarkable female warrior and strategist without equal...save one.
Dijon, the once-proud capital of Burgundy, has been pounded into near submission. The merciless soldiers of the Visigoth Empire stand hungrily at the gate, and at their fore, the beautiful, deadly Faris, unwittingly bred to tbe the instrument of a machine intelligence that seeks the end of humanity. The sun gutters weakly overhead like a dying candle, as the Wild Machines once again flex their dark, demonic power.
Ash, like her warrior twin, hears the Wild Machines' call--but unlike the Faris, Ash will not be their tool. For within Dijon's crumbling walls a fragile hope has bloomed: one who bears in her royal blood the ability to hold the dread Machines at bay. But defeating their dark plans will take a miracle--and ultimately, only Ash herself stands between Burgundy's implacable enemies and all humanity.
Lost Burgundy
The stunning conclusion to the remarkable true chronicles of Ash
+++
