Questions tagged [alternate-history]
Fiction set in a world whose history branches off from our own, which may or may not have science-fictional or fantasy elements
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Story about aliens who give humans extra lives
I am trying to remember a sci-fi story I read 40 or 50 years ago. Some aliens offered to give humans who wanted one an extra life, apparently in the form of a vivid and realistic dream. Perhaps today ...
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Short story probably in Omni magazine in the 1980s set in a cyberpunk bar… but it's 1899 or so
I read this story about 40 years ago.
It's set in a bar with a flickering hologram, neon, etc. Other cyberpunk tropes might be present. One person tells another person an outrageous story – perhaps ...
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Alternate history - Blondlot's N-Rays really exist, leading to French dominance in 20th century
Around 2005, I read in a "Best of the Year" anthology I think, a short piece (novella or shorter) in which Blondlot really did discover N-rays in the early 20th century, and the ...
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Alternate Civil War: The USA and the Confederate States of America (CSA) against England
My grandfather once told me about a book he read where the British accidentally landed on a bit of confederate land and accidentally started a fight. Then the USA army in the area came to the rescue ...
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Sci-fi novel involving parallel universes and possible time travel
I'm trying to identify a science fiction novel I read many years ago but whose title and author escape me.
I think it was borrowed because I went through all my books, but I couldn't find that one.
...
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Book series about British soldiers traveling to alternate Earths to find technology [duplicate]
Back in the 80s I read a series about British soldiers traveling to alternate Earths to find technology.
Since it had a British protagonist, I'm assuming it was a British author.
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An alternate history about Shakespeare
I read this story decades ago, in a F&SF collection.
Longish novelette or maybe a shortish novella, I don't remember.
I don't think there was actual any element of fantasy, just alternate history (...
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Novel set in a world where dinosaurs had feathers instead of scales and self-destructed with technology
I read a novel in the late 60s. The premise was that in any society where technology is allowed to develop unchecked, it will self-destruct before social consciousness develops enough to prevent it.
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Alternate history fanfix connecting The Probability Broach and the Draka
A couple of decades ago, I read online a fanfict that explained the unlikely aspects of the Draka timeline by postulating that a fan of L. Neil Smith's North American Confederacy books had gone back ...
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Botched executions in Prague after the defeat of one (of many, I believe) revolts
I read this short fiction (short story or novelette) at least 20 years ago.
As in one of my other questions there is in fact no actual element of Fantasy, but it was in a F&SF collection (which ...
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Short story in which Hitler is a jovial professor, having been accepted at an art or architectural school
I was told about a short story in which people are being given a tour of a campus in Germany by a jovial professor, who isn't named until the end. The historical twist is that Hitler (born 1889) was ...
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Looking for a historical fiction novel set in norse history [closed]
Well, what I remember was the MC was a Viking that went from his homeland abroad(i forget if it was to gain experience or due to a succession crisis) and travels to many places, including meeting some ...
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Alt-history based on the Hamilton-Burr duel
In the 1980s, I think, I read a novel or a series whose alternate history was based on Alexander Hamilton surviving, if not winning, his duel with Aaron Burr.
That alternate outcome led to a whole ...
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U.S. President has amnesia after terrible war - protected by folks in a small town
A short story search. It's been many years since I read this, so apologies if I screw up. (Spoiler alert) The U.S. President is apparently guilty of starting a terrible war, which decimates much of ...
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La Befana - Gene Wolf [closed]
In 2015 I asked this question which allowed me to identify a short story as being "La Befana" by Gene Wolf.
I would like to share the written version of this story with some friends as an ...
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Gotterdammerung? Seeking details on an alternate history story
I'm looking for a short story that MAY be titled "Gotterdammerung", but may have a more historical German Christmas season title.
It's an alternate history - the Nazis united with Britain ...
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Has there ever been a film treatment - tv or movie - of Man in the High Castle?
There's been quite a number of film treatment of SF novels by Phillip K Dick and they have all, at least to my impression, been wildly successful from Blade-Runner based on his Do Androids Dream of ...
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Book where people are continually slipping between "close" parallel alternate worlds/paratime without realizing it?
Only clear recollection from the book is an example along the lines of:
Experience: I know I put my keys on the table next to the door, but when I went back they weren't there. Looked all around the ...
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Time travel novel or series involving a professor at the Citadel who identifies the point of deviation
There were two apparent timelines - the 1st was thought to be unchangeable until the plot happened; a key person in identifying the point of deviation between the two timelines was a professor at the ...
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Modern researcher communicates ideas to Elizabethan inventor resulting in accelerating technology feedback loop
I'll trying to find the name and author of a short story where a junior faculty or grad student develops a crush on an Elizabethan era inventor she is studying and somehow communicates with him ...
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Short Story — Man who can alter the past, responsible for the fate of Native Americans
In the 1990s, I read a story in Asimov's (almost sure) about a man who could (by an act of will) change the past, resulting in appropriate changes to the present. I don't remember much of the plot; I ...
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Alternate world travel finds church with women priests
I read a story in the 1990s (I think) in Asimov's (almost sure) in which travel between a limited (half dozen) alternate worlds had become possible; relations between those worlds were peaceful. Then ...
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Book where Patton or MacArthur teams up with Robert E.Lee in an apocalyptic world
A friend told me he read an excellent SF book years ago where Patton or maybe MacArthur partnered somehow with Robert E. Lee in a near-future apocalyptic world. Who knows this?
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Looking for a collection of stories about an isolationist community
Sorry, I don't have a lot of information about these stories, other than what I remember of their content. I read them in English, but the character names are definitely not traditional English names,...
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Late 19th century - early 20th century alternative New York City named 'Knickerbocker' [duplicate]
I read a fantasy novel in the late 1980s or early '90s, I think, but I'm not sure if it was published at that time. There's a female secondary character (daughter? sister?) who lives on the roof of a ...
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Novel involving "Lazarus-pit"-esque resurrections, cloning, and alternate timeline vendettas
I read this in paperback around 2013; it was a pretty new printing at the time. it started with an alternate history '40s-era noir detective in wartime L.A. (or something similar). It flashed back ...
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Story ID: An alt-history Roman Empire with religion based on "God Helmet"-style technology?
In the 2010s I read this short story [in English] that I can't seem to find again. My vague impression was that it could have been written as early as the 1980s or '90s, but maybe it was more recent. ...
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1970s short story: military artificial-intelligence starship with smart-aleck personality from alternate timeline visits Earth [duplicate]
This story was published in the mid-1970s, probably in F&SF, I remember it in a magazine, not in a book. It is told from the perspective of a U.S. military unmanned, artificial-intelligence ...
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Novel series with ritual cannibalism and flesh essential for life
Reminded by a recent question asking for SciFi books with cannibalism in them.
I am looking for a novel series (I think 3-5 books) that I read about 5-6 years ago, and I think it will have been ...
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Alternate history novel where an emerging society of "white" people meets an advanced society of "black" people
I've been looking for a years for a novel that I read in the mid-90s. We got it from the local library, but neither my sister nor me have any good clues on the details. It was in German, so it could ...
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Please identify this novel that features the Game of Life
Name of alternate history novel with a rigid class society that has the Game of Life throughout the book.It was believed that only men were intelligent enough to play the game. This novel takes place ...
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Novel about an alternate history where there was no World War II, maybe involving time travel
This novel was published in the early-to-mid 1970s. Paperback. I am pretty sure the author was American and male. If I remember correctly, it was not marketed as 'science fiction' - it may have even ...
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How many comic book continuities are there in the Power Rangers universe, or is it one "Shared" continuity for all?
The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers have had a few comic adaptations, those most notably from Boom Studios.
The story essentially takes the original premise nd even characters from the 1993 show, and ...
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Early 1980's book - USSR invades the UK
As shown in the title, I read this in the very early 1980s. I think it was a Brit author. I thought of it yesterday after the BBC controversy about 'Last Night of the Proms'.
Somewhat like SS-GB in ...
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Einstein "quantum leaps" into young Japanese girl
I recall a short story I read in the 80's or 90's (might be older than that). The premise is that Albert Einstein (pretty sure it was him, might've been another scientist associated with the ...
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Searching for an SF short story about an amusement park where death is a chance of admission
Looking for a short science fiction story which opens with a seemingly normal family-on-vacation scenario, but where any citizen has a rare random chance of being instantly painlessly killed as they ...
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What was this book about books that never existed?
I'm looking for a book that's a collection of encyclopedia-style entries about books that were lost/forgotten/alternate versions/never actually written. These weren't REAL lost books, they were ...
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A story about a doctor who travels to a parallel universe to seek a cure for bubonic plague
Recent news has been reminding me of various things I've read about the black death, including a story I believe I only saw once, and never stumbled across again. I encountered it over 30 years ago, ...
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Alternative history story from late 70's-early 80s relating to British victory in the American Revolution
Does anyone know the title and author of an alternative history from the late 70s-80s with a plot based on a scenario of British victory in the Revolutionary War? I recall a scene which took place in ...
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Plains natives happen across a late 1890s airbase
Long ago I read an anthology whose introduction to one story seemed to claim it was the first of its sort. Reading over the Wiki article on alternative history, this appears to be very much not the ...
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Is Margo Madison in "For All Mankind" based on Margaret Hamilton?
I recently watched the first episode of For All Mankind. A friend of mine who recommended it said that one of the leading characters among the historical ones is Margaret Hamilton, the leading NASA ...
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Has any version of Marvel's Black Panther ever been able to actually turn into a Were-Panther form?
I know I saw this somewhere, possibly in another reality outside of 616.
In that version, T'Challa (the Black Panther) seemed to "shift" into a humanoid panther form, very similar to Wolfbane's "mid ...
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Did Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie take place in an alternate timeline?
The 1995 film Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie plays out like an extended special episode, giving the Rangers new "Ninjetti" powers and Zords based not around the Dinosaurs, but modern day ...
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Alt-reality film. Being hetero is taboo. People forced to be gay
This was a really bizarre film. I'm not sure if it was a movie, a mockumentary, or a "what if" alternate reality think piece. The premise was that straight people are shunned from society, while being ...
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What year is the series "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina" supposedly set in?
Almost everything in Greendale seems to be vintage 1960's (cars, movies, dress). I assume it is to reflect the original comic book, but I swear I saw Ambrose using a laptop computer in the first ...
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What alternate history has Americans salting their tea?
I keep thinking this may be The Two Georges, but I can’t find my copy anywhere.
I’m fairly sure this was from an alternate history where the US was still part of the British empire. I think this ...
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Looking for a story about how the USA acquired an inland sea
I came across a story ID request here recently, that reminded me of another similar story I've read.
So that earthquake, did you check your math?
The story I've read, most likely in '90s or the late ...
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Novel about an alternate history of the Aztec empire from a modern day archaeologist time travelling back there
This is a posthumous novel(?) from the 70 or 80s(?) where a modern day archaeologist who is transported back to the Aztec empire on the brink of the conquest, but then changes the course of history à ...
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Short story where a physics professor goes to a timeline where his son doesn’t exist
The story probably dates from the late 80s to early 90s. I'm almost sure I read it in one of the pulp magazines while researching an article in the early '00s.
A physics professor, in a fit of ...
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Novel about Soviets winning the Cold War
I don’t remember the plot beyond a few salient points:
It was an alternate history in which the Soviets won the Cold War.
There was a description towards the beginning of new apartment buildings ...
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