Best Alternate History Novels
Title↕ | Author↕ | Year↕ | What-If Premise↕ | Notable Awards↕ | Known For↕ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The Man in the High Castle | Philip K. Dick | 1962 | Axis powers won WWII, America divided between Japan and Nazi Germany | Hugo Award 1963 | Novel-within-a-novel structure, I Ching influence, adapted by Amazon |
11/22/63 | Stephen King | 2011 | Time traveler attempts to prevent JFK's assassination | Los Angeles Times Book Prize | Epic love story, meticulous 1960s period detail, Hulu miniseries |
Fatherland | Robert Harris | 1992 | Germany won WWII, detective uncovers Holocaust cover-up in 1964 Berlin | WHSmith Thumping Good Read Award | Noir thriller in Nazi-victorious Europe, HBO film adaptation |
The Years of Rice and Salt | Kim Stanley Robinson | 2002 | Black Death kills 99% of Europeans, history unfolds without Western civilization | Locus Award 2003 | Reincarnation structure spanning 700 years, Buddhist and Islamic worlds |
The Plot Against America | Philip Roth | 2004 | Charles Lindbergh defeats FDR in 1940, America drifts toward fascism | Sidewise Award, James Fenimore Cooper Prize | Autobiographical frame, HBO miniseries by David Simon |
Pavane | Keith Roberts | 1968 | Queen Elizabeth I assassinated, Spanish Armada wins, Catholic England in 1968 | Ditmar Award | Fix-up novel of linked stories, steam-punk before steampunk |
Bring the Jubilee | Ward Moore | 1953 | Confederacy won the Civil War, time traveler accidentally changes the outcome | Retro Hugo nominee | Pioneering alt-history, time travel paradox, Gettysburg pivot point |
The Guns of the South | Harry Turtledove | 1992 | South African time travelers give Lee's army AK-47s | Prometheus Award finalist | Turtledove's breakthrough, meticulous Civil War detail |
SS-GB | Len Deighton | 1978 | Nazi Germany occupied Britain after 1941, Scotland Yard detective works for SS | BBC adaptation 2017 | Spy thriller meets occupation novel, Deighton's cold research |
Farthing | Jo Walton | 2006 | UK made peace with Hitler in 1941, country house murder exposes fascist Britain | John W. Campbell Memorial finalist | First of Small Change trilogy, cozy mystery framing dark politics |
The Yiddish Policemen's Union | Michael Chabon | 2007 | Jewish refugees settled in Alaska instead of Israel after WWII | Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Sidewise Awards | Noir detective novel, Yiddish-inflected prose, triple award sweep |
Roma Eterna | Robert Silverberg | 2003 | Exodus never happened, Roman Empire endures into the modern age | Sidewise Award nominee | Mosaic novel spanning 1,500 years of alternate Rome |
Making History | Stephen Fry | 1996 | Time traveler prevents Hitler's birth, a worse Nazi takes his place | Sidewise Award 1997 | Fry's comic philosophy, Cambridge academic satire |
The Difference Engine | William Gibson and Bruce Sterling | 1990 | Babbage's mechanical computer launches Victorian information age | Nebula, BSFA nominees | Defining steampunk novel, collaboration between cyberpunk masters |
Lion's Blood | Steven Barnes | 2002 | African Muslim empires colonize the Americas, Europeans become slaves | Endeavour Award 2003 | Role reversal on transatlantic slavery, alt-Islamic civilization |
Ruled Britannia | Harry Turtledove | 2002 | Spanish Armada succeeded in 1588, Shakespeare writes resistance plays | Sidewise Award 2003 | Shakespearean pastiche, Elizabethan England under Spanish rule |
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