Customer Reviews

Roads Not Taken: Tales of Alternate History

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is a good one-stop source for short-form Alternate History. Although most of the stories are fairly recent, there are also a few classics thrown into the mix.

The almost-inevitable Turtledove story is "Must and Shall". Like many of his other works, this tells about the results of an alternate American Civil War. Abraham Lincoln is assassinated while touring the front in 1864. The North still wins, but Lincoln's successor institutes a harsh, vengeful Reconstruction. In the 1940s, the Southern States are still under military occupation, and full of resentment. Surprisingly, this one of the least interesting stories in the book. The premise is good and the story is readable, but the plot is below Turtledove's usual standards.

There is also a Robert Silverberg tale ("An Outpost of the Empire") in which the Roman Empire never fell. The protagonist, a Venetian woman of Byzantine descent, must come to terms with her new Roman governor. It is a decent love story with a good sense of "otherness", but nothing special as far as AH goes.

Most of the stories, however, explore less conventional themes. A. A. Attanasio's atmospheric "Ink from the New Moon" tells the tale of an alternate 15th century in which North America has been extensively colonized by Chinese religious outcasts. The protagonist, in a letter to his dead wife, tells of his encounter with three ships bearing strange, bearded men.

In "We Could do Worse", Gregory Benford tells the chilling tale of a dystopian alternate USA ruled by Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon.

One of the strangest of the stories, and one of the best, is "The West is Red", by Greg Costikyan. Due to a slight difference in human nature, Communism turns out to be much more effective than Capitalism. As the Cold War draws to a close, Russia and China have become the most prosperous countries in the world, while the poverty-stricken US finally prepares to go Communist. The fundamental difference in the nature of the world also leads to some interesting and unexpected changes in fields like computer science. Very imaginative. I'm capitalist to the core, but I loved it all the same!

"How I Lost the Second World War", by Gene Wolfe, makes a great closing story. The plot is too weird to describe, but suffice to say that it takes place in an alternate version of the '30s, and involves Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Dwight Eisenhower, an automobile race, a strategic wargame, and an early invention of the transistor.

The above is just a sample of what this anthology has to author. There are many other fine stories by many other fine authors. All of them are well worth reading. Go buy it today!

WOW! This book rocked. I am a 16 year old who recently discovered the world of alternate history and I love it! This book covers all the bases and then some.

First of all, the wide range of authors, writing styles, and subjects kept my interest piqued through the whole book. I finished it in 1 DAY! I loved all of the selections. (Not to say I didn't have a favorite!)

Well, my favorite was the last one by Gene Wolfe about the auto race. The whole scenario seems absurd, but by the end, all the subtleties catch up and make it a smashing end to the book.

I also liked the one with Aristotle and the one where the 13 colonies never came together. Great research and development went into those, I can tell. I probably learned more from this book than I did in Modern World History class this year!

I will definitely read more alternate history because of this book.

A DEFINITE MUST-READ!!!

Some people who have reviewed this book seem to have a problem with the way so many of the stories have appeared elsewhere. I suppose that if you are a really hardcore conoisseur of alternate history, that might grate on you a little, but I'm new enough to the genre that the issue didn't come up on my radar.

A.A.Attanasio's story is terrific. It is written in the style of Chinese literature, and deals with a man in an America that was originally settled by the Chinese (the United Sandalwood Autocracies -- U.S.A.) A.A., if you read this, please click on my "about me" link right up above and e-mail me. I'm working on a novel that deals with the same premise you use, among other premises. I'd prefer not to be sued to death.

L.Sprague de Camp was an early pace-setter in this genre, with "Lest Darkness Fall," and here he proves himself again with "Aristotle and the Gun."

"The Forest of Time" by Michael C. Flynn is probably my favorite. Set in a world where the United States never quite came together, it follows the adventures of a cross-world traveller from our world who tells about several other alternate historical timelines, and then gets caught up with his captors in a phildickian (love that word) morass of speculations about the nature of madness, of time, etc.

All the stories are interesting, and worth reading. Other reviewers have discussed them in the following pages, however, so let me just say that there is a very good introductory essay by Shelly Shapiro, which I recommend reading carefully. Also -- one story which I wish were in here is "The Sleeping Serpent" by Pamela Sargent, a very cool story set in an America settles by Genghis Khan's hordes, which you can find in "The Way it Wasn't," compiled by Martin Greenberg.

To sum up -- I enjoyed this book a lot. Definitely two thumbs up.

If you are serious about AH fiction, you may find a certain sense of deja vu as you read this. Every single story in this collection has appeared before in Mike Resnick's ALETRNATE (fill in title) series or Bedford and Greenberg's WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN series, so if you have every volume of these prior collections you will be simply buyting a second copy of stories you already possess. If you are new to AH, this makes a good intro to the genre, but otherwise the only use you may have for this is to loan out to newbies you wish to introduce to this field if you only trust them with one book at a time.

I'll be the outlier to the other, mostly positive reviews. The stories by Robert Silverberg and L. Sprague de Camp are worthwhile, and Michael Flynn's "The Forest of Time" is nicely done. Of the rest, however, two are downright silly and one pathetic. The rest shade to mediocrity. If you are looking for an anthology, I think Alternate Generals is more consistently successful.

By far, the two best stories were among the book's longest: Michael F. Flynn's "The Forest of Time" and L. Sprague de Camp's "Aristotle and the Gun." A couple of the shorter ones were forgettable or incomprehensible. Several were merely above average. I loved the premise of Harry Turtledove's "Must and Shall," but the execution was not on par with the ones I cited above.

I normally find a collection of stories from several different authors irritating to read, due to the different styles they write in, fluctuating quality, etc. This book, on the other hand, has solid and entertaining stories from beginning to end. They span a wide range of time frames, from the ubiquitous American Civil War alternative to North America in 1492, Alexander/Aristotle's time, and of course WWII. My only complaint on the scope is that there are too many stories centred on North America, but this is not a serious problem, just a personal dislike.

Favourites include the stories by Greg Costikyan and Michael F. Flynn. GC's story involves an alternate history where Communism is the clear winner in the economic cold war and the western capitalist system collapses. I would urge everyone to read it, especially if you have little sympathy for the plight of the former Soviet republics. MFF's story takes place in a North America where George Washington is killed early in the American Revolution and the colonies end up as several independent states all warring on each other.

These two examples illustrate the diversity and entertainment possible in alternate history fiction, and I recommend this book to anyone who already loves this type of story or anyone that thinks they might like to start reading in the area.

The book "Roads not taken" constitues a good compilation and introduction to any person, as I myself, interested to know alternate history stories, allowing a first contact with a serie of exemplificative writers of that style.

The stories, in general, are plausible and believable, and some of them, too, are well structured with an indisputable literary value: for example, Robert Silverberg's "An outpost of the empire" (depicting a world where Roman Empire is still at the height of his power in an era corresponding to Renaissance period) or A.A. Attanasio's "Ink from the new moon" (portraying a different reality where America was found and colonized by chinese people and, consequently, converted to Buddhism), fall in that category and, with L. Sprague de Camp's "Aristotle and the gun", are also my favourites.

The last one, more than alternate history, is speculative history, putting an interesting dilemma: if we could change, somewhere in the past, the course of human evenments, would be the future (our present day) a better place to live? Well, as in other matters, the dreams of reason can generate monsters...

I recommend the book, knowing that he gives some hours of light but good reading, a thing which is always necessary.

Roads Not Taken are ten tales of alternate history, most of which have been published before. In fact, all of them have been published before, and this book is like a flashback of my early reading of science fiction. The stories such as Aristotle and The Gun or We Could Do Worse are stories I have enjoyed before. But some of them, such as The West Is Red or Must And Shall, are totally new to me and I enjoyed them very much. I would suggest this for any sci-fi fan, as a gift or just an addition to their private library.

Alternate history is an interesting subgenre, sort of a mix between fantasy/science fiction and history. Each contribution in this field poses an imaginary supposition and asks the readers to consider the author's take on a response, such as "just imagine what would happen if the South had won the Civil War." An excellent work of recent American literature that I think qualifies as an example in this category, and which certainly raised excellent discussion questions for me about past and current political and social values was Philip Roth's `The Plot Against America" which came out in 2004, working through the "what if" premise of Lindbergh coming to political power in the United States in the 1930's, building a sense of shared vision with fascist forces in Europe.

This is a collection of ten short stories for readers curious about possibilities in this genre. They are a mixed bunch. After reading the book, I realized that what I enjoy most about this genre is the opportunity to read along and discover ramifications of the ripple effect one alternate history change might have on an entire society and its future, and in the short story format, there isn't sufficient time to develop a lot of these descriptive and evidentiary aspects, so the authors mostly just put forward the "what if" premise for the reader to ponder, then sketch out a conflict or romance narrative of some sort (often, elements of both) one could find in any traditional historical short story. Sometimes the authors use a "big reveal" technique, where in the last paragraph the reader is given one final choice bit of connection to or detail from real history as we understand it with sort of an "aha!" effect. I think in the future if I explore this genre more, I will try to read full length novels rather than short stories.

Still, among these short stories, there were some I enjoyed very much. Best of all was "Aristotle and the Gun" by the great fantasy writer L. Sprague de Camp. Here a misanthropic American scientist nerd who languishes in governmental bureaucracy goes back in time to get Aristotle more jazzed about the scientific method. It is educational, humorous, and thoughtful at the same time. Some of the other more memorable "what if "scenarios covered in these works include what if Castro had got signed to Big League baseball, what if a capitalistic Hitler ran a successful marketing campaign for Volkswagens throughout the world, what if Joe McCarthy had become president. We also get a chance to ponder American colonies that never confederated, massive Chinese exploration and settlement of North America, and a Roman Empire that never fell. Notable authors contributing to this anthology include Harry Turtledove, a big name in this subgenre, and Robert Silverberg, well known in science fiction.