Alternate World Fantasy

Young, ambitious, and in possession of the Mandate of Heaven, Zhu believes utterly in her own capacity to do anything – endure anything – that will bring her closer to being crowned Emperor. But Zhu isn’t the only one with imperial ambitions. Her neighbor, the former courtesan Madam Zhang, wants the throne for her husband – and her powerful kingdom has the strength and resources to wipe Zhu off the map. The only way for Zhu to defeat Madam Zhang is to gamble everything on a risky alliance with an old enemy: the beautiful, traitorous eunuch general Ouyang.

Ottanger always believed his mutation to be chance or perhaps the actions of fate. Or even the result of pollution on a hellish overpopulated Earth, ruled by a totalitarian Committee and its ruthless Inspectorate. But, when Ottanger is captured, tortured and made the subject of a strange experiment by the Inspectorate, he discovers otherwise - his mutation allows him to walk between alternate worlds. When Ottanger is thrown from his timeline from the far future, he meets the Fenris – humanity’s future form.

In an alternate 1875 America, electricity is forbidden, Native Americans and Yankees are united, and eldritch evil lurks in the shadows. Young Archie Dent knows there really are monsters in the world. His parents are members of the Septemberist Society, whose job it is to protect humanity from hideous giants called the Mangleborn. Trapped in underground prisons for a thousand years, the giant monsters have been all but forgotten - but now they are rising again as the steam-driven America of 1875 rediscovers electricity, the lifeblood of the Mangleborn.

A stolen US army drone. A shrinking oasis in the Sahara Desert. A secret stash of deadly chemicals. Each is a threat to the stability of the world but individually are problems that can be overcome. In the diplomatic arena though, everyone will have a different way of dealing with such a threat. And when those in charge disagree and refuse to back down, it will kick off an international chain reaction with potentially catastrophic consequences: a world edging closer to war....

Storming the Gap: First Strike reveals the explosive origins of the Third World War and delves into the opening salvos of the conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in a world where the Cold War turns hot in 1985. This epic story is told from a range of viewpoints - through the eyes of the decision-makers in Washington as well as the tankers and infantry fighting through hills and towns of southern Germany.

In these 34 intriguing episodes, leading historian Christopher Andrew rewrites history, considering what might have transpired if pivotal events had turned out differently. By altering a single, plausible fact, he explores alternative futures where the Spanish Armada landed on English soil, Pontius Pilate freed Jesus, the Nazis occupied Britain and many more.

In Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy, one of our very best writers brings the opulent world of the Tudors to bloody, glittering life. It is the backdrop to the rise and rise of Thomas Cromwell: lowborn boy, charmer, bully, master of deadly intrigue, and, finally, most powerful of Henry VIII’s coutiers. But the bloody theatre of Cromwell’s ascension will leave no one unscathed.

In this, the first volume of renowned author and historian Peter G. Tsouras’s alternative history trilogy, Great Britain’s support for the Confederacy takes it to the brink of war with the Union. The escape of a British-built Confederate ironclad finally ignites the heap of combustible animosities and national interests. When the US Navy seizes it in British waters, the ensuing battle spirals into all-out war. Napoleon III eagerly joins the British and declares war on the United States.

While researching why Freud failed to win a Nobel Prize at the Nobel Archives in Sweden, a psychiatrist makes an unusual discovery. Among the piles of papers in the "Crackpot" file are letters addressed to the executor of Alfred Nobel's will, written by several notable Nobel laureates - including Rudyard Kipling and Marie Curie - each offering an explanation of why and how Stonehenge was constructed. Diligent research uncovers that Alfred Nobel added a secret codicil to his will, a prize for the Nobel laureate who solves the mystery of Stonehenge.

Count Hamnet Thyssen is a minor noble of the drowsy old Raumsdalian Empire. Its capital city, Nidaros, began as a mammoth hunters camp at the edge of the great Glacier. But that was centuries ago, and as everyone knows, its the nature of the great Glacier to withdraw a few feet every year. Trasamund, a clan chief of the mammoth-herding Bizogots, the next tribe north, has come to town with strange news. A narrow gap has opened in what they'd always thought was an endless and impregnable wall of ice.

Brought to you by Penguin. Every slave plantation is a house of spies and intrigue. No slave walks a straight line or has a single story - deep within their hearts is betrayal and insurrection. But against whom? Hiram Walker is a man with a gift and a curse. He was born between worlds: his father a white plantation master, his mother a black slave. And, unbeknown even to himself, he was born with a special power. When he is sold to a new mistress as punishment for attempting escape, Hiram discovers her home is a secret hub of the underground railroad: a training ground for its agents.

This novel spans the period between the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I. With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.

In the Shadow of the Towers compiles nearly 20 works of speculative fiction responding to and inspired by the events of 9/11, from writers seeking to confront, rebuild, and carry on, even in the face of overwhelming emotion.

The Unfolded World is a bitter and unfriendly place for Daniel Carter and Emily Lovecraft. In this world the Cold War never happened because the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1941. In this world the Nazi Großdeutschland is the premier superpower and is not merely tolerated but indulged because, in this world, the Holocaust happened behind the ruins of the Iron Curtain and consumed only Bolsheviks, Communists, and others the West was glad to see gone. In this world there are monsters, and not all of them are human.

It is the 14th century, and one of the most apocalyptic events in human history is set to occur - the coming of the Black Death. History teaches us that a third of Europe's population was destroyed. But what if the plague had killed 99 percent of the population instead? How would the world have changed? This is a look at the history that could have been - a history that stretches across centuries, a history that sees dynasties and nations rise and crumble, a history that spans horrible famine and magnificent innovation.

The eight masterly stories in this new collection are all told in the first person by a classic Murakami narrator. From nostalgic memories of youth, meditations on music and an ardent love of baseball to dreamlike scenarios, an encounter with a talking monkey and invented jazz albums, together these stories challenge the boundaries between our minds and the exterior world. Occasionally, a narrator who may or may not be Murakami himself is present. Is it memoir or fiction? The listener decides.

Egypt, 1912. In an alternate Cairo infused with the otherworldly, the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities investigate disturbances between the mortal and the (possibly) divine. What starts off as an odd suicide case for Special Investigator Fatma el-Sha’arawi leads her through the city’s underbelly as she encounters rampaging ghouls, saucy assassins, clockwork angels, and plot that could unravel time itself, in P. Djèlí Clark's Tor.Com Original, A Dead Djinn in Cairo.

There are ghost towns in the world - places where the humans were annihilated in retaliation for the slaughter of the shape-shifting Others. One of those places is Bennett, a town at the Northern end of the Elder Hills - a town surrounded by the wild country. Now, efforts are being made to resettle Bennett as a community where humans and Others live and work together. But as they reopen the stores and the professional offices and start to make lives for themselves, the town of Bennett attracts the attention of other humans looking for profit.

The forces of the Warsaw Pact storm west over the Inner German Border and unleash devastation on the first days of the conflict. Among the NATO defenders of West Germany are Captain Kurt Mohr and his company of Leopard tanks. Outgunned and outnumbered, the men must conduct vital delaying operations until reinforcements can mobilize to stop the communists in their tracks.

The Trial is one of the great works of the 20th century - an extraordinary vision of one man put on trial by an anonymous authority on an unspecified charge. Kafka evokes all the terrifying reality of his ordeal.