Description:
Although none of the stories in this anthology take place in the future, they qualify as science fiction (or perhaps speculative fiction would be more accurate) because at the heart of each one lies the question "What if...?" Only in this case, instead of a question like "What if we had faster-than-light travel?" all the questions revolve around alternative historical events. What if the Chinese had colonized America before the Europeans? What if Joseph McCarthy had become president? As in science fiction, the question is the seed from which the author extrapolates a future and a narrative. The stories in this anthology cover a wide range of other pasts and presents. Highlights include "Must and Shall" by Harry Turtledove, the modern master of alternative history. His fictional present stems from an alternative Civil War, one that the North still won, but in a very different manner. Gene Wolfe presents a timeline in which World War II is settled by an automobile race, and Robert Silverberg looks at a modern-day world in which the Roman Empire never fell. This anthology will definitely appeal to those who enjoy the curious mental frisson that comes from exploring worlds that are in many ways similar to our own, but also quite different. --Brooks Peck
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