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Roads Not Taken

Roads Not Taken

List Price: $6.99
Your Price: $6.29
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A great anthology
Review: Loved all the stories in this book. Great group of authors

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Engrossing stories, however lacks satisfactory endings
Review: Seven out the the ten short stories are great. This is good entertainment. It is the ultimate "What If...?" anthology.

The only problem is that the conclusions are not satisfactory. They lack the bite. Basically, the reader is lead through an alternate history with cool characters and then the reader is left with an ending that doesn't do much.

However, I recommend this title to history buffs. The topics are innovative.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: What if???
Review: 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.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: What if???
Review: 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.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Varied Quality, Too much history required?
Review: The best thing about this collection is Shelly Shapiro's introductory essay that attempts to define "alternative history". As a historian and a college instructor, I can't really agree with Shapiro that using "alternative histories" is a great way to discuss history -- students seem confused enough about history at least at the earliest levels. Most "alternative history" seems focused on WWII or the American Revolution and thus I've not found it very interesting. I bought this specifically for the variety of time periods covered. However what I discovered was that I either had too much historical knowledge or too little really grasp the stories depending on the period covered. Of the 10 stories included in this book, Robert Silverberg and A.A. Attanasio's work stood out in my mind for their ability to tell a story that seemed worth reading and yet also be close enough to "historical facts" to make sense. Some of the stories are so subtly different that you have to really think to understand what is going on while others seem a bit confused in the telling.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Varied Quality, Too much history required?
Review: The best thing about this collection is Shelly Shapiro's introductory essay that attempts to define "alternative history". As a historian and a college instructor, I can't really agree with Shapiro that using "alternative histories" is a great way to discuss history -- students seem confused enough about history at least at the earliest levels. Most "alternative history" seems focused on WWII or the American Revolution and thus I've not found it very interesting. I bought this specifically for the variety of time periods covered. However what I discovered was that I either had too much historical knowledge or too little really grasp the stories depending on the period covered. Of the 10 stories included in this book, Robert Silverberg and A.A. Attanasio's work stood out in my mind for their ability to tell a story that seemed worth reading and yet also be close enough to "historical facts" to make sense. Some of the stories are so subtly different that you have to really think to understand what is going on while others seem a bit confused in the telling.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Varied Quality, Too much history required?
Review: The best thing about this collection is Shelly Shapiro's introductory essay that attempts to define "alternative history". As a historian and a college instructor, I can't really agree with Shapiro that using "alternative histories" is a great way to discuss history -- students seem confused enough about history at least at the earliest levels. Most "alternative history" seems focused on WWII or the American Revolution and thus I've not found it very interesting. I bought this specifically for the variety of time periods covered. However what I discovered was that I either had too much historical knowledge or too little really grasp the stories depending on the period covered. Of the 10 stories included in this book, Robert Silverberg and A.A. Attanasio's work stood out in my mind for their ability to tell a story that seemed worth reading and yet also be close enough to "historical facts" to make sense. Some of the stories are so subtly different that you have to really think to understand what is going on while others seem a bit confused in the telling.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Fine introduction to alternate history style
Review: 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.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Fine introduction to alternate history style
Review: 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.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good, solid stories of AH
Review: 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!


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