lternate history is a near cousin to military science fiction, often focusing on the outcome of battles rather than the soldiers and machines that fight them. In this context, editors Harry Turtledove and Martin H. Greenberg have done readers of both genres a service in 2001. Following up their June anthology The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century with this month's The Best Alternate History Stories of the 20th Century, Turtledove and Greenberg provide a crosssection of this related and vastly flexible area of literature.
The stories in this anthology bring together an enticing batch of authors, a few of whom are less well known for alternate history than other types of SF. Poul Anderson, Larry Niven, Bruce Sterling, Greg Bear and Kim Stanley Robinson all make appearances, and the twists they take on established history are variable. Some involve changing a single historical fact: John F. Kennedy survives the assassination attempt in Dallas, McGovern becomes the U.S. president in 1972, and the Third Reich prevails in World War II. In others, Islam topples Constantinople centuries early, while the Confederate States of America win their war of secession.
Not all of the stories play riffs on great events, however. "Mozart in Mirrorshades," by Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner, is a multiple-worlds tale where futuristic businessmen invade 18th-century Salzburg, infecting its people with consumerism and industrial pollutants. Allen Steele's "The Death of Captain Future" shows Earth with an empire of colonies throughout the solar system. Jack L. Chalker's "Dance Band on the Titanic" depicts a ferryboat crew which travels between alternate—but similar—realities, while the protagonist of Poul Anderson's "Eutopia" searches for a perfect world among radically divergent historical timelines.
Harvesting the best of 100 years
The Best Alternate History Stories of the 20th Century displays every facet of this flexible genre. Multiple worlds, time-travel stories, great events ... all are cast in startling new relief. While much of SF looks at the role of technology in human affairs, a number of the stories in this anthology invert that paradigm. They show how shifts in human behavior might affect the development and uses of science. Readers will see familiar technologies—the first atomic bomb, oil refineries, even a simple pistol—appearing in different situations from the ones they know and expect.
With a century's worth of work to choose from, it is no surprise that every story in this anthology is an engaging read. Even in a field of excellence, though, a few stories stand out as masterpieces. "The Undiscovered," by William Sanders, provides both pathos and laugh-out-loud humor in a tale about a Native-American tribe and its interactions with the white man it adopts. Kim Stanley Robinson's "The Lucky Strike" is more somber, offering an insightful view into what might have happened if the Enola Gay had crashed before its fateful 1945 bombing run on Hiroshima. "Mozart in Mirrorshades" brims with energy and its title character's youthful exuberance. Turtledove himself delivers a solid winner with "Islands in the Sea," dramatizing the competition between a powerful Islam and the weakened Church of Rome. Fighting for the souls of the Bulgars, they immediately descend into all-too-earthy sales pitches and mudslinging.
Ultimately, this book provides a showcase, allowing readers access to the brightest examples of what alternate history can accomplish. In so doing, The Best Alternate History Stories of the 20th Century stands a good chance of converting many new fans to the faith of "what if?"
