Prime Minister Portillo and other things that never happened, various

"What if Lenin's train had crashed on the way to the Finland Station? Lee Harvey Oswald had missed? Lord Halifax had become Prime Minister in 1940 instead of Churchill? In this diverting and thought-provoking book of counter-factuals a collection of distinguished commentators consider how things might have been."









I find these non-fiction 'What if?' books slightly sad, as they work as neither a truly good history book, or as a work of historical fiction. This is compounded by a mixed bag of authors, who range from those catalogueing slight alterations to full blown changes in the timeline, in a variety of styles, with varying degrees of success.

One of the big issues is that very few of these imagine a world changed all that much by the alterations they describe; most are obscure, or at least historically distant, enough that it's hard to see how a revitalised party or individual could have impacted more. Even greater changes, like JFK surviving or Churchill being passed over for Halifax engender only slight fluctuations - legislation passes slower, or the pace of the war moves differently, with the same fixed outcome.

It's a very Fukuyama-esque book, where the outcome we currently have is seemingly all that's possible. Compare and contrast to real works of speculative history, such as Harry Turtledove, and the difference is huge.

Often dry, sometimes interesting, but only fitfully worth dipping into, this is a book more for the writers than the readers, and is best passed over in favour of better offerings.

Also Try;

Robert Harris, Fatherland

Eric Flint; 1631

Harry Turtledove, Guns of the South

Eon, Greg Bear

"Above our planet hangs a hollow Stone, vast as the imagination of Man. The inner dimensions are at odds with the outer: there are different chambers to be breached, some even containing deserted cities. The furthest chamber contains the greatest mystery ever to confront the Stone's scientists.

But tombstone or milestone, the Stone is not an alien structure: it comes from the future of our humanity. And the war that breaks out on Earth seems to bear witness to the Stone's prowess as oracle . . ."










If Through Darkest America was unsure whether it wanted to be post-apocalyptic, civil-war epic, Western or teen drama, Eon at least has the virtue of not needing to choose what it is by being everything to all things. It's big sci-fi, hard sci-fi, in the classic vein, with a plot that is followable but not necessarily understandable for all the right reasons.

When the cold war is interrupted by the arrival of a massive meteor, orbiting the Earth, science teams are sent to investigate. At which point every expectation about what's coming next breaks down as Bear decides to just skip over the bits you assume will come next, like the initial reaction to the stone's arrival, or the consequences of a world-ending nuclear war.

This is not a story that's afraid to hit its audience over the head thematically, but it's in the actual science that things can go a bit off the deep end. When your main character is an experimental physicist so brilliant a civilisation literally centuries ahead needs her mind to advance their science you know there's not going to be too much slowing down for the kids at the back to keep up. And so it proves, as the book seeks to set up a mathematical concept allowing a TARDIS to hijack a space rock out of its dimension and back through time. And then there's a space war. Everyone in the book is 'brilliant' in their own way, which can be distracting but is probably more fair in the context of a top secret scientific exploration of future-tech and alien activity.

It makes very little sense but is terrific fun, and works as a wonderful example of truly well thought out xenofiction, up there with anything in the Ender's Game books (a series which did very well at imagining lots of very alien species).

It also has a couple of sequels which I won't be hunting out but would certainly read if I came across them.

Also Try;
Greg Bear, Darwin's Radio
Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead
K. A. Applegate, The Ellimist Chronicles

Crucible of Gold, Naomi Novik

"Former Aerial Corps captain Will Laurence and his faithful dragon, Temeraire, have been put out to pasture in Australia – and it seems their part in the war has ended just when they are needed most.

The French have invaded Spain, forged an alliance with Africa’s powerful Tswana empire, and brought revolution to Brazil. With Britain’s last desperate hope of defeating Napoleon in peril, the government that sidelined Laurence swiftly offers to reinstate him, convinced that he’s the best man to enter the fray and negotiate peace. So the pair embark for Brazil, only to meet with a string of unmitigated disasters that forces them to make an unexpected landing in the hostile territory of the Incan empire.

With the success of the mission balanced on a razor’s edge, an old enemy appears and threatens to tip the scales toward ruin. Yet even in the midst of disaster, opportunity may lurk – for one bold enough to grasp it."


Looking back, and rather unexpectedly, I have only written a review of Temeraire, which is weird because I've definitely read two other books since I started blogging these books. Fortunately, the last few weren't all that good by the standards of the series, and the first half of the review can serve to cover them.

For the last few books Temeraire has been in a bit of a slump. As Novik widened the focus of the Napoleonic war away from the European theatre (i.e, the important bit) we've spent a lot of time travelling elsewhere. In some cases that's been good; China and Africa, and when we reach it in Crucible of Gold, South America have all been interesting in showing alternate cultures that developed differently because Dragons exist. But the flipside of that is that Novik is intent on reminding you how big the world is, and how long it would take to travel across it to all these places, meaning that between forty and eighty percent of each book is them flying or sailing to new places.

That was interesting the first time, simply in presenting some of the limitations of Dragons as transport. By the third book? Less so. It all detracts from the bit that IS interesting, which is the actual war with Napoleon. By making the stories, every story for the last few, be about the travel the actual events of the story get pushed to an afterthought. It doesn't help that the reasons for each mission is usually pretty similar. We tour Africa chasing Dragon's who have stolen Lawrence, tour Australia chasing a Dragon who has stolen an egg, and tour South America chasing ... well, actually, slight twist, in this one they're being chased, having stolen a person.

Once we get that out the way, and actually reach the end of the journey however, the story picks up. We finally get back to the war; in this case a new front as France and an African alliance challenges Portugal in Brazil. This is the bit I wanted to be reading about for the last few books. If you're going to set your books during the Napoleonic war with Dragons, please include some Napoleonic war, rather than just some travelling.

Also Try:
Temeraire, Naomi Novik
Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkein
Megamorphs 3: Elfangor's Secret, K. A. Applegate

The Violent Century, Lavie Tidhar

"For seventy years they guarded the British Empire. Oblivion and Fogg, inseparable friends, bound together by a shared fate. Until one night in Berlin, in the aftermath of the Second World War, and a secret that tore them apart. But there must always be an account...and the past has a habit of catching up to the present. Now, recalled to the Retirement Bureau from which no one can retire, Fogg and Oblivion must face up to a past of terrible war and unacknowledged heroism, - a life of dusty corridors and secret rooms, of furtive meetings and blood-stained fields - to answer one last, impossible question: What makes a hero?"









A surprise Christmas present from my good friend and fellow Impossible Podcaster Caleb, Lavie Tidhar's World War 2 superhero romp is a work of depth and scope, one which manages to be interesting to both the historian and comic fan in me.

The Second World War is fertile ground for reimagining, with almost every alternate history writer ever having written at least one book set in Europe between '39 and '45. From 'The Man in the High Castle' to 'Fatherland', most revisionists have chosen to present an alternative of Axis triumph - I've reviewed a few already that have included a picture of either a British collapse before 1941 or a comprehensive Russian defeat after, the two most common ideas.

To Tidhar's credit then, this is not simply a 'What If'. Instead, he imagines a world in which superpowers, distributed evenly simply balance out the sides, meaning no war-winning advantage. Forget Captain America punching out hitler, or Superman sinking Japanese ships. These 'heroes' are flawed, weak individuals, whose impact is as important for propaganda (the American super-soldiers) and intelligence gathering (the British super-spies), as actual battle (the Russians).

In fact, each nation utilises it's new powered assets differently, sending some into the heart of the conflict and using the talents of others for their own purposes - the NAZIs begin to use theirs to hunt down Jews and Allied heroes for Dr. Mengele.

It's a hard line to tread, mixing the fantastic with a perils of history that was almost unprecedentedly brutal, with countless atrocities. The Violent Century doesn't shy away from this, instead addressing these head on, and as time passes and it moves onto Vietnam, Soviet-era Afghanistan and the course of history passes unimpeded their presence only acts as a spotlight on the other historical acts of aggression perpetrated by all the Great Powers on their vassal states.

Mixing real events and individuals (featuring cameos from a comic-less Stan Lee and Siegel and Schuster) with the more imaginative (Sabra, the Israeli hero of the Warsaw Uprisings who is killed rescuing hostages at the Munich Olympics, is an inspired example), the book treads a course through much foreign policy of the Cold War years.

The USP of The Violent Century though is not its use of real and imagined characters or narrative sweep, but it's staccato text and grammar-less drive. Entire conversations pass without the need to hang quotation marks or apostrophes. Far from liberating the words, this adds a paranoid, disconcerting immediacy - a sense, intentional I'm sure, that things are not quite as they should be. This is a world without punctuation; what if, rather than "What If?" 

Also Try:

Kieron Gillen, Über

Harry Turtledove, World War series

Stephen Fry, Making History

Alan Moore, Top Ten

Temeraire, Naomi Novak

"Captain Will Laurence has been at sea since he was just twelve years old; finding a warmer berth in Nelson's navy than any he enjoyed as the youngest, least important son of Lord Allendale. Rising on merit to captain his own vessel, Laurence has earned himself a beautiful fiancée, society's esteem and a golden future. But the war is not going well. It seems Britain can only wait as Napoleon plans to overrun her shores.

After a skirmish with a French ship, Laurence finds himself in charge of a rare cargo: a dragon egg bound for the Emperor himself. Dragons are much prized: properly trained, they can mount a fearsome attack from the skies. One of Laurence's men must take the beast in hand and join the aviators' cause, thus relinquishing all hope of a normal life.

But when the newly-hatched dragon ignores the young midshipman Laurence chose as its keeper and decides to imprint itself on the horrified captain instead, Laurence's world falls apart. Gone is his golden future: gone his social standing, and soon his beautiful fiancée, as he is consigned to be the constant companion and trainer of the fighting dragon Temeraire…"

This was a reread inspired by my friend Alex looking for a new book to read - knowing his love of historical fiction, and especially his fondness for Sharpe, I figured this would be an excellent next step. It's one of the best, and most unusual, works of speculative historical fiction, boiling down to 'Napoleonic War with Dragons' but stretching far wider than the European theatre that suggests.

Few writers have such a solid grasp of narrative than Novak, who builds a world that is enjoyable to read about and doesn't strecth credibility too far within her central premise. As the series builds her grasp of the politics and world wide picture comes into focus, and it's here that Temerarire excels. Bringing in Chinese politics, Australian rebellions, Portugese Empire building in South America, the invasion of Russia, whilst also sprinkling in divergences such as France invading England by air, or the rise of a Pan-African anti-slavery nation.

These twists keeps things fresh from a historical perspective, whilst the main characters, Captain Will Laurence and his Dragon, Temeraire, make for hilarious protagonists. Frequently faced with intemperate, uncomprehending adversaries within British society, as well as enemies abroad, they stand as a mixture of Sharpe, Hornblower and Mr Darcy, as confident delivering pithy put-downs to fellow fliers as in battling the French.

A novel and often head-scratchingly inventive novel, these first few books are the high point of the series, and well worth reading.

Also Try:
Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe
Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel
Neil Gaiman, Sandman

After America, John Birmingham

"March 14, 2003, was the day the world changed forever. A wave of energy slammed into North America and devastated the continent. The U.S. military, poised to invade Baghdad, was left without a commander in chief. Global order spiraled into chaos. Now, three years later, a skeleton U.S. government headquartered in Seattle directs the reconstruction of an entire nation—and the battle for New York City has begun."








After America is one of the most ridiculous books I have ever read, and bearing in mind that I've just posted a review of a comic that features a superhero who replaces his head with that of a ghost cow, after an undead boxer smashes his to smithereens, that is saying quite a bit.

This is the second in a series called 'The Disappeared', the plot of which is that in the run up to the Iraq war, with most of the American military about to step into a war in the Middle East, an unexplained wave of energy hits America and reduces its population to a few million. In the last book the fallout from the near total destruction of America was the near economic destruction of the world, and a pre-emptive nuclear attack by Israel on every neighbouring nation.

Having set up a new democratic Government, and prevented secessionist Texans from declaring military rule, the new President is having a hard time, due to the fact that New York has been occupied by an entire terrorist force.

Focusing on the battle to retake the city, as well as the struggles for various characters in Europe and southern America, it basically becomes a lovingly detailed book of military hardware. Much like Birmingham's other series, Weapons of Choice, this is a book that loves to go overboard on the intricacies of weaponry. What it lacks in sense, or explanations, it more than makes up for in embellished characterisation of the military.

It's a great book, don't get me wrong, in the classic mold of an airport page turner. It's not smart, it's not clever, and it's rarely all that well written. Above all, it's not good Sci-Fi. Not since 1632 decided it could just dump a modern town into history because 'aliens' has a major plot point been quite so sketchily planned. The wave is a catalyst, but it isn't ever explained. There's no attempt to analyse it. Like King's 'Under the Dome' it's just something that happens to start the plot. Reactions to it vary, but all accept it and move on.

Everything that comes after is tinged with the sense of that; people accept things and move on. People do things that don't make sense, and it's chalked up to the wave. It's bad sci-fi, and it's a shame that it's unexplored (and unexplained). At least in Weapons of Choice Birmingham attempted to rationalise an explanation.

It shouldn't bug me in a book about the invasion of New York by the US army to fight the evil forces of Islam, but it does. It's not helped by the portrayal of anyone outside of America as either evil (and Muslim) or cold and aloof (and English). These are the defaults of outside America. Not all Americans are good, but all non-Americans are pretty bad. And that's a pretty problematic world when America is quite so reduced in status and size.

Also Try:
John Birmingham, Weapons of Choise
Eric Flint, 1632
Brian Wood, DMZ
Brian K Vaughan, Y: The Last Man

The Burning Mountain, Alfred Coppel

"BASED ON ACTUAL U.S. AND JAPANESE WAR PLANS, ONE OF THE MOST UNUSUAL AND POWERFUL WAR NOVELS EVER WRITTEN AN UNFORGETTABLE DRAMA OF HEROISM,LOVE AND SACRIFICE!"
















The Burning Mountain is a 'novel of the invasion of Japan', probably the least written about alternate World War Two strand. It's well researched, manages to portray at least one convincingly complex relationship between people from the two cultures, and teeters throughout on whether it wants to make this a full blown Jingoistic take on World War Two.

It's constantly in danger of over extending itself in its portrayal of Japanese culture and warfare. When this is used as a tool to show the superiority of the Allies over the NAZIs it's understandable. But the double standard meted out to the Japanese sits less comfortably. Whilst their war crimes were equally egregious, the overall storyarc of the book is that, disgusted by the use of civilians in defending their homeland, the US has no choice but to use Atomic weapons on Hiroshima.

Which is fine, except for the squeamishness about the way in which prisoner of war are treated, that the Japanese defend their home islands, the very fact that they choose to fight at all,  all of it is treated as though it's an alien concept, creating the idea that the Japanse are barbarians and that the bombing is a righteous one. It's an odd point to reach, when the moral highground is taken by the people murdering an entire city, in the name of preventing the civilians who will otherwise be forced to fight and die against the invading Americans.

There's a real sense of Allied superiority, whether in terms of the quantity or quality of arms and men they can throw at Japan, which is treated by the Japanese characters as growing evidence of their own inadequateness in the face of the American invaders.

Its sub-Turtledove dialogue, and introduction of characters to be killed a page later, add up to an unsatisfying novel, which short cuts to the end before any defining land battles can take place, and mostly skips over the wider conflicts in favour of small, guerrilla squad tactics and air battles between two totally outmatched forces.

Interesting for its use of Operation Coronet and Ketsugo only, stick with Turtledove for characterisation and description.

Also Try:
Harry Turtledove, Days of Infamy
Robert Conroy, 1945

Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D'Urbervilles, Kim Newman

"Imagine the twisted evil twins of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson and you have the dangerous duo of Professor James Moriarty - wily, snake-like, fiercely intelligent, terrifyingly unpredictable - and Colonel Sebastian Basher Moran - violent, politically incorrect, debauched. Together they run London crime, owning police and criminals alike. When a certain Irene Adler turns up on their doorstep with a proposition, neither man is able to resist. An entertaining and wickedly humorous crime adventure from the bestselling writer of Anno Dracula."











Supposedly written by Colonel Moran, colleague of Professor James Moriarty (from The Adventure of the Empty House), this is a loving pastiche of the Conan Doyle Holmes stories, victorian literature and pulp adventure novels. Literary mash-ups are fairly common, but this is one of the best, combining disparate plot strands from dozens of books and tying them all together around the skeletons of various Holmes shorts, from The Red Headed League to the Greek Interpreter, and, of course, Scandal, Hound and Falls.

Originally written as multiple short stories for magazines, they hold up remarkably well and the books format works terrifically. It helps that Moran, like Flashman before him, is the kind of easily readable rogue that makes base villainy so enjoyable. It's easy to compare these to a less inclusive Bond, but the real joy for anyone who has read Holmes is in picking out the references.

Newman's grasp of the wider genre is massive, as his work on Anno Dracula has shown, and references are peppered through the book which should encourage anyone reading to go and find out more. It rewards close reading, and the end notes give some insight into where more obscure characters come from. Realising that you're reading the other half, or a parallel, to a Holmes tale is great fun.

Anno Dracula may be more fun, but this is arguably more readble, and much like the Holmes books serves as a nice series to dip in and out of, with the short story nature of the tales making it easy to pick up and put down when you want to.

Also Try;
Alan Moore, League of Extraordinary Gentleman
Kim Newman, Anno Dracula,
Sir Arther Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes
Philip Jose Farmer, The Other Log of Phileas Fogg 

Animorphs: Megamorphs 3 - Elfangor's Secret, K. A. Applegate

"We found out who Visser Four is, And he has found the Time Matrix. The machine Elfangor had hidden in the abandoned construction site. The same place we met him on a night none of us will ever forget. Especially me. Now Visser Four has the Matrix and he plans to use it to become Visser One.

But Jake, Rachel, Cassie, Marco, Ax and I can't let that happen. We can't let him alter time so that the Yeerks will win this invasion. So we're prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice.   And, ultimately, one of us will lose this fight ..."









Animorphs is hands down my favourite series of books of all time, an epic set of young adult books detailing the war between five shapeshifting teenagers and their alien ally battling a massive invasion of brain-occupying slugs. It was the second biggest selling childrens series of the 90s (after Goosebumps) and had probably the best story arc of any childrens book series ever written.

Seriously. Because whilst Harry Potter may have killed off a lot of its supporting cast, it didn't have the chutzpah to kill of one of six main characters from the 50 books and then end the series with the implied death of all but one of the others as they go out against unbeatable odds for no benefit whatsoever.

Oh, and the romantic subplot was upended when one half of the ongoing will-they-won't-they became a war criminal responsible for the genocidal slaughter of thousands of prisoners in a last ditch attempt to stop the conflict dragging on for years more.

Years after I read them (they were first published from 1996) I still try and bore people with a full run down of individual stories and why I loved them. At some point, I will get round to blogging the whole series I'm sure, but suffice it to say that you should read them.

The holes in my collection of the physical books I'm always on the lookout to fill, and I picked this up in a charity shop. It's a short book - even the extended 'Megamorphs' won't stretch you more than an hour, but it's well worth a read, because this is a book that veers into my other favourite genre: Alternate History.

The idea is this; the war isn't going as smoothly as anticipated (mainly because of the guerrilla tactics of the Animorphs) so the Yeerks, the alien brain slugs, have decided to break up the course of human history. And they succeeded. So now the world is a fascist dystopia, slavery and genocide are accepted as normal and the war against the Yeerks will be over in a matter of months.

In an attempt to stop it the Animorphs are given the chance to pursure the agent responsible for changing the past back through time, encountering him at Agincourt, Trafalger, the crossing of the Delaware and the Normandy Landings. most of which end up being changed, to disasterous (and lethal) effect.

So you get a bit of information about each of these major historical turning points (Napoleon wins, America never breaks way from England, British Empire ends up going to war with a united Europe in World War Two) with little of the usual battles between aliens and people. It's a great introduction to history, and the idea of time travel and its repurcussions.

It's also the second Megamorphs in a row that deals with time travel, as Megamorphs 2 is about the Animorphs fighting aliens in the Time of the Dinosaurs. It's like these books were written for me.

Also Try:
K A Applegate, the entire Animorphs series - http://animorphsforum.com/ebooks/
K A Applegate, Everworld
Michael Grant, Gone
R L Stine, Goosebumps (or a review of all the Goosebumps books - http://www.bloggerbeware.com/)

Mars Attacks!, The Topps Company

Mars Attacks is a series of science fiction trading cards produced by Topps in 1962, depicting the gruesome invasion of Earth by Martians. The story unfolds over the course of the 55 card series, showing futuristic battle scenes with Martians, and their cruel, often bizarre methods of attack and torture. The series culminates with a human insurrection and the destruction of Mars. The short lived series retained it's devoted following and quickly became a collectors item and remains hugely popular and influential today. Tim Burton's 1996 movie adaptation of the story brought Mars Attacks back to the forefront of pop culture and the upcoming 50th anniversary in 2012 will do the same, introducing the story to a new generation of fans. Includes rare and never before seen material (sketches, concept art, test market materials), as well as an introduction by the series' creator, Len Brown, and an afterword by Zina Saunders, daughter of the original artist.

Like anyone with a vaguely geeky side, I love to collect stuff. As soon as there's more than one in a series, or multiple lines, I like to have them all. There's an element of completionist in anyone who's obsessive about their passions, whether that be Pokemon Cards (had every S1 card but Rapidash) or the Animorphs books (still missing much of the final set, but always looking).

For any child growing up in the UK, the first thing they will collect seriously are Panini stickers. These were the currency of the 90's playground. Before Pogs and Tazos, before YoYos and finger skateboards, stickers were the prized possession, with spares to be swapped, sold or bartered for those you still needed.

I have fond memories of the trip to the local corner shop to pick up pack of 6 Jurassic Park or football stickers (and then inevitably get 5 out of 6 I already own, made up for by a new shiny).

I am so grateful that we didn't have the American style 'cards' system that seems to have crept in since the big sticker companies folded. If we had, I suspect I would be living in a room filled with cards.

Instead, I live in a room filled with books, so the Mars Attacks! volume from Topps is the perfect purchase - collecting all of the initial 60's run of Mars Attacks cards, plus reproductions of the 1994 designs, and the 'lost' images that were never released.

Part art book, part oral history of the genesis and critical derision that greeted the cards, part record of a cult success that spawned comics books, action figures and a Tim Burton film, this is a great way of collecting an incredible collection cheaply.

The cultural history implicit in its pages is fascinating - the remaining first drafts of the cards show just how much had to be changed before they were released. Incredibly, the majority of the redesigns were less about the (incredibly rendered) gory violence, and more about the perceived immorality of scantily clad women. Scenes where people are decapitated by giant insects were altered to cover women's shoulders, whilst a burning dog, or spouts of blood escape censure (at least at first).

Also Try:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31558613@N00/sets/72157625601126001/ - Complete set of Mars Attacks! Cards on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nerdcoreblog/sets/72157622577125417/ - Complete set of Dinosaurs Attack! Cards on Flickr

Exiles: Point of No Return, Jeff Parker

"Heroes are being pulled out of the worlds they know - The Beast. The Witch. Panther. Forge. Polaris. All find themselves in a place out of time with a new mission in life. But something seems to have shifted in the mechanics of the universe, and things may not be quite what we remember. But one thing we know for certain - BLINK is BACK! Collects Exiles #1-5."













Exiles is one of my favourite series, a What-If worlds tour between different realities starring alternate versions of classic X-Men and Avengers righting the course of history in different dimensions. It's a wonderful concept, designed to appeal to those who love the history of the Marvel Universe as much as a casual comics or X-Men fan. The original series, running for 100 issues, is one that I collect to this day, picking up the (many) trade paperbacks whenever I can.

It has an easy appeal to explain: big storylines that were ended by the heroes are taken to their logical extreme. It's a series where writers can do whatever they want - kill all the heroes, let the villains win, destroy all mutants, whatever they want! From realities where Captain America became a vampire (in that reality he hadn't got a collar on when Baron Blood attacked him) to ones where Wolverine killed everyone (he was never rescued from Hydra brainwashing) or Professor X is a supervillain, it served as a replacement for the off-and-on again What If?, or DC's Elseworlds titles.

Whilst it declined in quality when Chris Claremont (and his beloved Psylocke) joined, this first volume of Exiles (2), is a real return to form. So of course, it got cancelled after 6 issues, meaning we never got to see the planned worlds of Magic or Savage Land World storylines.

Split into two basic stories, with the first returning for the final few issues, this see's a new team of Exiles jaunting to realities where all mutants united under Magneto on Genosha, and one where a Cerebro-Ultron programme share retasked all robots to destroy humanity.

The art and story are both excellent, and if you're a fan of reality hopping tales, Marvel history, or just great comics it's really worth picking up.

Also try:
Exiles, Judd Winick
What If?, Various Writers
Superman: Red Son, Mark Millar
Marvel Zombies, Robert Kirkman

Himmler's War: Robert Conroy

"Only days after Normandy, Hitler is taken out of the equation and Heinrich Himmler, brutal head of the SS, assumes control of the Reich. On the Allied side, there is confusion. Should attempts be made to negotiate with the new government or should unconditional surrender still be the only option? With the specter of a German super-weapon moving closer to completion and the German generals finally allowed to fight the kind of war at which they are masters, the allies are pushed toward a course of accommodation - or even defeat! Will the soldiers of the Grand Alliance find the courage and conviction to fight on in the face of such daunting odds? And can Alliance leaders put into place a new plan in time to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by the German war machine? A new and terrible battle for a free world is on!"


The best Alternate History books take a single, simple change to the course of history and extrapolate how this would have altered the events that followed whilst tying in real-life events as they would have appeared.

Himmler's War is an excellent example of how Alternate History books can go badly wrong. Faced with the twin challenges of pleasing an audience who want both an interesting read that changes what actually happened whilst also maintaining enough historical accuracy to keep from just making things up, Conroy misses the mark. Whilst some of Conroy's earlier books with less scale have been interesting reads, this book never dodges the second charge. Historical figures are reduced to two page cameos (Stalin appears for less than a page, Churchill and De Gaulle are mentioned in passing but don't appear) or have their real world motivations and priorities ignored (Himmler, the fanatical head of the SS giving control of his private army over to the Wehrmacht. Stalin signing a non-aggression pact with Germany in 1944 out of fear that morale in the Red Army is low - and then selling Germany two thousand of the Soviet Union's best tanks). Ultimately it's Conroy's inability to get a handle on his main players that sinks this book - playing fast and loose with characterisation in a book that is supposed to have only a minor single change doesn't work, especially as many of those reading this will have a semi-decent knowledge of these figures already.

This culminates in the development of a German nuclear weapon by 1945, a feat that's impossible no matter who's in charge of the Nazi party.

The macro-scale of the war is still more interesting than the micro however, with the characters focused on seemingly picked at random. Battle scenes go undescribed, or are seen from afar (even by participants), and there is little serious analysis of how the tide of war could have been changed by Hitler's death.

Finally, in a move that bothers me more in retrospect, both the female characters mentioned end up being sexually assaulted. Every woman who features for more than a page ends up the target for rape, sexual assault or a hastily conducted sex scene. If their story lines beforehand had mattered this may be more forgivable, but to introduce female characters just to give motivation to men, or to culminate in a rape scene seems a little embarrassing.

An interesting idea, poorly executed.

Also Try:
Harry Turtledove, The War That Came Early
Guy Saville, The Afrika Reich
Robert Harris, Fatherland
Stephen Fry, Making History