Download or read book The Ancient World in Alternative History and Counterfactual Fictions written by Alberto J. Quiroga Puertas and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-08-22 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing in turn on history, powerful individuals, under-represented voices and the arts, the essays in this collection cover a wide variety of modern and contemporary narrative fiction from Jo Walton and L. Sprague De Camp to T. S. Chaudhry and Catherynne M. Valente. Chapters look into the question of chance versus determinism in the unfolding of historical events, the role individuals play in shaping a society or occasion, and the way art and literature symbolise important messages in counterfactual histories. They also show how uchronic narratives can take advantage of modern literary techniques to reveal new and relevant aspects of the past, giving voices to marginalised minorities and suppressed individuals of the ancient world. Counterfactual fiction and uchronic narratives have been largely up until now the domain of literary critics. However, these modes of literature are here analysed by scholars of Ancient History, Egyptology and Classics, shedding important new light on how cultures of the ancient world have been (and still are) perceived, and to what extent our conceptions of the past are used to explore alternate presents and futures. Alternate history entices the imagination of the public by suggesting hypothetical scenarios that never occurred, underlining a latent tension between reality and imagination, and between determinism and contingency. This interest has resulted in a growing number of publications that gauge the impact of what-if narratives, and this one is the first to give scholars of the ancient world centre-stage.
Download or read book The Ancient World in Alternative History and Counterfactual Fictions written by Alberto J. Quiroga Puertas and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-08-22 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing in turn on history, powerful individuals, under-represented voices and the arts, the essays in this collection cover a wide variety of modern and contemporary narrative fiction from Jo Walton and L. Sprague De Camp to T. S. Chaudhry and Catherynne M. Valente. Chapters look into the question of chance versus determinism in the unfolding of historical events, the role individuals play in shaping a society or occasion, and the way art and literature symbolise important messages in counterfactual histories. They also show how uchronic narratives can take advantage of modern literary techniques to reveal new and relevant aspects of the past, giving voices to marginalised minorities and suppressed individuals of the ancient world. Counterfactual fiction and uchronic narratives have been largely up until now the domain of literary critics. However, these modes of literature are here analysed by scholars of Ancient History, Egyptology and Classics, shedding important new light on how cultures of the ancient world have been (and still are) perceived, and to what extent our conceptions of the past are used to explore alternate presents and futures. Alternate history entices the imagination of the public by suggesting hypothetical scenarios that never occurred, underlining a latent tension between reality and imagination, and between determinism and contingency. This interest has resulted in a growing number of publications that gauge the impact of what-if narratives, and this one is the first to give scholars of the ancient world centre-stage.
Download or read book Sideways in Time written by Glyn Morgan and published by Liverpool Science Fiction Text. This book was released on 2019-09-30 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alternate history is a genre of fiction that, although connected to science fiction, has its own rich history and lineage. With its roots in the writings of ancient Rome, alternate history matured into something close to its current form in the essays and novels of the nineteenth century. In more recent years a number of highly acclaimed novels have been published as alternate histories, by authors ranging from bestselling science fiction writers to Pulitzer prize-winning literary icons. The popularity of the genre is reflected in its success on television, where original concepts have been developed alongside adaptations of classic texts such as Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle. This collection of essays, by both leading scholars in the field and rising stars, seeks to redress an imbalance between the importance and quality of alternate history texts and the available critical scholarship on the genre. The essays acknowledge the long and distinctive history of alternate history whilst also revelling in its vitality, adaptability, and contemporary relevance.
Download or read book What If written by Cole Roberts and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2015-11-24 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if Christianity is simple? When Jesus gave his first public address, he said, I have come to fulfill the law and the prophets and to set the captives free. When a contract is fulfilled, it is completed and is no longer in effect. Religion is a form of bondage that enslaves its adherents to a set of rules that constitute sin. It portrays the image of a God who acts as a judge. In one hand he has a legal pad and pen and in the other a club. When sufficient sins have been committed, the club is used on the sinner. Jesus died on the cross to fulfill the need for justice and came to earth to show that God is not the ogre with a club but a loving father with outstretched arms wanting to hug his children He sent to us the Holy Spirit so we might have the heart and mind of Christ and be empowered to live a life free from the bondage of sin and religion. This book shows the reader how to do that and points out the stumbling blocks that may interfere. It enables the reader to see the simplicity of Christianity and understand why it should surpass religion in our lives.
Download or read book THE ANCIENT WORLD SERIES 10 Historical Novels in One Volume written by Henry Rider Haggard and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2023-12-08 with total page 2838 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This carefully crafted ebook: "THE ANCIENT WORLD SERIES - 10 Historical Novels in One Volume: Moon of Israel, Cleopatra, Morning Star, Queen of the Dawn, Belshazzar, The Doom of Zimbabwe, The Wanderer's Necklace and more" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. "Cleopatra" - The story is set in the Ptolemaic era of Ancient Egyptian history and revolves around the survival of a dynasty bloodline protected by the Priesthood of Isis. The main character Harmachis (the living descendant of the pharaoh's bloodline) is charged by the Priesthood to overthrow the supposed impostor Cleopatra, drive out the Greeks and Romans and restore Egypt to its golden era. "Moon of Israel" narrates the events of the Biblical Exodus from Egypt told from the perspective of a scribe named Ana. "Eric Brighteyes", an epic viking novel, describes the adventures of its principal character in 10th century Iceland. Eric strives to win the hand of his beloved, Gudruda the Fair. Her father Asmund, a priest of the old Norse gods, opposes the match. Battles, intrigues, and treachery follow... "The Wanderer's Necklace": Olaf, a Viking in the eighth century A.D., flees his homeland after challenging the Norse god Odin's right to a human sacrifice. Olaf's adventures are woven within the intrigues of the Eastern Roman Empire. "Pearl Maiden" is a historical novel about the Fall of Jerusalem Table of Contents: Moon of Israel Queen of the Dawn The World's Desire Elissa: The Doom of Zimbabwe Pearl Maiden : A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem Morning Star Cleopatra The Wanderer's Necklace Eric Brighteyes Belshazzar Sir Henry Rider Haggard (1856-1925) was an English writer of adventure novels and dark fantasy stories set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a pioneer of the Lost World literary genre.
Download or read book Hitler s War written by Harry Turtledove and published by Del Rey. This book was released on 2009-08-04 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stroke of the pen and history is changed. In 1938, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, determined to avoid war, signed the Munich Accord, ceding part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. But the following spring, Hitler snatched the rest of that country, and England, after a fatal act of appeasement, was fighting a war for which it was not prepared. Now, in this thrilling alternate history, another scenario is played out: What if Chamberlain had not signed the accord? In this action-packed chronicle of the war that might have been, Harry Turtledove uses dozens of points of view to tell the story: from American marines serving in Japanese-occupied China and ragtag volunteers fighting in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in Spain to an American woman desperately trying to escape Nazi-occupied territory—and witnessing the war from within the belly of the beast. A tale of powerful leaders and ordinary people, at once brilliantly imaginative and hugely entertaining, Hitler’s War captures the beginning of a very different World War II—with a very different fate for our world today. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Harry Turtledove's The War that Came Early: West and East.
Download or read book The New Routledge Companion to Science Fiction written by Mark Bould and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-06-13 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New Routledge Companion to Science Fiction provides an overview of the study of science fiction across multiple academic fields. It offers a new conceptualisation of the field today, marking the significant changes that have taken place in sf studies over the past 15 years. Building on the pioneering research in the first edition, the collection reorganises historical coverage of the genre to emphasise new geographical areas of cultural production and the growing importance of media beyond print. It also updates and expands the range of frameworks that are relevant to the study of science fiction. The periodisation has been reframed to include new chapters focusing on science fiction produced outside the Anglophone context, including South Asian, Latin American, Chinese and African diasporic science fiction. The contributors use both well- established critical and theoretical approaches and embrace a range of new ones, including biopolitics, climate crisis, critical ethnic studies, disability studies, energy humanities, game studies, medical humanities, new materialisms and sonic studies. This book is an invaluable resource for students and established scholars seeking to understand the vast range of engagements with science fiction in scholarship today.
Download or read book Third Reich Victorious written by Peter G. Tsouras and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2016-11-30 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a stimulating and entirely plausible insight into how Hitler and his generals might have defeated the Allies, and a convincing sideways look at the Third Reich's bid at world domination in World War II. What would have happened if, for example, the Germans captured the whole of the BEF at Dunkirk? Or if the RAF had been defeated in the Battle of Britain? What if the U-Boats had strangled Britain with an impregnable blockade, if Rommel had been triumphant in North Africa or the Germans had beaten the Red Army at Kursk? The authors, writing as if these and other world-changing events had really happened, project realistic scenarios based on the true capabilities and circumstances of the opposing forces. Third Reich Victorious is a spirited and terrifying alternate history, and a telling insight into the dramatic possibilities of World War II.
Download or read book A Past of Possibilities written by Quentin Deluermoz and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-01 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of hypothetical turning points in history from Ancient Greece to September 11 What if history, as we know it, had run another course? Touching on alternate histories of the future and the past, or uchronias, A Past of Possibilities encourages deeper consideration of watershed moments in the course of history. Wide-ranging in scope, it examines the Boxer Rebellion in China, the 1848 revolution in France, and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, and integrates science fiction, history, historiography, sociology, anthropology, and film. In probing the genre of literature and history that is fascinated with hypotheticals surrounding key points in history, Quentin Deluermoz and Pierre Singaravélou reach beyond a mere reimagining of history, exploring the limits and potentials of the futures past. From the most bizarre fiction to serious scientific hypothesis, they provide a survey of the uses of counterfactual histories, methodological issues on the possible in social sciences, and practical proposals for using alternate histories in research and the wider public.
Download or read book The Fiction Writer s Guide to Alternate History written by Jack Dann and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-07-13 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive guide to the speculative sub-genre of alternate history fiction, this book maps the unique terrain of this vibrant mode of storytelling and then explains how to write it. First giving a concise conceptual overview and the critical tools to differentiate the different forms of counterfactual fiction, Jack Dann lays out the 'tricks of the trade' such 'Heinleining', how to create recognizable 'divergent points' and how to employ paratextual elements and 'layering' to overcome readers' unfamiliarity with invented counterfactual events and cultures. Alongside this, Dann takes you step-by-step through a complete short story to demonstrate, line-by-line, how alternative history fiction works. As well as Dann's exacting methodology for writing professional quality alternate history stories, this book also features a live-on-the-page Q&A with some of the most esteemed alternate history writers working today, including Kim Stanley Robinson, John Birmingham and Lisa Goldstein among many others, who will detail their own particular hacks, theories, processes, methods and strategies. Combining extensive and deep knowledge of the field with accessible writing advice, this is the ultimate guidebook to the broad and complex sub-genre of counterfactual and alterative history fiction.
Download or read book History Fiction Or Science written by A. T. Fomenko and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a seven volume treatise on historical dating and scientific arguments regarding the truth or falsehoods in currently accepted historical concepts. It claims the 16th century as the time during which history was created by medieval scribes and cemented by the power of the ecclesial authorities. It is theorized for example that Jesus was actually born in 1053 A.D. and crucified in 1086 A.D.; the Old Testament refers to medieval events and the Apocalyse was written after 1486 A.D.
Download or read book History and Speculative Fiction written by John L. Hennessey and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-12-14 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book demonstrates that despite different epistemological starting points, history and speculative fiction perform similar work in “making the strange familiar” and “making the familiar strange” by taking their readers on journeys through space and time. Excellent history, like excellent speculative fiction, should cause readers to reconsider crucial aspects of their society that they normally overlook or lead them to reflect on radically different forms of social organization. Drawing on Gunlög Fur’s postcolonial concept of concurrences, and with contributions that explore diverse examples of speculative fiction and historical encounters using a variety of disciplinary approaches, this volume provides new perspectives on colonialism, ecological destruction, the nature of humanity, and how to envision a better future.
Download or read book The Years of Rice and Salt written by Kim Stanley Robinson and published by Spectra. This book was released on 2003-06-03 with total page 777 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the same unique vision that brought his now classic Mars trilogy to vivid life, bestselling author Kim Stanley Robinson boldly imagines an alternate history of the last seven hundred years. In his grandest work yet, the acclaimed storyteller constructs a world vastly different from the one we know. . . . “A thoughtful, magisterial alternate history from one of science fiction’s most important writers.”—The New York Times Book Review It is the fourteenth 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—one that stretches across centuries, sees dynasties and nations rise and crumble, and spans horrible famine and magnificent innovation. Through the eyes of soldiers and kings, explorers and philosophers, slaves and scholars, Robinson navigates a world where Buddhism and Islam are the most influential and practiced religions, while Christianity is merely a historical footnote. Probing the most profound questions as only he can, Robinson shines his extraordinary light on the place of religion, culture, power—and even love—in this bold New World. “Exceptional and engrossing.”—New York Post “Ambitious . . . ingenious.”—Newsday
Download or read book Pavane written by Keith Roberts and published by Gateway. This book was released on 2011-09-29 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1588: Queen Elizabeth is felled by an assassin's bullet. Within the week, the Spanish Armada had set sail, and its victory changed the course of history. 1968: England is still dominated by the Church of Rome. There are no telephones, no television, no nuclear power. As Catholicism and the Inquisition tighten their grip, rebellion is growing.
Download or read book Telling It Like It Wasn t written by Catherine Gallagher and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-01-26 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inventing counterfactual histories is a common pastime of modern day historians, both amateur and professional. We speculate about an America ruled by Jefferson Davis, a Europe that never threw off Hitler, or a second term for JFK. These narratives are often written off as politically inspired fantasy or as pop culture fodder, but in Telling It Like It Wasn’t, Catherine Gallagher takes the history of counterfactual history seriously, pinning it down as an object of dispassionate study. She doesn’t take a moral or normative stand on the practice, but focuses her attention on how it works and to what ends—a quest that takes readers on a fascinating tour of literary and historical criticism. Gallagher locates the origins of contemporary counterfactual history in eighteenth-century Europe, where the idea of other possible historical worlds first took hold in philosophical disputes about Providence before being repurposed by military theorists as a tool for improving the art of war. In the next century, counterfactualism became a legal device for deciding liability, and lengthy alternate-history fictions appeared, illustrating struggles for historical justice. These early motivations—for philosophical understanding, military improvement, and historical justice—are still evident today in our fondness for counterfactual tales. Alternate histories of the Civil War and WWII abound, but here, Gallagher shows how the counterfactual habit of replaying the recent past often shapes our understanding of the actual events themselves. The counterfactual mode lets us continue to envision our future by reconsidering the range of previous alternatives. Throughout this engaging and eye-opening book, Gallagher encourages readers to ask important questions about our obsession with counterfactual history and the roots of our tendency to ask “What if...?”
Download or read book Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived written by James G. Blight and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2009-02-16 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Virtual JFK DVD is now available! For more information on the film companion to the book, visit http://www.virtualjfk.com/ It Matters Who Is President—Then and Now At the heart of this provocative book lies the fundamental question: Does it matter who is president on issues of war and peace? The Vietnam War was one of the most catastrophic and bloody in living memory, and its lessons take on resonance in light of America's current devastating involvement in Iraq. Tackling head-on the most controversial and debated "what if" in U.S. foreign policy, this unique work explores what President John F. Kennedy would have done in Vietnam if he had not been assassinated in 1963. Drawing on a wealth of recently declassified documents, frank oral testimony of White House officials from both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and the analysis of top historians, this book presents compelling evidence that JFK was ready to end U.S. involvement well before the conflict escalated. With vivid immediacy, readers will feel they are in the president's war room as the debates raged that forever changed the course of American history—and continue to affect us profoundly today as the shadows of Vietnam stretch into Iraq.
Download or read book Virtual JFK written by James G. Blight and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2010 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Virtual JFK DVD is now available For more information on the film companion to the book, visit http: //www.virtualjfk.com/ It Matters Who Is President--Then and Now At the heart of this provocative book lies the fundamental question: Does it matter who is president on issues of war and peace? The Vietnam War was one of the most catastrophic and bloody in living memory, and its lessons take on resonance in light of America's current devastating involvement in Iraq. Tackling head-on the most controversial and debated "what if" in U.S. foreign policy, this unique work explores what President John F. Kennedy would have done in Vietnam if he had not been assassinated in 1963. Drawing on a wealth of recently declassified documents, frank oral testimony of White House officials from both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and the analysis of top historians, this book presents compelling evidence that JFK was ready to end U.S. involvement well before the conflict escalated. With vivid immediacy, readers will feel they are in the president's war room as the debates raged that forever changed the course of American history--and continue to affect us profoundly today as the shadows of Vietnam stretch into Iraq.
