Saturday, July 14, 2018

Ten top alt-history World War II books

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and the Ustari Cycle from Pocket/Gallery, including We Are Not Good People. At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy blog he tagged ten "of the most ambitious, imaginative, and flat-out cool speculative takes on a World War II that never actually happened," including:
Bitter Seeds, by Ian Tregillis

Less realistic, but no less exciting for it: Tregillis doesn’t use any half-measures here, imagining that in the early days of World War II, a Nazi mad scientist manages to give a group of orphans super powers—invisibility, fire starting, precognition, your typical X-Men stuff. When a British secret agent discovers this, he recruits his magic-wielding acquaintance, who in turn brings out Britain’s population of warlocks in order to defend the Allies from a mutant-powered invasion by the Nazis. Tossing history out the window and running with this imaginative premise, this trilogy-starter is one of the most fun alternative World War II stories you’ll ever read.
Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue