Worlds That Weren't

July 1, 2002
What if, in any single moment, history had taken a different turn? In the engaging Worlds That Weren't, bestselling author Harry Turtledove imagines a different fate for Socrates (which he spells Sokrates); S.M. Stirling envisions life "in the wilds of a re-barbarized Texas" after asteroids strike the earth in the 19th century; Sidewise winner Mary Gentle contributes "a piece of flotsam" from her epic Ash a story of love (and pigs) set in the mid-15th century, as European mercenaries prepare to sack a Gothic Carthage; and Nebula nominee Walter Jon Williams pens the tale of Nietzsche intervening in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

July 1, 2002
This hardcover gathering of four alternate-history tales confirms that alternate history is indeed riding high. Turtledove's "The Daimon" is a carefully researched piece featuring the philosopher Sokrates as he considers joining the Athenian expedition against Sicily in 415 B.C.E. The stirring western that S. M. Stirling contributes is set in a Texas that is an outpost of the imperial army of India and has become the center of civilization after the destruction of the British empire. Mary Gentle's anything-but-gentle "The Logistics of Carthage" is about a fifteenth-century female warrior, Yolande, who during a lull in battle is visited by an archaeologist from the far future. Walter Jon Williams' "The Last Ride of German Freddie" is the gunfight at the O.K. Corral--kind of. In it the Earps play minor roles and Doc Holliday, quite the philosopher, is good friends with Friedrich ("Freddy") Nietzsche. All four novellas unfold with almost mathematical precision and are flawlessly executed. Of course, in another way they are all quite mad, and thus hardly for every non-alt-history reader.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)