Edited by by Ian Watson, Ian Whates
The idea of “what if?” has never failed to fascinate me, especially in the context of history. What if the Roman empire had survived, what if Christianity never became a religion, what if the Caliphate was victorious, what if the bombs weren’t dropped in Japan, and so on. Since this was a collection of stories, I knew that I’d like at least some of them, and that’s exactly what happened. These are my favourites from the collection.
Sidewinders explores the popular concept of parallel universes, with a few people possessing the ability to travel between them. Dispatches from the Revolution is a very interesting take on an alternate America, ironically one that features a “madman” in the White House, but in the past. Another take on the subject is His Powder’d Wig, His Crown of Thrones, in which the British won the War of Independence and the idea of America ironically lives on in the underground culture inhabited by American Indians! Speaking of Indians, The English Mutiny is a reversal of India’s first rebellion against the empire in 1857. India is the ruling force against whom the English mutiny!
The Imitation Game is a fantastic twist to the story of Alan Turing – a clever take on the title. The Lucky Strike is an alternate scenario of the nuclear strikes in Japan, and does a good job of exploring what might have transpired in the minds of those who carried out the mission. Islands in the Sea imagines a world in which Islam is the dominant religion and only pockets of Europe are inhabited by Christianity. The Einstein Gun is an excellent alternate on Hitler’s Germany and the Second World War. Time travel with unintended consequences. Possibly the most quirky story is Waiting for the Olympians, which is a meta take on the book – in an expanded Roman empire set in a near contemporary time frame, and in whose history there is a minor figure named Jeshua of Nazareth, a “sci rom” writer’s friend gives him the idea of writing alternate history fiction even as humanity prepares to make their first contact with aliens!
Some of the stories might be better if you have the historical context, but others are just good reads without any such knowledge. You may not like all the stories, but there is a good chance that you’ll like at least a few.
