Alternate History Weekly Update

I believe I have mentioned before that I am big fan of The Great War on YouTube. Its a channel that covers the history of WWI a week at a time, with special episodes thrown in every once and a while on other topics, such as weapons, uniforms and what famous people were doing during the war. If you haven't seen it yet, go check it out. I am personally happy, however, that I am not the only one in the alternate history community who watches it:

This is "Constantinople Not Istanbul" by veteran Map Monday alternate cartographer, Rvbomally. This map was inspired by Rvbomally watching The Great War and the point of divergence is the Entente succeeding in forcing the Dardanelle Straits in 1915. The war ends a year later with the Kaiser keeping his throne, but both the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary collapse shortly thereafter. By the present day of the timeline the "Grand Entente" (now including Germany and the Danubian Union) are locked in a Cold War with Russia, while an isolationist America and a communist Japan look on.

I always liked alternate WWI timelines and Rvbomally did manage to insert some humor into the map, such as Ireland's "rocky road" to independence. The map itself is well-done, with soft colors and Munroist annotations. Overall, its a good map that took inspiration from a good YouTube channel. I love it when history nerds can help each other out, even if indirectly.

Honorable mention this week goes out to Zalezsky's "The Cossacks Marched Home". You should also check out what maps of Mars would have looked like if they were designed by Medieval cartographers.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger on Amazing Stories and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

You can support The Update by clicking the banner to your right or the links below if you are purchasing through Amazon!

Hardcovers

The Age of Dystopia edited by Louisa MacKay Demerjian

This book examines the recent popularity of the dystopian genre in literature and film, as well as connecting contemporary manifestations of dystopia to cultural trends and the implications of technological and social changes on the individual and society as a whole. Dystopia, as a genre, reflects our greatest fears of what the future might bring, based on analysis of the present. This book connects traditional dystopian works with their contexts and compares these with contemporary versions. It centers around two main questions: Why is dystopia so popular now? And, why is dystopia so popular with young adult audiences? Since dystopia reflects the fears of society as a whole, this book will have broad appeal for any reader, and will be particularly useful to teachers in a variety of settings, such as in a high school or college-level classroom to teach dystopian literature, or in a comparative literature classroom to show how the genre has appeared in multiple locales at different times. Indeed, the books interdisciplinary nature allows it to be of use in classes focussing on politics, bioethics, privacy issues, womens studies, and any number of additional topics.

Founding Fathers Funnies by Peter Bagge

The American Revolution has never been funnier! America's founding fathers were brilliant, brave, forward-thinking. . . and ridiculous, at least in the eyes of cartoonist and history buff Peter Bagge! "I find myself laughing out loud whenever I read of their foibles, especially when their oversized egos clashed," says the author. This collection of short vignettes features some of our country's best-known historical figures (along with several lesser-known players) and includes all Founding Fathers Funnies cartoons from Apocalypse Nerd and Dark Horse Presents. This hardcover also features several brand new stories and additional biographical information!

Paperbacks

Bill & Ted's Most Triumphant Return by various

Bill and Ted must now fulfill their destiny to become the inspiration for galactic harmony, but at what cost! In an adventure of epic proportions, one change to the future will set the Wyld Stallyns on a time-travelling odyssey of music, villainy, history, and excellence!

From Brian Lynch (Angel: After the Fall; screenwriter of Minions) and Jerry Gaylord (Fanboys vs. Zombies), experience Bill and Ted's most triumphant return! Also featuring short stories from Ryan North (Unbeatable Squirrel Girl), Kurtis Wiebe (Rat Queens), Christopher Hastings (The Adventures of Dr. McNinja), Ian McGinty (Bravest Warriors), and many more!

The Great Martian War: Invasion by Scott Washburn

Following the initial Martian invasion on England, President Theodore Roosevelt tries to prepare the United States for the potential of another Martian incursion. As the possibility of another, stronger invasion is increasingly clear; The U.S. government tries to mobilize nations to share information and technology to defend humanity. Newly minted ordinance officer Andrew Comstock has been placed in charge of developing new technology that has to be tested on the fly in a race against time if humanity is to survive.

Ivar, Timewalker Volume 3: Ending History by Fred Van Lente

FEATURING CREATION, ANNIHILATION...AND THE DEBUT OF AN ALL-NEW TIMEWALKER!

As history falls apart around her, only one man can help Neela Sethi save Ivar's life - and time itself - and that man is...Ivar! Wait...what?! Can Neela teach a new Timewalker the ropes of time travel as time collapses? Or will the universe finally meet it's doom?

Find out right here as Harvey Award-nominated artist Pere Pérez (ARCHER & ARMSTRONG) joins New York Times best-selling writer Fred Van Lente (THE DELINQUENTS) for IVAR, TIMEWALKER VOL. 3: ENDING HISTORY!

Collecting IVAR, TIMEWALKER #9-12

Monstrous Little Voices: New Tales Shakespeare's Fantasy World by various

It is the time of Shakespeare. Storms rage, armies clash, magics are done - and stories are made. Five new great and terrible tales reshape the Bard’s vision, a new set of stories that will be told and retold down through the centuries.

It is the Year of Our Lord 1601. The Tuscan War rages across the world, and every lord from Navarre to Illyria is embroiled in the fray. Cannon roar, pikemen clash, and witches stalk the night; even the fairy courts stand on the verge of chaos.

E-Books

On the Twelfth Night by Jonathan Barnes

Anne Hathaway – contented wife of a glovemaker and aletaster, proud mother of three – has her life turned upside down when strangers, oddly familiar, come to her door and whisk her husband away. What is their business, this terrible danger they say we all face? What is the lattice, and what part must her Will play to save it?

Monstrous Little Voices is a collection of five short novellas, a single long tale set in Shakespeare’s fantasy world of fairies, wizards and potions, in honour of the four-hundredth anniversary of the Bard’s death.

To readers, authors and publishers...

Is your story going to be published in time for the next New Releases? Contact us at ahwupdate at gmail dot com. We are looking for works of alternate history, counterfactual history, steampunk, historical fantasy, time travel or anything that warps history beyond our understanding.

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Earlier this year I promised to start publishing original fiction by me on Patreon. Well after procrastinating for a couple months I finally uploaded "Collapse Theory".

"Collapse Theory" is the story of an interdimensional agent tasked with foiling a smuggling operation on a timeline where the Soviets won the Cold War. As you can probably guess, things don't go as planned.

This is the very first short story I have ever finished, but it hasn't been published until now. So if you want to check out "Collapse Theory" please consider becoming one of my patrons. Not only will you get a chance to read the story, but you can also get a lot of other perks, such as the chance to tell me what to create for this blog or my YouTube channel.

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Alana and I return to share our final thoughts on Amazon's The Man in the High Castle Season 1:

Sorry for not covering all the episodes as we promised, but we are going to do better for 11.22.63.

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Guest post by Joseph T. Major.

I started reading Alternate History in the sixties, when it was rare, works like The Man In the High Castle and Bring the Jubilee. This may have influenced my interest in history.

When the Internet got going, I found out about UseNet, which had the soc.history.what-if group; a source of much intrigue and interest. As that slowly faded away, like many, I graduated to the AlternateHistory.com board.

I’d contributed to both, and hoped eventually to write a novel, helped by the fact that alternate history was getting more popular. But I wanted to be counter-trend: Instead of the Nazis winning, I would have them become a footnote in history. But how?

Well, there was someone who could have been suited to turn aside the tide, but he had inconveniently died in 1918. Now I felt that Manfred von Richthofen had not always got a fair shake in alternate history. His portrayal in Richard Lupoff’s Circumpolar! was not particularly fair, but that was admittedly a very fantastic alternate history. As for the one in The Probability Broach, as with that novel as a whole, the less said the better. Fortunately for my plot I had read several books about him and one by him (well, I suppose he had done something, but I know all too wall about celebrities who plan to read their own autobiographies some day). But this needed a lot more; finding out about German politicians who were or became obscure, the development of aviation in the twenties and thirties (Richthofen was a test pilot as well as an air ace) and so on.

What I wanted to do was to do an alternate history; a story of the world as it developed after a change. Some events changed directly, others less so; there were trends in history and I wanted to have them develop in accordance with the change caused by my point of departure. There is a war; some sort of conflict was likely given all the personalities involved and one different ruler wasn’t going to change things that much, but it is a different war. There is, and some may not go for it, some politics, but that was also part of the world at that time and place (and, really, every other) and there were enough interesting people involved to make it more than just vote totals.

As for that, I did find two different incidents in Richthofen’s life from just before his death that could have changed his life. Add to that an Easter Egg (no, read the book and find out, but it does involve someone often linked to Richthofen) and there is a point of departure.

I will confess to having some references and jokes, that while not plot-breaking, do add a bit of humor to the story.

I hope that our editor and everyone else enjoys the work. As the man says in the Beatles’s “Paperback Writer”: “It’s a thousand pages, give or take a few, I’ll be writing more in a week or two.” Maybe not that much, but I have more (and different) works and hope people want to read them.

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Joseph T. Major learned to read at the age of two and a half and is reported to have stopped to sleep occasionally, if you can believe rumors. Check out his new book A Man and a Plane: An Alternate Germany.

I've been thinking the other day of doing a Trope Talk on "Sequoyah", which is what I'm calling the scenarios involving a Native America-majority state located in our timeline's Oklahoma. That is probably why The Oklahoman Tricolor by Ramones1986 caught my eye:

The flag itself is just okay. Looking at it closely it seems that the red bar is slightly larger than the yellow or blue bars and I don't know if that is intentional. The shield is good and looks similar to what is currently on Oklahoma's flag, plus it was done by Marc Pasquin, who has been doing artwork for some of my recent videos like Plausibility Review: 11/22/63 by Stephen King (hey, there is another shout out to my YouTube channel). It more then makes up for the oddly positioned bars.

Still what I like about this image is the speculation it produces in my mind. To be fair the flag is for an Oklahoma, not a Sequoyah, but a part of me could see this flag being used for a Native American-majority state either in a world where America has balkanized or as a state in the Confederate States of America. Maybe I will talk more about this later.

Honorable mention this week goes out to the Flag of Atenist Egypt by Sam McDonald. You may also want to read more about New Zealand's vote to select a new flag.

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Editor's Note

I'm glad everyone seemed to enjoy my review of The Merchant of Death by DJ MacHale. Sam McDonald later commented on the review saying the series does get better as the books go on, so who knows, I may try book two sometime in the future. That being said, I am more interested in reading Behemoth, the sequel to Scott Westefeld's Leviathan.

I should also remind everyone that you can read "Collapse Theory" the first short story I finished on Patreon. All you have to do is become one of patrons. Depending on what level you pick, you can get your credits in one of my videos, early viewings of my videos and the ability to tell me what to write about next, along with monthly original fiction by yours truly.

One final note: I will not be posting a Map Monday today. Last week was slim pickens for good maps and for those I did feature I just couldn't come up with much to say about them other than "they are good, I guess". Hopefully this week we will see a better performance from the alternate cartographers out there.

And now the news...

What do the critics have to say about Peter Tieryas’ United States of Japan?

So if you have been following this blog the last few months, you have probably heard me talk about Peter Tieryas’ United States of Japan. I won't show the Amazon description again, but its been called the spiritual successor to The Man in the High Castle and it was published only recently. The critics have also spoken quite highly of it.

Narelle Ho Sang of SF Signal gave the book 4 1/2 stars and said it was "a smart, gut-wrenching alternative reality that blurs lines between hope, what’s right and wrong in war and under the guise of loyalty, with a focus on emotional truths of human nature." Meanwhile Kameron Hurley (Intellectual Badass) said the book was "one of those books that you think about long after you put it down. I haven’t been able to shake it. This is a darkly fun, clever, and unrelentingly ambitious book. Pick it up and enjoy the ride."

In Pursuit of My Own Library, however, was more critical of United States of Japan. Although they said it had a "motivating, compelling, and fascinating narrative" with "characters [that] are real and gritty" it also knocked points off for the mecha featured on the book's cover not entering the story until the half way point. The reviewer also questioned why American cities weren't renamed by the occupying Japanese, but apparently the author reached out to him and he later dropped that criticism.

Even with the above review, most of the reviews I have seen for the United States of Japan have been positive. This is certainly a book on my to-read list and I hope that Peter submits it for the 2016 Sidewise Award reading period.

You should also check out...

What if the Dallas Cowboys had drafted Johnny Manziel? (via Cleveland.com)
Slate's review of Victor LaValle’s "riveting horror tale"The Ballad of Black Tom.
Bill Gates promising to look into making a new Age of Empires. (via PC Gamer)
Wired's profile of the people of Transnistria, a post-Soviet country that does not "officially" exist.
NPR's review of Lavie Tidhar's "Unnerving WWII Noir"A Man Lies Dreaming.

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You can support The Update by clicking the banner to your right or the links below if you are purchasing through Amazon!

Hardcovers

A Man Lies Dreaming by Lavie Tidhar

The novel that stunned—and scandalized—Europe comes to America

Wolf, a low-rent private detective, roams London’s gloomy, grimy streets, haunted by dark visions of a future that could have been—and a dangerous present populated by British Fascists and Nazis escaping Germany. Shomer, a pulp fiction writer, lies in a concentration camp, imagining another world. And when Wolf and Shomer's stories converge, we find ourselves drawn into a novel both shocking and profoundly haunting.

At once a perfectly pitched hard-boiled noir thriller (with an utterly shocking twist) and a “Holocaust novel like no other” (The Guardian), A Man Lies Dreaming is a masterful, unforgettable literary experiment from “one of our best and most adventurous writers” (Locus).

Neo-Victorian Freakery: The Cultural Afterlife of the Victorian Freak Showby Helen Davies

Neo-Victorian Freakery explores the way in which contemporary fiction, film, and television has revisited the lives of nineteenth-century freak show performers. It locates the neo-Victorian freak show as a crucial forum for debating the politics of disability, gender, sexuality and race within the genre more broadly.

Paperbacks

Jani and the Great Pursuit by Eric Brown

Jani and her stalwart companions Lieutenant Alfie Littlebody and Anand Doshi find themselves chased from India, via Greece, to London by the British authorities, Russian spies and a Hindu priest - who all want what Jani carries, the ventha-di: the key that will open the door to other worlds. In London she attempts to rescue the imprisoned alien Mahran - the only person who might help her save the Earth from the invasion of the merciless Zhell, the self-styled Masters of the Cosmos. But will she escape London and reach Tibet before the forces of evil capture her - and before she is betrayed by someone she considers loyal to her cause?

Ides of March by Bob Mayer

What does it take to change history and destroy our reality? The same date; six different years.

44 BC. Caesar heads to the Senate for his date with death.

1493 AD: Christopher Columbus returns to Spain after ‘discovering’ the New World. But more than acclaim awaits him.

1917 AD: The Last Czar, Nicholas II, abdicates. He, and his family, are supposed to be taken prisoner; but some have other plans.

493 AD: The First King of Italy, Odoacer, is executed by Theodoric, an event considered the end of the Western Roman Empire. But if the sword goes the other way?

480 BC: A massive Persian Army is invading Greece. Standing in its way: King Leonidas and 300 Spartans. And whispering in Leonidas’ ear is a priestess from the Oracle of Delphi. But what is she telling him?

The Time Patrol must send an agent back to each day, with just each having 24 hours to defeat the Shadow’s plan to disrupt our time-line, creating a time tsunami and wiping our present out.

E-Books

Dreams of the Space Age by Ian Sales

Yuri Gagarin goes to Mars. The Voyager 1 space probe carries an astronaut to the edge of the Solar System. The first man in space is an American boxer. These are just some of the re-imaginings of the Space Race contained in this slim collection of tautly-written tales. Rigorously researched, they feature rocket sleds, Space Age fashion and the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programmes. This is the Right Stuff, it put twelve men on the Moon and could have put a husband and wife on Mars. But all that ended in 1972, when the crew of Apollo 17 splashed down in the Atlantic. All we have now is nostalgia, a slowly fading yearning for more adventurous and optimistic times. All we have now are... DREAMS OF THE SPACE AGE.

Union Forever by William R. Forstchen

The defeat of the Tugar horde by Andrew Keane, his Civil War regiment and soldiers from the now-liberated Russian city Rus was cause for great celebration (RALLY CRY, Book 1 in The Lost Regiment series). However, Andrew once again must mobilize his American and Russian troops, as another terrifying horde called the Merki have attacked Roum, with the help of human troops from Cartha, a Carthaginian city hostile to Rome back on Earth before both Romans and Carthaginians were transported to this strange planet.

Andrew Keane insists the existing alliance of Rus and Roum must be honored, and so the army of Rus and American soldiers begins a long march towards Roum to help defend it. While Andrew’s troops are successful in saving Roum with the help of the Patrician Marcus and his freed slaves, Andrew and his colleagues realize they’ve been tricked. The Horde’s strategy was to divert the Rus/American army, sending them South, so the horde and their Cartha allies can destroy Rus. It’s a race against time as Andrew and his army of Rus, Roum and American soldiers struggle to return in time.

Politics – Rus, Roum and Merki – add to the fun of this brilliantly-conceived alternate world novel.

To readers, authors and publishers...

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The Allied Invasion of France, 1942-43 by Alexander M. Grace is one of those books I enjoyed and can recommend to lovers of alternate history...but I can't help thinking there is an even better book hiding within its pages.

In this timeline the Allies invade Europe in the Fall of 1942 instead of in the summer of 1944. This is similar to the proposed Operation Roundup and Operation Sledgehammer, except instead of attacking across northern France, the Allied invasion force would land in southern, Vichy-controlled France. Thanks to high-level negotiations with the French government, France reenters the war just as the Allies begin off-loading in Marseilles and other ports along the French Mediterranean coast. The Germans, still thinking that the invasion will happen in the north and distracted by the battle around Stalingrad, are slow to act and when they do finally confront the reality of the invasion, Supreme Commander George Marshall and General George Patton are driving their forces north. Field Commander Erwin Rommel is sent to stop the allied advance, but even his armored first of German tanks may not be enough and as Axis losses mount in both the Western and Eastern theaters, German commanders begin thinking of way to get rid of Hitler and his cronies before it is too late to save Germany.

The Allied Invasion of France, 1942-43 is a well-researched and believable scenario of how the Allies might have invaded Europe earlier and brought the war to a different conclusion. Grace certainly has a strong grasp of military strategy and tactics, plus he didn't just fall into the trap of everything going right for the Allies and allowed for mistakes and accidents to be made. There were little touches as well that brought a smile to my face, such as characters imagining what it would have been like to transport troops and supplies on a beachhead under enemy fire instead of through a friendly port or the "Eisenhower Plan" to provide economic support to a war-torn Europe.

The book wasn't without its flaws and there were two big issues that I had with The Allied Invasion of France, 1942-43. First was how it was written. Most of the story was told by info dumps in a "tell, don't show" fashion. There were characters who occasionally had dialogue, but they were just there to give context to the information Grace was throwing at us. To be honest they weren't even needed and at times detracted from the book since the characters tended to be bland and indistinguishable from each other, although thankfully the dialogue wasn't as bad as the dialogue in Germanica. I'm not sure why Grace just didn't take the guise of a historian from this timeline and just write a fake history book of that era, like For Want of a Nail or When Angels Wept. It would have been a much better book in my humble opinion.

The second issue is the short epilogue at the end and if you don't want anything spoiled, I would skip to the last paragraph. Still here? Okay, lets begin: Grace paints a post-war Europe where Germany is still intact, Poland and the Czech Republic are democratic (and presumably armed by the Allies) and Tito leads a quasi-democratic Yugoslavia that is also pro-West...and Stalin is just fine with this. Grace makes several references to Stalin's paranoia and distrust of the West and yet despite the western allies being a lot closer to the Russian border, relations are surprisingly good between the two sides. Even more surprising is the fact that when China falls to communism, the West just shrugs it off like it was no big deal. This was a major issue in the United States in our timeline, but it does nothing to effect the good feelings all around.

I think what Grace is trying to say is that an earlier Allied invasion of Europe would have convinced Stalin that the Allies weren't just waiting for the Soviets and the Nazis to destroy each other. Thus mollified and with less Russian lives lost, the Soviet Union would be more willing to work with the West. That being said, the incompatibility of the two economic systems, the personalities of the people in charge, the desire to control the resources of the Third World and the arrival of nuclear weapons on the scene (which aren't actually used by the end of book) would have eventually brought upon the Cold War. So Grace's epilogue is just a little too optimistic to me, but I welcome any arguments to the contrary.

Despite my issues with the writing style and the epilogue, I nevertheless can recommend The Allied Invasion of France, 1942-43 by Alexander M. Grace, especially if you are a fan of alternate history. Casual fans of the genre may not enjoy his style of storytelling, but alternate historians will appreciate a detailed WWII scenario that doesn't end in a cliche Axis victory.

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My old nemesis has returned, so I made this short video as a call to action to prevent it from happening again.

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An alternate vexillologist whose work I have always enjoyed is Hellerick. You can check out a gallery of his maps and flags here on the AltHistory Wiki, but today I wanted to draw attention to a flag of his that was posted on Reddit the other day:

This is the "US Imperial Naval Ensign" and obviously it draws inspiration from the Rising Sun Flag. There are some changes, of course. The red circle in the center has been replaced by a blue circle with the 13 stars symbolizing the original 13 colonies. Meanwhile, the Rising Sun Flag has 16 rays, but this one has 50, which I guess is for the current 50 states and that would mean this flag went through a lot of revisions in its timeline.

The flag actually has kind of a hypnotic power. Try staring at the blue circle for a while and tell me if you agree.

Hellerick didn't provide a history for this flag, but I like to think the point of divergence happened when the Japanese refused to negotiate with Commodore Perry and war ensued. American firepower wins the day and Japan becomes an American colony. The United States gets a taste for imperialism, the Civil War is butterflied away somehow, Japanese culture becomes popular stateside and the American Empire is eventually established (probably with the help of alien space bats). By the present day in this timeline, the ships in the massive American fleet flies this flag when they circle the globe to remind the rest of the world who is boss.

Honorable mention this week goes out to Wyrmshadow's "86 Fictional Venus Colonial Flags".

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Editor's Note

As I write this now I just finished cleaning my entire house. I am little worn out, but I am feeling very accomplished. I am also happy about the great responses I got for my most recent video: The Alternate History Map That Fooled The Internet. I think my plan now with the channel is to "go back to the well" as it were and see if any of my most popular articles have the potential to become a script. We shall see what I do next because Alana and I do want to share our thoughts on the first two episodes 11.22.63.

Also thanks for all of the Twitter love that Weekly Update #226! The Critics Talk About the United States of Japan and More and Book Review: Second Front: The Allied Invasion of France, 1942-43 by Alexander M. Grace got. I'm pretty happy on how those two articles turned out so please check them out when you get the chance.

And now the news...

Coming Soon: Beyond the Spitfire: The Unseen Designs of R. J. Mitchell by Ralph Pegram

A book featured on WWII Aero caught my attention. Its called Beyond the Spitfire: The Unseen Designs of R. J. Mitchell by Ralph Pegram. Here is the description from Amazon:

Reginald Mitchell’s death at just 42, soon followed by the defense of Britain by pilots flying his finest creation, the Spitfire, elevated him to legendary status. He spent his whole career as a designer with Supermarine, whose products came from his pen or those that worked under him. Histories focus on the successful aircraft; those that failed to make the grade tend to be glossed over. But beyond this is a large body of concepts, early designs and projects that have never seen the light of day, the ideas generated by Mitchell and his team that never left the drawing board; stepping-stones on the way to later aircraft, sketched out concepts that withered on the vine, and projects that failed to attract orders. This book attempts to look at the entirety of Mitchell’s portfolio in perspective. It features three-view B&W layout drawings for the many projects and aircraft, and full-color CGI rendering of selected projects

Although it won't be out until next October, this book just screams alternate history potential. R. J. Mitchell was also relatively young when he died so who knows what he would have accomplished if he had lived longer and some of his other designs had gotten a chance to take off.

Picture of the Week

I have been working on the background for a possible novel featuring a "President Trump". If he loses, it will make for an interesting alternate history in the future. If he wins...well there is always this option:

I do enjoy a full English breakfast and the beer is really good.

You should also check out...

What if the X-Men Had Been Cast in the 1980s? (via ScreenRant)
io9's review of Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff.
The Speculative Herald's audiobook review of United States of Japan by Peter Tieryas.
The original manuscript of the HP Lovecraft work commissioned by Houdini has been found (via The Guardian).

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Sorry for not posting a Map Monday last week. I just didn't have anything interesting say about the maps I shared on social media. Thankfully that hasn't been the case over the last few days and now we have something we can really sink our teeth into:

This is "What Remains, Part 2: 1961 A.D." by Zek Sora and it is a sequel of another map he did, which in turn was inspired by a mod for Victoria 2 where you can cause a zombie outbreak (O zombies. Alternate historians love you as much as they do HP Lovecraft and 1984.). In this timeline a zombie outbreak happens in the early 1890s and spreads across the globe. Those countries that survived were either island based or could rely on natural borders to protect them. Think Emberverse except with zombies (in fact I'm surprised Stirling has never written a zombie story yet. You would think it would be right up his alley.)

Back to the map, its nicely drawn, but its a big map. If you really want to see all of the small details, especially around the Mediterranean Sea, you are going to have to check out the full sized version so you can zoom in. Otherwise its just a lot of green, blue and white with some colors on the peripheral.

Honorable mentions this week go out to "Western Europe as of 2016" by Gian, "The Commonwealth of Altis" by Rebecca "Upvoteanthology" Stirling and "Map of the Louisiana S.A.R. in 2016" by ComradeFrunze.

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You can support The Update by clicking the banner to your right or the links below if you are purchasing through Amazon!

Hardcovers

Eagle in Exile: The Clash of Eagles Trilogy Book II by Alan Smale

Perfect for fans of Bernard Cornwell, Steve Berry, Naomi Novik, and Harry Turtledove, Alan Smale’s gripping alternate history series imagines a world in which the Roman Empire has survived long enough to invade North America in 1218. Now the stunning story carries hero Gaius Marcellinus deeper into the culture of an extraordinary people—whose humanity, bravery, love, and ingenuity forever change his life and destiny.

In A.D. 1218, Praetor Gaius Marcellinus is ordered to conquer North America and turning it into a Roman province. But outside the walls of the great city of Cahokia, his legion is destroyed outright; Marcellinus is the only one spared. In the months and years that follow, Marcellinus comes to see North America as his home and the Cahokians as his kin. He vows to defend these proud people from any threat, Roman or native.

After successfully repelling an invasion by the fearsome Iroqua tribes, Marcellinus realizes that a weak and fractured North America won’t stand a chance against the returning Roman army. Worse, rival factions from within threaten to tear Cahokia apart just when it needs to be most united and strong. Marcellinus is determined to save the civilization that has come to mean more to him than the empire he once served. But to survive the swords of Roma, he first must avert another Iroqua attack and bring Cahokia together. Only with the hearts and souls of a nation at his back can Marcellinus hope to know triumph.

To readers, authors and publishers...

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Editor's Note: Alex Wallace is back with another interview with an alternate history forum administrator. This time he is talking to Steve/Caliboy1990 of Steve's AH Place (a.k.a. Steve's Place). Lets see what they had to talk about.

What made you want to establish a new alternate history forum?

Well, in all honesty, this humble site of mine actually originally started as kind of a living archive, as it were, for my works, where not only could they stay safe should something ever happen to my computer or any of my portable drives, but also, where folks could comment on these works and offer critiques, compliments, etc.; but it's really evolved into an actual community over the years.

Why did you name it "Steve's AH Place"?

I guess it's just what came to me, as I couldn't think of anything else at the time-that said, though, I have recently considered changing it, as the site has evolved quite a bit over the years.

What do you plan to do differently than AlternateHistory.com?

My site now has a rather large focus on not just AH, but alternate realities in general: are you a fan of Grand Theft Auto, or Halo? Did you enjoy the Fast and the Furious movies, or James Bond films? Are you an avid reader of Tom Clancy or Harry Potter, etc.? Do you like comic books, and the worlds within, such as from Marvel, D.C., etc.?

Then my site is the place for you. Anything goes here! =)

With current low levels of activity, how to you intend to gain more members?

I honestly haven't been able to figure this out just yet. Suggestions are welcome, though! =)

How will you encourage those who might otherwise be primarily on AlternateHistory.com to stay on your site?

Well, I'd say that it's a fresh change of scenery, for one, as some out there might also be comfortable with a smaller community (as opposed to the 30,000+ people on AlternateHistory.com these days), as they tend to be more tight knit.

How will you encourage a sense of community on your site distinct from that of AlternateHistory.com?

Good question. I tend to be fairly laid back as an admin, so some who felt that AlternateHistory.com's administration was a bit stifling will be pleasantly surprised by that. I also try to keep controversial stuff off my site so people don't get into fights and stuff, unless it's in an ATL and/or real world historical context.(so, no current OTL politics, etc.)

How will you encourage writers and promote creativity on your site?

AlternateHistory.com has always had a great variety of interesting works, but it's also sometimes felt a little limited in some ways, mainly because there's only one main category for stuff not directly related to AH, and that's the Alien Space Bats forum. While my own site also has an ASB forum (for truly wild scenarios), I also have set aside a section for WIs related to established fiction(be it books, comics, TV shows, etc.), and I have plans for further expansion(and perhaps revision, as well).

What do you think the future of online AH will be? Will AlternateHistory.com continue its dominance, or will the community fracture?

I think it would largely depend on future developments, but I would suspect that AlternateHistory.com does have some real staying power, at least in the mid-term, anyway; after all, it's been around for 15 years already. =)

Do you think that the AH community will leave forums for other types of sites?

Probably not, at least not in the near future.

Guest post by Sam McDonald.

Last year I served as the resident audio expert here on The Update. With some of the things I've got lined up for this year I'm probably going to wind up as the resident anime correspondent. Though I haven't completely abandoned audio works. Anyway, today we are going to take a look at an anime movie. We're reviewing The Place Promised in Our Early Days.

It's set in a world where the Soviet Union has occupied almost all of the island of Hokkaido since 1973. The Soviet began construction on a mysterious tower after they secured Hokkaido, while the rest of Japan is backed by the United States. The movie follows three characters named Hiroki, Takuya and Sayuri. The three initially meet as teenagers and make a promise that one day they will fly to the mysterious tower. The movie then skips ahead three years as tensions grow high between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Takuya is a physicist who is working with the United Nations on a project to contact other universes. Hiroki is a student in Tokyo and has been greatly effected by Sayuri's disappearance and is doing everything he can to find her. Meanwhile, Sayuri has slipped into a coma and is being monitored for possible psychic abilities. As the world draws closer to World War III could she be the key that ties everything together?

Now that sounds like a pretty good set up with lots of alternate history possibilities. Well, we'll talk about that in a minute. For now let's talk about the alternate history itself. Unless the Soviet Union was feeling suicidal, 1973 is way too late for them to nab Hokkaido. At best you might see them getting it in an alternate World War II outcome, but even that's kind of dicey given how small the Soviet Pacific fleet was. I suppose the film makers were trying to draw parallels to the partition of Korea. Also, the tower appears to stretch miles into the atmosphere and can be seen from Tokyo. The technology to build something like that didn't exist in the 1970s, or even in the present day for that matter.

The Soviet Union is shown to have survived to the present day though that was a bit more believable. Also, though it's never mentioned, I would assume that Korea is United under communist rule in this world.

Okay, now for the big one. You know all of that alternate history I just told you about within the setting? Well it's not really the main focus of the plot. Don't get me wrong, it does factor into the plot and is involved with moving the the story forward, but it isn't front and center like in something like Code Geass. Also, you only find our certain details of the setting if you read the back of the box the DVD comes in. The primary focus of the plot is on Hiroki and Sayuri's relationship. So how does it do in that regard?

I'd say, all things considered, reasonably well. Their relationship builds slowly and steadily. There's no grand deceleration of love or love at first sight. It all feels very genuine and sincere. They, as well as Takuya, are just average people trying to live their lives even as the world inches closer to conflict. I guess that's kind of how history works for the average person on the street. There are events going on around us that shape the world we live in, and will live in, but we all go on with out lives as best as we can.

I'd also like to take a minute to talk about the soundtrack. It's filled with lots of classical music and violin pieces. It is beautiful, elegant and adds a lot of emotional depth to the movie. The artwork, especially the scenery and flying scenes, is quite good as well. It's very reminiscent of the film's of Hayao Miyazaki and there are a few instances that feel like visual references to those films. The voice acting, and here I'm referring to the English dub, was also quite excellent.

All things considered, I quite enjoyed this movie and I think you will too. It's beautiful, elegant and heartfelt. However, if you're going into it primarily for the alternate history aspect you might be a bit disappointed, so just be aware of that.

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Sam McDonald is a college student from Shreveport, LA. When not involved with his studies he can be found blogging on Amazing Stories, making and posting maps across the web and working on short stories that he hopes to have published in magazines such as Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and the Escape Artists Podcasts.

Last week I featured a flag that I speculated was from a timeline where the United States had annexed Japan. Now lets take a look at a flag from a timeline where Japan was annexed by Britain:

This is the "Flag of United Kingdom of Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and Japan" by Reesetelford9. It is a relatively simple design. Just the red sun in the center of the Union Jack. The fun thing about the Union Jack, however, is that it combines elements from the flags of three other nations: England (the red cross of St George), Scotland (the white saltire of St Andrew) and Ireland (the red saltire of St Patrick). Thus for the red sun of Japan to be there, Britain must have annexed Japan at some point and brought it into union with the rest of Britain.

How did this happen? Most likely with the help of alien space bats, but probably at some point the British got rid of the Japanese emperor and gave the title to one of their monarchs. The Japanese people assimilated (and the British adopted many Japanese customs) and despite the racial barriers, Japan decided a closer union with Britain was better then leaving it (unlike most of Ireland since Reesetelford9 references Northern Ireland in the name of the flag).

Nevertheless, if you still think the addition of Japan to the United Kingdom is implausible, just see what The Onion did to the Georgia state flag.

* * *

Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Sorry for not posting a Weekly Update this week. My wife and I hosted Easter for her family at our house and I just did not have the time to string something together. I didn't, however, want to miss another Map Monday and I think you are going to like what I found for you today:

The above is "Imperio Terra" (full sized version here) and it is a collaboration between the always talented Rebecca "Upvoteanthology" Stirling and the awesomely named AnachronistRocketeer. This had been submitted to MotF 133: And Then There Were Few which required a map with the least nations as realistically possible. They must have done a good job because they actually won the contest by just one vote.

The map is good and certainly less cliched then another map of Rebecca's I featured last week (although I think the cliches were intentional). It has the light colors that she is known for and the place names are not anachronistic. It is just an all-around great map that doesn't fall into a lot of the same traps other Rome never falls timelines do.

Honorable mentions this week go out to "Democratic People's Republic of Japan" by PizzaMolecule, Bruce Munro's cover of Goliath-Maps'"Jefferson territory in the Oligocene" (description here), "The Partition of British India - 1950" by Zrew33, "Terrestrial Domains, Provinces and Protectorates of The Solar Empire" by Serafim and "Decision Time: Japan" by Krall.

Phew...what a lot of honorable mentions. Lets finish this Map Monday with a look at Mexico's proposed route for Trump's wall.

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You can support The Update by clicking the banner to your right or the links below if you are purchasing through Amazon!

Paperbacks

Grantville Gazette VIIedited by Eric Flint

NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING SERIES. The seventh anthology of tales set in Eric Flint’s phenomenal Ring of Fire universe—all selected and edited by Flint.

A cosmic accident sets the modern West Virginia town of Grantville down in war-torn seventeenth century Europe. It will take all the gumption of the resourceful, freedom-loving up-timers to find a way to flourish in the mad and bloody beginning of the Renaissance. Are they up for it? You bet they are.

Edited by Eric Flint, and inspired by his now-legendary 1632, this is the fun stuff that fills in the pieces of the Ring of Fire political, social and cultural puzzle as supporting characters we meet in the novels get their own lives, loves and life-changing stories. The future and democracy have arrived with a bang.

E-Books

Back to the Time Trap by Keith Laumer

A Wall Street trader leaves the bulls and bears - and comes face-to-face with hungrier dinosaurs. A Roaring '20s gangster gets roughed up - by real cavemen. A pioneer hitches up his covered wagon on the Oregon Trail - and winds up in a modern shopping mall. And Roger Tyson, who thought the space-time continuum had finally settled down to normal, is flung helplessly from the distant past to the far future, and back again.

Superbeings from the end of time are struggling for control of the universe with aliens from another galaxy. And if a few random humans get caught in one of their time gates, they don't much care. So Roger and his friends find themselves facing everyone from the cast of the original Mutiny on the Bounty to real pirates of the Spanish Main in a wild quest to their own time and bring everything back to insanity as usual...

The Great Time Machine Hoax by Keith Laumer

Chester W. Chester IV inherits a run-down mansion and millions in back taxes. In order to pay the taxes, he initially decides to auction off the mansion and its contents, but then he discovers a massive computer (the Generalized Nonlinear Extrapolator, or "Genie") that can bring any situation or time to life.

Survival School by Dusk Peterson

"This is the right place for you, boy. They'll school you here to be a right-standing man, one who can keep control over his actions, like any good man should. You just got to keep yourself open to learn and to grow."

How far can trust grow, when you're in a place you despise?

Arrested for a crime he doesn't regret, Bat ends up handcuffed to a group of fellow city boys and sent on a long journey into the countryside. He know that he is being transported to a prison for delinquent servant boys, but what form will his imprisonment take?

Tattooed with the rank-mark of servant, Bat must learn how to keep from losing his temper with the men who carry the keys to his freedom. But in the unbelievable world where he has been deposited, in which a genial master orders strict punishments and a servant acts like a master, will Bat be able to locate the door to his release? Which of his fellow prisoners can he trust to help him?

And will he survive long enough to find out?

Inspired by true events at a turn-of-the-century reform school, this novella (short novel) is set in an alternative version of the Chesapeake Bay region during the 1910s. The story can be read on its own or as part of the Young Toughs alternate history series, an alternate history series about the struggles of youths in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Young Toughs is part of Turn-of-the-Century Toughs, a cycle of alternate history series (Young Toughs, Waterman, Life Prison, Commando, Michael's House, The Eternal Dungeon, and Dark Light) about adults and youths on the margins of society, and the people who love them. Set in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the novels and stories take place in an alternative version of America that was settled by inhabitants of the Old World in ancient times. As a result, the New World retains certain classical and medieval customs.

Worlds of the Imperium by Keith Laumer

An American diplomat, trapped in a world he never made...

At first Brion Bayard was relieved to discover that his kidnappers were very apologetic and very British. Then he learned that they were not from Earth...

To readers, authors and publishers...

* * *

Editor's Note: I now bring you what may be the last (?) installment of Alex Wallace's interview with alternate history forum administrators. Today we feature Hominid (a.k.a. Owen) of Diverginguniverses.

What made you want to found a new alternate history forum?

I’ve been a member of AlternateHistory.com for over six years. It’s been a huge part of my life, and I like the community there as well as the quirky nature of the hobby. There was a period where Ian had made a controversial decision on AlternateHistory.com, and people were looking for a new forum to join. I realized that it was incredibly easy to do with ProBoards, so I created DU and immediately advertised it on AlternateHistory.com. Another forum that was created on the same day I believe, Althistoria, ended up getting more followers, so my site didn’t really work out on the first day.

What do you plan to do differently from AlternateHistory.com?

If the forum gains traction, I plan on having a somewhat more relaxed moderation policy than AlternateHistory.com, while still being intolerant of bigots, spammers, and the like. However, unlike Ian I’ve never actually moderated a forum before, so it might evolve as time goes on.

With current low levels of activity, how to you intend to gain more members?

I’ll keep advertising it on my signature on AlternateHistory.com. I have a few timeline ideas, so maybe I’ll post those there as well, and encourage others to post theirs on my site. Aside from that, I’ll just keep mentioning it whenever it comes up.

How will you encourage those who might otherwise be primarily on AlternateHistory.com to stay on your site?

Hopefully as the site gradually grows people will go there for specific threads, and for the community. There are lots of sites that are about alternate history, but each one is unique.

How will you encourage a sense of community on your site distinct from that of AlternateHistory.com?

I’ll keep posting there, for one thing. Maybe once the site gets going we can have awards and map contests and that sort of thing.

How will you encourage writers and promote creativity on your site?

I think I’ll try to lead by example. Recent events have been tough because I’ve had a lot of school work, but I’ll make sure to post a TL on my site if I decide to start a TL. In addition, I’ll start roleplays like the ones in Shared Worlds on AlternateHistory.com, which have always been a favorite part of my AlternateHistory.com experience. I’ll also try to comment on things that people have already posted there of course—I see some stuff has been posted recently and I’m planning on reading it in the next few days.

What do you think the future of online alternate history will be? Will AlternateHistory.com continue its dominance, or will the community fracture?

I think AlternateHistory.com is in a good position as long as Ian is interested in running it. Ian has made a few controversial decisions that have caused some prolific members to leave it (voluntarily or involuntarily) for other sites; however, AlternateHistory.com is the biggest alternate history website out there, and there’s a sense of inertia that keeps people there. I also think that the AH community is more than just about alternate history as a topic; it’s about the community itself. There’s a group of sites I like to call the AHosphere that are all branches of this community that really started with AlternateHistory.com. A lot of these other sites are alive and well, but AlternateHistory.com will be hard to beat as the main one, and I think that’s fine. I like AlternateHistory.com.

If Ian loses interest in AlternateHistory.com for some reason, and doesn’t hand it over to someone else, people will probably move to one of the surrounding sites, and I’m hoping that my site will be a part of that.

Do you think that the AH community will leave forums for other types of sites?

Probably not. Forums—especially traditional forums like AlternateHistory.com, Althistoria, or Diverginguniverses—often get ignored in mainstream discussions of the Internet. I’ve seen a lot of people suggest that the “future” of online communication is on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. There is a subreddit and I believe several Facebook groups for the AH community, as well as some chatrooms; however, these groups are not ideal for the AHosphere for a few reasons. The main reason is the “timeline” format that’s so popular on the AHosphere really works better on a regular forum; the other reason is that the AHosphere is based on personal connections that don’t really work when usernames are tiny like on Reddit. Also it’s nice to have a chronological conversation with people. So maybe if there’s some new technology that revolutionizes the way we communicate online, AH people will flock there, but I don’t think any such technology exists.

Map Monday: Constantinople Not Istanbul by Rvbomally

New Releases 3/8/16

Read "Collapse Theory" on Patreon

Final Thoughts on The Man in the High Castle Season 1

The Red Baron Lives

Flag Friday: The Oklahoman Tricolor by Ramones1986

Weekly Update #226! The Critics Talk About the United States of Japan and More.

New Releases 3/15/16

Book Review: Second Front: The Allied Invasion of France, 1942-43 by Alexander M. Grace

The Alternate History Map That Fooled The Internet

Flag Friday: US Imperial Naval Ensign by Hellerick

Weekly Update #227! Beyond the Spitfire is out in October, Make America Great (Britain) Again and More

Map Monday: What Remains, Part 2: 1961 A.D. by Zek Sora

New Releases 3/22/16

Interview: Steve/Caliboy1990

Anime Review: The Place Promised in Our Early Days

Flag Friday: Flag of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and Japan by Reesetelford9

Map Monday: Imperio Terra by Rebecca "Upvoteanthology" Stirling and AnachronistRocketeer

New Releases 3/29/16

Interview: Hominid (a.k.a. Owen)