Alternate history science fiction is a fascinating subgenre that explores what could have happened if certain events in history had taken a different turn. These books are often thought-provoking and imaginative, and they offer readers a chance to see the past in a whole new light.
Camp Zero
Michelle Min Sterling
In remote northern Canada, a team led by a visionary American architect is break-ing ground on a building project called Camp Zero, intended to be the beginning of a new way of life. A clever and determined young woman code-named Rose is offered a ch
Read More View in CatalogThe Light Pirate
Lily Brooks-Dalton
Florida is slipping away. As devastating weather patterns and rising sea levels wreak gradual havoc on the state's infrastructure, a powerful hurricane approaches a small town on the southeastern coast. Kirby Lowe, an electrical line worker, his
Read More View in CatalogThe Road
Cormac McCarthy
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although
Read More View in CatalogKindred
Octavia E. Butler
Dana's torment begins when she suddenly vanishes on her 26th birthday from California, 1976, and is dragged through time to antebellum Maryland to rescue a boy named Rufus, heir to a slaveowner's plantation. She soon realizes the purpose of
Read More View in CatalogUnderground Airlines
Ben H. Winters
The setting looks like contemporary America, but the Civil War was never fought, and slavery persists in the so-called Hard Four states. A young black man named Victor works as a bounty hunter for the U.S. Marshall Service, tamping down memories of h
Read More View in CatalogThe Red Garden
Alice Hoffman
From the author of Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick The Rules of Magic comes a transfixing glimpse into a small American town where a mysterious, magical garden holds the truth behind three hundred years of passion, dark secrets, loyalty, and redempt
Read More View in CatalogOutlawed
Anna North
In the year of our Lord 1894, I became an outlaw. The day of her wedding, 17 year old Ada's life looks good; she loves her husband, and she loves working as an apprentice to her mother, a respected midwife. But after a year of marriage and no pr
Read More View in CatalogThe Once and Future Witches
Alix E. Harrow
In 1893, there's no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at th
Read More View in CatalogWorld's Scariest Legends Series, Book 2
The Sleep Experiment
Jeremy Bates
In 1954, at the start of the Cold War, the Soviet military offered four political prisoners their freedom if they participated in an experiment requiring them to remain awake for fourteen days while under the influence of a powerful stimulant gas. Th
Read More View in CatalogAmina al-Sirafi Series Book 1
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
Shannon Chakraborty
Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peaceful
Read More View in CatalogBabel
R. F. Kuang
Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, Robin trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he'll enroll in Oxford University's pres
Read More View in Catalog11/22/63
Stephen King
It begins with Jake Epping, a thirty-five-year-old English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching GED classes. He asks his students to write about an event that changed their lives, and one essay blows him away--a gruesome, ha
Read More View in CatalogThe Years of Rice and Salt
Kim Stanley Robinson
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? What if the plague killed 99 pe
Read More View in CatalogThe Plot Against America
Philip Roth
When celebrity aviator, Charles A. Lindbergh, wins the 1940 presidential election on the slogan of 'America First', fear invades every Jewish household. Not only has Lindbergh blamed the Jews for pushing America towards war with Germany, he
Read More View in CatalogThe Silence of the Girls
Pat Barker
Here is the story of the Iliad as we’ve never heard it before: in the words of Briseis, Trojan queen and captive of Achilles. Given only a few words in Homer’s epic and largely erased by history, she is nonetheless a pivotal figure in the Trojan
Read More View in CatalogThe Stand
Stephen King
A patient escapes from a biological testing facility, unknowingly carrying a deadly weapon: a mutated strain of super-flu that will wipe out 99 percent of the world’s population within a few weeks. Those who remain are scared, bewildered, and in ne
Read More View in CatalogBroken Earth Series, Book 1
The Fifth Season
N. K. Jemisin
This is the way the world ends. . .for the last time. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It star
Read More View in CatalogReady Player One Series, Book 1
Ready Player One
Ernest Cline
In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's
Read More View in CatalogStation Eleven
Emily St. John Mandel
One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time-from the actor's early days as a film star to fifteen
Read More View in Catalog1984
George Orwell
In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston fi
Read More View in CatalogFahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury
A book burner in a future fascist state finds out books are a vital part of a culture he never knew. He clandestinely pursues reading, until he is betrayed.
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