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123-759: Kerberos Panzer Jager is part of the Kerberos Saga multimedia franchise. While most of the saga's installments concern the downfall of the Tokyo police's armored Kerberos Unit, Kerberos Panzer Jager is a prequel set during an alternate World War II . In this timeline, the United States remained isolationist , refusing to enter the war, while the Empire of Japan allied itself with Britain and France against Nazi Germany . In this alternate timeline, Hitler has been successfully assassinated by Claus von Stauffenberg , leading to

246-523: A Megaduke and commander of its armies and manages to fight off the invading Ottoman armies of Mehmet II . He saves the city from Islamic conquest , and even chases the Turks deeper into lands they had previously conquered. One of the earliest works of alternate history published in large quantities for the reception of a large audience may be Louis Geoffroy 's Histoire de la Monarchie universelle : Napoléon et la conquête du monde (1812–1832) (History of

369-556: A dystopian future UK, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen , and From Hell , speculating on the identity and motives of Jack the Ripper . Douglas Adams wrote the five-volume science fiction comedy trilogy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , and also wrote the humorous fantasy detective novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency . Clive Barker horror novels include The Hellbound Heart . The "Reading list", compiled by

492-431: A multiverse of alternative worlds, complete with the paratime travel machines that would later become popular with American pulp writers. However, since his hero experiences only a single alternate world, the story is not very different from conventional alternate history. In the 1930s, alternate history moved into a new arena. The December 1933 issue of Astounding published Nat Schachner 's "Ancestral Voices", which

615-468: A musical and other media. Baroness Orczy's character The Old Man in the Corner (1908) was among the earliest armchair detectives to be created. Her short stories about Lady Molly of Scotland Yard (1910) were an early example of a female detective as main character. John Buchan wrote the adventure novels on Prester John (1910) and four novels telling the adventures of Richard Hannay , of which

738-524: A Cold War thriller. War novels include Alistair MacLean thrillers The Guns of Navarone (1957), Where Eagles Dare (1968), and Jack Higgins ' The Eagle Has Landed (1975). Patrick O'Brian 's nautical historical novels feature the Aubrey–Maturin series set in the Royal Navy , the first being Master and Commander (1969). Ronald Welch 's Carnegie Medal winning novel Knight Crusader

861-455: A POD only to explain the existence and make no use of the concept, or may present the universe without explanation of its existence. Isaac Asimov 's short story " What If— " (1952) is about a couple who can explore alternate realities by means of a television-like device. This idea can also be found in Asimov's novel The End of Eternity (1955), in which the "Eternals" can change the realities of

984-412: A Pennsylvania State Police officer, who knows how to make gunpowder, is transported from our world to an alternate universe where the recipe for gunpowder is a tightly held secret and saves a country that is about to be conquered by its neighbors. The paratime patrol members are warned against going into the timelines immediately surrounding it, where the country will be overrun, but the book never depicts

1107-460: A Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg. When a story's assumptions about the nature of time travel lead to the complete replacement of the visited time's future, rather than just the creation of an additional time line, the device of a "time patrol" is often used where guardians move through time to preserve the "correct" history. A more recent example is Making History by Stephen Fry in which

1230-465: A bitter war with the "Spanish" in Mexico (the chief scientist at the laboratory where the experiment occurred is described as a Gnostic, and references to Christian Gnosticism appear repeatedly in the book). Although not dealing in physical time travel, in his alt-history novel Marx Returns , Jason Barker introduces anachronisms into the life and times of Karl Marx , such as when his wife Jenny sings

1353-412: A certain drug, and the agent is constantly trying to maximize the consistency of behavior among his alternate selves, attempting to compensate for events and thoughts he experiences, he guesses are of low measure relative to those experienced by most of his other selves. Many writers—perhaps the majority—avoid the discussion entirely. In one novel of this type, H. Beam Piper's Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen ,

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1476-546: A character in Ada makes a long-distance call, all the toilets in the house flush at once to provide hydraulic power. Guido Morselli described the defeat of Italy (and subsequently France) in World War I in his novel, Past Conditional (1975; Contro-passato prossimo ), wherein the static Alpine front line which divided Italy from Austria during that war collapses when the Germans and

1599-618: A different history. "Sidewise in Time" has been described as "the point at which the alternate history narrative first enters science fiction as a plot device" and is the story for which the Sidewise Award for Alternate History is named. A somewhat similar approach was taken by Robert A. Heinlein in his 1941 novelette Elsewhen in which a professor trains his mind to move his body across timelines. He then hypnotizes his students so that they can explore more of them. Eventually, each settles into

1722-660: A divided United States , in which the Empire of Japan takes the Pacific states, governing them as a puppet, Nazi Germany takes the East Coast of the United States and parts of the Midwest , with the remnants of the old United States' government as the Neutral Zone, a buffer state between the two superpowers. The book has inspired an Amazon series of the same name . Vladimir Nabokov 's novel, Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969),

1845-474: A nation. It assumes that by giving a nation an alternative history, alternative values can be made to grow." In the English language, the first known complete alternate history may be Nathaniel Hawthorne 's short story " P.'s Correspondence ", published in 1845. It recounts the tale of a man who is considered "a madman" due to his perceptions of a different 1845, a reality in which long-dead famous people, such as

1968-608: A purge of Nazi elements from the government. Advanced suits of powered armor , called 'Protect Gear', allow the Germans to win the Battle of Stalingrad . The term Panzer Jäger in the title refers not to tank-hunter units, as in real life, but to these armored infantry units, whose equipment goes on to form the basis for the Kerberos Unit's armor in later installments. In September 1942, Captain Maki Stauffenberg, in command of

2091-542: A significant impact on the genre), Murder on the Orient Express (1934), Death on the Nile (1937) and And Then There Were None (1939). Other female writers dubbed "Queens of crime" include Dorothy L. Sayers ( gentleman detective , Lord Peter Wimsey ), Margery Allingham ( Albert Campion , supposedly created as a parody of Sayers' Wimsey, ) and New Zealander Ngaio Marsh ( Roderick Alleyn ). Georgette Heyer recreated

2214-637: A sixteen-part epic comic book series called Captain Confederacy began examining a world where the Confederate States of America won the American Civil War . In the series, the Captain and others heroes are staged government propaganda events featuring the feats of these superheroes. Since the late 1990s, Harry Turtledove has been the most prolific practitioner of alternate history and has been given

2337-592: A staple of the alternate history genre. A number of alternate history stories and novels appeared in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (see, for example, Joseph Edgar Chamberlin 's The Ifs of History [1907] and Charles Petrie 's If: A Jacobite Fantasy [1926]). In 1931, British historian Sir John Squire collected a series of essays from some of the leading historians of the period for his anthology If It Had Happened Otherwise . In that work, scholars from major universities, as well as important non-academic authors, turned their attention to such questions as "If

2460-619: A third. Robinson explores world history from that point in AD 1405 (807 AH ) to about AD 2045 (1467 AH). Rather than following the great man theory of history, focusing on leaders, wars, and major events, Robinson writes more about social history , similar to the Annales School of history theory and Marxist historiography , focusing on the lives of ordinary people living in their time and place. Philip Roth 's novel, The Plot Against America (2004), looks at an America where Franklin D. Roosevelt

2583-503: A time machine is used to alter history so that Adolf Hitler was never born. That ironically results in a more competent leader of Nazi Germany and results in the country's ascendancy and longevity in the altered timeline. While many justifications for alternate histories involve a multiverse , the "many world" theory would naturally involve many worlds, in fact a continually exploding array of universes. In quantum theory, new worlds would proliferate with every quantum event, and even if

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2706-540: A time that was the future for the writer, but now is the past for the reader, such as the novels 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by Arthur C. Clarke , 1984 (1949) by George Orwell and the movie 2012 (2009) because the authors did not alter the real history of the past when they wrote the stories. Similar to the genre of alternative history, there is also the genre of secret history - which can be either fictional or non-fictional - which documents events that might have occurred in history, but which had no effect upon

2829-411: A tyrannical US Government brushes aside the warnings of scientists about the dangers of time travel and goes on with a planned experiment - with the result that minor changes to the prehistoric past cause Humanity to never have existed, its place taken by tentacled underwater intelligent creatures - who also have a tyrannical government which also insists on experimenting with time-travel. Time travel as

2952-427: A vehicle to expound them. This book introduced the idea of a person being transported from a point in our familiar world to the precise geographical equivalent point in an alternate world in which history had gone differently. The protagonists undergo various adventures in the alternate world, and then are finally transported back to our world, again to the precise geographical equivalent point. Since then, that has become

3075-531: A verse from the Sex Pistols 's song " Anarchy in the U.K. ", or in the games of chess she plays with the Marxes' housekeeper Helene Demuth , which on one occasion involves a Caro–Kann Defence . In her review of the novel, Nina Power writes of "Jenny's 'utopian' desire for an end to time", an attitude which, according to Power, is inspired by her husband's co-authored book The German Ideology . However, in keeping with

3198-475: Is Herodotus 's Histories , which contains speculative material. Another example of counterfactual history was posited by cardinal and Doctor of the Church Peter Damian in the 11th century. In his famous work De Divina Omnipotentia , a long letter in which he discusses God 's omnipotence , he treats questions related to the limits of divine power, including the question of whether God can change

3321-465: Is Clarke's contemporary. Michael Moorcock (born 1939) is a writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels. He was involved with the 'New Wave' of science fiction writers "part of whose aim was to invest the genre with literary merit" Similarly J. G. Ballard (born 1930) "became known in the 1960s as the most prominent of the 'New Wave' science fiction writers". A later major figure in science fiction

3444-420: Is a genre of speculative fiction dealing with imaginative concepts such as futuristic science and technology , space travel , time travel , faster than light travel , parallel universes and extraterrestrial life . Science fiction often explores the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations , and has been called a "literature of ideas". It usually eschews the supernatural , and unlike

3567-424: Is a prose-fiction form of romance , which Walter Scott defined as "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents". According to Romance Writers of America 's data, the most popular subgenres are romantic suspense , contemporary romance , historical romance , erotic romance , paranormal romance , and young adult romance . Science fiction

3690-458: Is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which one or more historical events have occurred but are resolved differently than in actual history. As conjecture based upon historical fact, alternate history stories propose What if? scenarios about crucial events in human history, and present outcomes very different from the historical record. Some alternate histories are considered a subgenre of science fiction , or historical fiction . Since

3813-503: Is a great deal of overlap among the three, all of which are subgenres of speculative fiction . Fantasy works frequently feature a medieval setting. The romance novel or "romantic novel" primarily focuses on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." There are many subgenres of the romance novel including fantasy , historical , science fiction , same sex romantic fiction, and paranormal fiction . There

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3936-405: Is a story of incest that takes place within an alternate North America settled in part by Czarist Russia and that borrows from Dick's idea of "alternate-alternate" history (the world of Nabokov's hero is wracked by rumors of a "counter-earth" that apparently is ours). Some critics believe that the references to a counter-earth suggest that the world portrayed in Ada is a delusion in the mind of

4059-505: Is another attempt to portray a Utopian society. In Aristopia , the earliest settlers in Virginia discover a reef made of solid gold and are able to build a Utopian society in North America . In 1905, H. G. Wells published A Modern Utopia . As explicitly noted in the book itself, Wells's main aim in writing it was to set out his social and political ideas, the plot serving mainly as

4182-439: Is best known for his Discworld series of comic fantasy novels, that begins with The Colour of Magic (1983), and includes Mort (1987), Hogfather (1996), and Night Watch (2002). Pratchett's other most notable work is the 1990 novel Good Omens . Philip Pullman 's fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials comprises Northern Lights (1995), The Subtle Knife (1997), and The Amber Spyglass (2000). It follows

4305-477: Is defeated in 1940 in his bid for a third term as President of the United States, and Charles Lindbergh is elected, leading to a US that features increasing fascism and anti-Semitism. Michael Chabon , occasionally an author of speculative fiction, contributed to the genre with his novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union (2007), which explores a world in which the State of Israel was destroyed in its infancy and many of

4428-550: Is found in Livy 's Ab Urbe Condita Libri (book IX, sections 17–19). Livy contemplated an alternative 4th century BC in which Alexander the Great had survived to attack Europe as he had planned; asking, "What would have been the results for Rome if she had been engaged in a war with Alexander?" Livy concluded that the Romans would likely have defeated Alexander. An even earlier possibility

4551-606: Is often mixed with other genres. Horror novelist Stephen King was awarded the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2003, polarizing opinions and leading to debate on genre fiction's literary merit. Negative comments about genre fiction have sparked responses from Time , Salon , the Atlantic , and the Los Angeles Review of Books . Nobel laureate Doris Lessing described science fiction as "some of

4674-664: Is set in Europe following the Nazi victory. The novel Dominion by C.J. Sansom (2012) is similar in concept but is set in England, with Churchill the leader of an anti-German Resistance and other historic persons in various fictional roles. In the Mecha Samurai Empire series (2016), Peter Tieryas focuses on the Asian-American side of the alternate history, exploring an America ruled by

4797-827: Is set in the 12th century and gives a depiction of the Third Crusade , featuring the Christian leader and King of England Richard the Lionheart . In crime fiction, the murder mysteries of Ruth Rendell and P. D. James are popular. Nigel Tranter wrote historical novels of celebrated Scottish warriors: Robert the Bruce in The Bruce Trilogy , and William Wallace in The Wallace (1975). John Wyndham wrote post-apocalyptic science fiction, his most notable works being The Day of

4920-543: Is sometimes thought to be in between genre and non-genre fiction. In the publishing industry the term "category fiction" is often used as a synonym for genre fiction, with the categories serving as the familiar shelf headings within the fiction section of a bookstore, such as Western or mystery. Some authors classified instead as literary fiction have written genre novels under pseudonyms, while others are argued to have employed genre elements in literary fiction. Romance fiction had an estimated $ 1.375 billion share in

5043-488: Is suggested that, had Gordon Banks been fit to play in the 1970 FIFA World Cup quarter-final, there would have been no Thatcherism and the post-war consensus would have continued indefinitely. Kim Stanley Robinson 's novel, The Years of Rice and Salt (2002), starts at the point of divergence with Timur turning his army away from Europe, and the Black Death has killed 99% of Europe's population, instead of only

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5166-482: Is the literary genre that fictionalises crimes , their detection, criminals, and their motives . It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as historical fiction or science fiction , but the boundaries are indistinct. Crime fiction has multiple subgenres , including detective fiction (such as the whodunit ), courtroom drama , hard-boiled fiction, mystery fiction , and legal thrillers . Suspense and mystery are key elements to

5289-406: Is widely considered to be the first true example of a supervillain , while Sherlock Holmes has become a by-word for a detective. Conan Doyle wrote four novels and fifty-six short stories featuring Holmes, from 1880 up to 1907, with a final case in 1914. All but four Conan Doyle stories are narrated by Holmes' friend, assistant, and biographer, Dr John H. Watson . Erskine Childers ' The Riddle of

5412-643: The Crosstime Traffic series for teenagers featuring a variant of H. Beam Piper's paratime trading empire. The concept of a cross-time version of a world war, involving rival paratime empires, was developed in Fritz Leiber 's Change War series, starting with the Hugo Award winning The Big Time (1958); followed by Richard C. Meredith 's Timeliner trilogy in the 1970s, Michael McCollum 's A Greater Infinity (1982) and John Barnes' Timeline Wars trilogy in

5535-469: The Empire of Japan and the Germans (and doing almost as much harm as good in spite of its advanced weapons). The series also explores the cultural impacts of people with 2021 ideals interacting with 1940s culture. Similarly, Robert Charles Wilson 's Mysterium depicts a failed US government experiment which transports a small American town into an alternative version of the US run by Gnostics , who are engaged in

5658-618: The Mutiny on the Bounty immortalised the Royal Navy ship HMS  Bounty and her people. The legend of Dick Turpin was popularised when the 18th-century English highwayman 's exploits appeared in the novel Rookwood in 1834. Although pre-dated by John Ruskin 's The King of the Golden River in 1841, the history of the modern fantasy genre is generally said to begin with George MacDonald ,

5781-755: The Worldwar series , in which aliens invaded Earth during World War II . Other stories by Turtledove include A Different Flesh , in which the Americas were not populated from Asia during the last ice age ; In the Presence of Mine Enemies , in which the Nazis won World War II; and Ruled Britannia , in which the Spanish Armada succeeded in conquering England in the Elizabethan era , with William Shakespeare being given

5904-408: The coming-of-age of two children as they wander through a series of parallel universes against a backdrop of epic events. Neil Gaiman is a writer of science fiction, fantasy short stories and novels, whose notable works include Stardust (1998), Coraline (2002), The Graveyard Book (2009), and The Sandman series. Alan Moore 's works include Watchmen , V for Vendetta set in

6027-552: The epic in poetry and tragedy and comedy for plays. In later periods other genres such as the chivalric romance , opera , and prose fiction developed. Though the novel is often seen as a modern genre – Ian Watt , in The Rise of the Novel (1957) suggests that the novel first came into being in the early 18th century – it has also been described as possessing "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", from

6150-499: The historical romance genre since 1921, and also wrote detective fiction (1932–1953). A major work of science fiction, from the early 20th century, is A Voyage to Arcturus by Scottish writer David Lindsay , first published in 1920. It combines fantasy , philosophy, and science fiction in an exploration of the nature of good and evil and their relationship with existence. It has been described by critic and philosopher Colin Wilson as

6273-481: The historical romances of Scott, Emily Brontë 's Wuthering Heights and Herman Melville 's Moby-Dick , are also frequently called novels, and Scott describes romance as a "kindred term". Romance, as defined here, should not be confused with the genre fiction love romance or romance novel . Other European languages do not distinguish between romance and novel: "a novel is le roman , der Roman , il romanzo ." Genre fiction developed from various subgenres of

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6396-571: The time travel novel Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp in which an American academic travels to Italy at the time of the Byzantine invasion of the Ostrogoths . De Camp's time traveler, Martin Padway, is depicted as making permanent historical changes and implicitly forming a new time branch, thereby making the work an alternate history. In William Tenn 's short story Brooklyn Project (1948),

6519-522: The "fair world" parallels our history, about fifty years out of step, there is functional magic in the fair world. Even with such explanation, the more explicitly the alternate world resembles a normal fantasy world, the more likely the story is to be labelled fantasy, as in Poul Anderson's "House Rule" and "Loser's Night". In both science fiction and fantasy, whether a given parallel universe is an alternate history may not be clear. The writer might allude to

6642-545: The "greatest novel of the twentieth century", and was a central influence on C. S. Lewis 's Space Trilogy . Also J. R. R. Tolkien said he read the book "with avidity", and praised it as a work of philosophy, religion, and morality. It was made widely available in paperback form when published as one of the precursor volumes to the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in 1968. From the early 1930s to late 1940s, an informal literary discussion group associated with

6765-538: The 1920s. In Jo Walton 's "Small Change" series, the United Kingdom made peace with Hitler before the involvement of the United States in World War II, and slowly collapses due to severe economic depression. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen have written a novel, 1945 , in which the US defeated Japan but not Germany in World War II, resulting in a Cold War with Germany rather than

6888-414: The 1950s, as a subgenre of science fiction, some alternative history stories have featured the tropes of time travel between histories, the psychic awareness of the existence of an alternative universe by the inhabitants of a given universe, and time travel that divides history into various timestreams . Often described as a subgenre of science fiction , alternative history is a genre of fiction wherein

7011-484: The 1980s; Chalker's G.O.D. Inc trilogy (1987–89), featuring paratime detectives Sam and Brandy Horowitz, marks the first attempt at merging the paratime thriller with the police procedural. Kurland's Perchance (1988), the first volume of the never-completed "Chronicles of Elsewhen", presents a multiverse of secretive cross-time societies that utilize a variety of means for cross-time travel, ranging from high-tech capsules to mutant powers. Harry Turtledove has launched

7134-468: The 1990s. Such "paratime" stories may include speculation that the laws of nature can vary from one universe to the next, providing a science fictional explanation—or veneer—for what is normally fantasy. Aaron Allston 's Doc Sidhe and Sidhe Devil take place between our world, the "grim world" and an alternate "fair world" where the Sidhe retreated to. Although technology is clearly present in both worlds, and

7257-405: The 808th Propagandakompanie , leaves Warsaw station on an armored train to start her long journey into Soviet territory. A filmmaker originally affiliated with UFA GmBH , she has been tasked with creating a propaganda film about the exploits of the 101st Panzer Jäger Battalion. Tainted by association with the displaced Nazi regime, the 101st has been committed to bloody frontline battles against

7380-509: The American Civil War (named the "War of Southron Independence" in this timeline). The protagonist, the autodidact Hodgins Backmaker, travels back to the aforementioned battle and inadvertently changes history, which results in the emergence of our own timeline and the consequent victory of the Union instead. The American humorist author James Thurber parodied alternate history stories about

7503-412: The American Civil War in his 1930 story "If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox", which he accompanied with this very brief introduction: " Scribner's magazine is publishing a series of three articles: 'If Booth Had Missed Lincoln', 'If Lee Had Won the Battle of Gettysburg', and 'If Napoleon Had Escaped to America'. This is the fourth". Another example of alternate history from this period (and arguably

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7626-721: The Austrians forsake trench warfare and adopt blitzkrieg twenty years in advance. Kingsley Amis set his novel, The Alteration (1976), in the 20th century, but major events in the Reformation did not take place, and Protestantism is limited to the breakaway Republic of New England. Martin Luther was reconciled to the Roman Catholic Church and later became Pope Germanian I. In Nick Hancock and Chris England 's 1997 book What Didn't Happen Next: An Alternative History of Football it

7749-586: The English faculty at the University of Oxford, were the " Inklings ". Its leading members were the major fantasy novelists; C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien . Lewis is known for The Screwtape Letters (1942), The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–1956) and The Space Trilogy (1938–1945), while Tolkien is best known as the author of The Hobbit (1937), The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955), and The Silmarillion (1977). In thriller writing, Ian Fleming created

7872-620: The Hawaiian Islands. Perhaps the most incessantly explored theme in popular alternate history focuses on the aftermath of an Axis victory in World War II . In some versions, the Nazis and/or Axis Powers win; or in others, they conquer most of the world but a "Fortress America" exists under siege; while in others, there is a Nazi/Japanese Cold War comparable to the US/Soviet equivalent in 'our' timeline. Fatherland (1992), by Robert Harris ,

7995-601: The Imperium is one of the earliest alternate history novels; it was published by Fantastic Stories of the Imagination in 1961, in magazine form, and reprinted by Ace Books in 1962 as one half of an Ace Double . Besides our world, Laumer describes a world ruled by an Imperial aristocracy formed by the merger of European empires, in which the American Revolution never happened, and a third world in post-war chaos ruled by

8118-508: The Japanese Empire while integrating elements of Asian pop culture like mechas and videogames. Several writers have posited points of departure for such a world but then have injected time splitters from the future. For instance James P. Hogan 's The Proteus Operation . Norman Spinrad wrote The Iron Dream in 1972, which is intended to be a science fiction novel written by Adolf Hitler after fleeing from Europe to North America in

8241-460: The Jews and Israel, Chabon also plays with other common tropes of alternate history fiction; in the book, Germany actually loses the war even harder than they did in reality, getting hit with a nuclear bomb instead of just simply losing a ground war (subverting the common "what if Germany won WWII?" trope). The late 1980s and the 1990s saw a boom in popular-fiction versions of alternate history, fueled by

8364-571: The Moors in Spain Had Won" and "If Louis XVI Had Had an Atom of Firmness". The essays range from serious scholarly efforts to Hendrik Willem van Loon 's fanciful and satiric portrayal of an independent 20th-century New Amsterdam , a Dutch city-state on the island of Manhattan . Among the authors included were Hilaire Belloc , André Maurois , and Winston Churchill . One of the entries in Squire's volume

8487-420: The Myriad Ways , where the reality of all possible universes leads to an epidemic of suicide and crime because people conclude their choices have no moral import. In any case, even if it is true that every possible outcome occurs in some world, it can still be argued that traits such as bravery and intelligence might still affect the relative frequency of worlds in which better or worse outcomes occurred (even if

8610-399: The Needle (1978), followed by The Key to Rebecca (1980), as well as historical novels, notably The Pillars of the Earth (1989), and its sequel World Without End (2007). Elleston Trevor is remembered for his 1964 adventure story The Flight of the Phoenix , while the thriller novelist Philip Nicholson is best known for Man on Fire . Peter George 's Red Alert (1958), is

8733-423: The Sands (1903) defined the spy novel and Follett has also called it "the first modern thriller ". Emma Orczy 's The Scarlet Pimpernel (1903) was originally a highly successful play, when staged in London in 1905. The novel The Scarlet Pimpernel was published soon after the play opened and was an immediate success. Orczy gained a following of readers in Britain and throughout the world. The popularity of

8856-694: The Soviet Union. Gingrich and Forstchen neglected to write the promised sequel; instead, they wrote a trilogy about the American Civil War, starting with Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War , in which the Confederates win a victory at the Battle of Gettysburg - however, after Lincoln responds by bringing Grant and his forces to the eastern theater, the Army of Northern Virginia is soon trapped and destroyed in Maryland, and

8979-786: The Soviets without respite, achieving stunning combat results in the process. However, Maki Stauffenberg, the half-Japanese niece of Hitler's killer, has taken on the mission for her own reasons. (装甲列車編, Sōkō ressha hen ) (装甲猟兵, Sōkō ryoū hei ) (電撃戦, Dengeki sen ) (バルバロッサ, barubarossa ) The surnames of the German soldiers seem to be taken from professional soccer players Bernd Hollerbach , Benjamin Lauth , Sebastian Deisler , Miroslav Klose , Stefan Beinlich and Oliver Kahn . On late May 2006, Mamoru Oshi announced plans to direct an anime adaptation of Kerberos Panzer Jäger , to be produced in 2009 with

9102-462: The Triffids (1951), and The Midwich Cuckoos (1957). George Langelaan 's The Fly (1957), is a science fiction short story. Science fiction novelist Arthur C. Clarke 's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is based on his various short stories, particularly The Sentinel (1951). His other major novels include Rendezvous with Rama (1972), and The Fountains of Paradise (1979). Brian Aldiss

9225-406: The US book market in 2007. Religion/inspirational literature followed with $ 819 million, science fiction/fantasy with $ 700 million, mystery with $ 650 million and classic literary fiction with $ 466 million. Genre began as a classification system for ancient Greek literature . Poetry , prose , and drama had specific calculated styles that related to the theme of the story. Among the genres were

9348-667: The Universal Monarchy: Napoleon and the Conquest of the World) (1836), which imagines Napoleon 's First French Empire emerging victorious in the French invasion of Russia in 1812 and in an invasion of England in 1814, later unifying the world under Bonaparte's rule. The Book of Mormon (published 1830) is described as an "alternative history" by Richard Lyman Bushman , a biographer of Joseph Smith . Smith claimed to have translated

9471-569: The author speculates upon how the course of history might have been altered if a particular historical event had an outcome different from the real life outcome. An alternate history requires three conditions: (i) A point of divergence from the historical record, before the time in which the author is writing; (ii) A change that would alter known history; and (iii) An examination of the ramifications of that alteration to history. Occasionally, some types of genre fiction are misidentified as alternative history , specifically science fiction stories set in

9594-623: The best social fiction of our time", and called Greg Bear , author of Blood Music , "a great writer". In the 2000s, the BBC defended itself against charges that it discussed genre fiction with a "sneering derogatory tone". The Man Booker Prize and British Book Awards have been criticized for ignoring genre fiction in their selection process. Some critics have claimed that reading romance and suspense thrillers makes readers more sensitive, because these novels focus on interpersonal relationships. Sir John Barrow 's descriptive 1831 account of

9717-481: The cause of a point of divergence (POD), which can denote either the bifurcation of a historical timeline or a simple replacement of the future that existed before the time-travelling event, has continued to be a popular theme. In Ward Moore 's Bring the Jubilee (1953), the protagonist lives in an alternate history in which the Confederacy has won the American Civil War. He travels backward through time and brings about

9840-469: The character James Bond 007 in January 1952, while on holiday at his Jamaican estate, Goldeneye. Fleming chronicled Bond's adventures in twelve novels, including Casino Royale (1953), Live and Let Die (1954), Dr. No (1958), Goldfinger (1959), Thunderball (1961), The Spy Who Loved Me (1962), and nine short story works. In contrast to the larger-than-life spy capers of Bond, John le Carré

9963-435: The copies of you who made the same decision succeed too. What you do for the better increases the portion of the multiverse where good things happen." This view is perhaps somewhat too abstract to be explored directly in science fiction stories, but a few writers have tried, such as Greg Egan in his short story The Infinite Assassin , where an agent is trying to contain reality-scrambling "whirlpools" that form around users of

10086-706: The disintegration of the US Federal Government after Albert Gallatin joins the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 and eventually leads to the creation of a libertarian utopia. In the 2022 novel Poutine and Gin by Steve Rhinelander, the point of divergence is the Battle of the Plains of Abraham of the French and Indian War. That novel is a mystery set in 1940 of that time line. A recent time traveling splitter variant involves entire communities being shifted elsewhere to become

10209-517: The document from golden plates, which told the story of a Jewish group who migrated from Israel to the Americas and inhabited the region from about 600 B.C. to 400 A.D., becoming the ancestors of Native Americans . In the 2005 biography Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling , Bushman wrote that the Book of Mormon "turned American history upside down [and] works on the premise that a history—a book—can reconstitute

10332-553: The emergence of the prolific alternate history author Harry Turtledove , as well as the development of the steampunk genre and two series of anthologies—the What Might Have Been series edited by Gregory Benford and the Alternate ... series edited by Mike Resnick . This period also saw alternate history works by S. M. Stirling , Kim Stanley Robinson, Harry Harrison , Howard Waldrop , Peter Tieryas , and others. In 1986,

10455-573: The finest sensation novels . H. G. Wells 's (1866–1946) writing career began in the 1890s with science fiction novels like The Time Machine (1895), and The War of the Worlds (1898) which describes an invasion of late Victorian England by Martians , and Wells is seen, along with Frenchman Jules Verne (1828–1905), as a major figure in the development of the science fiction genre. Penny dreadful publications were an alternative to mainstream works, and were aimed at working class adolescents, introducing

10578-518: The first that explicitly posited cross-time travel from one universe to another as anything more than a visionary experience) is H.G. Wells ' Men Like Gods (1923) in which the London -based journalist Mr. Barnstable, along with two cars and their passengers, is mysteriously teleported into "another world", which the "Earthlings" call Utopia. Being far more advanced than Earth, Utopia is some 3000 years ahead of humanity in its development. Wells describes

10701-450: The first, The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) is the best known. Novels featuring a gentleman adventurer were popular in the interwar period , exemplified by the series of H. C. McNeile with Bulldog Drummond (1920) and Leslie Charteris , whose many books chronicled the adventures of Simon Templar , alias The Saint . The medievalist scholar M. R. James wrote highly regarded ghost stories (1904–1928) in contemporary settings. This

10824-443: The genre. Fantasy is a genre of fiction that uses magic or other supernatural elements as a main plot element, theme , or setting . Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic and magical creatures are common. Fantasy is generally distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror by the expectation that it steers clear of scientific and macabre themes, respectively, though there

10947-402: The hero (another favorite theme of Dick's novels ). Strikingly, the characters in Ada seem to acknowledge their own world as the copy or negative version, calling it "Anti-Terra", while its mythical twin is the real "Terra". Like history, science has followed a divergent path on Anti-Terra: it boasts all the same technology as our world, but all based on water instead of electricity ; e.g., when

11070-479: The infamous Sweeney Todd . The premier ghost story writer of the 19th century was the Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu . His works include the macabre mystery novel Uncle Silas 1865, and his Gothic novella Carmilla 1872, which tells the story of a young woman's susceptibility to the attentions of a female vampire. The vampire genre fiction began with John William Polidori 's " The Vampyre " (1819). This short story

11193-503: The influential author of The Princess and the Goblin and Phantastes (1858). William Morris was a popular English poet who also wrote several fantasy novels during the latter part of the nineteenth century. Wilkie Collins ' epistolary novel The Moonstone (1868) is generally considered the first detective novel in the English language, while The Woman in White is regarded as one of

11316-498: The novel (and its "romance" version) during the nineteenth century, along with the growth of the mass-marketing of fiction in the twentieth century: this includes the gothic novel , fantasy , science fiction , adventure novel , historical romance , and the detective novel . Some scholars see precursors to the genre fiction romance novels in literary fiction of the 18th and 19th centuries, including Samuel Richardson 's sentimental novel Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740) and

11439-591: The novel's anachronisms, the latter was not published until 1932. By contrast, the novel's timeline ends in 1871. Genre fiction Genre fiction , also known as formula fiction or popular fiction , is a term used in the book-trade for fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre. The main genres are crime , fantasy , romance , science fiction and horror —as well as perhaps Western , inspirational and historical fiction . Slipstream genre

11562-511: The novel, which recounted the adventures of a member of the English gentry in the French Revolutionary period, encouraged her to write a number of sequels for her "reckless daredevil" over the next 35 years. The play was performed to great acclaim in France, Italy, Germany and Spain, while the novel was translated into 16 languages. Subsequently, the story has been adapted for television, film,

11685-426: The novels of Jane Austen such as Pride and Prejudice (1813). Critics have often regarded genre fiction as having less artistic merit than literary fiction, but this assumption has been contested after the growth of fiction that blurs these boundaries and the serious study of genre fiction within universities. The following are some of the main genres as they are used in contemporary publishing: Crime fiction

11808-701: The past, for example, bringing about that Rome was never founded: I see I must respond finally to what many people, on the basis of your holiness's [own] judgment, raise as an objection on the topic of this dispute. For they say: If, as you assert, God is omnipotent in all things, can he manage this, that things that have been made were not made? He can certainly destroy all things that have been made, so that they do not exist now. But it cannot be seen how he can bring it about that things that have been made were not made. To be sure, it can come about that from now on and hereafter Rome does not exist; for it can be destroyed. But no opinion can grasp how it can come about that it

11931-460: The poets Robert Burns , Lord Byron , Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats , the actor Edmund Kean , the British politician George Canning , and Napoleon Bonaparte , are still alive. The first novel-length alternate history in English would seem to be Castello Holford 's Aristopia (1895). While not as nationalistic as Louis Geoffroy 's Napoléon et la conquête du monde, 1812–1823 , Aristopia

12054-402: The point of view of an alternate history is variously known as " recursive alternate history ", a "double-blind what-if", or an "alternate-alternate history". Churchill's essay was one of the influences behind Ward Moore 's alternate history novel Bring the Jubilee in which General Robert E. Lee won the Battle of Gettysburg and paved the way for the eventual victory of the Confederacy in

12177-543: The protagonist's doppelganger. Philip K. Dick 's novel, The Man in the High Castle (1962), is an alternate history in which Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan won World War II. This book contains an example of "alternate-alternate" history, in that one of its characters authored a book depicting a reality in which the Allies won the war, itself divergent from real-world history in several aspects. The several characters live within

12300-415: The reality that is most suitable for him or her. Some of the worlds they visit are mundane, some are very odd, and others follow science fiction or fantasy conventions. World War II produced alternate history for propaganda : both British and American authors wrote works depicting Nazi invasions of their respective countries as cautionary tales. The period around World War II also saw the publication of

12423-442: The recorded historical outcome. Alternative history also is thematically related to, but distinct from, counterfactual history , which is a form of historiography that explores historical events in an extrapolated timeline in which key historical events either did not occur or had an outcome different from the historical record, in order to understand what did happen. The earliest example of alternate (or counterfactual) history

12546-606: The related genre of fantasy , historically science fiction stories were intended to have at least pretense of science-based fact or theory at the time the story was created, but this connection has become tenuous or non-existent in much of science fiction. Horror fiction aims to frighten or disgust its readers. Although many horror novels feature supernatural phenomena or monsters, it is not required. Early horror took much inspiration from Romanticism and Gothic fiction . Modern horror, such as cosmic horror and splatterpunk , tends to be less melodramatic and more explicit. Horror

12669-453: The slaughter of the innocent thus entailed, remaining solely in the timeline where the country is saved. The cross-time theme was further developed in the 1960s by Keith Laumer in the first three volumes of his Imperium sequence, which would be completed in Zone Yellow (1990). Piper's politically more sophisticated variant was adopted and adapted by Michael Kurland and Jack Chalker in

12792-570: The task of writing the play that will motivate the Britons to rise up against their Spanish conquerors. He also co-authored a book with actor Richard Dreyfuss , The Two Georges , in which the United Kingdom retained the American colonies, with George Washington and King George III making peace. He did a two-volume series in which the Japanese not only bombed Pearl Harbor but also invaded and occupied

12915-405: The time of both Classical Greece and Rome . The "romance" is a closely related long prose narrative. Walter Scott defined it as "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents", whereas in the novel "the events are accommodated to the ordinary train of human events and the modern state of society". However, many romances, including

13038-528: The title "Master of Alternate History" by some. His books include those of Timeline 191 (a.k.a. Southern Victory, also known as TL-191), in which, while the Confederate States of America won the American Civil War , the Union and Imperial Germany defeat the Entente Powers in the two "Great War"s of the 1910s and 1940s (with a Nazi-esque Confederate government attempting to exterminate its black population), and

13161-445: The total number of worlds with each type of outcome is infinite, it is still possible to assign a different measure to different infinite sets). The physicist David Deutsch , a strong advocate of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, has argued along these lines, saying that "By making good choices, doing the right thing, we thicken the stack of universes in which versions of us live reasonable lives. When you succeed, all

13284-522: The unwitting creators of new time branches. These communities are transported from the present (or the near-future) to the past or to another timeline via a natural disaster, the action of technologically advanced aliens, or a human experiment gone wrong. S. M. Stirling wrote the Island in the Sea of Time trilogy, in which Nantucket Island and all its modern inhabitants are transported to Bronze Age times to become

13407-532: The use of 3DCG . However, there has been no recent news regarding this project. Images of the Last Battalion , a short CGI fan film produced in 2005 featuring German power armor suits in a WW2 setting, was screened at the Kerberos saga radio drama series launch party as a trailer. Alternate history Alternate history (also referred to as alternative history , allohistory , althist , or simply AH )

13530-559: The war ends within weeks. While World War II has been a common point of divergence in alternate history literature, several works have been based on other points of divergence. For example, Martin Cruz Smith , in his first novel, posited an independent American Indian nation following the defeat of Custer in The Indians Won (1970). Beginning with The Probability Broach in 1980, L. Neil Smith wrote several novels that postulated

13653-480: The world's Jews instead live in a small strip of Alaska set aside by the US government for Jewish settlement. The story follows a Jewish detective solving a murder case in the Yiddish-speaking semi-autonomous city state of Sitka . Stylistically, Chabon borrows heavily from the noir and detective fiction genres, while exploring social issues related to Jewish history and culture. Apart from the alternate history of

13776-513: The world's first superpower. In Eric Flint 's 1632 series , a small town in West Virginia is transported to 17th century central Europe and drastically changes the course of the Thirty Years' War , which was then underway. John Birmingham 's Axis of Time trilogy deals with the culture shock when a United Nations naval task force from 2021 finds itself back in 1942 helping the Allies against

13899-514: The world, without people being aware of it. Poul Anderson 's Time Patrol stories feature conflicts between forces intent on changing history and the Patrol who work to preserve it. One story, Delenda Est , describes a world in which Carthage triumphed over the Roman Republic. The Big Time , by Fritz Leiber , describes a Change War ranging across all of history. Keith Laumer's Worlds of

14022-451: The writer explicitly maintains that all possible decisions are made in all possible ways, one possible conclusion is that the characters were neither brave, nor clever, nor skilled, but simply lucky enough to happen on the universe in which they did not choose the cowardly route, take the stupid action, fumble the crucial activity, etc.; few writers focus on this idea, although it has been explored in stories such as Larry Niven 's story All

14145-487: The writer uses human decisions, every decision that could be made differently would result in a different timeline. A writer's fictional multiverse may, in fact, preclude some decisions as humanly impossible, as when, in Night Watch , Terry Pratchett depicts a character informing Vimes that while anything that can happen, has happened, nevertheless there is no history whatsoever in which Vimes has ever murdered his wife. When

14268-562: Was Iain M. Banks who created a fictional anarchist, socialist, and utopian society named " The Culture ". The novels that feature in it include Excession (1996), and Inversions (1998). He also published mainstream novels, including the highly controversial The Wasp Factory in 1984. Nobel prize winner Doris Lessing also published a sequence of five science fiction novels the Canopus in Argos : Archives between 1979 and 1983. Terry Pratchett

14391-543: Was Churchill's "If Lee Had Not Won the Battle of Gettysburg", written from the viewpoint of a historian in a world in which the Confederacy had won the American Civil War . The entry considers what would have happened if the North had been victorious (in other words, a character from an alternate world imagines a world more like the real one we live in, although it is not identical in every detail). Speculative work that narrates from

14514-564: Was an author of spy novels who depicted a shadowy world of espionage and counter-espionage, and his best known novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), is often regarded as one of the greatest in the genre. Frederick Forsyth writes thriller novels, including The Day of the Jackal (1971), The Odessa File (1972), The Dogs of War (1974) and The Fourth Protocol (1984). Ken Follett writes spy thrillers, his first success being Eye of

14637-597: Was called the Golden Age of Detective Fiction . Agatha Christie , a writer of crime novels, short stories and plays, is best remembered for her 80 detective novels and her successful West End theatre plays. Christie's works, particularly those featuring the detectives Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple , made her one of the most important and innovative writers in the development of the genre. Her most influential novels include The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926); one of her most controversial novels, its innovative twist ending had

14760-505: Was inspired by the life of Lord Byron and his poem The Giaour . An important later work is Varney the Vampire (1845), where many standard vampire conventions originated: Varney has fangs, leaves two puncture wounds on the neck of his victims, and has hypnotic powers and superhuman strength. Varney was also the first example of the "sympathetic vampire", who loathes his condition but is a slave to it. Bram Stoker , yet another Irish writer,

14883-530: Was not founded long ago... One early work of fiction detailing an alternate history is Joanot Martorell 's 1490 epic romance Tirant lo Blanch , which was written when the fall of Constantinople to the Turks was still a recent and traumatic memory for Christian Europe . It tells the story of the knight Tirant the White from Brittany who travels to the embattled remnants of the Byzantine Empire . He becomes

15006-450: Was quickly followed by Murray Leinster 's " Sidewise in Time " (1934). While earlier alternate histories examined reasonably-straightforward divergences, Leinster attempted something completely different. In his "World gone mad", pieces of Earth traded places with their analogs from different timelines. The story follows Professor Minott and his students from a fictitious Robinson College as they wander through analogues of worlds that followed

15129-619: Was the author of the seminal horror work Dracula and featured as its primary antagonist the vampire Count Dracula , with the vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing his arch-enemy. Dracula has been attributed to a number of literary genres including vampire literature , horror fiction , gothic novel and invasion literature . Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 's Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant London-based "consulting detective", famous for his intellectual prowess, skilful use of astute observation, deductive reasoning and forensic skills to solve difficult cases. Holmes' archenemy Professor Moriarty ,

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