Worlds That Weren't

Four very varied alternative-history novellas: In "The Daimon", Harry Turtledove lets Socrates guide Alcibiades in Athens' wars with Syracuse and Sparta. Well written, with lots of historical details. (Including a cameo by a teen-age Plato.) Definitely the best of the four. In "Shikari in Galveston" S. M. Stirling takes a gallant officer from his Peshawar Lancers through a dashing adventure against cannibals in a post-Fall South-East America. Light, fun, fast reading. In "The Logistics of Carthage", Mary Gentle describes a minor incident in an alternative medieval (Arian) North Africa, which is apparently part of the backplot to her novel "Ash". Unfortunately this rather drags as a standalone story, with a great deal of emotional agonizing and very slow plot movement. In "The Last Ride of German Freddie", Walter Jon Williams gives us Friedrich Nietzsche in the Gunfight at the OK Corral. A little slow, but an amusing look at Nietzsche applying his philosophy in the old West.

Science fiction fans of alternate history settings will want to place Harry Turtledove, et.al.'s Worlds That Weren't anthology high on their reading lists: it provides four novellas by Turtledove, Stirling, Gentle and Williams, each featuring a well-developed alternate world from 1452 Constantinople to a mysterious Old World figure stalking Tombstone. Each makes for a diverse, well-developed alternate to traditional history settings.

I enjoyed all four of the stories in this anthology. In fact I went to get The Peshawar Lancers and Ash: A Secret History after reading the Stirling and Gentle contributions here. While I'm a big fan of Turtledove, I found it difficult to appreciate the Turtledove novella as I'm not as familiar with ancient Athens and Sparta as he is. I was unfamiliar with Alicibiades and thus his story wasn't as compelling as some of the others.Stirling's novella takes place in a very different Texas from ours, where a rain of comets destroyed Western civilization. I wasn't clear where the cannibal tribes came from, and there weren't enough hints (that I could fathom) to figure it out, nor was I clear on whether the "Seven Tribes" were all Native American or if they included some European settlers (it appeared they did). The story was well-told and there were compelling characters who stayed after the story ended, especially Sonya Head-on-fire.Same problem with Gentle's world, I wasn't clear where history had shifted but also a well-layered story. The backstory of this tale is the role of the woman soldier (disguised as a man). I'm not sure the future-flashes, which this 14th century woman saw as a vision, were necessary to the plot, but her ruminations on being remembered after death were poignant. I'm looking forward to reading both their novels in hope it will fill some of this in.Williams' take on Tombstone was a real hoot putting Nietzsche in the middle of the dynamics. His afterward is fascinating, showing how the cinema version of the OK Corral shootout cut out the context of cowboys versus lawmen, and that the Clanton vs Earp battle wasn't an end but a beginning of an end.A good time, and in the tradition of good alternate history, it got me thinking of how things really happened.

Harry Turtledove, et.al.'s Worlds That Weren't provides a host of alternative history stories: new novellas which range in setting from ancient Athens to a very different Turkish empire Fans of alternate history will find these novellas striking and unusual.

When I first picked up "Worlds That Weren't", I was expecting an alternate-history version of "Legends", the 1998 fantasy anthology in which prominent fantasy authors wrote novellas based in worlds that they were best known for in the fantasy genre. My guess was partly right.Two of the stories - S.M. Stirling's "Shikari in Galveston" and Mary Gentle's "The Logistics of Carthage" do in fact take place in universes the authors have previously explored. Each about a generation before the main action of the novels (or series), Stirling's story revolves around the father of Athelstane King (the hero of "The Peshawar Lancers") and Mary Gentle's deals with the 'parents' of Ash from "Ash: A Secret History".The other two, though, seem to be independent works. Harry Turtledove's explores what would've happened had Socrates gone with Alcibiades to Syracuse (in Sicily) and if Alcibiades would not have fled following his summons back to Athens during the Peloponnesian War. Without giving too much away, he reenvisions Alcibiades as a possibly less-successful Alexander the Great a full 80 years before Alexander's time. Walter Jon Williams, on the other hand, takes a look at a Tombstone, Arizona to which Friedrich Nietzche had been medically exiled. He had Nietzche (sort-of) joining the Clantons against the Earps at the famous O.K. Corral shoot-out and creates a much different legacy for the Old West.All four novels are well done and each author knows his or her territory well (and, more importantly, provides details about the real-world events in their respective afterwords), but some succeed better than others. Turtledove has problems resisting the temptation of having characters dwell on alternate fates (i.e., events as they actually happened). Stirling's Neobritish Empire has all the hallmarks of good action on a broad, fascinating canvas, but ends up reading more like a James Bond story than as alternate history. Even his afterword comes out much that way where he talks about the creative process more than the dynamics of his world (much of which, admittedly, you can get in the appendices of "The Peshawar Lancers"). Gentle's and Williams' works seem to fair better, but I am much less familiar with their work than with Turtledove's and Stirling's.On the whole, though, all four stories are very well done. The book represents a couple of days worth of diverting, fun reading and it's not always necessary to be familiar with the authors' worlds (or the history involved) to enjoy the stories. Nonetheless, though, for people reading the books for their historical merit, you may wish to read the afterwords before the stories to refresh the given histories. Most of them do not give away the stories turn out (Turtledove's being a partial exception). I would still like to see a "Legends"-line anthology of alternate history stories, but, in the mean time, this will hold me over.