What might have been
5 MUST-READS
| Roth's novel has a Nazi-sympathiser as US president in 1940, while's Clarke's mammoth work of fantasy gives us two magicians recruited by the British Army to battle Napoleon's plundering forces. |
| Fatherland by Robert Harris |
| Suspense writer Harris (who also managed to write a fascinating "period thriller" about the eruption of Pompeii) came up with this taut bestseller about a disillusioned Berlin detective teaming up with a beautiful young American journalist to solve the murder of a high-ranking commander. |
| That may sound like ho-hum thriller material, but here's the catch: Fatherland is set 20 years after Germany's victory in the Second World War; as the novel opens, the country is preparing to celebrate Hitler's 75th birthday and awaiting a peacemaking visit from America's President Kennedy. |
| The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick |
| Dick's brilliant science-fiction novel of ideas has the ability to get well and truly under your skin. |
| Set in 1962, in an America ruled jointly by Japan and Nazi Germany, it is less fascinated by its own premise than it is with the similarities and differences between various races of people. |
| One of Dick's most interesting devices is that of placing a what-if novel within a what-if novel; integral to the plot is an alternative history book about what the world might have been like if the Allies had won WWII! The Chinese I Ching also plays a major role. |
| Come the Jubilee (aka Bring the Jubilee) by Ward Moore |
| The premise here is that the US Civil Was was won by the South. Consequently, while the neighbouring Confederacy enjoys the victor's prosperity of the victor, the US struggles through poverty, violence, and a nationwide depression. |
| The Industrial Revolution never occurs here, and so, well into the 1950s, the nation remains one of horse-drawn wagons, gaslight, highwaymen, and secret armies. |
| Pavane by Keith Roberts |
| Roberts' book is set in a backward 20th century molded by the assassination of Queen Elizabeth I in 1588, leading to the Spanish Armada's defeat of England and the subsequent suppression of the Protestant Church. |
| A twisted Church of Rome rules a modern world where steam locomotives are the primary mode of transportation and the horrors of the Inquisition continue. |
| But revolution becomes inevitable when society's natural cultural and scientific progress can no longer be contained. Pavane isn't a single narrative; it's a novel created from interrelated but standalone stories. |
| The alteration by Kingsley Amis |
| Like Pavane, Amis's book (with its double-edged title) is set in a world in which the Protestant Reformation was not allowed to take off, with Martin Luther having become Pope Germanian I. |
| The novel is set in 1976 and makes several clever references to other alternate history novels, like The Man in the High Castle. However, in the best traditions of alternate history, the novel Amis describes is completely different from the one Philip K Dick wrote! |