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Time travel and alternate history
If you enjoy the idea of travelling in time … Or imagining an alternate history (in which one or more past events are changed and history is altered) … try the following …
You can also try searching the catalogue for time travel as a subject and UCHRONIA: The alternate history list is an invaluable source of information containing comprehensive lists of authors, series and upcoming publications. You can also use the divergence timeline to select the time period at which you want history to alter (for example, many alternate histories use World War Two or the American Civil War as jumping off points).
Science Fiction and Fantasy
- Kage Baker
- Novels of the Company series
Her compelling series of novels of the Company - a 24th century organization that turns orphans and refugees from the past into cyborgs and sends them back in time to save or hide paintings, cultural treasures, and genetic information useful to the future world and to make lots of money. - John Barnes
- Finity
- Gaudeamus
- Stephen Baxter
- Xeelee Sequence
- The time ships
John Birmingham- Weapons of Choice World War 2.1;
Designated Targets World War 2.2;
Final impact World War 2.3
An alternate history epic in which America's World War II fleet is decimated by a multi-national task force sent back in time from the year 2021, forcing Admiral Nimitz and Rear Admiral Spruance to make the potentially consequential decision to fight their own possible defeat. - John Brunner
- The wrong end of time
- Orson Scott Card
- Enchantment
- Pastwatch: the redemption of Christopher Columbus
- Mark Chadbourn
- Jack of Ravens. V.1. Kingdom of the serpent
- Michael Crichton
- Timeline A roller-coaster ride from the author of "Jurassic Park" - it combines quantum physics and the thrills of feudal 14th century France.
- Michael Cronin
- Against the Day series: Against the day; Through the Night; In the Morning
It is 1940 and the Nazis have just invaded Britain. It is now part of the Third Reich. The fighting is over. Or is it? Two schoolboys, Frank and Les, are drawn into the secret world of the Resistance and find themsevles facing the most dangerous time of their lives. - Uchronia description
- Dennis Danvers
- The watch, being an unauthorized sequel to Peter A. Kropotkins memoirs to a revolutionist
- Philip K Dick
- The man in the high castle
- Richard Dreyfuss and Harry Turtledove
- The two Georges
- Jasper Fforde
- Ingenious and funny alternate history series featuring literary detective Thursday Next:
- The Well of lost plots
- Lost in a good book
- The Eyre Affair
- Thursday Next in Something rotten
- Eric Flint
- Rivers of war
- 1824, the Arkansas war
- Grantville gazette I, II and III
- 1632; 1633; 1634; 1635
- Richard Garfinkle
- Celestial matters
- Kathleen Ann Goonan
- The bones of time
- Traci Harding
- The Ancient future trilogy
- Thomas Harlan
- Oath of the empire series
-
Harry Harrison - The Stars and stripes trilogy
- Hammer and the cross series
- Robert Heinlein
- For us the living
- Douglas Jones
- The Court Martial of George Armstrong Custer
- M. K. Joseph
- The time of Achamoth
- Susanna Kearsley
- Mariana
- John Kessel
- Corrupting Dr Nice
- J. Gregory Keyes
- Age of unreason series
- Dean Koontz
- Lightning
- Madeline L'Engle
- A wrinkle in time
- Sophia McDougall
- Romanitas The first in a planned trilogy set in an imagined present where the Roman Empire spans the world from the eastern border of India across the Atlantic. Uchronia description
- Ian MacLeod
- The Light Ages
- The House of Storms An English scientist discovered a substance called "aether" and instead of the advent of the Industrial Age, humanity begins manipulating reality. Uchronia description
- Larry Niven
- Rainbow Mars
- Andre Norton
- The Shadow of Albion
- Susan Price
-
The Sterkarm handshake; A Sterkarm Kiss - Philip Pullman
- His dark materials series
- Alastair Reynolds
- Century Rain Verity Auger is a specialist in the archaeological exploration of Earth, rendered uninhabitable after the technological catastrophe known as the Nanocaust. Verity uses a back door into an unstable alien transit system and discovers something astonishing at the far end of a wormhole : mid twentieth century Earth, preserved like a fly in amber.
- Keith Roberts
- Pavane In this classic alternate history, there was no Reformation, so the Catholic Church dominates this version of the 20th century. Advocates of electricity and other technologies plot revolution.
- Kim Stanley Robinson
- Years of rice and salt
- Robert Silverberg
- Thebes of the hundred gates
- Up the line
- George Simpson
- The dechronization of Sam Magruder
- Allen Steele
- Chronospace
Charles Stross- Merchant Princes series
Miriam Beckstein finds herself transported to a parallel Earth from present day Boston, a world where knights on horseback chase their prey with automatic weapons, and where world-skipping assassins lurk just on the other side of reality - a world where her true family runs things. The six families of the Clan rule the kingdom of Gruinmarkt. Uchronia description - Michael Swanwick
- Bones of the earth
- Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove
- Household gods
- Harry Turtledove - the following series:
- The American Empire
- The Worldwar
- Colonization
- Crosstime
- Settling accounts
- Marian Veevers
- Bloodlines
- Jo Walton
- Farthing
- Ha'penny Expert mixing of genres with alternate history set in 1949 after Hitler has been left in control of Europe.
- Connie Willis
- The Doomsday Book History student Kivrin goes back in history - from 2048 to 1348
- To say nothing of the dog
- Ronald Wright
- A scientific romance
Time travel and alternate history in other areas of the library
General Fiction
- Timescapes: stories of time travel
- Patricia Angadi
- The highly flavoured ladies
- Margaret Atwood
- The handmaid's tale
- Chita Divakaruni
- The mistress of spices
Stephen Fry- Making history A clever story about the risks of playing with history - what if someone could travel back in time and ensure Hitler was never born?
- Christopher Hope
- Darkest England
- Aldous Huxley
- Brave new world
- Liz Jensen
- My dirty little book of stolen time
- Carrie Kabak
- Cover the butter
- Audrey Niffenegger
- The time traveler's wife
- Philip Roth
- The plot against America
- In an alternate America, 1940-1942, a young Philip Roth witnesses the presidency of Charles Lindbergh and Americas descent down an isolationist path.
- Mark Twain
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court
- Gore Vidal
- The Smithsonian Institution
- Kurt Vonnegut
- Timequake
- H G Wells
- The time machine
Adventure
- James F. David
- Before the cradle falls
- Robert Harris
- Fatherland An adventure novel set in an alternate world where the Nazis won the SecondWorld War.
- Peter Millar
- Stealing thunder
Romance
- Barbara Erskine
- On the edge of darkness
- Diana Gabaldon
- Outlander (also published as Cross stitch); Dragonfly in amber; Voyager; Drums of autumn; The Fiery Cross; A Breath of Snow and Ashes
This popular historical romance series follows the adventures of Claire Randall who stumbles from 1946 into 18th century Scotland when she touches some mysterious standing stones. - Susanna Kearsley
- Mariana
- Linda Lael Miller
- Knights
- Nora Roberts
- Circle Trilogy
Non Fiction
- Alternate generals
- "History shows that leadership is crucial in war, but there are other factors at work. What if history were given a twist or two, and great commanders on land and sea fought their greatest battles under different circumstances?"
- Robert Cowley, ed.
- What if? The world's foremost military historians imagine what might have been
What if? 2 : eminent historians imagine what might have been - Niall Ferguson, ed.
- Virtual history: alternatives and counterfactuals
- Matthew Wright
- Fantastic Pasts: Imaginary adventures in New Zealand history
- What if Māori had never discovered New Zealand? What if the moa had survived into modern times? What if Sir Francis Drake had reached New Zealand?
- Search for more Imaginary histories
