Alt Hist Issue 10 has now been published!
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Welcome to Alt Hist Issue 10. I am sad to say that this will be the last regular Alt Hist. It is possible that I may do the occasional special issue Alt Hist in the future—perhaps an anthology around a particular theme, but for now that’s it I’m afraid. I have enjoyed editing and publishing Alt Hist over the last six years. The experience has taught me a lot about publishing short fiction and also given me the opportunity to work with some great authors. However, my time is limited and I am not finding enough of it to spend on my own writing. So with a heavy heart I decided that enough was enough for Alt Hist—for now at least.
So, onto the stories in this final issue of Alt Hist.
We start off with “The Thirty-Fourth Man” by Martin Roy Hill. Paul Klee, former cop and OSS spy, now reluctantly serves the SS in a Nazi-occupied America. His latest assignment: Hunt down the Thirty-Fourth Man, a double agent who destroyed a German spy ring. A story inspired by true events.
“Raven Child” by Morgan Read Davidson is set during the time of Julius Caesar, and is about the migration of the great Helvetii tribe through the land that would one day be Switzerland—a migration that would bring them into conflict with the might of Rome’s legions.
The Battalion 202 stories by Jonathan Doering have been running in Alt Hist since Issue 4. They give an imaginative view of some of the pressures and reactions to Nazi Occupation had Operation “Sea Lion” been activated successfully in late 1940. “Operation Solar”, the concluding story in the cycle, brings together the narratives of the key characters, centering on the AU plans to attack and liberate the Nazis’ transit prison at Pontefract Castle.
“Occupation” by Adam Kotlarczyk follows the life of Maryse, a Norman French farm girl who, on the eve of the D-Day invasion, rides a train to rendezvous with her boyfriend, who has been conscripted into the German Wehrmacht.
The last story in Alt Hist Issue 10 is one of my own: “Chivalry: A Jake Savage Adventure”. I have resisted the self-indulgence of publishing one of my own stories in Alt Hist until the very final issue—although sometimes it has been tempting when I have struggled to find a final story for an issue. But I thought it was appropriate for this last one—and this story in particular fits well as it’s the reason that promoted me to start up Alt Hist in the first place. When I was submitting it to magazine six years ago, I received good feedback from beta readers and others, but I couldn’t find anywhere that would accept it—and I realised that part of the reason was probably there was no publication interested much in historical fiction, or a fantasy variant thereof. So Alt Hist began.
I hope that Alt Hist has performed its role to some extent in being an outlet for historical fiction. And I hope that its readers have enjoyed the stories that it has published. As always your comments and views are welcome. I can still be reached via the Alt Hist website, Twitter, Faceboook and email.