WordPress.com Support The Walter Scott Prize for Historical History has announced the shortlist for 2019:
A Long Way From Home Peter Carey (Faber)
After The Party Cressida Connolly (Viking)
The Western Wind Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape)
Now We Shall Be Entirely Free Andrew Miller (Sceptre)
Warlight Michael Ondaatje(Jonathan Cape)
The Long Take Robin Robertson (Picador)
The winner will be announced on 15th June.
Will be interesting to see how this new alternate history from literary writer Ian McEwan pans out. Published in the UK on 18th April.
Sounds a bit like the TV series Humans?
Available to preorder from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com
Machines Like Me takes place in an alternative 1980s London. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first synthetic humans and—with Miranda’s help—he designs Adam’s personality. The near-perfect human that emerges is beautiful, strong, and clever. It isn’t long before a love triangle soon forms, and these three beings confront a profound moral dilemma.
In his subversive new novel, Ian McEwan asks whether a machine can understand the human heart—or whether we are the ones who lack understanding.
Alt Hist readers might like to know that there’s a new book out by Eric Flint in the popular Ring of Fire series: 1637: The Polish Maelstrom (Ring of Fire Book 26)
You can purchase at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
The Ottoman Empire has captured Vienna and is now laying siege to the Austrian government-in-exile established in the city of Linz. Both the United States of Europe and the Kingdom of Bohemia have come to Austria’s assistance, but everyone knows this is going to be a long and brutal struggle.
In order to relieve the pressure on the Austrians, General Mike Stearns proposes to open a second front in the Levant. The USE’s emperor Gustavus Adolphus gives his approval to the plan, and Mike sets it in motion, with the very capable assistance of his wife Rebecca Abrabanel, now the USE’s Secretary of State.
Meanwhile, Poland is coming to a boil. Gretchen Richter, the newly elected chancellor of Saxony, has seized control of Lower Silesia. Her small army is now approached to form an alliance with the Polish revolutionaries who have seized power in the Ruthenian province of Galicia—which, in the universe the time-displaced Americans of Grantville came from, would have constituted the western Ukraine.
Now, the Bohemians send an army led by Morris Roth into Poland, ostensibly to aid the revolutionaries but also with the goal of expanding King Albrecht Wallenstein’s growing empire in eastern Europe. And—the icing on the cake—Mike Stearns sends the Hangman Regiment of his Third Division under the command of Jeff Higgins to reinforce Jeff’s wife Gretchen in Silesia.
The maelstrom in Poland grows . . . and grows . . . and grows . . .
Will it drag all its displaced Americans and their allies down with it?
At the publisher’s request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).
About 1635: A Parcel of Rogues:
“The 20th volume in this popular, fast-paced alternative history series follows close on the heels of the events in The Baltic War, picking up with the protagonists in London, including sharpshooter Julie Sims. This time the 20th-century transplants are determined to prevent the rise of Oliver Cromwell and even have the support of King Charles.”—Library Journal
About 1634: The Galileo Affair:
“A rich, complex alternate history with great characters and vivid action. A great read and an excellent book.”—David Drake
“Gripping . . . depicted with power!”—Publishers Weekly
About Eric Flint’s Ring of Fire series:
“This alternate history series is . . . a landmark…”—Booklist
“[Eric] Flint’s 1632 universe seems to be inspiring a whole new crop of gifted alternate historians.”—Booklist
“ . . . reads like a technothriller set in the age of the Medicis . . . ”—Publishers Weekly
Eric Flint is a modern master of alternate history fiction, with over three million books in print. He’s the author/creator of the multiple New York Times best-selling Ring of Fire series starting with first novel 1632. With David Drake he has written six popular novels in the “Belisarius” alternate Roman history series, and with David Weber collaborated on 1633 and 1634: The Baltic War and latest Honorverse series entry Cauldron of Ghosts. Flint’s latest Ring of Fire novel is 1636: The Ottoman Onslaught. Flint was for many years a labor union activist. He lives near Chicago, Illinois.
News about a new Alt History TV show. From the Guardian:
It will envision a post-reparations America, where black Americans inhabit a sovereign nation, New Colonia, comprised of the southern states of Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. The series will chronicle the complicated relationship between New Colonia and the US in a post-Reconstruction milieu, where the former has established itself as a fully industrialized country while the US struggles to stay afloat economically. It will chart the complex relations between the two countries, which are geopolitically linked but marred by a violent past.
