Alt Hist Issue 8
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The eighth issue of the popular magazine of historical fiction and alternate history contains six great new short stories. Alt Hist Issue 8 includes new stories in the Battalion 202 series set in the aftermath of a successful German invasion of Britain, as well as tales featuring bridge burning in the American Civil War, a secret mission against the Suez Canal in the World War One, a story that speculates what if the atom bomb hadn’t been dropped on Japan, and taking us back to the Middle Ages, a story that follows the dreams and reality of a peasant girl caught up in the brutal Hundred Years War.
Stories include:
- Dewey Defeats Truman by Mark Devane
- A Sword by Andrew Knighton
- The Retreat Proceeded Orderly, at Least by Kenan Orhan
- The Fullness and the Hollowness by Jonathan Doering
- Small Miracles by Jonathan Doering
- His Last Day by Richard Buxton
Kicking off the eighth issue of Alt Hist is an alternate history story with a classic what if theme: what would have happened if the atomic bombs had not been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945? “Dewey Defeats Truman” by Mark Devane was inspired by the erroneous headline printed the day after Truman was supposed to have lost the 1948 election. In reality the newspapers got it wrong and Truman was a surprise victor, but what if he had made different decisions in the war against Japan?
“A Sword” by Andrew Knighton takes us back to the Middle Ages and the brutal Hundred Years War between England and France. A young peasant girl dreams of fighting fantastic beasts with her trusty sword as she plays in the forest, but what does she do when real enemies appear?
A little known action of the First World War is the subject of “The Retreat Proceeded Orderly, at least” by Kenan Orhan. In 1915 the Turkish army mounted raids on the Suez Canal. This short story follows a Turkish special forces mission made up of diverse nationalities as it attempts to blow up one of the ships assigned to protect the Canal.
The next two stories are from the Battalion 202 series. “Small Miracles” focuses on the women left behind in Pontefract by Christopher Greenwood: his girlfriend and his mother. In “The Fullness and the Hollowness” Christopher and Tommy have escaped the clutches of the SS and head for a rendezvous with other members of the British Battalion 202 units and a briefing by the mysterious government representative known only as DEM.
The last story of Issue 8, Richard Buxton’s “His Last Day”, is set soon after the end of the American Civil War and follows a railway conductor’s last day in his job before he retires. But an encounter during the journey stirs up old memories from during the war and a decision is made on whether and how to settle some unfinished business.