The shaman came to town near sunset, riding a dead horse.
Jake Bird shied back behind the stable door as the horse came down the street at a broken, jerky walk. There was a noise as it moved, a low grinding creak like the twisting of old leather. Dust puffed up around it's dry, split hooves. Despite the heat of the day, Jake shivered as he saw glints of yellow bone through rips in the animal's mangy, skewbald hide and pale stirrings in the pits that had been its eyes.
That's the start to the novel from which I draw my screen name on the site. It was my almost novel. The one that almost won two major awards, the one that was optioned twice for a film that was almost made, the one that almost launched me toward a career where I stayed behind the keyboard and didn't have to head back to the office. One little twist could have made things different, but that, like the novel itself, is alternate history.
Alternate history is one of those little sub-branches of literature that everyone dabbles with to one degree or another. Every book that inserts its characters into the course of past events, whether it's by Tom Clancy or John Updike, indulges in some measure of alternate history, or its close kin, the secret history. But when we usually think of the term alternate history, we think of that book that plays the "what if" game. What if the Nazis had won World War II, as they did in Phillip K. Dick's The Man in The High Castle. What if the South had won the Civil War as in Ward Moore's classic, Bring the Jubilee.
There's no secret why science fiction and fantasy writers find writing alternative history compelling. The best analogy I can give is that if working on a normal novel is like building a table, an alternate history novel is like a table where three legs are already provided. If I tell you that I'm writing a book featuring Savannah Sky, the main character of three of my books, you're unlikely to have a reaction unless you've read the previous novels. On the other hand, if I tell you that my book features George Armstrong Custer and William Quantrill (as Devil's Tower did) or Buffalo Bill, or Mary Baker Eddy -- chances are you come to those names with notions you've already formed from many different exposures over your life. You can't hear the name Abraham Lincoln or Adolf Hitler without having some deep reaction. The same applies to places as diverse as Omaha Beach, Gettysburg, and Windsor Castle. A writer can go with the perceptions you already have, riding along on a flow built up from sixth grade history to Ken Burn's documentaries, or you can paddle against the flow, presenting some very different take on heroic or infamous figures.
Some writers tackling an alternate history project spend a huge amount of time working out historical detail, but handle the characters clumsily as they try to pound round history into the square hole they've devised. Others screw over the facts so completely, papering the past with the worst kind of simplistic polemic, that the history isn't just "what if," but a trite bit of "just so" (the kind of writing that generates a Robert E. Lee who frees the slaves while a beaten Lincoln becomes a follower of Marx, as happens in one novel).
Personally, I like alternate history that doesn't become so mired in the details of how a 14th century saber is made that it forgets to tell a story. Alternate history that is less insistent on grinding an ideological ax using famous names attached to chess pieces, and more intent on blowing off the doors to see that the medium can do. Here's a few bits of alternate history that you should try even if you haven't picked up an actual history book since your junior year at state.
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
British writer Susanna Clarke's first novel may be the most audacious, most ambitious debut in literature over the last decade. Is it a fantasy novel? Yes it is, but it's a fantasy novel that builds its story on top of a carefully constructed alternative England. In this history, England has a long tradition of magic, one that has fallen into disuse until two unlikely rivals restore wonder. Set in the early 1800s during the period of the Napoleonic Wars, the story sprawls across Europe and pulls in kings, generals, and hordes of footnotes. Yes, footnotes -- and believe me, you'll love them. Read the book, but also do yourself a favor and take a listen to the unabridged audio version read by actor Simon Prebble. It's one of the best audio books I've ever heard. English history may not actually include the Raven King, but after reading this book, you'll wish it did.
Pavane by Keith Roberts
This should rightly be one of the classics of alternate history, if only because of the way that Roberts follows up "what if" with "and then" and then, and then some more. In this set of interlocking short stories, Queen Elizabeth the first is assassinated and the Spanish Armada successfully invades England. Four centuries later, a power mad Church still conducts a furious inquisition, technology and knowledge have been repressed, and the world teeters on the brink of a vast renaissance / revolution. Constructed as finely as a jewel box, this book was fIrst published in 1968 and has been only sporadically available. Get it while you can.
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
On the eve of World War II, Franklin Roosevelt actually proposed a temporary Jewish settlement in America. In Chabon's charming novel, this settlement was not only established, but became semi-permanent. In this novel, Israel never really got off the ground as a state, leading to a lengthy and expansive settlement in the 49th state. Two million of the "frozen chosen" live in the thriving city of Sitka, Alaska. But time is running out, and the northern homeland is soon to be snatched away. Against this backdrop is set a murder mystery, with the investigation carried out by a drunken cop and his half-Native Alaskan half-Jewish partner. Pulitzer Prize winner Chabon is in top form as his policemen investigate and kvetch. Oh, and there's chess. It's a Jewish chess noir detective story. In Alaska. So read it.
Dinosaur Summer by Greg Bear
There's a special kind of literary alternative history, one that takes the events of a existing novel as given and delivers, not so much a sequel, but a second visit to another world. In this case, Greg Bear (one of my favorites whether he's writing science fiction or fantasy) uses the events of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World as the launching point for a world in which dinosaurs have been captured and brought in to spice up the world's zoos and circuses. Only dinos don't take well to captivity, and after fifty years of touring, the last dinosaur circus is about to close. Now it's time for a sort of reverse expedition -- an attempt to return the few remaining dinosaurs to the wild. Show men, photojournalists, and one lucky kid set off to follow the track first laid down by Professor Challenger. It's grand adventure that Sir Arthur would have loved.
Three Days to Never by Tim Powers
This is the second time I've mentioned a Tim Powers novel. It won't be the last. This one is as difficult to define as any of Powers' recent work, and trying to sum is up is a semi-hopeless task. Let's just say that it involves rival intelligence services racing to recover parts of a time machine -- one designed by Albert Einstein and partially powered by Charlie Chaplin's purloined handprints from the walk of fame. Oh, and a secret movie taped over a copy of Peewee's Big Adventure. At the center of the drama are a man, his daughter, and the man again trying to save themselves from a horrible future that may have already happened. Spy thriller time travel science fiction and... um, a Tim Power's novel.
There you go. Some alternative history books without a single mention of marching on Richmond or the SSGB. For myself, I'm heading back to the world of Devil's Tower, where Phoebe Moses (better known as Annie Oakley) is cleaning her sniper rifle in a Cleveland hotel room, President William Jennings Bryan leads a crusade to purge a sinful nation, and Jake Bird waits in the empty main street of Medicine Rock for a challenge that may be his last. In an alternate world, someone else might even read it when I'm done.