Alternate History Fiction Books to Read Now

Set in a world where Teddy Roosevelt is elected President for a second time and World War I is just on the horizon, Roosevelt relies on a top secret clandestine network known as the Black Chamber. The novel centers around Luz O’Malley Arostegui, a deadly spy set on a mission to infiltrate the German Reich and discover how the desperate country intends to deal with the United States.

Originally published in 2004, this novel by the late Philip Roth feels unfortunately timely. Here, the inimitable Roth imagines an alternate history that sees Franklin Roosevelt lose the 1940 election to the zealous isolationism of Charles Lindbergh, who was a spokesman for the America First Committee and often spoke against the media and blamed American Jews for pushing the U.S. toward involvement in WWII. The novel follows the Lindbergh administration as they begin an insidious campaign of institutionalized anti-semitism and make peace with Hitler’s Germany. While disturbingly plausible at the time, The Plot Against America now has a whole new level of unfortunate relevance and, in some ways, feels all too prescient.

This sprawling novel reimagines much of world history and spans centuries.What if rather than killing off a third of Europe’s population, the Black Plague had killed ninety-nine percent?According to the imagination of Kim Stanley Robinson, the result would be a world where China is the first country to reach the New World, colonizing from west to east, where the Industrial Revolution began in India, and Buddhism and Islam are the world’s most influential religions.It’s a fascinating and sweeping alternate history.

This classic cautionary tale is an unnervingly plausible look at the fragility of American democracy and how easily and insidiously fascism could take hold in the U.S. Written during the Great Depression, It Can’t Happen Here saw a surge in sales after the 2016 election.The novel charts the rise of populist huckster, Buzz Windrip, touting a return to patriotism and the “traditional” America. His ascent to the Presidency slowly devolves into an authoritarian dictatorship on the back of his attacks on the “liberal” press and his political enemies.It’s as unsettling now as it was in 1935.

This steampunk classic, widely considered the novel that established the genre, is a fascinating exercise in imagination. Part noir and part historical thriller, The Difference Engine positswhat would have occurred had Charles Babbage perfected his Analytical Engine and brought about the age of the computer a century early. The result of deeply influential sci-fi classic.

Fatherland is a classic of the alternate history genre.It’s a meticulously thought out detective yarn set in a world where the Nazis won World War II.Set in Berlin in 1964, The Greater German Reich enjoys an uneasy peace with the U.S. and is preparing for Adolph Hitler’s seventy-fifth birthday as well as a visit from American president, Joseph Kennedy.However, the discovery of a dead body will lead a German detective named Xavier March deep into a shocking conspiracy that reaches the very top of the Reich and could alter the course of history.