Sci Fi - Alternative History Genre

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Summary: It was the fall of 1892 and we were two days out of Las Palmas in the Canaries. All the passengers we ferried out of the Congo were gone, off to the aerodrome or looking for other passage to Europe, and we were just Red again, and there was no reason I should have felt that way. We escaped from the Congo, we got away. Better than got away. We had our cargo and money. We won, even though they lost. They all lost everything, even their lives. I could feel the water moving past the hull, the surge of the waves, and the blessed creaking of the mast in her step, and I knew that I was home, and my Ma and Pa were there. And Knockers. She's meowed. I could see the whole crew and even Mme. Verbeeck’s ghost standing on the ladder. She looked worried.

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Summary: In one night, change comes with the strike of a match as Leo Riley loses everything. Giacomo Bianco's hitmen burned his home to the ground with his family inside. Leo will pay any price for his revenge. He will need power. Oguina, the mythical woman turned monster, can give it to him. But at what cost? Bianco gazes into an abyss that stares back. His fall to madness is a one-way trip Leo aims to stop at all costs before Bianco kills again. In his quest for vengeance, Leo teeters over that same cliff. Monster and Mafioso fight for dominance over Fall River's streets. Bianco’s got more up his sleeve than anyone suspects, including the means to make his power absolute. Even new powers and strange allies might not be enough to ensure Leo’s victory. Who is the real monster? Bianco, Oguina, or Leo himself?

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Summary: Kat Wallace is on a mission. After escaping tortuous enslavement, she sets her sights on ending the human trafficking that has flourished in 24th century Earth. Adopted by the leader of the pirate nation of Bosch, Kat Wallace is determined to prove herself as a member of the Bosch Pirate Force and use her skills to avenge her enslavement and free other thralls. But unexpected love and a test of loyalty threaten to rob her of what she wants most: a home.

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Summary: A vampire hunter has his sights on Anne Perrin, threatening to unleash the very evil she and her friends are fighting to contain. Robbing Anne of her pulse hasn’t stopped her from living un-life to its fullest: she’s balancing two relationships, has returned to her waitress job, and is trying her best to not eat her customers. But Calum sees through her disguise, and no amount of charm can dissuade him from eradicating Anne and everyone like her from the face of the Earth. While Charlie is out of the country seeking help from the one person who might be able to save his life, Anne is abducted, leaving the rest of the Z-Tech crew with the desperate task of finding her before the vampire hunters finish her off — or a grief-stricken Zima destroys the city looking for her lost love. But Anne’s abduction could be just the first part of a larger, darker plan that may unwittingly unleash the very plague Calum seeks to prevent.

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Summary: U.S. Marshal James Creed has known loss, starting from the untimely death of his wife and daughter in a sudden fire. His work, chasing down and arresting outlaws across the Wild West, is all he has left to live for. Then one day, in 1876, the infamous killer Corwin Blake catches Creed by surprise and guns him down. Creed awakes after a mysterious young woman resurrects him in a basement laboratory beneath a brothel. Half alive, Creed feels torn between his need for justice and his desire to fall back into the peace of death. Creed's instincts drive him to protect the city of Santa Cruz, California, from the outlaws it harbors while searching for Blake. He uncovers a secret criminal organization, likely protecting Blake, determined to use resurrection technology for its own ends. The former marshal, now faster, stronger, and a more deadly shot than ever before, must work with a brothel madam, a bounty hunter, and the remaining marshals to uncover the criminal syndicate before they can misuse the machines of rebirth and create more mindless zombies. Meanwhile, he must also stop Blake, before the outlaw kills the only people he cares about. His own death can wait.

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Summary: James "Bodacious" Creed stopped a killer and helped bring peace to Santa Cruz, a coastal California city on the edge of the American frontier. Now, the undead lawman, resurrected with steam-based technology, takes on dangerous criminal cases as a private investigator. One night while riding by the wharf, Creed hears a gunshot. He and his coyote companion, Coconino, rush to the scene. In a forest clearing, he finds two dead men and a dying woman. Mechanical parts ring her neck and wrist, and as she whispers of her travails, the former Chinese slave dies in his arms. Someone in San Francisco is using illegal machinery to alter and control women like her. To hunt down the perpetrator, Creed travels to the City by the Bay. His journey takes him into the depths of Chinatown, reveals a secret society, and puts old and new friends in danger. How can Creed learn the truth before more women are changed, manipulated, or killed?

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Summary: Fifty years after a coup replaced President Franklin D. Roosevelt with a fascist dictatorship, America is a land of hopelessness. Ben Adamson, a 19-year-old farm boy in southern Illinois, wants only to spend his time fishing and hunting. But when his dead brother demands justice for his suspicious fate in a colonial war, Ben and Rachel, his brother’s fiancée, are drawn into an underground revolutionary movement. After staging a rally against the war, Ben and Rachel are arrested by the Internal Security Service, who have perfected the science of breaking people. Ben is given a choice: betray the rebels, including his best friend from childhood, or Rachel will be lobotomized. Although traumatized and addicted to a powerful drug, Ben refuses to doom anyone he cares about. Can he find a third option? Can he free Rachel and strike back at the dictatorship, while dodging the suspicions of police and rebels alike?

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Summary: Someone killed Grandfather Jefferson. Victor is sure of it. But he’s the only one. Diagnosed with mirror resonance syndrome and shunned by Semiautonomous California society, Victor suffers from “blank outs,” hallucinations, and vivid nightmares. He violently overreacts to even minor confrontations. Victor’s grandfather devoted his life to researching and curing mentally ill Broken Mirrors like Victor, but now that he’s gone, Victor must walk a narrow path between sanity and reclassification—a fate that all but guarantees he’ll lose his freedom. Victor is determined to uncover the truth about his grandfather’s death and grows increasingly suspicious of the medicine he must take to help manage his “symptoms.” As he tries to sort his allies from his enemies, a conspiracy with global implications emerges. Can he trust his Aunt Circe, the only person in his family who’s even somewhat sympathetic to his plight? His former classmate-turned-brainhacker Ozie, who wields information as damaging as any weapon and who seems intent on luring Victor away from his home? What about his old friend Elena, who reappears in his life abruptly, claiming to have miraculously overcome a devastating addiction? With its self-driving cars, global firearms ban, and a cure for cancer, the world of Broken Mirror may sound utopic, but history has taken a few wrong turns. The American Union is a weak and fractious alliance of nations in decline. Europe, a superpower, manipulates its citizens through technology. And Asia is reeling from decades of war. Amid shifting geopolitical sands, Broken Mirrors like Victor find themselves at a crossroads: evolve or go extinct. Broken Mirror is the first novel in a sci-fi cyberpunk detective saga tailor-made for fans of William Gibson, Haruki Murakami, and Neal Stephenson.

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Summary: A dead-end job, a slob for a boyfriend, and neglectful friends: this is Kat Wallace's life. Ever since her best friend got married, Kat has been struggling to find happiness. All that changes when she meets Melody Adebayo, a field agent with the mysterious transdimensional company Clockwork & Associates. Melody's job is to send the consciousness of others to a scarier dimension in order to make them kinder and more grateful for their lives, which, in theory, will influence them to do good. But when Kat is sent to B-215, she awakes in a world beyond her wildest dreams. She's wealthy, well-liked, and has a successful career. Kat realizes she doesn't need to find happiness in her own world ... she can just steal it from her other self. Because of a certain (ahem) incident, Melody owes a lot of money to her evil ex-girlfriend, and Kat works out a deal with her in order to keep visiting B-215. With each visit, a sinister plot unfolds. Kat discovers her life is at risk, and she isn't alone in this dimension. To eliminate the threat, she must team up with Melody, but can the two uncover the truth before Kat loses her life? More important, will they be able to move on from the mistakes they made in the past and find love with each other?

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Summary: What if there were a place that nobody else knew about – a secret place – where everyone was queer?” That’s the question Guy, an elderly, lonely gay anthropologist asks Richard, his young psychiatrist, as he searches for his tolerable truth. During each session, Guy tells Richard a story in which he survives the sinking of a cargo ship and is washed ashore on an uncharted tropical island along side the ship’s first mate, Luca. There, the two young men discover a world counter to everything they have ever known – a complex society in which almost everyone is homosexual and sex is considered the most basic form of communication. In his naive, awkward way, Guy attempts to integrate himself and win the love of a local man but first he must undergo a brutal initiation ritual, endure a crazed shaman, and swim across shark-infested waters. Meanwhile, Luca, who is unable to accept his sexuality, becomes obsessed with being rescued and degenerates into drug dependency. When Luca attempts to steal a large stash of gold salvaged from an old Spanish galleon and leave the island, Guy is forced choose between staying with the man he loves, or saving the life of the man who saved his. For more than 40 years Guy has been consumed by his longing to return to the island and recapture what he believes he has left behind. Although enthralled by his tale, Richard must be constantly wary of Guy’s attempts to manipulate him and meddle in his personal life, threating to upend his own sense of truth, leaving him to question if there could really be such a society, or does it only exist within the fantasy of a lonely old gay man? Rich with legends inspired by ethnography, this is a story within a story; the two collide when the depth of Guy’s subterfuge is revealed.

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Summary: The year is 1877. Russians have invaded the Pacific Northwest and are advancing into California. New weapons have proven ineffective or dangerously unstable and the one man who can help has disappeared into Apache Country, hunting ghosts. A healer and a former sheriff lead a band into the heart of the invasion to determine what makes the Russian forces so unstoppable while a young inventor attempts to unleash the power of the lightning wolves.

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Summary: Brother and sister team Midnight and Aurora Pendragon have a successful airship business taking clients on trips to be photographed with their pet pterodactyl. The last thing they expect is to have one such trip hijacked by the dashing adventurer Voltaire Crevin and his right-hand man Trevilian Hawke. While his sister and Voltaire repeatedly lock horns, Midnight finds himself increasingly drawn to Trevilian. Finally, Voltaire explains they are trying to prevent a weapon of mass destruction from falling into the hands of a ruthless, secret organization, the S.O.R. With Midnight's help, they take the airship down into an extinct volcano to find that not only does Atlantis still exist, but the weapon is in the hands of the few remaining Atlanteans. But if Voltaire had believed the S.O.R. were ruthless, it's nothing compared to that of the Atlanteans who seek to return to the surface and rule the world using their ultimate weapon: The Leviathan. Midnight's feelings for Trevilian deepen as they seek a way to stop the Atlanteans and escape from Atlantis. Danger comes in many ways and takes many forms, each more deadly than the last. Can Midnight and Trevilian survive long enough to know whether love never dies?

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Summary: The year is 1876, Sheriff Ramon Morales of Socorro, New Mexico meets a beguiling woman named Fatemeh Karimi of Persia, escaping oppression in her homeland. When an ancient lifeform called Legion comes to Earth, they are pulled into a series of events that will change the history of the world as we know it. In their journeys, Ramon and Fatemeh encounter mad inventors, dangerous outlaws and pirates. Their resources are Ramon's fast draw and Fatemeh's uncanny ability to communicate with owls. The question is, will that be enough to save them when a fleet of dirigibles from Czarist Russia invades the United States?

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Summary: When Fatemeh Karimi married Ramon Morales, she neglected to share one small detail. She was already betrothed to a merchant named Hamid Farzan. She had no interest in Hamid or an arranged marriage. She wanted to live life on her own terms. Eight years after marrying Ramon, she assumed Hamid had long forgotten about her, as she had him. Settled in New Orleans, Ramon works as an attorney, Fatemeh owns a pharmacy, and they're proud parents of a precocious daughter. Out west, Apaches armed with powerful battle wagons have captured Fort Bowie and threaten Tucson. Businessmen with an interest in a peaceful solution ask Ramon to come west and settle the conflict. Meanwhile Hamid arrives in New Orleans and he has not forgotten Fatemeh or her vows to him. Now, the famed Owl Riders must assemble once again to reunite Ramon and Fatemeh so they can tame the Wild West.

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Summary: We were stranded in Brussels, practically thrown out of music school even as we first walked in the door. They wouldn't listen to anything except the newspapers and the British. "The scandal" they moaned. So we were stuck thousands of miles from home and six months until my parents return. What were we going to do? Do what we set out to do of course, go to music school - this time in Paris! But then the Institution, damn them, blew up Vic.

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Summary: In this stunning work of speculative urban fiction, Redfern Jon Barrett breaks down the binary between utopia and dystopia—presenting an ambitopian vision of the world’s first gay state. A glittering gay metropolis of 24 million people, Berlin is a bustling world of pride parades, polyamorous trysts, and even an official gay language. Its distant radio broadcasts are a lifeline for teenagers William and Gareth, who flee toward sanctuary. But is there a place for them in the deeply divided city? Meanwhile, young mother Cissie loves Berlin’s towering high rises and chaotic multiculturalism, yet she’s never left her heterosexual district—not until she and her family are trapped in a queer riot. With her husband Howard plunging into religious paranoia, she discovers a walled-off slum of perpetual twilight, home to the city’s forbidden trans residents. Challenging assumptions of sex and gender, Proud Pink Sky questions how much of ourselves we need to sacrifice in order to find identity and community.

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Summary: It’s 1892, the fourth and nastiest year of the Civil War. With war prices for some things going through the roof, there are some cargoes that are too tempting, tucked down in places too risky, and a ship captain has to weigh both if he wants to make a profit and stay afloat. Last I saw my parents, they were going to do the sugar run to Jamaica. Up in the cold North sugar cane simply doesn’t grow. You have to go where it’s warm and for us in the U.S., that means the Caribbean, which is unfortunately down next to the Confederate States of America and we have to sail right past Florida with its people doing their best to be unpleasant. I won’t kid you. It’s a dangerous run. Normally, they would have been back in port a week ago, but they’re overdue. Nothing to worry about yet – much.

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Summary: RISE (noun / verb) Eight definitions to inspire writers around the world, and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell: 1) An upward slope or movement 2) A beginning or origin 3) An increase in amount or number 4) An angry reaction 5) To take up arms 6) To return from death 7) To become heartened or elated 8) To exert oneself to meet a challenge Rise features 300-word speculative flash fiction stories from across the rainbow spectrum, from the minds of the writers of Queer Sci Fi.

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Summary: Paris 1880, the City of Electric Light Clockwork nobles of the Court promenade through the halls of Versailles, while Watcher spheres and cyborg police menace citizens of France in the streets. The Royal Scientist Doctor works frantically on an automaton designed to replace the failing sovereigns, but will it be ready in time to save the monarchy? In the cafes of Montmartre, Henri paints the common people chafing under the reign of the Augmented monarchs and dreams of a France free of machines. John yearns to capture the essence of beauty in his paintings with the luminous Marie-Ange his muse-and handmaid to the ancient Queen of France. With his brother Henri entangled in revolution, he must choose between the artificial beauty of Court and the movement to restore France. How much humanity can be lost before you are no longer human?

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Summary: The Great Forest and Other Love Stories  is a collection of short stories, with various settings, including an alien planet, an imaginary country, and places in Virginia, and the end of the world. These gay love stories explore the growth of relationships, and the negotiations of various complications and challenges.