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History & Alternate History

Announcement: The Mazarinette and the Musketeer, by Heather Rose Jones

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QSFer Heather Rose Jones has a new free Historical Fantasy story out: In the turbulent France of 1678, Hortense Mancini, Duchesse Mazarine takes on the disguise of a King’s Musketeer to pursue her love affair with Anne Lennard, Countess of Sussex. She crosses paths with a true Musketeer, and with Aphra Behn, English playwright and spy, both seeking to retrieve letters between the kings of France and England that could prove ruinous. Every disguise and plan is threatened by the arrival of a young woman who seeks to gain fame by besting a Musketeer in a duel—and now she has … Read more

Announcement: The Last Atlantean, by Odin Alexander

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The Last Atlantean

QSFer Odin Alexander has a new sci fi book out: The Village was the place to see and be seen in 1920’s New York. Jazz, flappers, and endless parties. Doctor Josef Norwich is a brilliant psychoanalyst but bored with his clients who see his profession as another amusement to fill their gin-drenched time. Then there is Hyperion Walsh, an enigmatic spiritualist who has gained fame by exposing fake mediums while promoting his own authentic talents, as a showman. Once on Josef’s couch, he begins relating an extraordinary life that Josef isn’t sure is real. As he probes Walsh, Josef suddenly … Read more

Announcement: Because You Despise Me, by JS Cook

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Because You Despise Me

DSPP author JS Cook has a new historical book out: When Feldwebel Horst Stussel is murdered in Jake Plenty’s Moroccan brothel, local police chief Nicolas Renard suspects Jake’s involvement in the crime. Renard has loved Jake since their service in the Legion Etrangère during the Great War, but in this era of concentration camps, gas chambers, and the infamous pink triangle, his love for the American dare not speak its name. When sadistic Nazi officer Major Danzig, a fanatic who excels at the arts of torture and interrogation, comes to Maarif, it isn’t because of the Feldwebel. He is in … Read more

For Readers: Favorite Sci Fi Subgenres

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sci fi genres

There are many flavors of science fiction. There’s the classic sci fi of Clarke and Bradbury and Asimov, the steam driven anachronism of steam punk, the virtual world of cyberpunk, alternative histories in which things turned out very differently, hard sci fi that deals with space ships and fission and fusion, and romantic sci fi where the relationships are often as important (if not more so) than the science. These are just a few, So what’s your favorite subgenre of sci fi, and why? Give a few examples (extra points for LGBT works!). Authors, feel free to participate in this … Read more

Announcement: Kaminishi: Four Seasons, by Jan Suzukawa

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Kaminishi: Four Seasons

DSPP author Jan Suzukawa has a new fantasy/historical book out: Michael Holden and Shintaro Kawakami have put Shintaro’s yakuza past behind them and started a new life together in Tokyo. For Michael, the relationship is the joyous reunion he dreamed of. The love he traveled through time for is his again, and this time it’s for good. But echoes from that summer long ago are never far away—and for the two men, winter is on the horizon. From the past to the present and as the seasons turn—love always comes around again when the cherry blossoms bloom. Sequel to Kaminishi … Read more

Announcement: A Thousand Years of Persistence, by Yeyu

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A Thousand Years of Persistence

DSP Publications author Yeyu has a new fantasy/historical book out: Lu Delong, half-human half-yao mercenary, has been training to become more powerful in his quest to be of worth to Cangji, the formidable immortal he desires. To prove he deserves a place in the expedition to Mount Kunlun, Delong risks his life in a dangerous mission against Black Moon Sect. However, as Delong grows stronger, he becomes more aware of the vast disparity between himself and Cangji—ten years is not nearly enough time for Delong to be of much use in the impending conflict that may shake the very foundations … Read more

Announcement: Checkmate, by Dusk Peterson

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Checkmate

QSFer Dusk Peterson has a new alternative history book out: The Eternal Dungeon is no longer a prison. It’s a battlefield. Split apart from their closest loves and friends, a small group of prison-workers seek to abolish the use of torture against prisoners in the queendom’s royal dungeon. Time is running out, for the deadly High Seeker has already flogged and executed prison-workers who opposed his policies. Do the reformers have enough time and skill to bring about radical change in the dungeon? Will they be able to overcome their mistrust of one another? This suspenseful novel can be read … Read more

Announcement: Alt. History 101 Anthology

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Alt. History 101

QSFer Michelle Browne has a story in a new alternative history anthology: The future is history… From Samuel Peralta, creator of the #1 bestselling Future Chronicles anthology series, comes a new speculative anthology series that turns the world you know upside down. In Alt.History 101, thirteen top speculative fiction authors re-imagine the world – as one where the inventor of the smallpox vaccine died before he’d created it, as one where the women’s suffragist movement failed to win the right to vote, as one where the death penalty exists but where all forms of capital punishment are ruled inhumane – … Read more

WORLDBUILDING WEEK: Day Three – History and Timelines

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Worldbuilting Week

Welcome to the first annual Worldbuilding Week at QSF. We’ll talk about all aspects of building a world for your story, including languages; alien/magical races; history and timelines; culture and politics; sex, marriage and reproduction; and tools and techniques. It should be a lot of fun. OK, so you’ve come up with your very own language for your new world. And you’ve chosen the most awesome-ever aliens or magical creatures to populate it! Now you have to come up with a history and build a timeline. How did your world come to be? Were there wars? Settlers? Nation building? Did … Read more

Announcement: Kaminishi, by Jan Suzukawa

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kaminishi

DSPP author Jan Suzukawa has a re-released time travel/historical fantasy book out: Michael Holden wakes up in an impossible reality: mid-nineteenth-century Japan, face to face with Shinjirō Kaminishi, a samurai warlord Michael has seen in a dream. Imprisoned by the warlord and interrogated about the future, Michael has no idea if what he’s experiencing is real… and then he finds himself back in present-day America. Lord Shinjirō’s commanding presence and smoldering sexuality draw Michael again and again to the past, where dangerous information is revealed and Shinjirō’s life is threatened. Through the mists of time and in the reality of … Read more