Christopher Evans (1) (1951–)

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3067380.html

This is a really interesting alternate history where the Aztecs benefited from Spanish technology and cultural inputs to become the major superpower on the planet. The narrator is a princess of the British royal household towards the end of the twentieth century, just after the successful Aztec invasion of England, making her own accommodation with the new order, from a starting point of uncompromising intransigent resistance. A novel like this has to achieve the difficult tasks of intriguing the reader about the different historical track without info-dumping, while also having a decent plot that works on a human level. I think Evans succeeds very well at both - hints are dropped but never fully fleshed out about his world’s history, and the protagonist’s journey of betrayal and unreliable information at her own personal level is a nice reflection of the alternate history genre as a whole. There is a bonus insight into how our own world would look from the Aztec Century starting point. I really enjoyed this and am surprised that it is not better known.… (mehr)

A rather weak collection.

Garry Kilworth - On the watchtower at Plataea

Three time travelers from the future watch the Trojan army siege this city in BC 429. However, they are not the only time travelers there...

Graham Charnock - She shall have music

A strange romance involving a man who, after an accident, has his sense of smell replaced by 'music'.

Scott Bradfield - Dazzle

Dazzle is a rather unusual dog, who understands how the world works and gets depressed as a result, but who keeps on struggling nervertheless.

Michael Cobley - Waltz in flexitime

Two realities and two stories overlap, in a Glasgow main street.

Ian Watson - The resurrection man

The story is a dialogue between the proud owner of what is claimed to be the ear of Burke, Hare's accomplice in grave grave-robbing and one other, forming a grotesque tale which wanders far and wide then dives in for the kill...A classic.

Gwyneth Jones - Laiken Langstrand

Titular character is a failed king who eventually is redeemed by a mermaid. Eschews standard fantasy packaging but does not replace it with anything.

Anne Gay - Roman games

Sister Tom journeys by train from Rome and duels metaphorically with a flying dragon she sees out of the window.

John Clute - Eden sounding

This is the strangest 'story' I have ever read. It seems to be about the awakening of a god but beyond that...

Brian Aldiss - Confluence revisited

Translations of words and phrases from an alien language reveal a remarkable (albeit wacky) mindset...

Josephine Saxton - Getting together

A couple of time travellers from the future emabrk on a tour seeking knowledge of the past but do not like what they find...

M. John Harrison - The gift

A story of two listless individuals, one of whom is given a book on a commuter train. Rather flat.

Colin Greenland - The wish

Strange story of a new arrival in an unnamed country, who has been offered a job there. He meets a woman at a party who takes him to her shack in the woods...

Kim Stanley Robinson - Remaking history

A film, made on the Moon, about an alternate outcome to the American hostage crisis in Tehran suggests that history is mutable...

Ian McDonald - Approaching perpendicular

Repeated readings of this hyper-dense tale of a poet's encounter(s) with an alien city/artifact ended in puzzlement.

Michael Moorcock - Mars

The Earth and Neptune have left the Solar System leaving old Mars behind. Its senescence is disturbed by the arrival of aliens. A far future that seems more like the distant past...

Tanith Lee - A Madonna of the machine

A worker who performs, like everyone else, a trivial task to service a controlling machine starts to see things...… (mehr)