Alternate history is a genre of speculative fiction of stories in which one or more historical events occur and are resolved differently than in real life. As conjecture based upon historical fact, alternative history stories propose What if? scenarios about crucial events in human history, and present outcomes very different from the historical record. Alternate history also is a subgenre of literary fiction, science fiction, and historical fiction; as literature, alternate history uses the tropes of the genre to answer the What if? speculations of the story.
Douglas Noel Adams was an English author, screenwriter, essayist, humourist, satirist and dramatist. Adams was author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which originated in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy, before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold more than 15 million copies in his lifetime and generated a television series, several stage plays, comics, a video game, and a 2005 feature film. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy's Hall of Fame.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a 1978 radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4, it was later adapted to other formats, including stage shows, novels, comic books, a 1981 TV series, a 1984 text-based computer game, and 2005 feature film.
A future history is a postulated history of the future and is used by authors of science fiction and other speculative fiction to construct a common background for fiction. Sometimes the author publishes a timeline of events in the history, while other times the reader can reconstruct the order of the stories from information provided therein.
A fictional book is a text created specifically for a work in an imaginary narrative that is referred to, depicted, or excerpted in a story, book, film, or other fictional work, and which exists only in one or more fictional works. A fictional book may be created to add realism or depth to a larger fictional work. For example, George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four has excerpts from a book by Emmanuel Goldstein entitled The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism which provides background on concepts explored in the novel.
Killraven is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character has been depicted as a freedom fighter in several post-apocalyptic alternate futures. Created by co-plotters Roy Thomas and Neal Adams, scriptwriter Gerry Conway, and penciller Adams, the character first appeared in Amazing Adventures vol. 2, #18. The series featured the first dramatic interracial kiss in American color comic books.
The Tales of Alvin Maker is a series of six alternate history fantasy novels written by American novelist Orson Scott Card, published from 1987 to 2003, that explore the experiences of a young man, Alvin Miller, who realizes he has incredible powers for creating and shaping things around him.
Mary Roberts Rinehart was an American writer, often called the American Agatha Christie. Rinehart published her first mystery novel The Circular Staircase in 1908, which introduced the "had I but known" narrative style. Rinehart is also considered the source of "the butler did it" plot device in her novel The Door (1930), although the exact phrase does not appear in her work.
Martin Harry Greenberg was an American academic and anthologist in many genres, including mysteries and horror, but especially in speculative fiction. In all, he compiled 1,298 anthologies and commissioned over 8,200 original short stories. He founded Tekno Books, a packager of more than 2000 published books. He was also a co-founder of the Sci-Fi Channel. Greenberg was also an expert in terrorism and the Middle East. He was a longtime friend, colleague and business partner of Isaac Asimov.
Richard Allen Lupoff was an American science-fiction and mystery author, who also wrote humor, satire, nonfiction and reviews. In addition to his two dozen novels and more than 40 short stories, he also edited science-fantasy anthologies. He was an expert on the writing of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and had an equally strong interest in H. P. Lovecraft. He also co-edited the non-fiction anthology All in Color For a Dime, which has been described as "the very first published volume dedicated to comic book criticism"; as well as its sequel, The Comic-Book Book.
Colin Conrad Adams is a mathematician primarily working in the areas of hyperbolic 3-manifolds and knot theory. His book, The Knot Book, has been praised for its accessible approach to advanced topics in knot theory. He is currently Francis Christopher Oakley Third Century Professor of Mathematics at Williams College, where he has been since 1985. He writes "Mathematically Bent", a column of math humor for the Mathematical Intelligencer.
Nassarius, common name nassa mud snails (USA) or dog whelks (UK), is a genus of minute to medium-sized sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the family Nassariidae. They are scavengers.
Franklin Robert Adams, who wrote as Robert Adams, was an American science fiction and fantasy writer, and formerly a career soldier. He is best known for his Horseclans books.
"Aristotle and the Gun" is a time travel and alternate history science fiction story by American writer L. Sprague de Camp.
Magic in Ithkar is a shared world anthology of fantasy stories edited by Andre Norton and Robert Adams. It was first published as a trade paperback by Tor Books in May 1985. It was reprinted as a standard paperback in April 1988 under the alternate title Magic in Ithkar 1.
Magic in Ithkar 2 is a shared world anthology of fantasy stories edited by Andre Norton and Robert Adams. It was first published as a trade paperback by Tor Books in December 1985. It was reprinted as a standard paperback in October 1988.
Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States of America, has appeared in popular culture as a character in novels, films, musicals, comics and video games. His experiment, using a kite, to prove that lightning is a form of electricity has been an especially popular aspect of his biography in fictional depictions.
The Opium General and other stories by Michael Moorcock was a hardcover collection of novellas, short stories, and articles. It was published in 1984 by Harrap. It was a collection of new work and rare items.
