| "Shikari in Galveston" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Short story by S. M. Stirling | |||
 | |||
| Country | United States | ||
| Language | English | ||
| Genre(s) | alternate history, steampunk, post-apocalyptic fiction | ||
| Publication | |||
| Published in | Worlds That Weren't | ||
| Publication type | Anthology | ||
| Publisher | Roc Books | ||
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) | ||
| Publication date | 2003 | ||
| Chronology | |||
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Shikari in Galveston is an alternate history novella written by S. M. Stirling. It is a prequel to The Peshawar Lancers . [1]
Shikari in Galveston takes place in Texas a century after a meteor shower devastated North America and Europe in 1878. The disaster led to the United States collapsing and later causing society in Texas to evolve into a mixture of Native American and European society. The British Empire, or the Angrezi Raj, has been expanding its influence into coastal North America, including Galveston, which is being used as a base.
British cavalry officer Eric King, is assembling a hunting party which includes the revenge seeking Sonjuh, who lost her family to the cannibals and Robre, a young hunter of the Cross Plains tribe who hopes to earn a rare rifle from King. Meanwhile, Russian agents plan to incite a tribe of cannibals to destroy the British allied tribes of former Texas.
Rick Kleffel called the story "fascinating and thought-provoking" and described an action scene as a "reader's equivalent of a wild thrill sequence from great popcorn movie", but complained about the language making the story difficult to read. [2] Strange Horizons said the story "succeeds in delivering action-packed adventure and hair's-breadth escapes" but stated the story ended too soon and read more like a compact version of a novel. [3] Steven H Silver said that the story reads like H. Rider Haggard set in an unexplored African continent, but complained that Stirling focuses on the world and the technology rather than the characters. [4]
Shikari in Galveston was originally published in 2003 in the alternate history anthology Worlds That Weren't which included stories by Harry Turtledove, Mary Gentle, and Walter John Williams. [5] The story was accompanied by an afterword by Stirling entitled Why Then, There, in which he states he uses alternate history to write adventure fiction in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard without resorting to colonialist stereotypes. [3]
Alternate history is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which one or more historical events have occurred but are resolved differently than in actual history. As conjecture based upon historical fact, alternate history stories propose What if? scenarios about crucial events in human history, and present outcomes very different from the historical record. Some alternate histories are considered a subgenre of literary fiction, science fiction, or historical fiction.
Harry Norman Turtledove is an American author who is best known for his work in the genres of alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and mystery fiction. He is a student of history and completed his PhD in Byzantine history. His dissertation was on the period AD 565–582. He lives in Southern California.
Sir Henry Rider Haggard was an English writer of adventure fiction romances set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a pioneer of the lost world literary genre. He was also involved in land reform throughout the British Empire. His stories, situated at the lighter end of Victorian literature, continue to be popular and influential.
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Stephen Michael Stirling is a Canadian-American science fiction and fantasy author who was born in France. Stirling is well known for his Draka series of alternate history novels and his later time travel/alternate history Nantucket series and Emberverse series.
Gordon Van Gelder is an American science fiction editor. From 1997 until 2014, Van Gelder was editor and later publisher of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, for which he has twice won the Hugo Award for Best Editor Short Form. He was also a managing editor of The New York Review of Science Fiction from 1988 to 1993, for which he was nominated for the Hugo Award a number of times. In 2015, Van Gelder stepped down as editor of Fantasy & Science Fiction in favor of Charles Coleman Finlay, but remains publisher of the magazine.
Uchronia is currently an English word-in-formation, a neologism, that is sometimes used in its original meaning as a straightforward synonym for alternate history, a genre of speculative fiction that reimagines historical events going in new, imaginary directions. However, it has also begun to refer to other related concepts.
The Peshawar Lancers is an alternate history, steampunk, post-apocalyptic fiction adventure novel by S. M. Stirling, with its point of divergence occurring in 1878 when the Earth is struck by a devastating meteor shower. The novel's plot takes place in 2025, when the British Empire has become the powerful Angrezi Raj and is gradually recolonizing the world, alongside other nations and empires that were able to survive. The novel was published in 2002, and was a Sidewise Award nominee for best long-form alternate history.
The lost world is a subgenre of the fantasy or science fiction genres that involves the discovery of an unknown Earth civilization. It began as a subgenre of the late-Victorian adventure romance and remains popular into the 21st century.
The Tain is a fantasy novella by British author China Miéville.
In the Courts of the Crimson Kings is a 2008 alternate history science fiction novel by American writer S. M. Stirling.
The Nantucket series is a set of alternate history novels written by S. M. Stirling.
"Alien space bats" ("ASBs") is a neologism for plot devices used in alternate history to mean an implausible point of divergence.
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The Ghost Kings is a 1908 mystery-adventure novel by H. Rider Haggard, set on the borders of Zululand in Africa.
The Wizard is a novel by Henry Rider Haggard, first published by Longmans, Green, and Co., in 1896. The Wizard is one of the many examples of imperialist literature. According to Rebecca Stott, author of the article “The Dark Continent: Africa as Female Body in Haggard’s Adventure Fiction,” Haggard's fiction is still popular today and attempts to expose a “cultural and historical definition of white masculinity at its most rugged and its most terrified.”
This is the complete list of works by American science fiction author S. M. Stirling.
"Uncle Alf" (2002) is an alternate history short story by Harry Turtledove. It was first published in Turtledove's edited anthology Alternate Generals II in 2002 and was later reprinted in his short story collection Atlantis and Other Places in 2010.
"Seventy-Two Letters" is a science fiction novella by American writer Ted Chiang, published in June 2000 in the Ellen Datlow's anthology Vanishing Acts. The novella can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best SF 6 (2001), edited by David G. Hartwell and Steampunk (2008), edited by Jeff and Ann VanderMeer. It is included in the collection Stories of Your Life and Others (2002).
