Best Alternate History Movies/TV Shows/Books?

What are some of the better alternate history movies/shows/books out there? I only know of a few myself but have been looking for more lately.

The two moves I have seen that stick out the most are:

CSA (Confederate States of America): Mockumentary based on an alternate history in which the south won the civil war. Played for laughs for the most part, but surprisingly interesting as an alternate history story.

Timequest: A time traveler goes back and warns JFK about his assassination mere hours before it happens. The movie details the fallout, mostly following Bobby Kennedy as he becomes POTUS (with MLK as his V.P.) while trying to track down the young time traveler.

Anyone else know of any alternate history movies or books?
 

Stonewall

Banned
Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War: Bascially what if France and England declared war on the Union in 1863? I forgot the PoD, but it's a ridiculously well-researched war story that can be a little trite at times, but is still a great AH book. Sequel came out recently, which implies Russia's going to join the war on America's side.
 
Fatherland, by Robert Harris. It's an excellent detective novel, and beyond that, it provides one of the most realistic views of a Nazi victory out there.
 
SS-GB-Where Germany successfully invades Britain in September 1940 and Britain surrenders early the following year. Realistic account of how Nazi Germany would ironically suffer from this strategically as well as the grim fate of the British people.
 
Mike Resnick came out with a great series of Alternate books. The best one is, however, Alternate Presidents. Each chapter is a short story written by a science fiction writer about how an election may have turned out differently.

Fore example:

- Huey Long beats FDR in 1936 and assassinates Hitler
- Barry Goldwater wins in 1964 and we end up nuking Vietnam
 
It Happened Here / Quest for Love

The two best alternate history movies before SciFi went mainstream in around the 1990s.

It Happened Here takes place after a Nazi invasion of Britain and before/just as the USA counters by invading Britain from the west.

Quest for Love - based on John Wyndham's story Random Quest - has a scientist from OTL accidentally travelling to an alternate world where he is a playwright, WWII never happened, and to top it all he is married to Joan Collins.
 
Books
A lot of French books, sorry, but there's a really good trend of alternate history (or rather uchronie) in France right from the XIXth century; and American authors doesn't get often translated (to be honest, I took a look at Stirling and Turtledove, and it was quite bland).

Alexandre le Grand et les aigles de Rome (Alexander the Great and the Eagles of Rome), by Javier Negrete
The answer to the oldest question in Alternate History : what if Alexander went West?
Better for describing overall situations than presences, it's nevertheless one of my favourites.

L'Apopis Républicain(The Republican Apopis) followed by La Stratégie Alexandre (The Alexander Strategy), by Ugo Bellagamba
Two short novels, based on this premise. Napoléon proclaimed himself Pharaoh and instaured his rule over humanity, presiding over a global empire that last up to spatial age.
Republicans still try to reverse the imperial theocracy, and the revolution is ready.

The Horus, son and heir of the Emperor, lead a scientific expedition that uncover the foreign nature of Egyptian deities that inspired the emperor.

As Republican rise and succeed, would these appears to avange the imperial blood?

Really good and captivating. I wonder if the author could do more of the same vein.

L'Empire du Baphomet
Completly played for the laughs : the Baphomet, an alien whom vessel crashed on Earth in medieval Champagne, presides to the creation of Templars.
Decades after, Templars suddenly reverse the situation in Latin States, using atomic grenades, decimating Mameluks, and eventually going all the way to the legendary Cathay, while Templars became more and more wary of the shadowy figure talking and ordering them trough statues.

Definitely silly (Think Space Crusader silliness), and enjoyable.

Fatherland, by Robert Harris
As Ganesha said, a deep breath into everyday horror. I regularly ask myself if I really want to go past the first chapters, and yet I re-read it regularly.

Iron Dream, by Norman Spinrad
Weird and disturbing are probably the best words to define it but differently so from the High Castle. What if Hitler became the Howard of his generation?
It makes indeed several reflexions about what is an epic story, what is Science-Fiction, and how it's still related to both light and dark sides of the mind.

La Lune Seule le Sait (Only Moon Knows), by Johan Heliot.
In the late XIXth, Napoléon III dominates Europe. His alliance with a hive-mind alien race boosted a new industrial age, mixing bioengineriing and electricity. Jules Verne is sent by what few remains of the republican opposition to investigate on the french base on the Moon to rescue Louise Michel.

Okay, it *does* look silly. It's really well written, and really gives a feeling that the repetitive and boring "let's steampunk" clichés never reaches (mostly because Second Empire and overall french industrialisation was more based on electricity than steam to begin with). It does play several things for the laughs, but manages to make a huge history, with believable (if utterly weird, such as a bio-cyborg Napoleon III) characters.

The Man in the High Castle, by Philipp K.Dick.
Okay, this one is definitely tricky, and the author definitely play again on the relation between what is real, what we percieve of real and the gap in between.
It's probably one of the best books he wrote on this regard, maybe overlooked for the paradoxial absence of focus on History.

Pavane, by Keith Roberts
Rarely an AH book had been so poetic to me. Really, showing the survival of British soul in spite of invasion, industrialisation, changes, trough so many lifes is both well done and inspiring.

Tancrède, by Ugo Bellagamba
One of the most poignant AH books I ever read, and one that is less about great stories, great deals than following the steps of one character : Tancrède de Hauteville, and his change of heart during the Crusades.

Uchronie, by Charles Renouvier
The first modern book that is *really* about alternate history (with the author coining the word "uchronie"). Before, it was more a mix of "it really happened this way" or secrete History.
Here, from the beggining, we're told that it's the story "how it should have happened", and wrote down as a tolerance lesson during the Wars of Religion (a story within the story).

I said it was the first modern AH, but it's as well in the continuation of the philosophical tales of the XVIIIth century, telling something for that it illustrate something : What if Rome maintained its classical values, rejected Christianism as a dominating religion but eventually accepting it as a civil-ized religio?

Movies

CSA (Confederate States of America)
I never get the hate this mockumentary had on AH.com (though nobody talks about it anymore, it was considered as a low point by many people). It's, while absurdly butterfly-net, about making a point, and...it works.
Even if you say "well, I doesn't buy that as realistic", you still get the point and enjoy the show.

Jin-Roh
The AH side is hard to get, and it's arguably more of a device than the point of the movie.
It's...I've an hard time describing it. It's one of these movies that manage to avoid your entiere grasp, and you should rather focus on each part of it.
It really made me interested on reading Kerberos Panzer Cop, but I don't find it anywhere.

Comics

Jour J
It's a french comics collection on alternate history. Basically : here's a PoD and let's make a story of what happened next.
Generally, it's quite good, not too cliché-ed, and with enjoyable stories and with good art (no, seriously it rocks)

Ministry of Space
It's not too short, not too long and the story is, if not plausible, quite credible. Details are well put, and not only not blockade the story, but supports it.
 
The Iron Dream has to contain the longest novel within a novel ever! Apart from a biographical intro, some end notes and the back cover, the entire thing is Adolf Hitler's "Lords of the Swastika"!
 
The Iron Dream has to contain the longest novel within a novel ever!

Well, Uchronie of Charles Renouvier is pretty much that already (A XIXth writer, introducing a false family document of the Wars of Religions, introducing how a father gave to his son a story about "What if Rome rejected unromanized Christianism".

But the longest novel in a novel may be the One Thousand and One Nights.
 
Recoats Revenge by Col. David Fitz-Enz USA (Ret.)

If only because its an AH where America actually loses.
It's also well written, plausible and the author has a far greater understanding of logistics than most.
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Quest for Love - based on John Wyndham's story Random Quest - has a scientist from OTL accidentally travelling to an alternate world where he is a playwright, WWII never happened, and to top it all he is married to Joan Collins.

And its got Dinsdale Landon in it! He's utterly fantastic!

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
My favourite I guess time travel show is TIMESCAPE but I have to be in the right mood to appreciate it.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
For movies, I thought 2009: Lost Memories was pretty good. It's a South Korean alternate history action film, set in a world where the Japanese Empire is never disbanded and remains a major world superpower, and all of Korea has been thoroughly Japanized in its culture and language.

The protagonist is a Korean-descended Japanese government agent who is investigating the actions of a Korean nationalist resistance group, bringing about torn loyalties.

Quite a lot of Korean nationalism in this film, but it's definitely interesting, and it's one of the few films I've seen that actually takes a serious stab at alternate history.
 
Vietnam II by CR Ryder

I just started reading the second book of this series and so far I have been pretty impressed. It proposes a second Vietnam War in 1990 instead of the Gulf War. The premise is the Air Land Battle concept used against Iraq would have brought success against Communist Hanoi. I recommend it. Give it a read.
 
For movies, I thought 2009: Lost Memories was pretty good. It's a South Korean alternate history action film, set in a world where the Japanese Empire is never disbanded and remains a major world superpower, and all of Korea has been thoroughly Japanized in its culture and language.

The protagonist is a Korean-descended Japanese government agent who is investigating the actions of a Korean nationalist resistance group, bringing about torn loyalties.

Quite a lot of Korean nationalism in this film, but it's definitely interesting, and it's one of the few films I've seen that actually takes a serious stab at alternate history.
This movie is really good. As a non korean looking at this objectively i thought korea made out better in the alternate timeline. They didn't really seem to be oppressed by the japanese. They are independent iotl but the country is divided with one side living under extreme oppression and i'd say the other side at best has an equal standard of living to the korea of the movie
 
For movies, I thought 2009: Lost Memories was pretty good. It's a South Korean alternate history action film, set in a world where the Japanese Empire is never disbanded and remains a major world superpower, and all of Korea has been thoroughly Japanized in its culture and language.

A bit xenophobic and jingoistic, but pretty decent movie. The intro scene with the alternate Seoul cityscapes was pretty cool.
 
I just noticed this is a massive necro, but since I apparently missed it previously, I will throw out my ideas now.

Movies: There really aren't any really great AH movies, but I think the film adaptation of Fatherland may be the best overall. On a much lighter level, the Back to the Future trilogy is actually a good combination of time travel and AH. Sorry, I'm one of those that don't consider CSA as a legitimate AH. It is not an attempt to present an AH but is just a polemic about our USA.

Books: There are far too many to mention, since it is in SF-related literature that AH really lives. Just to throw out an unexpected name, I am reading Stuart Slade's A Mighty Endeavour, which seems to present a vaguely plausible and interesting view of WW2 in which Britain caves in 1940 (even before France!!) and the main Dominions continue the fight. He is not a bad writer, his use of actual historical characters is fairly inoffensive, and he really seems to know his stuff when it comes to writing about weaponry, tactics, and warfare in general. Its part of his series of WW2 AHs which gets really creepy when the US basically genocides the entire population of Germany with about 5000 atomic bombs in 1947, and you get the idea that There Are Immortal Forces We Don't Understand But Are Real guiding human events, but by itself I am really enjoying it.

TV: I have high hopes for the upcoming Amazon miniseries based on Dick's The Man in the High Castle. From the pilot it may be visually the best AH movie or TV show yet, plus it is based on one of the true classics.
 
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