2003 0-7734-6799-8 These essays analyze the important sub-genre of science fiction called alternate history, stories set in worlds that have been fictionalized by altering some key event in real history. They examine some of the famous themes of this literature: the American South winning the Civil War, and the Nazis winning WWII, as well as analyzing fascinating experiments with the form, such as those by Robert Silverberg and Robert Coover. It fills the void in scholarship in this popular literary form, and contains essays by several very well-known scholars in the fantastic literature field, including Thomas Shippey, Steven Kagle, Robert Geary, Martha Bartter, and Joe Sanders. Moving from the origins of alternate history to discussions of early examples and unusual experiments with the genre, the essays deal not only with print literature but also with film and graphic novels.