Meet the Author: Laura Frankos, author of Broadway Revival

Laura Frankos is the author of Broadway Revival, currently shortlisted for the Sidewise Award in Alternate History which will be presented at Worldcon Chicago this weekend.

For those who are not familiar with either your novel Broadway Revival or the Sidewise Award for alternate history, could you tell our readers a bit about your book and what it means to you to be nominated for this award?

In BROADWAY REVIVAL, David Greenbaum is an actor-songwriter whose husband has just died from the latest designer drug addiction in 2079.  David pulls himself out of despair with an outrageous plan. He couldn’t save Ramon, but he might make a difference in other lives cut short. He hijacks his brother Nate’s time machine, the SlingShot, and jumps to 1934 to save George Gershwin from the brain tumor that killed him at age thirty-eight.

That’s just the start of David’s “Broadway Revival Project.” Gershwin wasn’t the only one who died too young. David has a suitcase of modern medicine and the advance knowledge of nearly 150 years of musical theatre history. He’s determined to make the Golden Age of Broadway shine even more brightly.

But David’s actions are causing changes to the timeline that have the Rippers—the international time travel research consortium—very worried. So Nate climbs in the SlingShot, determined to track down his brother in 1930s New York.

I’m incredibly honored that BROADWAY REVIVAL is a finalist for the 2021 Sidewise Award. Alternate history is kind of a big deal in our house; my husband, Harry Turtledove, has written a lot in that sub-genre and is a multiple Sidewise winner. But I would be the first to admit that BROADWAY REVIVAL is a weird kind of alternate history, so I’m extremely chuffed by this recognition.

One of the things that worried me about starting your book was that I’m completely ignorant of Broadway, especially of the 1930s. Yet, the prose is breezy, easy to read, and every character, historical and fictional, leaps to life. How did you approach writing these historical figures and what to you think makes them approachable even to people like me who may not know the era?

First of all, thanks so much for that. I figured I could hook the theatre geeks, but whenever somebody with little background in Broadway likes it—wow, that makes my day! I’m an historian by training and a Broadway nut my whole life, so I already was very familiar with the personalities of this era. That said, I did spend years doing homework, especially trying to get into the complex head of Lorenz Hart. The way I approached portraying these figures was first and foremost as people: they have relationships, eat and drink, argue, brag, discuss sports, go to parties. That’s something any reader can relate to, even if they’re doing all that in the 1930s. It’s also true most readers won’t have written musicals themselves, but you don’t need to have done that to be familiar with pressing deadlines, changing work circumstances, and the problems of collaborations. 

As for the specific characters like the Gershwin brothers, Cole Porter, Kurt Weill, et alia, my ace in the hole was my protagonist, David Greenbaum. As a newcomer to New York (albeit one with secret, vast historical knowledge), he’s getting to know these folks and this era just as the reader is. He can mention his plans in a way that gives the reader background on these Broadway legends and his new home—hopefully, without too much exposition.

What inspired your passion of musical theater? What has been your favorite show on or off Broadway?

My mom loved musicals. So I grew up on cast albums, listening to her playing sheet music on the piano, and watching movie musicals on tv. My favorite show is SWEENEY TODD, THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET, because I think it’s about as close to perfection as a musical can get.

Let’s talk about hats. It irks me when hats are ignored in historical eras. So, I loved your character’s reaction to seeing everyone sporting headwear. How did you breathe life into your Broadway of the 30s and beyond?

“Does anyone still wear a hat?” is a famous line from Sondheim’s 1970 musical, COMPANY. I agree with you about being irked by historical novels and films that get period wardrobe wrong. Again, I’m helped by my time traveler as the outsider—and one who, as an actor, was accustomed to costumes. Practically the first thing he notices, arriving in 1934, is that everyone looks….like they’re wearing costumes. Hats everywhere, and clothes made with far more natural fibers than he’s used to in 2079. It takes effort to adjust to that.

I wanted the reader to feel a part of that past too, so I tried very hard to concentrate on the details of daily life. This included all those restaurants. That was critical not just for the awesome descriptions of the meals (go to the NYPL online digital historical menu collection! Such a fantastic site!), but because Broadway creatives did a lot of their work at the bars and restaurants close to the theatres. And David’s first job is playing piano at a restaurant in Greenwich Village, a real place with a storied history that I cheerfully pillaged for my fictional purposes. David does complain about some aspects of his new life: the coffee’s terrible, there are no delicious microbrews, not so much good ethnic food.

But it’s not the different clothing and food that really throw him. It’s the sudden loss of the wealth of information available in the late 21st century. He goes from instant access to everything to relying on radio, newsreels, and newspapers. He brings the equivalent of a 2079 iPad with him, and has to restrain himself from checking it all the time. I think even if people today were plopped back in, say, 1980, they’d go bonkers at losing the Internet. I suspect it would be worse for someone in 2079 going back to an even less technologically advanced era.

It’s also so much fun researching historical details! Like Bronx cocktails. I have those show up in the first chapter, where David is drinking them because they were Ramon’s favorite drink. Ramon discovered them while researching a Jerome Kern musical, which I thought was a good, single fact that tells reader not only a lot about Ramon, but also how much David is missing him. Once David jumps to 1934, he drinks Bronxes all the time—they were one of the most popular drinks of the decade, but eventually were supplanted by martinis, a close cousin.

For a number of years, while I was writing and trying to sell BROADWAY REVIVAL, I ordered Bronx cocktails in restaurants. This freaked out the waiters, who’d never heard of them, and had to google them. This is dedicated research, people. I do all my own homework!

Broadway in 1934

There are many cameos and namedrops of historical figures (and at least one by a fictional one). With minor spoilers, a certain ballplayer from Harry’s House of David {editor’s note: House of Daniel, sorry} slides in and steals a scene. How did that come about, and what was your favorite cameo or name drop to write?

Oh, there are Easter eggs galore, though many will only be spotted by theatre nerds. When David’s brother Nate is searching for him, there are about a half dozen historical figures lurking in that chapter, especially at the restaurant. And they’re all people who logically could have been in Greenwich Village in 1934, so I plead simultaneous plausibility and fun.

When I was writing BROADWAY REVIVAL, Harry was working on THE HOUSE OF DANIEL (**not House of David—that’s the real team). {Editor’s note: this is a hazard when reading alternate history}. That novel is set in a 1930s America, except with magic and vampires and zombies, along with semipro baseball. Now, I ask you: what are the odds, in a two-writer household, that BOTH writers would be working on material involving alternate 1930s Colorado at the same time? My protagonist had reasons to go to Colorado Springs; Harry’s baseball team played in a tournament in Denver…adapted from a real one in our timeline. So I asked him if I could have his protagonist briefly cross paths with mine (I had him make a stop in Denver). If you look closely at THE HOUSE OF DANIEL, there’s an unnamed variant of David Greenbaum in the Denver chapter. He’s the guy juggling oranges. My David spills a bag of oranges. This falls under Weird Stuff Writers Do To Amuse Themselves.

That crossover tickles me no end, but my favorite historical cameo has to be the couple of scenes with Lotte Lenya, Kurt Weill’s wife. The only thing more fun than putting words in the incomparable Lenya’s mouth was writing dialogue for Oscar Levant. I had to restrain myself from going overboard with both of them; they were so much fun to write.

If you could pull together anyone from theater history to write and perform a show, which ones would you cherry-pick and what sort of show do you think they would put on?

Ooh, dream production time! That’s easy. There was a report that Sondheim was considering a musical based on the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles, but nothing came of it. I want this so much, I’m practically drooling over the possibilities, especially with a libretto by Moss Hart and Peter Stone, Hal Prince directing, and Michael Bennett doing choreography. Dream casting—and keep in mind, the actors here are plucked from the timeline at roughly close the age of the characters they’re portraying.

Woodrow Wilson—William Daniels (hey, he has experience playing musical presidents!)

Georges Clemenceau (France)—John Cullum

David Lloyd George (UK)—Richard Burton 

Vittorio Orlando (Italy)—Alfred Drake

Saionji Kimmochi (Japan)—Takeshi Kaga

Henry Cabot Lodge—Richard Kiley

John Foster Dulles—Brian d’Arcy James (keep in mind Dulles was only 30 here)

Charles Dawes-Fred Astaire (with “Reparations” as his big solo)

Edward House—George Hearn

Sidney Sonnino (Italy)—Howard Da Silva (Sonnino is the guy who translated for Orlando, and I want to see this two old pals from OKLAHOMA! doing a comic number half in Italian)

John Maynard Keynes—Raul Julia

Count Ulrich von Brockdorff-Ratzau (Germany)—John McMartin

Eleftherius Venizelos (Greece)—Chris Sarandon

Lou Tseng-Tsiang (China)—B.D. Wong (he’s even done Sondheim!)

Billy Hughes (Australia)—Jack Cassidy or maybe William Gaxton (not Hugh Jackman, as it’s not the right role for him)

Rob Borden (Canada)—Len Cariou 

T.E. Lawrence—I am so tempted to add Noël Coward here, except Sondheim hated Coward’s work. But if I am the producer (aka God), I may insist, though John Barrowman isn’t a bad choice, either

Edith Wilson—Angela Lansbury 

Marguerite de Witt-Schlumberger—Gwen Verdon (doing an extended dance for the women’s suffrage movement)

Three nameless doughboys, who sing and dance representing the lost millions—Joel Grey, Andre de Shields, Harry Groener 

The love between David and Ramon is central to David’s motivation. And I loved how you showed their strong connection with just a few lyrics of a show. It reminded me of how my wife and I bonded over skits by Stan Freberg. Pulling back the curtain, is this a peak into real life or how did this idea come about?

I’m extremely pleased you found David and Ramon’s relationship convincing. I’m a straight cis woman who’s been married to the same man for 42 years, so taking on a gay protagonist was a big leap. (Especially since I have heard some of my gay friends rail against straight women writers writing really awful novels with gay protagonists. And I really didn’t want to end up one of them.) 

It makes sense for David and Ramon, both actors, to bond over musicals and frequently quote lyrics at each other. I have found, among musical theatre folks, that a shared love of a flop musical (“OMG, you like AMOUR, too? Why didn’t it have a longer run?!”) leads to firm friendships. Likely romance, too, I suspect.

And that brings me to a pet peeve in science fiction: the obsession over 20th century American culture. Ever notice how (especially in tv and film sf) there are characters, living in the far future, who are just crazed fans of 20th century American movies, songs, cartoons, tv, whatever…? Like nothing worthy of interest was ever produced between 1980 and 2500?

The short hand answer is, it’s easier for a reader/viewer in the late 20th-early 21st century to identify with a far future character who is fond of, say, Humphrey Bogart, than one who goes all fanboy over “Zelurk-glarp, who stars as the steely eyed (all six of them) cop from the tough Dreeble sector on Wyrxx Prime.” 

This bugs me. Now, I’m convinced that by the 2070s, there will still be an interest in classic 20th musicals. I allude to David getting roles in the 100th anniversary production of Sondheim’s FOLLIES (1971) and a production of 1776 (first staged in 1969), done for the Tricentennial in 2076, and he played Perchik from FIDDLER ON THE ROOF (1964) in high school.

But I also added (fictional) plays, musicals, songwriters, and actors from the years between now and 2079, as well as events that haven’t happened, like the closing night of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. Because even though I sent David Greenbaum back to 1934, I wanted to indicate that there’s much, much more musical theatre history by the time he was active in the field. The show that David and Ramon regarded as “their show” was a dreadful flop from 2050. Of course, the other thing about inventing a show meant I could invent lyrics, too—and not have to worry about licensing!

Broadway Revival is unique in its topic, but there’s a broader rise in stories that want to see artists keep producing. Bryce Zabel did this well in Once There Was A Way. And Broadway Revival excels in doing the same. So, is this desire for artists to keep working simply mere fandom or is it a deeper, more universal societal need for exceptional art? Does an artists’ premature death elevate their work? Could someone like Gerswhin still have survived yet only released flops afterwards?

Sure, the fan in me who wanted a world where Gershwin didn’t die so young was indeed the driving force behind BROADWAY REVIVAL. However, I never intended to delve into any deep societal need here; the decision to write it went more like this: I’m a Broadway buff and this is an alternate history scenario I can definitely write. Do I want a world with more exceptional work from a longer-lived Gershwin? Hell, yes, and I think a lot of Gershwin fans would agree with me (and they should all go buy my book, right now). And Gershwin was a towering figure in American music, extending well beyond Broadway, yet we only had 19 years of his professional work. That’s all we got. We should have had more, much more.

That said, I should note that BROADWAY REVIVAL’s plot has more than just  David Greenbaum saving George Gershwin. My interfering time traveler gets involved with Vincent Youmans, Cole Porter, Kurt Weill, Lorenz Hart, and Jerome Kern—to varying degrees and with varying results. Their names may not be as familiar to non-theatre nerds, but they all could (and did!) produce exceptional work. So am I just a self-indulgent fangirl, trying to conjure up what these Broadway legends might have created with better fates than they got? Well, I hope I did more than that, such as looking at the potential effects of having more work by these men on the evolution of the musical—and society as a whole. For example, Kurt Weill died of a heart attack aged 50, while working on a musical HUCKLEBERRY FINN. I imagined, had he completed it, that some of the score could have been adopted by the emerging civil rights movement.

Did Gershwin’s premature death elevate his work? Well, he was already at the top, with a Hollywood contract and plans for more serious symphonic work planned. The one place where his death had a definite effect on how his work was viewed was with PORGY AND BESS. It was not a success in its 1935 debut, and when George died in 1937, the score was valued at a whopping $250. His death led to the 1942 revival, where it was much better received. Some of that may have been prompted by sheer love of the deceased composer, but a good part was more people had heard the songs by then, and came to realize what a masterpiece it was.

Could someone like Gershwin have written only flops? No. Because. Gershwin. But he could write some flops; I do propose that some of his shows in BROADWAY REVIVAL are not successes, as the one he wrote in reaction to being called before the House UnAmerican Activiies Committee. Nor do the other songwriters whose lives David meddles with have perfect, stellar careers. There are more flops on Broadway than hits.

Do you see a shift within the genre of AH away from stories of warfare and toward social and cultural topics and if so, why do you think that is? What made you decide to contribute to this shift?

I can’t I track trends in alternate history, so I can’t really comment on this. We tend to be pretty careful about what AH we read here. If there’s a chance a boom touches on an area Harry might be considering for one of his own books, we won’t get it, for fear of it influencing his own ideas. I don’t think wars—or rather, alternate wars—are going to go away anytime soon. The best fiction often shows people in conflict, and there’s no greater conflict than nations at odds. 

The other reason why AH with a military or political breakpoint have dominated the field is that they’re more straightforward concepts. Everyone (well, mostly everyone—I hope) knows there were World Wars, that the North and South clashed in the Civil War. It’s a lot easier to market. I spent nearly a decade trying to sell BROADWAY REVIVAL. The sf houses said there was too much theatre. Uh, yeah. The mainstream houses didn’t like all that alternate timeline stuff. So I started calling it my platypus novel—a weird thing, but my own. 

But social and cultural changes are fascinating subjects for alternate histories, and I’m happy to see more of them and to have contributed one. As I said above, it wasn’t any deliberate plan on my part. I just thought the premise might work. The other thing I’d like to note here is that portraying the altered careers of the songwriters affected by my time traveler wasn’t the only thing I wanted to accomplish in BROADWAY REVIVAL. The other change is more subtle: what happens when a man with so many decades of advance knowledge of how this art form developed becomes active, and making contributions on his own in a variety of ways? Never mind Gershwin and Porter. What does David Greenbaum, and his late-21st century sensibilities, aided by his substantial bank account, do to affect the evolution of the musical? I had as much fun exploring that aspect as I did concocting Musicals That Never Existed, But Should Have. And that in itself is certainly uncommon territory for an alternate history.

Harry just sold a novel with a social and cultural focus. THE WAGES OF SIN is set in 1850s England, but it’s a world in which HIV/AIDS erupted out of Africa in the sixteenth century…and it’s a very, very different Europe, having coped for centuries with a terrible, incurable wasting disease. The protagonists are about the most ordinary types imaginable: a young law student and the daughter of a small town doctor. I may be a bit biased (!), but I think it’s damn good.

What’s next for you? Will we see more alternative history from you, are there any plans to save any planes full of ill-fated musicians?

What’s next? Well, just out this past spring from Routledge is a book called FIFTY KEY STAGE MUSICALS, edited by Robert Schneider. It’s a terrific addition to any library of musical theatre history…and I’m not just saying that because I wrote the chapter on the Gershwins’ OF THEE I SING. The book also has a nifty podcast, so if you want to hear me natter on about George and Ira, check it out!

I have some short fiction—sf and fantasy, with theatrical connections—that I’m trying to sell, but nothing has stuck yet. The current big work in progress is non-fiction. I did so much 1930s research for BROADWAY REVIVAL that I started work on a survey of the 1935-36 Broadway season. But when the chapter on Rodgers and Hart’s JUMBO grew to over twenty thousand words alone, I decided to see if I could do a whole book on this show alone. So here I am, still wallowing in 1930s musicals, but this time with an elephant!

Where can readers connect with you especially if they are also fans of Broadway and musical theater?

I’m on Facebook.

Thanks again, Laura and good luck on your shortlist for the Award! Now, everyone, go out and read BROADWAY REVIVAL, it’s a fantastic read, I absolutely enjoyed it and I loved that it’s a refreshing, unique entry into the expanding genre of alternative history.

BROADWAY REVIVAL is available on Amazon here.

Meet the Author: Matthew Kresal, author of Our Man On The Hill and Sidewise Award winner Moonshot

Matthew Kresal is a writer, critic, and podcaster with many and varying interests. He’s written about and discussed topics as wide-ranging as the BBC’s Doctor Who, Cold War fact and fiction, and the UFO phenomenon. He has appeared on podcasts including Spybrary, Dead Hand Radio, The 20mb Doctor Who Podcast, and The Saucer Life. His prose includes the non-fiction The Silver Archive: Dark Skies from Obverse Press and short fiction including The Aurora Affair in Belanger Books’ A Tribute to H.G. Wells and The Light of a Thousand Suns in in D&T Publishing’s After the Kool-Aid is Gone. He was born, raised, and lives in North Alabama where he never developed a southern accent.

Hi there, and welcome to Altered Instinct! Tell us a little about your most recent book – what is it called, and what is it about? 

It’s called Our Man on the Hill and the elevator pitch is “what if Senator Joe McCarthy, the Cold War’s most infamous hunter of ‘Reds under the bed,’ was really working for the Soviets all along?”

What inspired the story?

I’ve long had an interest in the Cold War and espionage. A few years back my interest was rekindled by a podcast called Spybrary, started by Shane Whaley, which I’ve been lucky enough to be on a few times. Part of that rekindling led to my picking up a non-fiction work called The Haunted Wood. Published in the late nineties when the old Soviet archives were briefly opened up, it contained some fascinating stories of Americans who spied for the Soviets during the 1930s and the World War II years. Reading how it ended, and how little McCarthy really picked up on, was an eye opener. Then I came across somewhere a great quote from President Harry Truman about McCarthy that called the senator “The greatest asset the Kremlin has,” or words to that effect. My mind was off to the races, since “asset” is an intelligence phrase for agent (though I’m certain that’s not what Truman meant when he said it!).  

Without spoilers, what was one of your favourite moments of the story to write? What was it that made you enjoy that section so much? 

There’s a confrontation between McCarthy and then Presidential candidate Eisenhower that I got to write. It was a scene based on a real meeting between the two men where we know how things were said but not what was said, if that makes sense? I had fun fitting that encounter into the narrative, figuring out what McCarthy and his Russian handlers might have come up with that caused Eisenhower to go from about to publicly criticize McCarthy to sharing a stage with him, exchanging handshakes and getting an endorsement.  

What are your favourite genres to read – and what is it about those genres that draws you in? 

To risk sounding pretentious, I don’t know that I read genres specifically. I read what interests me, whether it’s science fiction, historical fiction, non-fiction or whatever. My main thing is, if it’s fiction, to tell me a good story. Non-fiction is different as reading tends to be either for research or just out of general interest. That said, I do seem to read a lot of science fiction and thrillers, as well as history, so I guess you can call those favourties. 

What were some of your favourite books to read as a child? Which were the first books you remember falling in love with?

Growing up in North Alabama, home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the Space & Rocket Center museum (the only place in the world with TWO Saturn V’s, even if one is a replica), I was reading books about space from a very young age. I don’t remember specific titles, I wish I did, but I was a voracious reader from a shockingly young age. The first book I remember falling in love with was Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember on the sinking of the Titanic. I read it in third grade around the same time I got bit by the writing bug, and I can’t help but think there’s got to be a connection there.

Are there any particular themes you address in your story? What issues do you explore, overtly or otherwise? 

I don’t know if it’s a theme, as such, but writing alternate history (which Our Man on the Hill fits into, even though it’s a Cold War spy thriller) did allow me to explore some of the real-life history involved. There’s some fascinating stories that came out of the Cold War at large that aren’t as well known as they ought to be. One of the things I hoped to do in writing the novel was to bring some of those stories, and the people behind them, to life. 

What has been your most satisfying moment as a writer so far? What made you punch the air? 

Oh, it’s got to be when my short story Moonshot (featured in Alternate Australias from Sea Lion Press) was nominated and then won the Sidewise Award. As a teenager getting into alternate history, I remember looking at that list in the mid-2000s and being impressed by what I saw. To now be a name on that list still seems surreal, even with having the plaque on my wall. 

Away from books, what are your loves when it comes to TV and movies? 

Doctor Who is my great love as a TV series and, in an odd way, I owe my writing career to it as I started out writing reviews of it online. The central idea and character, this figure who travels through time and space in a blue box of all things helping out where they can, is storytelling gold. Before Doctor Who, The West Wing was my favorite series and it still holds a special place in my heart as a series that helped inspire me to be a writer. As an alternate history fan and lifelong space nerd, I’m also loving Apple TV’s For All Mankind with its vision of a space race that never ended. 

In terms of movies, The Third Man remains my favorite film, being something that works on so many levels. My tastes in movies, like my reading, are pretty eclectic so the list includes the amazing documentary For All Mankind on the Apollo missions, Oliver Stone’s JFK, and the 1995 film of Richard III starring Ian McKellen.

Matthew also appeared in the Tales From Alternate Earths 3 anthology from Inklings Press, with his story about a film version of Titanic made by Alfred Hitchcock.

You get stuck on an island and had only one book packed in your travel bag before the ship went down – what book do you hope you have in there? 

It’s almost certainly going to be The Complete Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, given that it travels with me everywhere. There’s some New Agey woo woo in there, to be sure, but also a lot of practical creative advice. Indeed, I credit the book (and my best friend for giving it to me) for helping me become the writer I’ve become.

Where can readers follow you to find out more about your work?

They can find me on Facebook by searching by name and I’m on Twitter @KresalWrites. I also still have an infrequently updated LiveJournal account at timdalton007.livejournal.com.

A traditional question here at Altered Instinct – what are you reading at present, and what is the best book you’ve read in the past year?

I’m currently reading Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh, which has been intriguing read. I’m also enjoying the audiobook of Survivors by Terry Nation, his part adaptation and part reworking of his 1970s BBC series after writing of the series was taken out of his hands, read by Carolyn Seymour (who was one of the stars of the series). 

Best book I’ve read in the past year? Probably Stephen Walker’s Beyond, a non-fiction account of Yuri Gagarin becoming the first human to orbit the Earth. Walker writes with an almost novelistic flair in places and his ability to convey period while also slaying myths is first-rate. A non-fiction thriller, in so many respects.

And the Sidewise Award winner was... Daniel Bensen!

This week has been somewhat of a celebratory one. You see, Daniel Bensen only went and did it! He won the Sidewise Award.

His short story, Treasure Fleet, from the Inklings anthology Tales From Alternate Earths, was named joint winner of the short form award alongside Adam Rovner, for his piece, What If the Jewish State Had Been Established in East Africa, published by Cambridge University Press.

For those who don't know Daniel's story, it's a tale that sees Chinese explorers who have adopted the Muslim faith discovering America. The worldbuilding involved to work out what the knock-on effects are shows Daniel's attention to detail, and I sincerely hope this shows that he is bound for big things! 

Already this week, he's said how he might need to start on a sequel to Treasure Fleet, and start knocking on doors about a novel. Here's hoping this award helps him open those doors. 

You can follow more of Daniel's adventures on Twitter or over on his Kingdoms of Evil website. Learn more about Tales From Alternate Earths here.

SIDEWISE AWARDS COUNTDOWN: Meet Brent A. Harris, co-author of Twilight of the Mesozoic Moon

Tomorrow, the Sidewise Awards will be presented - they're the top award in the field of alternative history, and three of the writers from the Inklings Press collection Tales From Alternate Earths have made the shortlist for the Short Form prize. Here, we chat to Brent A. Harris, co-author of the story Twilight of the Mesozoic Moon with Ricardo Victoria, and Sidewise nominee, as he awaits the news of the winners. 

So – it’s been a year since Tales From Alternate Earths came out, and you’re up for a Sidewise Award, the biggest award in the alt history field and up against the likes of Bruce Sterling. How do you feel about the nomination?

This is one of those rare instances where it’s okay for a writer to use a cliché’. It’s truly an honor just to be nominated. In all honesty, we set out with Tales from Alternate Earths with a goal to make an alternate history anthology we’d all like to read. There’s some amazing stories and writers in it, as biased as I am. If anything, I hope this nomination gives the book greater reach so that all these authors get to shine.

The Sidewise Award has a heady list of previous winners – including people such as Stephen Baxter, Walter Jon Williams, Lois Tilton, Gardner Dozois, Ken Liu… who are the great writers of alternative history who you admire and would say are influential?

That’s a humbling list of names. I’m hoping that if Ken Liu decides/has the time to put another alternate history anthology out, I’ll be able to submit to it. I’ve been reading alternate history since I was able to sneak a paperback in between my neon orange 90’s era Trapper Keeper during chemistry class. I was never very good at molecules, but I did get to learn all about what would happen if aliens invaded during WW2. My appetite for books, during high school was voracious. I ate up works by Robert Conroy, Crichton, De Camp, D.C. Fontana, Brackett, Bradbury, Martin, Stirling, H.G. Wells, and lots and lots of comic books. I was awkward in high school and never felt like I fit in. Speculative fiction, SF and fantasy turned out to be my escape hatch to whole other worlds where ‘oddness’ was normal, even heroic. I was okay with that.

What’s next for you, win or lose?

I have no problem losing. Those are some solid people to lose against. If I win, I’d do a Snoopy dance and then get back to work. Well, even if I lose, I must get back to work. I am preparing for my book launch. A Time of Need, an alternate history of the American Revolution, releases September 6th from Insomnia Publishing. I need to go to the store to make sure I have plenty of comfort foods for those first reviews. Anyone want to share a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia?

Where will you be when the winners are announced?

Driving my wife to the L.A. airport for deployment. I won’t find out for hours later.

Okay, we’ll see how the final comes out. But in the meantime – Tales From Alternate Earths aside – if you were to name one alternate history book for readers to try out, which would it be? Just one. Yes, I’m being tough. 

Dang. This is tough.

Wow.

This. Is. Tough.

Okay, then. 

Harry Turtledove’s Ruled Britannia. It’s a one off so you won’t be launched into reading a dozen books or so (Curse you, Turtledove, Stirling, and Martin!) and if I remember correctly, it’s also a Sidewise Award winner. Plus you can’t go wrong with Shakespeare and the Spanish Armada. Go check it out!

Learn more about Tales From Alternate Earths here.

Read about fellow nominee Daniel Bensen here.

Read about fellow nominee Ricardo Victoria here.

SIDEWISE AWARDS COUNTDOWN: Meet Ricardo Victoria, co-author of Twilight of the Mesozoic Moon

Tomorrow, the Sidewise Awards will be presented - they're the top award in the field of alternative history, and three of the writers from the Inklings Press collection Tales From Alternate Earths have made the shortlist for the Short Form prize. Here, we chat to Ricardo Victoria, co-author of the story Twilight of the Mesozoic Moon with Brent A. Harris, and Sidewise nominee, as he awaits the news of the winners. 

So – it’s been a year since Tales From Alternate Earths came out, and you’re up for a Sidewise Award, the biggest award in the alt history field and up against the likes of Bruce Sterling. How do you feel about the nomination?

Excited, delighted, proud and at the same time, humbled. I mean, alternate history is not really my chosen genre so for me this is a really welcome nomination. I really want to win –it´s my competitive nature of which you are well aware- but at the same time I realize that just being nominated is a victory unto itself, especially for a debut story. I’m just happy.

The Sidewise Award has a heady list of previous winners – including people such as Stephen Baxter, Walter Jon Williams, Lois Tilton, Gardner Dozois, Ken Liu… who are the great writers of alternative history who you admire and would say are influential?

If I’m honest, I have read next to nothing on the genre. I know that sounds bad, but I had never considered writing alternate history until I joined Inklings Press. One of the nice thing about it has been being pushed to write outside my comfort zone, to discover new fields. Now I need to start reading more on the field. 

What’s next for you, win or lose?

Get the final edit of my novel ‘Tempest Blades” and start shopping for an agent or publisher. With any luck, this nomination will help towards that endeavor. After that, I will work in my second alternate history –which will be a comedy in the spirit of Terry Pratchett, hopefully I will be able to pull it off - and the sequel of Tempest Blades. This nomination proves that my ideas are not that crazy… well, just a bit.

Where will you be when the winners are announced?

With my wife, probably waiting for the new episode of Game of Thrones, trying not to pull my hairs out of nervousness.

Winners are coming! Okay, we’ll see how the final comes out. But in the meantime – Tales From Alternate Earths aside – if you were to name one alternate history book for readers to try out, which would it be? Just one. Yes, I’m being tough. 

Well, I still need to get my own list of books on the genre before recommending one. As I said before, I’m pretty much new on the genre. But if I’m allowed to be cheeky and shameless, I would recommend Tales from Alternate Earths. There is a reason it has two nominated stories. And its second volume when it comes out.


Learn more about Tales From Alternate Earths here.

Read about fellow nominee Daniel Bensen here.

Read about fellow nominee Brent A. Harris here.

SIDEWISE AWARDS COUNTDOWN: Meet Daniel Bensen, author of Treasure Fleet

Tomorrow, the Sidewise Awards will be presented - they're the top award in the field of alternative history, and three of the writers from the Inklings Press collection Tales From Alternate Earths have made the shortlist for the Short Form prize. Here, we chat to Daniel Bensen, author of the story Treasure Fleet and Sidewise nominee, as he awaits the news of the winners. 

So – it’s been a year since Tales From Alternate Earths came out, and you’re up for a Sidewise Award, the biggest award in the alt history field and up against the likes of Bruce Sterling. How do you feel about the nomination?

I’m not worried – I’m closing in on Bruce Sterling! Living in the Balkans: check. Tumblr account: check. Getting nominated for a prestigious alternate history award: check! It’s only a matter of time, čoveče.

The Sidewise Award has a heady list of previous winners – including people such as Stephen Baxter, Walter Jon Williams, Lois Tilton, Gardner Dozois, Ken Liu… who are the great writers of alternative history who you admire and would say are influential?

Harry Turtledove and S. M. Stirling are probably my biggest alternate history influences, since I read them both extensively in high school, and learned how playing with history could make a good story. I admire the real diggers into alternate history, people like Bruce Munro, Den Valdron, and Jared, whose rigorous approach to their avocation creates worlds that deserve to be real. As story-telling, goes, though, Ted Chiang is everything I aspire to be. I’ve got a long ways to go.

What’s next for you, win or lose?

My story for the next Tales from Alternate Earths anthology is ready, about al-Andalus gliders.Then I have to finish my next novel, in which a cross-time rail system allows a 1930s private investigator to rescue her baby older brother from a high-tech child-smuggling ring. It’s got maser-wielding gangsters and a party on a blimp! In the mean time, my alien politics murder mystery and, uh, my other alien politics murder mystery are both looking for publishers.

Where will you be when the winners are announced?

I’ll be in the Church of Saint Michael the Archangel in Sofia, Bulgaria, performing my sacred duties as the godfather of the children of my best man and maid of honor.* I’ll try to keep my hands off my cell phone.

Okay, we’ll see how the final comes out. But in the meantime – Tales From Alternate Earths aside – if you were to name one alternate history book for readers to try out, which would it be? Just one. Yes, I’m being tough. 

That is tough, but there is one alternate history novel that stands out: Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card. I know it isn't "pure" alternate history (since it involves travel from the future of our timeline), but it is a good story populated by sympathetic characters, and it includes all the blue-sky guesstimating that makes alternate history so much fun. What if this had happened? Well then what if that followed? Next thing you know, you’re knee-deep in crystal skulls.

Thank you very much and keep your fingers crossed for me. With enough human wills yoked to mine, I’ll have the power to tunnel into the universe in which I win that award!

*The translation isn’t perfect. Go look up “kum i kuma.”

Learn more about Tales From Alternate Earths here.

Read about fellow nominee Ricardo Victoria here.

Read about fellow nominee Brent A. Harris here.

Tales From Alternate Earths - on the eve of the Sidewise Awards

I blame Brent A. Harris.

No, really I do. But before I get to exactly what I blame him for, let's step back a moment.

Inklings Press came about when a bunch of authors, scritch scratching away at our various works, decided it was time to up our game and turn our ambitions into reality, self-publishing some of our stories. Tales From The Tavern was our debut - a collection of fantasy stories - and by the time Hallowe'en was rolling around, we had a horror collection out too, Tales From The Mists. Both of those are available these days as the Tales From The Tower collection, rolling all of the year one stories of Inklings Press into one volume.

Science fiction came next (Tales From The Universe) but here's where Brent gets blamed. He went and suggested alternative history for the next one.

Darn him.

And so the word went out for submissions to Tales From Alternate Earths, which published a year ago today.

Brent's a big fan of alternative history. He's had his nose poked in books by Turtledove or Sobel for a long time now - and he's got his own alternative history novel out next month (more on that here at the blog in future). His driving force led to the choice of the stories for inclusion in the final anthology - and a smashing bunch of writers it is - and... well, I guess I can blame him again for something else.

Two stories from the book got nominated for the Sidewise Awards in the Short Form category.

Brent's own story - jointly written with Ricardo Victoria - is a story of time travel and dinosaurs. Well, time travelling dinosaurs, in point of fact.

Then there's Daniel Bensen's tale, Treasure Fleet, in which America is discovered by China rather than Columbus. This was the first chance I'd had to read Daniel's writing, his first submission to Inklings Press, and it was a delight to have him part of our hearty crew. He's since featured in our Tales of Wonder anthology, too.

Both stories got shortlisted for this year's Sidewise Awards - due to be announced on Sunday. They're up against works by Anna Belfrage and GK Holloway, both from the collection 1066 Turned Upside Down; Adam Rovner, from What Ifs of Jewish History: From Abraham to Zionism; and Bruce Sterling, for Pirate Utopia. That's some darn fine talent to be among.

Past winners in the short form include the likes of Stephen Baxter - a judge this year - Walter Jon Williams, Ted Chiang, Lois Tilton, Alan Smale, Mary Rosenblum and, well heck, lots more great writers. We'll give a hearty round of applause to whoever this year's winner is.

It's a delight for two stories from the anthology to be included this year, and sets the bar high as we prepare for the September 1 deadline for the next alternate history anthology.

And if that anthology proves as successful as this one has been? I'm blaming Brent.

Tales From Alternate Earths is available on Amazon.

In print and in the awards - Tales From Alternate Earths

There's a double dose of good news for the Inklings Press anthology Tales From Alternate Earths.

First of all - and the big, big, BIG news - is that two of the stories from the collection have been shortlisted for the Sidewise Awards in the short form category.

How big is that? Well, one of the rivals that the stories are up against is Bruce Sterling, whose Pirate Nation has an introduction by Warren Ellis, while the judges include the likes of Matt Mitrovich and Stephen Baxter. It's a really big honour for one story to hit that shortlist - let alone two.

The shortlisted stories are Daniel Bensen's Treasure Fleet - in which the Americas are discovered by the Chinese - and Twilight of the Mesozoic Moon, by Brent A Harris and Ricardo Victoria, a tale of time travelling spacefaring dinosaurs, no less!

And that brings us to our second piece of news - Tales From Alternate Earths is available NOW in paperback!

You can pick up the new paperback from Amazon right here. So pick it up before the awards are presented in August, and see what has drawn the attention of the top judges in the alternative history genre!