Other Earths edited by Nick Gevers and Jay Lake
(How'd I get 10? I didn't. I got two, but in this alternate Earth, I can create extra copies with my mind juices. How'd the two get to me so fast? Brain fu. Puttin' a little extra something on the curveball.)Other Earths, edited by Nick Gevers and Jay Lake, arrived today (publication date April 7; you can pre-order on Amazon). It's a crisp, smart little mass market anthology featuring the fiction of moi, Robert Charles Wilson, Stephen Baxter, Theodora Goss, Liz Williams, Gene Wolfe, Greg Van Eekhout, Alastair Reynolds, Paul Park, Lucius Shepard, and Benjamin Rosenbaum. All-original, all-alternate history stories set on Earth. What if Lincoln had never become president and the Civil War had never taken place? What if Columbus never discovered America, and the Inca developed a massive, technologically advanced empire? What if George W. Bush existed in more than one reality? (Shudder).Here, for your perusal, in a Friday tip of the hat to that attention-robbing social media fad Twitter, find one line apiece from all eleven stories..."This Peaceable Land, or, The Unbearable Vision of Harriet Beacher Stowe" by Robert Charles Wilson"Every Measure Short of War, the title of Percy's first book, implied that there might have been one--a war over Abolition, that is, a war between the States.""The Goat Variations" by Jeff VanderMeer"The evangelicals had been eschewing god-missiles for more personal methods of vengeance, even as they tied down federal armies in an endless guerilla war.""The Unblinking Eye" by Stephen Baxter"Under an empty night sky, the Inca ship stood proud before the old Roman bridge of Londres.""Csilla's Story" by Theodora Goss"The year after the shepherd she had loved woke, the Moon bore a son, the White Stag, and when the stag was weaned, she set him down by the bank of the Volga, where he was raised by his sisters.""Winterborn" by Liz Williams"We watched as the drowned woman walked through the palace of Coldgate.""Donovan Sent Us" by Gene Wolfe"To left and right, soiled and often defaced posters exhorted Englishmen and Englishwomen to give their all to win a war that was now lost.""The Holy City and Em's Reptile Farm" by Greg van Eekhout"For years the reptile farm had been a convenient stop in the desert for pilgrims on their way to the Holy City.""The Receivers" by Alastair Reynolds"Despite the seals, the hut was damp and cold, like a slimy old cave by the sea.""A Family History" by Paul Park"Sailing to Egypt in the spring of 1798, General Bonaparte and his army passed within two miles of the English fleet, northeast of Malta in the middle of the night.""Dog-Earred Paperback of My Life" by Lucius Shepard"My name, Thomas Cradle, is not the most common of names, yet when I chanced upon a book written by another Thomas Cradle while looking up my work on Amazon...I thought little of it, and my overriding reaction was one of concern that this new and unknown Cradle might prove the superior of the known.""Nine Alternate Alternate Histories" by Benjamin Rosenbaum"You ate rocks, tossed babies out of windows."Don't give a crap about Other Earths? Here's some downbeat Hotel Lights to destroy your Friday: