The SFF (Science Fiction, Fantasy, Speculative Fiction) Collective is a group that meets regularly to discuss topics relating to SFF books and share book recommendations across the genre.

What if you could change the past? But even if you had the power to, should you?

This meeting of the SFF Collective will explore Alternate History/Reality stories. While a staple of the science fiction and fantasy genres, writers within the literary mainstream have also trekked into this counterfactual form, including Nobel Laureates (Kazuo Ishiguro), Booker Prize winners (Kingsley Amis and John Banville), Pulitzer Prize winners (Michael Chabon and Philip Roth), and multi-award winner Kate Atkinson for Life After Life.

Authors and books to consider for this session but are not limited to: Unholy Land (Lavie Tidhar), Fatherland (Robert Harris), The Man in the High Castle (Phillip K Dick), The Difference Engine (Bruce Sterling), The Years of Rice and Salt (Kim Stanley Robinson), Wild Cards (George R Martin), 11/22/63 (Stephen King), Voyage (Stephen Baxter), The Plot Against America (Philip Roth), Weapons Of Choice (The Axis of Time trilogy) – (John Birmingham), Pastwatch: The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus (Orson Scott Card), The Coming Of The Quantum Cats (Frederik Pohl).

Alternate history is not just an interrogation of history; it’s also about critiquing the present and projecting the future.