Sidewise, Side Foolish VI: The 10 Best and

10 Worst AH Characters In AH Literature

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but as often as not the cover can be a clue to the book’s quality(or lack thereof, in some cases). This is particularly true of alternate history books; a well-done front cover can draw the reader into the book’s ATL in the blink of an eye, while a badly done cover can repel the reader just as quickly. With that in mind, I now present...

The Ten Best Book Covers In AH Literature

#10)Hitler Victorious(edited by Martin H. Greenberg)

Right around the time I submitted my third “Sidewise” article for Changing The Times, I visited my local library and found a copy of Victorious available on the 50 cent book sale table near the main circulation desk. Seeing the picture of Adolf Hitler standing against a backdrop of the New York City skyline on the front cover reminded me of what had first piqued my curiosity about the book when I read the paperback edition back in the late ‘90s, and I didn’t waste any time handing over my two quarters to the library staff for the privilege of taking the hardcover copy home.

#9)Atlantis & Other Places(Harry Turtledove)

“Ain’t nothin’ like a dame”-- or a Turtledove book dust jacket for that matter. Something about Turtledove’s works always seems to inspire artists to kick their game up a notch. The cover for this anthology of Turtledove short stories is a particularly good example of this phenomenon; drawn to noticeably resemble an old-time treasure map, it encourages the reader to pick the book up and pore through it like there’s no tomorrow.

#8)Alternate Presidents(edited by Mike Resnick)

The thing I enjoy most about this book-- besides its world-class collection of AH short stories, that is --is its cover, which neatly parodies Harry Truman’s famous pose with a copy of the Chicago Tribune bearing the infamous mistaken headline DEWEY BEATS TRUMAN. In this case, we see Dewey holding that very same Tribune edition with the headline reversed to say TRUMAN BEATS DEWEY. The more things change, the more they stay the same (which, incidentally, happens to be the title one of the best stories in this anthology).

#7)The Afrika Reich(Guy Saville)

I haven’t even read the book yet as of the time I’m writing this, but its cover has definitely piqued my curiosity. The stark silhouette of an SS logo superimposed over a palm tree makes me want to read Reich the second it becomes available in bookstores. If the story is half as good as the cover suggests, then this novel has the potential to become another Fatherland orResurrection Day.

#6)MacArthur’s War: The Invasion Of Japan(Douglas Niles)

For both alternate history enthusiasts and aviation buffs, the dust jacket of this book is a visual feast. Depicting a flight of B-29s and their P-51 escorts streaking across the Pacific sky en route to their chosen targets, it not only invites readers to open the book but also gives inspiration for those readers to seek out more information about the real U.S. Pacific air campaign during the Second World War and the planes assigned to wage that campaign.

#5)1945(Robert Conroy)

The graphic of American and Japanese soldiers lined up facing each other like Old West gunslingers, with a bomb silhouette squarely in the middle, is a definite attention grabber and perfectly sums up the theme of this book. Even if your normal impulse when seeing an AH book is to walk right past it like it’s invisible, you’ll have a hard time ignoring the starkly dramatic cover art for 1945.

#4)SS-GB(Len Deighton)

If the picture of a two and a half-pence British postage stamp with Adolf Hitler’s picture on it doesn’t scare the living daylights out of you, you must be made of very stern stuff indeed. This cover manages to simultaneously attract readers and scare the bejabbers out of them; once you’ve seen it, you won’t stop until you’ve read Deighton’s narrative first sentence to last paragraph.

#3)Fatherland(Robert Harris)

One of the things this quintessential Nazi victory-in-World War II novel has going in its favor is its arresting front cover. The key-inside-a-swastika tableau gives tantalizing hints to the rest of the story, not to mention reinforcing the secretive nature of the paranoid environment in which the main characters live and operate. If you wanted to design a promotional poster for a theatrical film about a Nazi-ruled world, you could do worse than to use this book’s dust jacket as a template.

#2)1901(Robert Conroy)

It isn’t often that I put two AH authors on the same “best of” list, but in Conroy’s case I’m happy-- correction, downright eager --
to make an exception. The graphic of an Imperial German Army spiked helmet juxtaposed against the Stars and Stripes makes for an arresting cover image, which perfectly fits the gripping story inside.

And speaking of arresting images....

#1)Resurrection Day(Brendan DuBois)

This portrayal of an America struggling to recover from all- out nuclear war in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis has the good fortune to be graced with not just one, but two spectacular cover images: the silhouette of missiles against the Washington D.C. skyline on the front cover of the paperback version, and the eerie sepia-tone landscape shot of a deserted Brooklyn Bridge on the dust jacket of the hardcover edition. The hardcover dust jacket in particular creates the eerie impression that you’re looking at an old newspaper photograph
from a nightmare world....a world which but a few quirks of fate and an incredible amount of luck could very well have become reality.

******

Well, so much for the heights; now it’s time to explore the depths. Brace yourself for...

The Ten Worst Book Covers In AH Literature

#10)Cold Shoulder Road(Joan Aiken)

I’ve never read the Wolves Chronicles series, which this book is a part of, and I’m not sure I want to after seeing the highly amateurish pencil art (dis)gracing the front cover of this novel. The Wolves series is based on the premise of the Stuarts winning England’s famous Jacobite wars, but unfortunately this piece of artistic junk might well deter readers from venturing further to explore what by all rights would normally be a highly intriguing premise.

#9)Elvis & Nixon(Jonathan Lowy)

Of all the books and stories I’ve reviewed in my Sidewise commentaries so far, this one has the dubious distinction of being only the third AH literary piece I’ve put on two “Worst” lists. It’s that bad. The garish cover design, which looks like something that a third-rate graffiti artist would be ashamed to throw together on his worst day, overdoses the eyes with enough neon to outfit every hotel and casino in Las Vegas.

#8)The H-Bomb Girl(Stephen Baxter)

Great writers deserve great covers for their books-- but unfortunately don’t always get them. Case in point: the pink and orange vertigo-inducing nightmare of a dust jacket for the hardcover edition of this thriller about a London adolescent girl trying to avert global nuclear war at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. If I were Baxter, I’d sue the publisher for this act of artistic vandalism against a book that by all rights should have been graced with a cover worthy of Baxter’s Olympic-caliber prose.

#7)Einstein’s Bridge(John Cramer)

While I can’t speak to the quality of this book’s writing, I can say with much assurance that its cover art leaves a lot to be desired. It’s basically just two neon green squiggles slapped on with a neon purple squiggle underneath them. A junior high school remedial art class could have done a better job here.

#6)Rogue Emperor(Crawford Kilian)

The front cover for this book, part of the Chronoplane Wars series, resembles an ad poster for a third-rate B movie. And to quote the esteemed social commentator Forrest Gump, “That’s all I’ve got to say about that.”

#5)Lighter Than A Feather(David Westheimer)

Way too much purple used in the cover illustration for this novel about a hypothetical invasion of Japan in November of 1945-- to say nothing of the less-than-realistic rendering of the landing craft shown underneath the book’s title. Westheimer should demand a do-over so his story can get a dust jacket worthy of its intriguing premise.

#4)Synco(Jorge Baradito)

How did a book with such a great premise(the 1973 Pinochet coup in Chile is averted only to have the country end up being run by a computer six years later) get stuck with such a crummy cover? It’s like somebody stole the box for Half-Life, ripped off the front, and snuck it into the printing press of Synco’s publisher while the night watchman wasn’t looking. So far this novel has only been published in
Spanish; if it ever gets translated into English, I sincerely hope the translation will have a better-looking dust jacket.

#3)Wildside(Steven Gould)