Looking for fiction not set on Earth yet not sci fi or fantasy

[Australis]

If you want alt history with a spin, try Howard Waldrop. He writes mainly short stories and has two novels.

Some of his best short stories are on the old SciFiction website. Run by Ellen Datlow, it contains some classic SF shorts as well as some really good contemporary stuff. Whatever you think of SciFi, this site is really good. Shame they stopped adding to it.

My favourite Waldrop stories on the site are 'Winter Quarters' (I think the Hitler sequence early in the story is nothing short of brilliant), 'The King of Where-I-Go', 'The Wolf Man of Alcatraz', 'The Horse Of A Different Colour (That You Rode In On)' and 'One Horse Town' (with Leigh Kennedy). They are well worth a read:

http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/archive.html

 

[HIj'Qa]

you might also like
The Neanderthal Parallax, a trilogy of books from Robert J. Sawyer. It's a great alternative history/universe romp. Our Earth makes contact through a rift with another earth where Neanderthals survived and humans didn't.

The Neanderthal Parallax Trilogy: Hominids, Humans & Hybrids

 

[Bob The Skutter]

How about the Coyote books? It's an alternate time line where the US becomes totalitarian, and the first mission to colonise another planet is highjacked by people wanting to start a life away from that. Beyond the portion of the story of them getting to Coyote there is very little advanced technology in there.

 

[diankra]

How about the Coyote books? It's an alternate time line where the US becomes totalitarian, and the first mission to colonise another planet is highjacked by people wanting to start a life away from that. Beyond the portion of the story of them getting to Coyote there is very little advanced technology in there.

Not sure that the Coyote series is really what the OP's after, or alternate history - like most near-ish future SF there's a few bits in the backplot about when and how NASA discovered extra-solar planets that aren't quite accurate compared with how events have played out between Allen Steele starting to write the series and now, but Congressman Conroy's rise to power doesn't start until the 2020s, and the Alabama expedition's after that...
It's near future, potentially realistic, science fiction about setting up Earth's first colony and the political disputes involved.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

How about the Coyote books? It's an alternate time line where the US becomes totalitarian, and the first mission to colonise another planet is highjacked by people wanting to start a life away from that. Beyond the portion of the story of them getting to Coyote there is very little advanced technology in there.

Not sure that the Coyote series is really what the OP's after, or alternate history - like most near-ish future SF there's a few bits in the backplot about when and how NASA discovered extra-solar planets that aren't quite accurate compared with how events have played out between Allen Steele starting to write the series and now, but Congressman Conroy's rise to power doesn't start until the 2020s, and the Alabama expedition's after that...
It's near future, potentially realistic, science fiction about setting up Earth's first colony and the political disputes involved.

I didn't think it would be exactly what he wanted, but I figured it was close enough.
I guess I misremembered part of the story though, I thought there was some alternate history components to the backstory.

 

[Mistral]

I think we all missed an obvious one-The Watchmen. Also, The Dark Knight Returns. Both are set in America but with the odd spin of "realistic" superheroes.

You might also try In the Country of the Blind by Michael Flynn and The Difference Engine(William Gibson?). Both tell stories of our America-only we don't know our own country and its history as well as we think. They're "alternate history" in the literal rather than the genre sense of the term.

 

[Morwen]

You might also try In the Country of the Blind by Michael Flynn and The Difference Engine(William Gibson?). Both tell stories of our America-only we don't know our own country and its history as well as we think.

Could have sworn The Difference Engine was set in alternate-Britain not alternate-America, but I guess that just proves how bad a reader I am.

 

[marplanauta]

I would recommend Le Guin's The Dispossessed

Shevek, a scientist from the desert planet Anarres, travels to the neighboring planet Urras, an Earthlike planet of capitalism, war and economic inequity. He goes there with the plan of learning, teaching and sharing his world and beliefs with the Urrasti. Shevek comes from a society founded on the beliefs of the Urrasti philosopher Odo and settled by revolutionaries from Urras who called themselves Odonians. The Anarresti have no government or economy, and their survival is only guaranteed by everyone working together to feed and clothe the society.

 

[Shawnster]

Difference Engine is set in England. They do an entire play on words with Baby London = Babylon throughout the story.

Whats His Face appears to be looking for something a bit more like fantasy than just a typical alt-history (although those may work). No advanced tech, no magic, no aliens. Humans at about our level of tech advancement yet living in an unfamiliar surrounding (not the USA, or any other name-recognized country).

 

[Mistral]

Sorry, Britain. It's been years. Whats His Face is looking for the unattainable, IMO. By definition I don't think he can find what he wants without venturing into SCIFI or Fantasy.

 

[Sci]

I think we all missed an obvious one-The Watchmen. Also, The Dark Knight Returns. Both are set in America but with the odd spin of "realistic" superheroes.

Hm. I've never heard of The Watchmen. Maybe you're referring to Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons?

 

[Mistral]

I think we all missed an obvious one-The Watchmen. Also, The Dark Knight Returns. Both are set in America but with the odd spin of "realistic" superheroes.

Hm. I've never heard of The Watchmen. Maybe you're referring to Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons?

Oh, how I love nitpickers. I have a pair of pliers with your name on it, buddy!

 

[Temis the Vorta]

To clarify what I mean, the best example I can think of is the new show Kings. It's based in a fictional kingdom on a fictional world and yet the people in that show are no different in their lifestyle than people in the real world. It might as well be Earth, but it is not. Despite this there is no sci-fi element to the show (at least not yet)

I'd call Kings sci fi by definition - anything that is impossible in the present or past of the real world, or anything at all that happens in the future, is science fiction or fantasy. It doesn't need sci fi trappings to qualify.

For instance, A Canticle for Leibowitz takes place in the future, yet deals with a society at a medieval level of development. No robots, no spaceships, but it's still sci fi simply because it's in the future.

Kings didn't happen in our past. It isn't happening in our present. Either way, it's sci fi. If it's in the future, it's also sci fi.

 

[diankra]

To clarify what I mean, the best example I can think of is the new show Kings. It's based in a fictional kingdom on a fictional world and yet the people in that show are no different in their lifestyle than people in the real world. It might as well be Earth, but it is not. Despite this there is no sci-fi element to the show (at least not yet)

I'd call Kings sci fi by definition - anything that is impossible in the present or past of the real world, or anything at all that happens in the future, is science fiction or fantasy. It doesn't need sci fi trappings to qualify.

For instance, A Canticle for Leibowitz takes place in the future, yet deals with a society at a medieval level of development. No robots, no spaceships, but it's still sci fi simply because it's in the future.

Kings didn't happen in our past. It isn't happening in our present. Either way, it's sci fi. If it's in the future, it's also sci fi.

Surely - says the Brit who's therefore not had the chance to actually see Kings, beyond the clip used to introduce Ian McShane on the Daily Show this week - Kings is more of a rare TV example of something theatre does all the time: a modern dress production (and adaptation)?

 

[ATimson]

Surely - says the Brit who's therefore not had the chance to actually see Kings, beyond the clip used to introduce Ian McShane on the Daily Show this week - Kings is more of a rare TV example of something theatre does all the time: a modern dress production (and adaptation)?

Either adapt the politics to fit the modern world, or lose the cell phones and tanks.

 

[Valin]

Another suggestion for an alternative history novel: Len Deighton's "SS-GB". It takes place in a Britian that was conquered by the Nazis. It's about a Scotland Yard detective investigating a murder. Scotland Yard is part of the SS. No spaceships; no aliens.

 

[Rincewiend]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Unreason

 

[diankra]

Surely - says the Brit who's therefore not had the chance to actually see Kings, beyond the clip used to introduce Ian McShane on the Daily Show this week - Kings is more of a rare TV example of something theatre does all the time: a modern dress production (and adaptation)?

Either adapt the politics to fit the modern world, or lose the cell phones and tanks.

Again, modern dress production. Look at the RSC Hamlet from last year, and David Tennant and Patrick Stewart aren't exactly wearing 10th century Danish dress. Ian McKellen's film of Richard III has him playing the character as a 1930s British fascist who shouts 'My kingdom for a horse!' after his scout car breaks down, and the RSC Romeo and Juliet I saw years back had Romeo kill Mercutio in a knife fight over the hood of a red sports car.
It's just unusual to do that sort of adaptation on TV, which tends to be a more visually literal medium.

 

[What's his face]

Surely - says the Brit who's therefore not had the chance to actually see Kings, beyond the clip used to introduce Ian McShane on the Daily Show this week - Kings is more of a rare TV example of something theatre does all the time: a modern dress production (and adaptation)?

Either adapt the politics to fit the modern world, or lose the cell phones and tanks.

I disagree. I like the idea of a modern, western, absolute monarchy (in fiction of course). Definitely worthy of exploration.

Isn't that the idea of sci fi, to explore ideas that are impossible in reality?

 

[ATimson]

I like the idea of a modern, western, absolute monarchy (in fiction of course). Definitely worthy of exploration.

Oh, certainly. I just don't think that a modern dress production should be adding in things that weren't in the original. (Admittedly, I hadn't thought about substitutions, like a horse becoming a car, when I said that; I was talking about stuff that the producers were deliberately adding to the modern adaptation that didn't have an analogue in the original.)

Isn't that the idea of sci fi, to explore ideas that are impossible in reality?

Actually, that's the idea of fantasy.