alternative histories (fiction)

The imagined memoirs of the first black explorer of America--a Moroccan slave whose testimony was left out of the official record of the 1527 conquistador P?nfilo de Narv?ez's expedition to claim the Gulf coast of North America for the Spanish crown and which was faced with peril, navigational errors, disease, and starvation, as well as resistance from indigenous tribes.

The Clakker: a mechanical man, endowed with great strength and boundless stamina -- but beholden to the wishes of its human masters. Soon after the Dutch scientist and clockmaker Christiaan Huygens invented the very first Clakker in the 17th Century, the Netherlands built a whole mechanical army. It wasn't long before a legion of clockwork fusiliers marched on Westminster, and the Netherlands became the world's sole superpower. Three centuries later, it still is. Only the French still fiercely defend their belief in universal human rights for all men -- flesh and brass alike. After decades of warfare, the Dutch and French have reached a tenuous cease-fire in a conflict that has ravaged North America. But one audacious Clakker, Jax, can no longer bear the bonds of his slavery. He will make a bid for freedom, and the consequences of his escape will shake the very foundations of the Brasswork Throne.

Washington, DC, 1926. The Prohibition of Magic has invigorated the city's underworld. Smuggling rings funnel magic contraband in from the coast. Sorcerers cast illusions to aid mobsters' crime sprees. Gangs have even established secret venues called "magic havens," where the public can lose themselves in immersive magic, as well as imbibe a mind-bending and highly addictive elixir known as "the sorcerer's shine." Joan Kendrick, a young sorcerer from the back woods of Norfolk County, accepts an offer to work for DC's most notorious crime syndicate, The Shaw Gang, when her family's home is repossessed. Alex Danfrey, first-year Federal Prohibition Unit trainee with a complicated past and talents of his own, becomes tapped to go undercover and infiltrate the Shaws. Joan meets Alex at the Shaws' magic haven, and soon discovers a confidante in her fellow performer. Before long Joan and Alex are forced to question their allegiances and motivations, as they become pitted against one another in a dangerous, heady game of cat-and-mouse.

With the Redface Pox running rampant and no male heir to the shogunate, despite Iemitsu and Arikoto's best efforts, it is becoming obvious that Japan must break from its centuries-old traditions if the country is to have a future.