From Booklist
Editor Sargent asked this collection's contributors to choose "conquerors" from history or legend and imagine fantastic, and not purely historical, alternate careers for them. Their responses amount to a very odd lot of figures and developments. There are no fewer than three variations on Alexander the Great, who still seems to tower over the historical and mythic landscapes more than two millennia after his death. There are also Genghis Khan, legendary Japanese empress Jingu (in a story by Kij Johnson that is, not surprisingly, one of the best entries), Napoleon, Hitler, John Wayne, the Kennedy family, and Lyndon Johnson. All are developed originally, and the writing overall is high quality. Even so, however, at least half the stories are better read as very good intellectual exercises than as conventional narratives. Sexual sequences are rather numerous, and a few of them are undeniably, if appropriately, explicit. Without serious faults but definitely challenging. Frieda Murray
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
All-new stories by the best of the best

Michelle West € Pamela Sargent € Jack Dann € George Alec Effinger € Ian Watson € James Morrow € George Zebrowski € and more...

Here are thirteen original tales in which destinies are changed-and with them, the future. Each story imagines what the world would be like if its most powerful leaders had met different fates. Some of the greatest minds in science fiction take on alternate history, including a victorious Hitler, a virtual Napoleon, and an Alexander the Mediocre.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Conqueror Fantastic is a collection of 13 original short stories speculating about what might have transpired if the hands of fate had touched certain famous -- and infamous -- leaders differently. Featured authors include Paul Di Filippo, George Zebrowski, Michelle West, Jack Dann, and Kij Johnson.

Noteworthy selections include "Twilight of Idols" by Stephen Dedman, a horrific tale in which Adolf Hitler's life comes to a gruesomely fitting end, and Pamela Sargent's "Spirit Brother," an intensely intimate story about the relationship between Genghis Khan and Jamukha, a beloved boyhood friend who later turned into Khan's deadly enemy. After Jamukha's death, his spirit returns to the steppes, where he communicates with his estranged friend through the body of Khan's conspiring shaman.

"Intensified Transmogrification," Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini's first collaboration in more than 20 years, depicts President Lyndon B. Johnson as an alcoholic madman obsessed not only with the Vietnam War but also with the military machinations of Red China. As his mania grows, so does his certainty that China is going to nuke the States. With his finger on the button that will begin a nuclear war, something must be done to stop him: "not assassination -- euthanasia."

George Orwell wrote: "He who controls the past commands the future. He who commands the future conquers the past." Included in this anthology are a baker's dozen of diverse stories -- some alternate history, some fantastical, some horror -- that support Orwell's viewpoint. Conqueror Fantastic is highly recommended for fans of alternate history as well as speculative fiction. Paul Goat Allen

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Thirteen sci fi authors rewrite history

All-new stories by the best of the best

Michelle West ￯﾿ﾽ Pamela Sargent ￯﾿ﾽ Jack Dann ￯﾿ﾽ George Alec Effinger ￯﾿ﾽ Ian Watson ￯﾿ﾽ James Morrow ￯﾿ﾽ George Zebrowski ￯﾿ﾽ and more...

Here are thirteen original tales in which destinies are changed-and with them, the future. Each story imagines what the world would be like if its most powerful leaders had met different fates. Some of the greatest minds in science fiction take on alternate history, including a victorious Hitler, a virtual Napoleon, and an Alexander the Mediocre.

Author Biography:

FROM THE CRITICS

KLIATT - Sherry Hoy