Alternate Presidents
| Author | Mike Resnick (editor) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Alternate history, political fiction |
| Publisher | Tor Books |
Publication date | February 15, 1992 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Paperback |
| Pages | 480 |
| ISBN | 0812511921 |
Alternate Presidents is a 1992 Tor science fiction anthology, edited by Mike Resnick. Each story is by a different author, and presents a scenario where an individual becomes President of the United States in a way that did not occur in real life.
Stories
| Title | Author | Scenario |
|---|---|---|
| The Father of His Country | Jody Lynn Nye | Benjamin Franklin becomes the first President in 1789, and creates a more democratic society. |
| The War of '07 | Jayge Carr | Aaron Burr is elected president in 1800, establishes an alliance with Napoleon Bonaparte, and creates a family dictatorship. |
| Black Earth and Destiny | Thomas Easton | Andrew Jackson is elected president in 1824, four years early. As a result, biological and chemical engineering are developed earlier. |
| Chickasaw Slave | Judith Moffett | Davey Crockett is elected president in 1828, resulting in the Civil War occurring over the Compromise of 1850. |
| How the South Preserved the Union | Ralph Roberts | David Rice Atchison becomes President in 1849, resulting in the North seceding from the country. |
| Now Falls the Cold, Cold Night | Jack L. Chalker | Millard Fillmore is elected as the Know Nothing party candidate in 1856, resulting in ethnic tensions in New England. John C. Fremont becomes President of the New England Confederacy with William Sherman as his commanding general, opposed by the Army of the United States under Robert E. Lee. |
| Lincoln's Charge | Bill Fawcett | Stephen A. Douglas is elected President in 1860, resulting in Abraham Lincoln becoming a general in the Union Army during the Civil War. |
| We Are Not Amused | Laura Resnick | A constitutional amendment allows Victoria Woodhull to be elected President in 1872; the story is a series of letter from Queen Victoria to the new President. |
| Patriot's Dream | Tappan King | Leila Morse agrees to marry Samuel Tilden, giving him the impetus to secure his 1876 electoral college victory. |
| I Shall Have a Flight to Glory | Michael P. Kube-McDowell | Samuel Tilden wins the 1880 election using underhanded tactics. |
| Love Our Lockwood | Janet Kagan | Belva Ann Lockwood is elected in 1888, resulting in expanded democratic rights. |
| Plowshare | Martha Soukup | William Jennings Bryan is elected in 1896. He serves one term, during which Hawaii and the former Spanish colonies become independent nations, before retiring. Teddy Roosevelt never becomes President, female suffrage is passed in 1913, and the elderly Bryan opposes entry into World War I following the sinking of the Lusitania. |
| The Bull Moose at Bay | Mike Resnick | Theodore Roosevelt wins his Bull Moose Party election in 1912 due to his attempted assassin's bullet missing him. As President, he secures women's suffrage and wins the war against Germany within a year. |
| A Fireside Chat | Jack Nimersheim | James M. Cox is elected in 1920. In 1921, he is assassinated, leaving his Vice President, Franklin Roosevelt, to become President. Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany earlier, and the two of them establish an alliance to maintain the balance of power. |
| Fighting Bob | Kristine Kathryn Rusch | Robert M. La Follette, Sr. is elected President in 1924, but dies the next year. |
| Truth, Justice, and the American Way | Lawrence Watt-Evans | Al Smith runs as a third party in the 1932 election, ensuring Herbert Hoover's re-election. As a result, the Munich Agreement causes World War II to avoid happening. Due to the continuing presence of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, totalitarianism and anti-Semitism grow stronger across the world well into the 1960s. |
| Kingfish | Barry N. Malzberg | Huey Long escapes assassination in 1935, and is elected President with John Nance Garner as his Vice President in 1936. World War II is avoided when Long invites Hitler to Washington, and assassinates him. |
| No Other Choice | Barbara Delaplace | Thomas E. Dewey is elected President in 1944, and ends World War II by dropping the atomic bomb on Tokyo. |
| The More Things Change... | Glen E. Cox | Dewey wins the 1948 election against Harry Truman by playing to anti-communist fears. |
| The Impeachment of Adlai Stevenson | Adlai Stevenson is elected in 1952 due to Dwight Eisenhower choosing Joseph McCarthy as his running mate. Stevenson is re-elected in 1956, but impeached in 1958. His vice president, John F. Kennedy, becomes President. | |
| Heavy Metal | Barry N. Malzberg | A feud between John Kennedy and Richard Daley leads to Richard Nixon being elected President in 1960. |
| Fellow Americans | Eileen Gunn | Barry Goldwater wins the election in 1964, and therefore uses nuclear weapons to win the Vietnam War. |
| Dispatches From the Revolution | Pat Cadigan | Lyndon B. Johnson decides to run for the 1968 Presidential election, and Robert F. Kennedy avoids assassination. As a result, the 1968 Democratic National Convention leads to an actual revolution and autocratic rule in the US. |
| Suppose They Gave a Peace... | Susan Shwartz | George McGovern is elected in 1972, and attempts a tricky immediate withdrawal from the Vietnam War. |
| Paper Trail | Brian M. Thomsen | McGovern is elected in 1972 after G. Gordon Liddy murders Carl Bernstein to cover up the Watergate scandal. |
| Demarche to Iran | Alexis A. Gilliland | Gerald Ford is re-elected President in 1976, and therefore threatens war with Iran over the Iran hostage crisis. |
| Huddled Masses | Lawrence Person | Walter Mondale is elected President in 1984. As a result, the Sandinista movement expands, causing a civil war in Mexico and a swarm of Latin American refugees overrunning the American Southwest. |
| Dukakis and the Aliens | Robert Sheckley | Michael Dukakis is elected President in 1988, but is revealed to be an alien attempting to infiltrate Dulce Base. Men in black therefore rewrite history for George H. W. Bush to win the election instead. |