Alternate history is a subset of science fiction. Stories and novels of this sort have been written for a long time, but in the last three decades or so the form has come into its own. Many of them are playful What-Ifs that look at how things might have gone had a detail or two gone differently. They are then excuses for adventure or thriller plots that quite often have little real poignance, not least because often the point of departure for the changed history is quite unlikely.

The best ones, however, play with changes that actually might have happened given just a nudge in one direction or the other, and the unfolding drama gives a glimpse of worlds that could easily have come about, often forbidding, thoroughly cautionary. We tend to assume, unconsciously at least, that things work out for the best, even when there is evidence to the contrary. An understandable approach to life given the limit power any of possess to effect events, change the course of history, or otherwise fight perceived inevitabilities. But unlike in fiction, it is rarely up to one person to fight evil or correct wrongs. It is a communal responsibility and the only tool we possess collectively is the wisdom accrued over time from which we might draw clues what to do.

Word War II provides a wellspring of speculation on what might have been done differently if. It seems occasionally that the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Seen purely from a military standpoint, perhaps so. For all its formidable abilities, Nazi Germany was ultimately limited by available resources, something certain generals tried to address on multiple occasions but ultimately failed to successfully repair. But politically? The world at the time offered faint comfort to those who thought the democracies could win in a toe-to-toe fight with the tyrants.

Allow me, then, to recommend a trilogy of novels that represent the better aspects of alternate history and effectively restore the chilling uncertainties of those times.