Alternate History

By setting the novel within a contemporary version of the United States that has followed an alternate historical path than the world the reader is familiar with, the author offers a vision of a reality that is drastically different from the reader's own but which also allows for the exploration of a surprising and sometimes horrifying world and, also, for the indirect exploration of themes that are pertinent to the reader's own reality.

Alternate history novels, films and stories often use the background of an alternate history in order to examine fundamental issues that pertain to our reality. Alternate history narratives, such as this novel, often select a single point of historical departure as the start point of the alternate world in which the narrative takes place, such as a particular historical event never occurring (such as the Reformation, the American Revolution, the United States's...