A Date Which Will Live in Infamy
This anthology of thirteen alternate universe Pearl Harbor stories (some SF, some straight counter-history) is divided into three sections: part one to stories about tampering with history; part two to stories in which the battle goes a different way, from being averted entirely to resulting in a decisive Japanese victory; and part three to stories dealing with alternate aftermaths. The book’s scholarly appendices include both a detailed timeline of the real-world events taking place on December 7, 1941, and a short article about why the attack occurred and what the actual range of contra-historical possibilities were at that point in history.
Not a lot of historical color here, though a few authors, such as William Keith and Ed Gorman, produce excellent work within a rather confining theme. The stories are heavy on military slang and period jargon (with the occasional howler, such as when a Thompson sub-machine gun is referred to as a “Chicago piano,” the WWII nickname for the eight-barreled naval anti-aircraft gun, rather than–properly–as a “Chicago violin”). But if you don’t know the Japanese deployment and the attack order on December 7th by the time you’re finished reading, it isn’t the authors’ fault.
