By Tom AndersonOn June 28th 1914, Bosnian Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and this triggered a sequence of events whi...

By Duncan Clacher.On the Sea Lion Press Forums, we run a monthly Vignette Challenge. Contributors are invited to write short stories on a specific theme (changed monthly).The theme for the 95th contes...

By Tom AndersonThe last few articles in this series have mostly focused on the idea of a neat progression of frontline naval technology and tactics over time. However, in this article we’re going to take a step to the side, and look at the parallel development of a different kind of naval war machine. A ship, or rather boat, which does not sail the seven seas, but floats beneath them, silent and deadly. The submarine.Descriptions of the history of technology often focus on otherwise intelligent

By Paul Leone.Captain’s LogMarch 17, AD 1529We are now five days out of Port Vitruvius and making steady time through the æther. The mist had a particularly fine and thin quality today, with a rose hu...

British decline in the 20th Century is often seen as something fixed and inevitable. As the United Kingdom's financial strength ebbed, so did its power, prestige and influence in the world. Yet Britai...

YouTube video by WW2TV

Paul Hynes' series of articles on WW2 France goes from the page to the screen today, as Paul will be discussing his research live on the Youtube channel WW2TV! The chat will begin at 11AM BST here but...

By Tom AndersonAs discussed in the previous article in this series, the second half of the 19th century saw rapid advancement in naval technology, with ships often becoming obsolete almost as soon as ...

By Tom AndersonAlthough the details had changed, much of the basic principles of naval warfare had remained quite static for centuries before the mid-nineteenth century: • Oceangoing ships were made ...

By Charles E.P. MurphyAn everyman who can handle himself but has naive romantic ideals goes looking for a missing love on the mean streets, in a dark and dangerous world he's not ready for, and learns...

By Tom AndersonAsk a writer—certainly an Anglophone one—which era they immediately picture when they hear the words ‘naval fiction, and it is very likely they will name the time of the French Revoluti...

By Ryan Fleming.The ground shook violently as the Renaissance continued to follow the man calling himself ‘Arry Bell towards a promised escape from this strange new world. ‘Arry held aloft a bronze di...

When an superpowered alien teenage bat sent a 1990 West German patrol boat back in time, it caused a few ripples, and not only in the North Sea. The Sea Eagle Secret became the biggest story of the ce...

By Gary Oswald.In 1154, Nicholas Breakspear became Pope Adrian IV and ruler of the Papal States. He was the first, and so far only, Pope from England, being born in Hertfordshire. Adrian’s time as Pop...

By Tom AndersonIn previous articles in this series, we looked at naval history through the topics of the Mediterranean galley, and then those early oceangoing ships which traversed distant seas to exp...

By Tom AndersonIn the first part of this multi-part article, I looked at the millennia-long history of the Mediterranean galley as a vessel of trade and war. Historically in Europe an important divisi...

By Matthew Kresal.Alternate history and space exploration feel made for each other. Missions and crews that might have been, firsts that could have gone another way, and the tantalizing idea that had ...

By Tom AndersonThe men and women who go to sea have always captured the human imagination. Some nations, often island nations such as United Kingdom, almost define themselves through their relationshi...

By Ryan Fleming.The Renaissance regarded the new arrival who had suddenly appeared on the beach of the strange new world where they found themselves stranded. He was a young man in a merchant navy sea...

1948. The uneasy peace between Britain and Germany holds. War in the East sucks the economy dry, but Nazi Germany dominates Europe. Britain stands alone as they enter the atomic age. In Dresden a br...

By Ryan Fleming.A peculiarity about filmmaking as a collaborative process is that sometimes those involved in making the film can have conflicting visions of what sort of film they’re making. And then...

By Dale CozortThis Scenario was originally posted on Dale's Blog in 2022. Essays like this can be found in Dale's 'Space Bats and Butterflies' Collections.The G1 was a French project to produce a new ...

By Gary OswaldIn 1856, the Xhosa people of the Western and Eastern Cape provinces of modern South Africa committed possibly the single largest unforced error in the history of modern geopolitics. It b...

By Alexander Wallace.This article was originally published at Nerds of a Feather and the original article can be found there. Please check that blog for more like this.Mainstream Western alternate his...

By Tom Anderson The origins of political party colours were briefly mentioned in my previous article on the origins of ideological names. As I mentioned in that article, it is worth bearing in mind th...

By Ryan Fleming.The Renaissance had at last made it to the strange new world that had seemingly appeared from thin air in the South Pacific several days before – shipwrecked, exhausted, and having nar...

1948 was a pivotal year in the history of the Italian peninsula. The first democratic elections were held after the end of the fascist dictatorship, and the peninsula's future in the Cold War was dete...

By Gary Oswald.In 1013 Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Denmark and Norway, invaded England after having raided the country regularly for the last decade. England was considerably richer than Denmark or Norwa...

By Marcus RauchfußThis article was first published over here by our friends at Never Was Magazine and is shared as part of our partnership with Never Was. For more articles like this please check out ...

By Tim VenningThe crucial events of 180 AD have inspired two major Hollywood films, the top-rated ‘Gladiator’ and the now largely forgotten 1964 ‘sword and sandals’ blockbuster ‘Fall of the Roman Emp...

By Raffaele Gaggioli.I’ve always been passionate about alternate history, even though this genre isn’t very common in Italian literature. For this reason, as soon as I had the chance, I started visiti...

By Gary OswaldSea Lion Press is built around producing Alternative or Alternate History content and implicit in that goal is the assumption that there is value in Alt History literature. But obviously...

By Ryan Fleming.The Renaissance were aboard their launch speeding towards the shore of the strange new world that had captivated the imaginations, and greed, of the entire world. They were two hundred...

SCIENCE FICTION MEETS ALTERNATE HISTORY IN THIS EPIC NEW STORY FROM SIDEWISE AWARD NOMINATED AUTHOR TOM ANDERSON The year is 2052, the future of an Earth subtly different from our own. The human race has survived nuclear war, climate change and global terrorism - but now faces the approaching brick wall of the ever-limited resources of one world to be shared between ten billion people (and rising). Who will be the author of humanity's escape strategy from this hopeless situation? Who will find a way to slip the surly bonds of Earth? The Graham family, captains of global industry? Rachel Lerousse, inventor of ever more ambitious artificial intelligences? Quynh Nguyen, rising political star of ASEAN? But in Switzerland, two young students in love share a dream that will outshine them all. A song of ascents, a story of beginnings.

By Andrew J. HarveyOn the Sea Lion Press Forums, we run a monthly Vignette Challenge. Contributors are invited to write short stories on a specific theme (changed monthly).The theme for the 88th conte...

After a hiatus, Sea Lion Press is back. Two new titles, one from an SLP veteran and one from a newcomer, are available now in ebook and paperback formats. I'm delighted to confirm that this is how a...

By Matthew Kresal.Imagine that the Silver Age DC comics played out alongside real world events of the 1950s. In his 2004-5 six-issue limited series DC: The New Frontier, writer and artists Darwyn Cook...

By Ryan Fleming.Not for the first time, not even the first time that day, Charles Chance found himself staring down the barrel of a gun. As ever, the latest time could be the last time.“I should have ...

By Gary Oswald.Ireland prior to 800 AD was almost entirely rural. There were settlements but these were normally either ringforts where in a clan would find shelter during wars or monasteries and reli...

By Gary OswaldIn 1907, the German Empire in Africa consisted of four territories. German South West Africa, German East Africa, German Togoland and German Kamerun.In 1904, German South West Africa saw...

By Tom AndersonFew inventions have changed the world more than radio, and the multitudinous technologies it then gave birth to in turn, including radar (which will be covered in a future article). The...

By Alexander Wallace.This article was originally published at Nerds of a Feather and the original article can be found there. Please check that blog for more like this.There is a lot to be said about ...

By Tom Anderson.Thus far the Surly Bonds series consists of two books, The Surly Bonds of Earth and Well Met By Starlight. The third book in the series, a direct sequel to Well Met will shortly debut ...

By Ryan Fleming.Frank Slate was practically giddy to have the famed Renaissance Man, Charles Chance, on the business end of his revolver. He had never cared much for the do-gooder or his ilk that the ...

By Matthew Kresal.When Survival aired in November and December 1989, a number of ideas and serials were in development for Doctor Who’s 27th season. Ones that would, ultimately, go unmade when the ser...

By Matthew KresalThe 1960s Space Race saw the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in an ever-evolving game of one-upmanship. One that saw them leaping from first satellite to the first man to t...