read Man in the High Castle and Vulcan's Hammer by Dick, Philip K. HC is an alternate history in which Axis, bold as love, defeats the other guys. PDK whips up a pretty well thought out vision of it. I don't know the history of alternate histories, as in: who did the 1st, but certes they weren't a bubbling subgenre for him as they are now. I read one by Harry Turtledove, in which the Confederates win the Civil War. HT knew his history, on that score it worked, but the South won because some nasty Boers went back in time to bequeath AK47s on the Rebs. I'm leery of time travel stories, holes always pop up in the logic, and hasn't the Star Trek franchise done every possible permutation? yet HT still managed to keep the historical characters on track. he made a useful commentary on teh war out of the novel, despite the clunkiness. Dick's read is quite sharp, if you ax me. I would have no prob seeing this in an English class, taken just that seriously. not, of course, to murder it with study guides or whatever mechanical rendering of its 'meaning'. he addresses racism and has a sensitive sense of cultural differences. Jonathan Lethem, in his essay on Dick (titled "You Don't Know Dick") cites VH as about as bad as it gets with Dick. turns out that aint so gosh darn bad. it's a short crisp novel. for the 1st 100 pages I couldn't see why Lethem would disparage it. things quickly fell apart as the plot culminated. it's a future world (set, it would seem, in the 1990s) in which world government has been given over to a super computer. totalitarianism for the common weal, just like, um, now. the computer has a bit of a (predictable) nutty and, in a nifty subtlety, the computer replaced by the latest one machinated against the newbie. unfortunately, at the 100 page mark (out of some 135) Dick starts rushing to finish. generic heroics, such as Tom Cruise might be party to, ensue. Lethem's right, it's pretty wobbly. still, in both books, the characters are quite fresh, thatis, they aren't the stiff drab pawns that Arthur C Clarke produces. what I like about Dick is how he keeps bobbing for the same apple, focuses on issues that matter to him. I started yet another one, something something Alphane Moon, which appears more satiric than others of his.