Alternate History Short Stories
An anthology by Flame Tree Publishing that features “The Savior of Worlds,” a short story written by Jonathan Davidson
What if the course of history had been changed by a different decision, a different victor, a different invention? Utopian stories and alternative history stories by H.G. Wells, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Castello Holford and others are combined here with new stories by new writers from open submissions, exploring the variety and delight of alternative history to reimagine the world around us: What if the Ancient Egyptians had conquered Rome? What if World War II had been won by the loser, not the victors? What if women had ruled the world for 4,000 years instead of men?
“The Savior of Worlds”
“I stand on stage between Jackie Kennedy and a man who killed 150,000 people.”
That’s the opening line of my short story, “The Savior of Worlds,” that appears in the Alternate History Short Stories anthology from Flame Tree Publishing.
When the first atomic bomb exploded over New Mexico on July 16, 1945, J. Robert Oppenheimer recalled a verse from the Bhagavad Gita, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Years later, when contemplating the power given to the president of the United States to unilaterally launch nuclear weapons, Harvard professor Roger Fisher suggested a radical and horrifying way to place a check on that power.
Oppenheimer’s scripture and Fisher’s plan for nuclear deterrence inspired me to write a short story about how the Cuban Missile Crisis might have unfolded had America adopted Fisher’s idea. The story is told through the eyes of Janet Carmichael, a young woman from Northern California, who is commissioned as the first Savior of Worlds.