Never Was Magazine

[Never Was Magazine]

The Two Georges

The Two Georges is rich in action scenes and locations, but lackluster in its plot and worldbuilding.

The two most common alternate-history settings are ones based on World War II and the American Civil War. Bringing up a distant third are those based upon the American War of Independence, one of which is The Two Georges by author Harry Turtledove and Academy Award-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss.

The history presented within the novel is kept deliberately vague in favor of a globetrotting…

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[Never Was Magazine]

Remaking the World

From the imperial era to the global ambitions of totalitarian ideologies - a history of attempts to remake the world

It wasn’t until the modern era that would-be conquerors and do-gooders could think on a global scale. The discovery of the New World and the invention of steamboats, the telegraph, airplanes, television and intercontinental ballistic missiles made the world feel smaller. Egyptian pharaohs and Chinese emperors may have claimed to rule everything under the sun and the heavens; it wasn’t until the…

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[Never Was Magazine]

Declare

Tom Powers brings together the worlds of mysticism and spycraft in Declare

The world of espionage is one filled with secrets, of things that are deemed by one group or another to be worth killing over. They can be weapons or pieces of information or research facilities or other things of that nature. What unites all of that is their vital importance to somebody’s security.

The world of mysticism is also filled with secrets. There are fraternities and orders and other…

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[Never Was Magazine]

Gallipoli

Review of Gallipoli: The story of a country that received its baptism by fire on the cliffs of Turkey

Germany has the Thirty Years’ War. Britain has the Somme. America has Vietnam. Israel has Lebanon. Many countries have their battles or wars that forever imprint within the minds of their populations that armed conflict is a putrid slaughterhouse where nothing is gained but a pile of bones.

Australia has Gallipoli, that peninsula on the north of the Dardanelles, guarding the way to Istanbul (or…

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[Never Was Magazine]

Nazi Flying Saucers

The Nazis (probably) didn’t built flying saucers, but they appear everywhere in #dieselpunk

Often, but not always, paired with Nazis in Antarctica and Nazis on the Moon is the Nazi UFO or flying saucer trope.

The trope has a tenuous basis in reality. The Nazis really did develop strange aircraft, including a flying wing, and Allied pilots did claim to spot “foo fighters” over the skies of Germany near the end of the war. This was when Hitler was banking on his “wonder weapons” to…

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[Never Was Magazine]

The Art of John Harris

The sci-fi art of John Harris

John Harris is a British artist known for his otherworldly landscapes and science-fiction book covers.

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[Never Was Magazine]

The Sightless City

Our review of Noah Lemelson’s #steampunk novel The Sightless City

Politics, science, intrigue, the supernatural and a murder mystery that seems to be at the heart of it. It sounds like an excellent combo and, yes, at first glance The Sightless City seems to have it all. But while the concept is good, the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

It’s the same old story: warring states, races that don’t get along and an evil mega corporation with an evil mastermind…

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