A couple of other good ones, not in the Turtledove vein with a fully-fleshed out novel with characters, but definitely solid what-if fictional short essays written by real (gasp!
) historians:
Rising Sun Victorious and Third Reich Victorious, both edited by Peter G Tsouras
The gist of both books is that the course of World War 2 could have changed in any particular direction with minor changes in strategy. Memorable stories included:
- the Japanese only attacked the Phillipines and Singapore on Dec 7/41, and the US Pacific Fleet was completely annihilated at Surigao Strait when they went charging right into a Japanese Long Lance torpedo ambush
- after the British were beaten in Normandy, the anti-Nazi conspirators in the Wehrmacht assassinated Hitler and all his underlings. Rommel took over the military and government and forged an cease-fire with the Allies, the US went home in disgust at the British capitualtion, and the full force of German manpower and machinery from the Western front and Italy were redeployed (including hundreds of thousands of German POW's released by the former Allies) against at the Soviets, who the Germans then destroyed on the plains of central Poland
- Hitler joined the German Navy instead of the Army in World War One, became a brillant naval commander, and the more civilized culture of the Germany navy rid him of his anti-Semetic obsessions. He developed a strong hatred for the British due to the excesses of Versailles, and built a massive new German navy (including aircraft carriers) when he became Chancellor. Revolutionary
Blitzkreig naval tactics were employed against the British and in a matter of weeks the Royal Navy was wiped out, leading to British capitulation and a harsh German occupation
- the US invasion forces at Leyte is utterly destroyed when the Japanese Combined Fleet does not retreat after wiping out the Taffy-3 escort carrier force. Bull Halsey becomes the most hated man in America for charging off after a Japanese decoy force and leaving the landing beaches to be pummelled into oblivion by the guns of the
Yamato and the
Mushashi- etc, etc.
Some of the stories were kind of a dry read, but overall the two books were worth it. There's also a third book out there from the same editor that details how the COnfederacy could have won the US Civil War on numerous occasions but I haven't picked it up just yet.
CKA Uber 
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