What if?

Altered Times is a stunning collection of short stories that examine the consequences of a single change in history.

The stories look at how a number of events may have gone in a different direction, from the decidedly pre-historical collision of Earth with the astronomically theoretical proto-planet Theia, to three alternative consequences for the 2020 presidential election. In between, Caesar pays attention to the soothsayer, Aaron Burr’s gun misfires, and other events change the world as we know it.

The earliest story tells when Theia and Earth fail to collide 4.2 billion years ago, resulting in our moon never existing. Imagine if Caesar does beware the Ides of March, if Alexander Hamilton never dies in a duel, if James Marshall quietly collects gold instead of riding his horse into town screaming, Gold! Gold on the American River, setting off the California Gold Rush.

What if the January 1912 murder of a California assemblyman is averted, resulting in his election as president in 1940? And what could have possibly changed the 2020 election?

What if?

About the Author: Thomas Wm. Hamilton is a retired professor of astronomy and a planetarium director who also worked for three years on the Apollo Project. He has written six books on astronomy; this is his fifth book of fiction. The author is a Fellow of the International Planetarium Society and the namesake of asteroid 4897 Tomhamilton.