People have been telling stories about strange and tempting things in the sea since at least the ancient Greeks. Do not Scylla and Charybdis count? In the age of sail, they became stories of krakens and mermaids. Even now, in an age of satellites that have mapped the entirety of the world’s oceans, tales of the sea are enrapturing to us, as the success of Pirates of the Caribbean and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World show.

E.C. Ambrose has written a short novel which is another take on those legends: The King of Next Week.

It is the 1860s, after the end of the American Civil War. A merchant ship under the command of Matthew Percy loaded with ice stops briefly on an island somewhere near the coast of Morocco. He and his crew expect it to be empty, but they find that it is inhabited by jinn, the creatures of Islamic legend. The captain falls in love with one of these jinn, who he ends up marrying within a day of landing.

The most known example of handing out white feathers to those accused of cowardice was during the First World War, when British men who didn’t enlist were handed the plumes by women who supported the war effort. The tradition, however, is older. It has its roots in the eighteenth century.

In 1902, A.E.W. Mason wrote his novel The Four Feathers about a man who does not want to fight but is made to by his compatriots. It is a novel about what war does to the unwilling and the nature of societal pressure.

Harry Feversham never wanted to be in the British Army. This is inconvenient for him, for he is from a military family. He serves unhappily for a time, then resigns his commission. Unfortunately for him, it is a day before the British Army is deployed to Sudan. Three of his friends send him a white feather each, and a fourth comes from his fiancée, who breaks off the engagement. To restore his honor, Harry disguises himself to go to Sudan to prove himself worthy.

The Aeronaut’s Windlass is a hard book to describe. I went into it expecting a steampunk story. That influence is clear, but there is more. Jim Butcher brings elements of high fantasy and naval fiction (albeit transposed into the skies) and perhaps a dash of the post-apocalyptic.

What I can tell you with certainty is that this is an entertaining book.

The world of The Aeronaut’s Windlass (the first volume in the yet-to-be-completed Cinder Spires series) is dominated by massive towers, called spires, in which human beings live. One memorable scene involves a woman seeing the sky for the first time. It is implied that many never do. Something horrible must have happened on the surface, for dangerous creatures will occasionally crawl up the spires through ventilation tunnels.

For want of a ship, a nation was lost.

Such is the point of divergence of Arturo Serrano’s To Climates Unknown: the premature sinking of the Mayflower. Otto von Bismarck said that “God has a special providence for fools, drunkards and the United States of America.” In this world, that civilization, Anglo-America (which includes Canada, much of the Caribbean and Belize), simply never comes to pass.

It is a strange point of divergence, one that a pedant could poke ample holes in. I certainly could; it makes an assumption that usually irritates me, for I am from Virginia. I remember in fourth grade having the saying “Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in the New World” drilled into my head. As such, an overemphasis on Plymouth irks me.

The nitpicker might discount this novel for that oversight. They would be making a grave mistake, for I can say without hyperbole that To Climates Unknown is the best alternate-history novel I have ever read.