Pandora's Memories

December 1943. Adolf Hitler is dead. Queen Elizabeth II reigns on the Commonwealth throne while a usurper sympathetic to the Nazis inhabits Buckingham Palace. Having turned aside the Soviet Union's initial assault into the Greater Reich, the Wehrmacht is now stymied at the gates of Moscow. With the Red Air Force bloodied, the Kremlin under steady blows from the Luftwaffe, and Joseph Stalin comatose, the desperate Soviet Triumvirate turns to the United States in a plea for aid against the mutual Nazi foe. Indifferently equipped, the young men of the American Air Expeditionary Force (AAEF) are thrown into action in order to keep the Soviet Union in the war.




December 1965. Tabitha Cobb, a Masters student at Berkley University, sets out to learn the truth about the AAEF and the scars it left on its survivors. Attempting to earn a scholarship, Tabitha quickly learns that sometimes ignorance truly is bliss.




"Pandora's Memories" is a short story set in the Usurper's War alternate history universe. It includes an excerpt from Acts of War, the first novel in the series. In addition to the Usurper's War series, James Young is the co-editor of the Phases of Mars alternate history anthologies. These collections include short stories from David Weber, S. M. Stirling, and Taylor Anderson. Both Acts of War and Those In Peril (Phases of Mars No. 1) are available at your favorite bookseller.