Troy Buzby writes character-driven alternate history. The Strand series begins in 1760s Pennsylvania, where ancient technology arrives in the wrong hands and reshapes a generation. Four books, four protagonists, the human cost of a history that stopped going where it was supposed to go. Troy Buzby exists as a separate pen name to avoid confusion with the historian Ben K. Wilson.
It’s a cop out to say the book is better than the movie. There are times when the movie is far, far better. But readers insist the book is better? Why is that? Tribalism. Or, “I read the book and you didn’t”-ism. The first time I ran across something like this was when I was listening to a popul...
Weapons constrain strategy more than generals do. From the tercio to the trenches, every arms-tactics mismatch cost a generation.
Franklin's genius would have dominated the story. Killing him was the hardest narrative choice in the Strand series, and the most necessary.
A pilot died ten miles from safety with broken instruments. History is our instrument panel, and we stopped teaching people to read it.
Kill Hitler and another dictator rises. History rarely hinges on one moment. Alternate history needs a period of divergence, not a point.
A century of self-governance made American revolution inevitable. What would it actually take to prevent it?
The forgotten 1763 war that overran eight British forts, provoked the Proclamation Line, and set the American Revolution in motion.
How to research alternate history, why five books reveal the truth, and why story beats accuracy when the two conflict.