The appearance of Stephen King’s alternate history novel 11/22/63 has prompted The New Yorker’s Thomas Mallon to take stock of an entire subgenre ’til now scorned by literati.

Most fun of all, he mentions the Sidewise Awards repeatedly. It’s great to see an award run by sf fans given that kind of recognition.

Mallon says:

One of alt-history’s stalwarts is Harry Turtledove, the winner of two Sidewise Awards for Alternative History. His “The Guns of the South” (1992), in which the Confederacy wins the Civil War, is both absurd and meticulous, a Civil War reenactment conducted with AK-47s instead of Springfield Rifles. Turtledove creates a whole intricate biosphere with a somehow breathable atmosphere.

And again:

Philip Roth won a Sidewise Award for “The Plot Against America” (2004), and Michael Chabon received one for “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” (2007).

A free copy of the abstract is here. Naturally, The New Yorker would be delighted to sell you digital access to the full article and the rest of the issue in which it appears.

[Thanks to Steven H Silver, Evelyn Leeper,and ultimately Moshe Feder for the story.]