There are nine essays which include the questions: What if Charles I had avoided the Civil War? What if there had been no American Revolution? What if Germany had invaded Britain in May 1940? and What if John F. Kennedy had lived?

These subjects immediately spark interest: there are quite a few discussions of history diverging under the Tudors, for instance, but I cannot think of any which discuss the continuity of the Stewarts and their feudal Divine Right of Kings. Or, similarly, although we look back at the United States involvement in Vietnam, there is little explicit discussion of the consequences of Kennedy's own home policies (Johnson in many ways was far more radical). Really, only the subject of Hitler's England is not new, but that seems to lend itself to a hundred different treatments.

But of all these promises few are kept: this is a book by academic historians who seem intent on making their work dry as dust. In particular they are all intent on setting the scene for their point of divergence, and then they fail to expand the consequences. After struggling through the Introduction, the despair I felt when I realised that the first essay, John Adamson's "England Without Cromwell", was no better cannot be understated. Should Adamson have left the subject of this book to the last paragraph and then reduced it to a few lines: "How many of those who became parliamentarians during the 1640s would otherwise have become the loyal servants of a monarchical regime? In most cases this must remain an open question"? I think not: it was to read answers or suggestions of answers to this sort of question that I spent my twenty pounds.

In 1994 Michael Morton started to publish a magazine ALTERNATE WORLDS, though only one issue appeared, but that first issue included a long bibliography of alternative history, as well as articles by Brian Stableford and Andrew Marr. Intelligent discussion of 'What if' history has so long and credible a record that I am starting to think that so many contributors unaware of it coming together in VIRTUAL HISTORY is beyond chance. Ferguson's own statements are outstanding examples of this counterfactuality. He writes "Small wonder the volume (Squire's IF) was soon dead and buried" (page 10), and then maintains this stream. He discusses Robert Harris's FATHERLAND and then mentions Philip K. Dick's THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE as one of "many less successful works" (page 441). He calls Keith Robert's PAVANE a "Catholic Utopia". The contrary, of course, is that Squire's book is well known (if difficult to obtain), and was reprinted in an expanded edition as recently as 1972; that Dick's novel is a far greater success than Harris's (unless Ferguson means copies sold); and that PAVANE is dystopian. He also manages to invent a novel by John Wyndham entitled RANDOM QUEST.

I had great hopes for VIRTUAL HISTORY - I would not have paid out real cash otherwise, but I was disappointed. And the cynic in me wonders did this manuscript perhaps drop through some wormhole in the space-time continuum from another dimension where things are not as they are in this world? Not being sure I suggest not buying VIRTUAL HISTORY should you wish to find out. Do not let history repeat itself over the bookshop counter.