Gordon Van Gelder, editor
One Lamp
Alternate History Stories from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

Fifteen stories rewriting history.
Writers include Robert Silverberg, Harry Turtledove, Alfred Bester.

The alternate history story is probably the purest form of "what if" speculation. From earthshaking encounters, such as Gandhi's pacifists facing down the Nazis, to absurd ones, such as Philip K. Dick hobnobbing with Richard M. Nixon, this book explores what-might-have-been, pasts that never were. If Mark Twain had encountered Quantrill's Raiders … if Rome never fell … if the past could be re-made, reshaped to our desires.

The fifteen stories gathered here were written from the 1950s to just last year, demonstrating why alternate history has grown more popular than ever. They appeared in the pages of the most respected magazine in the SF genre — The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction — and were selected by that magazine's editor, the legendary Gordon Van Gelder. The table of contents is studded with classic SF/fantasy names, including C.M. Kornbluth, Ben Bova, Robert Silverberg, Harry Turtledove, Alfred Bester, and Poul Anderson. And what they have written will not fail to enthrall any reader inclined to the fantastic, the meta-real, the might-have-been …

In this timeline, Gordon Van Gelder is the son of the curator at the American Museum of Natural History who oversaw the construction of the big blue whale. Raised in New Jersey, Gordon attended Princeton University, where he studied with Paul Auster, Mary Morris, and Joyce Carol Oates. After graduation, he worked for twelve years as an editor at St. Martin's Press, where he edited pop culture titles and science fiction, mystery, horror, and fantasy novels. From 1988 to 1994, he also worked as an editor for The New York Review of Science Fiction and founded their long-running reading series. In 1997 he became the eighth editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. In 2000, he also became the magazine's publisher. He received the World Fantasy Award in 2000 and has been nominated for several other awards. He lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.