From archive (archive) Xref: sssab.se rec.arts.sf-lovers:10594 rec.arts.books:3189 Path: sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!uupsi!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!att!cbnewsj!ecl From: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,rec.arts.books Subject: KALEIDOSCOPE by Harry Turtledove Message-ID: <1990May10.143025.20180@cbnewsj.att.com> Date: 10 May 90 14:30:25 GMT Followup-To: rec.arts.sf-lovers Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 61 KALEIDOSCOPE by Harry Turtledove Del Rey, 1990, ISBN 0-345-36477-5, $3.95. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1990 Evelyn C. Leeper Though Turtledove's shorter works have been collected before, those collections were specialized: one collection was A DIFFERENT FLESH, his stories of an alternate world in which Homo erectus settled the Americas rather than the ancestors of the Indians, and the other was AGENT OF BYZANTIUM, a collection of his stories set in an alternate history in which Byzantium never fell. But KALEIDOSCOPE, as the name implies, is not a single-themed collection, but more varied. There is one "sim" story ("sim" being the name for the descendents of Homo erectus found in the Americas when the Europeans arrived). But though "And So to Bed" starts out promising--set in 1661, it is the earliest of the sim stories I have read--it ends with a blatant ripoff of a later historical occurrence in our world. "A Difficult Undertaking" is another story set in another one of Turtledove's existing mythoi, his Videssos cycle. "Bluff" was based on an interesting premise, but I found it difficult to suspend my disbelief (though others more trained in psychology have praised it). "The Road Not Taken" suffers the same problem--Turtledove has fascinating ideas, but can't always make the reader accept them. Suspending one's disbelief in "The Weather's Fine" is even harder: the idea that time is like weather and when you talk about it being "in the upper sixties," you mean everyone is wearing love beads is a bit hard to take. But if you can go with the flow, so to speak, the story is worthwhile. But in this case, the premise is not intended seriously, and I suppose it's no more ridiculous than what happens to Alice after she falls down the rabbit hole and no one berates that for being unbelievable. "Hindsight" is one of the better science fiction stories in which science fiction and science fiction authors play an important part that I have read, and considerably above Larry Niven's much-touted "The Return of William Proxmire." Turtledove hits every sub-genre. The horror stories include "Crybaby" (which may hit a bit too close to home for some) and "Gentlemen of the Shade," an excellent vampire story which has (for me anyway) a nicely un- final ending. (Yes, I suppose this means there could be a sequel, but it can also stand as is, hinting at what the future may hold.) "The Castle of the Sparrowhawk" and "The Summer Garden" are Turtledove's high fantasy efforts; I found the former had interesting characterizations, but couldn't finish the latter. "The Girl Who Took Lessons" is not science fiction, fantasy, or horror--well, not exactly. Not all the stories are successful. "The Boring Beast," co-authored with Kevin D. Sandes, was apparently written when they were intoxicated. It shows. If you think that having a main character named Condom the Trojan makes a story funny, you may like this one. I don't, and I didn't. "The Last Article" is another alternate history, this time postulating that Hitler's armies made it to India and were controlling it when Gandhi tried to use his policy of non-violence against them. It is, alas, very predictable. Still, the hit rate is high: four very good ("The Weather's Fine," "Hindsight," "Gentlemen of the Shade," and "The Girl Who Took Lessons"), five acceptable, and four disappointing. All in all, KALEIDOSCOPE is a good introduction to Harry Turtledove's wide range of talents. Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 201-957-2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Jan 20 14:25:32 1992 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!psinntp!psinntp!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!network.ucsd.edu!pacbell.com!pacbell!pbhyc!djdaneh From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: EARTHGRIP by Harry Turtledove Message-ID: <1992Jan17.182310.4806@pbhyc.PacBell.COM> Date: 17 Jan 92 18:23:10 GMT Sender: djdaneh@pbhyc.PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes) Reply-To: ecl@mtgzy.att.com Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Organization: Pacific * Bell Lines: 68 Approved: djdaneh@pbhyc.pacbell.com EARTHGRIP by Harry Turtledove A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1991 Evelyn C. Leeper If Tony Lewis ever updates his ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RECURSIVE SCIENCE FICTION, here is another addition, for this is a novel in which science fiction itself plays a role. Well, more accurately, this is a novelette, a short story, and a novel, with science fiction playing a major role in two of them (and Sherlock Holmes filling that category in the third). In "The G'Bur" (originally titled "6+" and appearing in the September 1987 ANALOG), we meet Jennifer Logan, a student of Middle English science fiction--like the works of Robert Heinlein. (The story is set in the future, year unspecified, but everyone speaks Spanglish.) She decides to travel with the Traders into space to see firsthand the current reality in order to compare it with the fictional predictions of the old stories. And in the process she gets to use some tricks she learned from reading these old books, sort of like someone today using a Trojan horse to get into an army base. Well, that's not quite fair, because we expect most people to be familiar with the story of the Trojan horse, but there's no reason to expect aliens to be familiar with Heinlein. The second story, "The Atheters" (originally "Nothing in the Night- time" in the March 1989 ANALOG) uses a Sherlock Holmes story as the key to the solution, but the whole thing is a bit too obvious. Still, as an interlude between the two longer pieces it provides a brief diversion. The main part of the book is "The Foitani" (originally serialized as "The Great Unknown" in ANALOG from April 1991 to June 1991). Here we finally have a chance to see Jennifer use her talents in more than just a cursory fashion. It all works fine, until once again she starts using her knowledge of science fiction. And then it falls apart, because it's all too pat and neat and easy. The result is that the whole story ends up sounding very self-congratulatory: "We always knew that science fiction was better than all that other stuff, and here's proof." (It doesn't surprise me at all that these stories appeared in ANALOG; they're just the sort of thing Schmidt prints.) On the positive side, Jennifer Logan is a female protagonist who gets by on her brains, not her beauty. Turtledove describes her as "blond and beautiful" (making the eye-catching cover at least reasonable accurate), but also points out that all humans probably look equally ugly to aliens anyway, and it is with aliens that Jennifer is dealing. And Turtledove is a competent author, so the stories are readable and for the most part enjoyable. But the stress ultimately placed on the value of science fiction undermines them. (If the novels Jennifer uses in "The Foitani" were that convincing, we'd have a lot fewer problems now on this planet than we do.) If this were the summer, I'd say this would be an okay "beach book"-- acceptable for passing the time, but nothing more. (It's a refreshing note of honesty that Turtledove, or Del Rey, or somebody, listed the previous appearances of the stories on the copyright page. All too often this information is hidden from the reader, and given the title changes here, without this information the reader would have NO way of knowing this was not the first appearance of this work.) %T Earthgrip %A Harry Turtledove %C New York %D December 1991 %I Del Rey %O paperback, US$3.99 %G Del Rey, 1991, ISBN 0-345-37239-5, $4.99. %P 264pp Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com From archive (archive) From: ecl@mtgzy.UUCP (Evelyn C. Leeper) Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ Subject: AGENT OF BYZANTIUM by Harry Turtledove Date: 22 Feb 88 14:48:48 GMT AGENT OF BYZANTIUM by Harry Turtledove Congdon & Weed, 1987, 0-86553-183-8, $15.95. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper I had heard about this novel at Boskone, but couldn't find it in the Dealers' Rooms there. Then lo and behold! there it was in the Old Bridge Public Library! Well, you know me and alternate history novels (particularly the small minority that *aren't* based on either the South winning the Civil War or Germany winning World War II), so I immediately checked it out and read it. Well, uh, it was okay, I guess. I mean, the stories were interesting and the characters were reasonable adventure story characters, though nothing remarkable in characterization. But there was a certain sameness to the stories. They were originally written as short stories which appeared in various magazines (chiefly ASIMOV'S). This "novel" was formed by concatenating the stories, without any apparent additional editing. So in each story we get aside references to how Byzantium never fell, how St. Mahoumet converted to Christianity, what a beautiful cathedral the Hagia Sofia is, etc. Had this been edited better, Turtledove could have filled in some new background details instead of repeating these same ones over and over. In addition, the stories all fit a set pattern. In each one, Basil Argyros (I may have the spelling wrong--it was a one-week book and I had to return it) discovers some amazing technological marvel--the telescope, movable type, brandy, and so on. Given that this takes place in the 1500s the period is right, but it's unlikely in the extreme that all this would center around one man. There's also a Mata Hari subplot that I could have done without. I suspect this was a case where the individual stories were more enjoyable that the "novel" they formed. If you read this, do it a story at a time, but a week or so in between them. Turtledove has done another alternate history series, his "Sim" series which is running in ANALOG. I may not like it when it's issued as a novel either, but I have enjoyed the individual stories and recommend them. Evelyn C. Leeper (201) 957-2070 UUCP: ihnp4!mtgzy!ecl ARPA: mtgzy!ecl@rutgers.rutgers.edu Copyright 1988 Evelyn C. Leeper From rec.arts.sf-reviews Mon Nov 9 00:42:50 1992 Path: lysator.liu.se!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!think.com!ames!ig!dont-reply-to-paths From: schmunk@spacsun.rice.edu (Robert Schmunk) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Turtledove's THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH Message-ID: Date: 8 Oct 92 22:04:36 GMT Sender: mcb@presto.ig.com Reply-To: schmunk@spacsun.rice.edu (Robert Schmunk) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Organization: Dept. of Space Physics, Rice University, Houston TX Lines: 157 Approved: mcb@presto.ig.com (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH: A NOVEL OF THE CIVIL WAR By Harry Turtledove A book review by R.B. Schmunk (Copyright 1992) THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH is a new alternate history novel from one of the more prolific writers of that sub-genre, Harry Turtledove. Although Turtledove's specialty in graduate school was Byzantine history (see his Agent of Byzantium short stories), he turns in this case to the American Civil War, or as it is called in THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH, The Second American Revolution (actually, I was rather surprised that was only one very late reference to the War Between the States). But be careful; you may not find this volume in your favorite bookstore's science fiction section. Like Robert Harris' recent FATHERLAND, this is apparently being pushed to a more mainstream audience, perhaps too catch the wave of interest set in motion by the PBS documentary of two years back. Although the book was published by Ballantine, it does not bear the DelRey imprint, and the only cover blurb is by James MacPherson, author of the Civil War history BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM (much recommended, by the way). The premise of the story is not new, having been used before in Harry Harrison's A REBEL IN TIME and Charles L. Harness' "Quarks at Appomatox" and that is of someone going back in time to give aid to the Confederacy. In this case it is Afrikaaners from the year 2014 who have decided to smother that pernicious concept of racial equality before it evers reaches South African shores. To this end, they show up at Robert E. Lee's encampment in January 1864 and offer to provide the entire Confederate army, both Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and elements elsewhere, with AK-47 automatic rifles. After a demonstration of that weapon's capabilities, Lee readily accepts. Marse Robert is, however, not without his suspicions. The strangers, who only state that they're from Rivington, North Carolina, have other strangely new technology besides automatic weapons, and the cost at which they are selling the guns to the Confederacy is ridiculously low. Six weeks later, when the strangers demonstrate uncanny advance knowledge of Kilpatrick's cavalry raid on Richmond (in our history an embarrassment to the Union; in this book a rout before it barely commenced), he puzzles out that they must be from the future. When he confronts their leader, Lee is told that they have come back to prevent the North's vicious postwar subjugation of the South, implemented by Abe Lincoln and his successor, Thaddeus Stevens. This sounds well enough to Lee and he now happily accepts their aid in the soon-to-occur battle of the Wilderness, details about which they provide. When that battle begins May 4, it immediately becomes an overwhelming Confederate victory, and by the end of the month, rebel troops have occupied Washington, DC, captured Lincoln and forced the end of the war. Sounds like quite a story, right? And to think that's only the first 175 pages of a 500-page novel. What remains to be told is the history of the CSA over the next four years (particularly the settlement of the border between USA and CSA and the Confederate presidential election of 1867) and of their relationship with these men from "Rivington". To tell the tale, Turtledove has essentially employed two main characters. One of course if Lee, and the other is a member of the 47th North Carolina, a sergeant named Nate Caudel (who actually existed, though Turtledove has presumably invented much of the detail about him). Following the war, Lee continues to serve the govt in various capacities, but Caudel is mustered out and returns to his home town, which lies near Rivington. While I admire Turtledove for attempting something in this book that I don't recall seeing in any previous alternate Civil War novel, I found myself not getting terribly involved with the characters and perhaps the story itself. What he has done that is perhaps unique is attempt to describe in relatively fine strokes what the Confederacy would have done after the war was over, both in its dealings with the US and with itself. Other authors have used some of the same ideas before, notably Winston Churchill in his "If Lee had not Won the Battle of Gettysburg" and Ward Moore in BRING THE JUBILEE, but both of those authors usually made broad statements about history and kept going. Turtledove has put some more meat on the bones, and I particularly liked the arguments he used to explain why Lee comes around to deciding that the slaves must be freed. The only author I can think of who attempts to detailing a post-war CSA was Leonard Skimin in GRAY VICTORY, and that novel was focused in another direction. What's the problem then? Well, two major ones in my eyes. First, having seceded because the Federal govt was too bossy, many of the Southern states were no better in their dealings with the govt in Richmond. During the war, several governors were often openly defiant of the soon-despised Jeff Davis, and his own Vice President Andrew Stephens spent the bulk of the war at his plantation back home in Georgia. In THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH, such fractiousness is barely hinted at and no sign is seen of any conflict between Davis and Stephens. Given Turtledove's PhD in history, I know he must be well aware of this and I can only assume that he omitted such detail in order to prevent cluttering up the story. The other flaw is perhaps more important, and that is the lack of information about the "benevolent" Afrikaaners. It's obvious that they're trying to preserve apartheid in South Africa, but little else of real import is shown about them until near the end of THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH and it is too little. Turtledove has taken the easy way out by depending on the modern rejection of apartheid and in this case the skeleton contains no flesh. Connected with this last point is perhaps a trivial point, but one that will niggle at the back of my brain for some time. This is the connection between the Afrikaaners in the 1860s and their home time. >From the amount of equipment they bring back in time, one can only assume that they have a very large time machine or that there is a continuing link with home. If the latter is true, wouldn't that connection be severed when they alter history? Alternatively, they may be returning to the 2010s to measure the effect of their changes. Or possibly the 1864 and 2014 which have been connected are not in the same timeline, as James Hogan did in his PROTEUS OPERATION. Well, whichever the case may be, Turtledove doesn't get into it and I am left sitting here, stewing in my own juices. And two other truly trivial points which somehow got under my skin. At one point the "Star-Spangled Banner" is played to salute the American flag. It's my recollection that the SSB did not become the national anthem until the 20th century, and earlier in the novel Turtledove does mention the use of "Hail Columbia" in a somewhat similar situation. Pardon me, but I'm a bit confused by that one. The other trivial bugaboo occurs when Caudel returns to his home town, goes to the local postmaster to buy some writing paper and off- handedly asks for a postage stamp. The US did not begin using stamps until 1847, and the Confederacy issued so few that I wonder if a butternut soldier would have had much opportunity to use one. In both these cases Turtledove may be correct in his usage, but I wonder. I mentioned above a major point in favor of THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH and I suppose I ought mention a trivial one also. Early in the novel, Turtledove describes a baseball game being played by the encamped North Carolina soldiers. I have long been aware that the Civil War was responsible for the spread of my favorite game through the country and for the relative standardization of its rules. This book, though, is the first Civil War novel in which I have ever seen the game mentioned. Finally! To sum things up then, my recommendation is that THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH is not worth purchasing in hardback. Alternate history fans with some money may wish to rush out and grab a copy, but other should wait for the paperback or get their local public libraries to order it. Those of you who don't care for alternate history can safely give this one a miss. %A Harry Turtledove %T THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH: A NOVEL OF THE CIVIL WAR %I Ballantine %C New York City %D 1992 %G ISBN 0-345-37675-7 %O hardback, US$19.00 %P 517 pp. -- Robert B. Schmunk SPAC, Rice Univ, Box 1892, Houston, TX 77251 USA From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Mar 11 01:20:46 1993 Xref: lysator.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:61 soc.history:3511 rec.arts.books:11528 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,soc.history,rec.arts.books Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!uunet!wupost!micro-heart-of-gold.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!nobody From: ecl@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com (Evelyn Chimelis Leeper +1 908 957 2070) Subject: THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH by Harry Turtledove Message-ID: <9303101415.AA25095@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: news@news.media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1993 17:04:52 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Lines: 71 [Cross-posted to soc.history and rec.arts.books. --AW] THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH by Harry Turtledove A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1993 Evelyn C. Leeper If the point of studying history is to learn from it, then surely one should learn something from alternate histories as well. And certainly I found a lot in THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH that is relevant to current concerns-- in fact, far more so than one usually finds in alternate histories. But first, the story. Harry Turtledove has credited Judith Tarr with the inspiration for this book (previously known as THE LONG DRUM ROLL). It seems that he was talking to Judith about one of her books and she bemoaned the fact that the cover on it was "as anachronistic as Robert E. Lee holding an Uzi." Well, Turtledove thought about this and decided that Uzis were not the right weapon, but what about if Lee had an AK-47? What if Lee had a *lot* of AK-47s? And who would give Lee a lot of AK-47s? Time traveling Afrikaaners, of course. So Turtledove postulates a group of Afrikaaners from 2014 who have traveled back in time 150 years with thousands of AK-47s to help the Confederacy win the Civil War and set up a white supremacist government. In addition to the AK-47s, they have two additional "weapons": information about the Union's battle plans, and the spectre of the horrible outcome if the Union wins. The former, however, diminishes in value with time as this timeline moves further and further away from the timeline the Afrikaaners know. And the latter has its own pitfalls, as some soon discover. The most interesting part, though, is after the Confederacy wins the war. (Okay, this is a slight spoiler, but with thousands of AK-47s, it's hard to believe they might lose.) Though the war was fought in large part to maintain slavery, which in term was based on the belief in the inferiority of the black race, Lee finds himself faced with two very uncomfortable facts. First, though the common wisdom in the Confederacy (and in the Union, for that matter) was that blacks wouldn't--couldn't-- fight well as soldiers, the evidence of his own experience against black troops has taught Lee otherwise. And having begun thinking that maybe all the other "facts" about blacks that he's been taught are equally false, he is then brought face to face with the realization that history--his great- grandchildren and the great-grandchildren of those around him--would condemn slavery, and the men who upheld it, as evil. How he and others resolve this conflict is the focus of the last part of THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH and to a great extent of the book as a whole. And here is where I see the relevance. What do you do when evidence disproves a widely held belief about a group of people--in particular, about the fighting skills of a group of people? What do you do when you suspect (for can we ever *know*?) that history will condemn your age as bigoted for its treatment of a group of people? In case you haven't figured it out by now, I'm taling about the whole argument about allowing gay and lesbian soldiers in the military. Unless Turtledove is psychic (or had visitors from the future), he couldn't have foreseen just how relevant THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH would be. Yet that is what most impresses me about it. The historical aspects are, I am sure, impeccably researched, but it is the moral questions that gives this book meaning and body. It is more than just a laying-out of alternate Civil War battles. It has characters who have feelings and convictions, and who face dilemmas, and who change and are changed by the events around them. Don't think of this as just another "What if the South won the Civil War?" novel; it's much, much more. %T The Guns of the South %A Harry Turtledove %C New York %D October 1992 %I Ballantine %O hardback, US$19 %G ISBN 0-345-37675-7 %P 518pp Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | ecl@mtgpfs1.att.com From rec.arts.sf.written Tue May 11 10:42:44 1993 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!uunet!olivea!charnel!rat!decwrl!csus.edu!netcom.com!dani From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) Subject: Turtledove: The Guns of the South (spoilers) Message-ID: Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) Date: Sun, 9 May 1993 18:39:20 GMT Lines: 54 Harry Turtledove's "The Guns of the South" begins near the end of the American Civil War, with the Confederacy facing near-certain defeat. The history portrayed in this book begins to diverge from the one we know when a group of strangers (whom the reader will recognize as modern Afrikaaners) supplies the South with 100,000 AK-47 rifles, and adequate ammunition. A crushing Southern military victory swiftly follows. Having won the war, the South must then win the peace. In particular, the problem of slavery will not go away. Worse, from the perspective of the Afrikaaners (who had hoped to make this Confederacy a bastion of white supremacy), now that the issues of slavery and of survival are disentangled, there is actually some movement towards gradual emancipation. (In this novel, Lee becomes part of that movement after the war.) When their attempt to dictate the politics of the victorious Confederacy fails, the Afrikaaners take direct action. The book has some promising premises, but what Turtledove does with them is disappointing. The first half of the book is "How would the Civil War had gone if the South had had Kalashnikovs?", and the answer, unsurpringly, is "swiftly". It's an uninteresting fantasy, on the order of "The Trojans would have won the Trojan War if they'd had a couple of tanks." A closer analogy might be WWI, if one side had had machine guns and the other side had only had bayonet charges. The second half is "How would the South have then handled their racial problem?" This could actually have been interesting, but Turtledove comes up with too pat an answer: The legislators learn that the future will scorn slavery, and this embarrasses them into voting for its dissolution. That's one more plot device than the book can really carry. The first plot device was clumsy and sloppy. Afrikaaner extremists in 2014 steal a time machine which can only function across 150-year gaps. Rather than use it to build a power base in nineteenth-century South Africa and change history there, they decide to forget about South Africa and mould America to their liking. Aside from the time machine, all their equipment is effectively out of the 1980s or 90s -- Turtledove chose the year 2014 for the existence of a time machine and for the round numbered year-gap, but he makes no effort to flesh that out in any other way. And even loonies would have more logic than to declare open warfare on the Confederacy when things don't seem to be going their way. These people are only in the book to shove the plot in whatever direction the author wishes. It's a well-researched book, it has some good ideas, and it's ultimately a waste of time. ----- Dani Zweig dani@netcom.com If you're going to write, don't pretend to write down. It's going to be the best you can do, and it's the fact that it's the best you can do that kills you! -- Dorothy Parker From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Jul 12 15:03:48 1993 Xref: lysator.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:143 alt.history.what-if:1317 soc.history:6940 rec.arts.books:19165 Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!pipex!uknet!mcsun!uunet!psinntp!dg-rtp!sheol!dont-reply-to-paths From: Evelyn.Chimelis.Leeper@att.com Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,alt.history.what-if,soc.history,rec.arts.books Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: DEPARTURES by Harry Turtledove Approved: sfr%sheol@concert.net (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Message-ID: <9307071455.AA20880@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com> Date: 11 Jul 93 13:08:24 GMT Lines: 160 DEPARTURES by Harry Turtledove A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1993 Evelyn C. Leeper While Turtledove is perhaps best known for his alternate history stories, and while many of the stories in this collection are alternate histories, the back blurb lies when it says, "Here Harry Turtledove explores such 'what-ifs' in twenty alternate history stories ranging from ancient times to the far, far-different future." Even counting stories with werewolves or vampires as alternate histories, only eleven of the twenty stories here are alternate history. But all twenty are good. Perhaps because of the historical nature of Turtledove's writing, the stories are arranged chronologically (by when the story takes place, not by when it was written). In fact, this collection was originally to be titled PASTS, PRESENTS, AND FUTURES. And this historical bent is evident even in the non-alternate-history stories, as you will see. "Counting Potsherds" takes place in the early second century B.C.E. and IS an alternate history story. What if the Persians defeated the Greeks and democracy never developed? Turtledove has done his research on the Near East (his degree is in Byzantine history and he has also used the near East as the setting in his set of alternate history stories collected in AGENT OF BYZANTIUM, about which I will say more later), and the world here is as well-developed as a reader could hope to find. "Death in Vesunna" is about history, and books, and the mistake of under-estimating one's opponents. Although reminiscent of Poul Anderson's "Time Patrol" stories, it focuses more on the residents of the period to which the time travelers go than on the time travelers themselves or their time--and this is the whole point. Turtledove's best known alternate history stories are his "Agent of Byzantium" stories, and "Departures" is a prequel to that series. 'Nuff said. "Pillar of Cloud, Pillar of Fire" is a regular "Agent of Byzantium" story which takes place between "Strange Eruptions" (a.k.a. "Etos Kosmou 6816") and "Unholy Trinity" (a.k.a. "Etos Kosmou 6824"). Turtledove has at last gotten away from having Basil Argyros invent or discover something famous, although the story does center around a very modern problem. "Islands in the Sea," by its placement here, reads as an alternate alternate history from "Departures" and the entire "Agent of Byzantium" series--not only does Mohammed NOT convert to Christianity, but the Muslim Arabs successfully invade southeastern Europe much sooner than they actually did. There is something odd, however, about reading a theological argument between a Christian and a Muslim written by a Jew. Well, at least no one can claim he is biased. If the existence of werewolves makes a story an alternate history, then "Not All Wolves" is an alternate history. A young boy who is actually a werewolf is fleeing from an angry mob in Twelfth Century Cologne. Cornered and desperate, he finds help from a most unexpected ally. Though the message is perhaps a bit unsubtle, the story is effective. "Clash of Arms" is NOT an alternate history story, but a story of a heraldic duel. I suspect one needs to know heraldry better than I do to appreciate the story, though even I found it mildly interesting. "Report of the Special Committee on the Quality of Life" is not, strictly speaking, alternate history. Rather, it's a parody of government feasibility studies by having Jaime Nose'nada ("I know nothing" in Spanish) write up all the reasons why Spain shouldn't bother to follow up on Columbus's journey. Cute, but more than a little preachy--I'm sure all the pro-space groups love it. An alternate history story only under the most liberal of definitions, "Batboy" is a baseball story, but probably wouldn't appeal to the average baseball fan--it's primary focus is fantasy rather than sports. "Designated Hitter" is another baseball story, but it is a straight science fiction story rather than alternate history. It didn't work as well for me as "Batboy" did, probably because it requires more knowledge of the techniques of baseball than I have. "The Last Reunion" is definitely not alternate history, though it recalls THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH in its story of a Confederate captain returning to Richmond in 1932 for a reunion of the Forty-seventh North Carolina. Turtledove recognizes the conflict between the nostalgia of the old soldier and the horrors of war, and my only complaint is that he doesn't do an entirely successful job of reconciling the two. If there's such a thing as an alternate future story, "Gladly Wolde He Lerne" is one. Unfortunately, it's a bit predictable (especially after the introduction Turtledove wrote) and a bit preachy. In fact, while I like Turtledove's introductions to the stories, I would recommend reading them AFTER you read the respective stories. We're on the receiving end of time traveling in "The Barbecue, the Movie, and Other Unfortunately Not So Relevant Material," an amusing story and a good change of pace from some of the more serious stories in the book. "In the Presence of Mine Enemies" is set in one of the more common alternate history worlds, one in which Germany won the Second World War. It's about survival under adversity and if it seems unlikely, one merely has to look at the recent revelation that large numbers of Catholics in the Southwest are descended from Jews who fled to the New World to escape the Inquisition. Just as "In the Presence of Mine Enemies" might have been inspired by news that post-dated it, but wasn't (of course--Turtledove is a good writer but not a fortune-teller), so might have been "The R Strain." In the latter case, it is the report of the babirusa, a cud-chewing pig, that could have generated this story of a genetically altered pig that just might be kosher. There has been much discussion on Usenet lately as to why pork is the ultimate non-kosher meat, even more so in people's minds than shellfish or anything else. And Turtledove's story acknowledges this by having its Conservative rabbi more concerned about whether the animal is prohibited than whether it has been killed in the kosher manner. To the non-Jew this may not matter, yet to a Jew reading this story there will remain the nagging feeling that if the rabbi is so blase about the manner of killing the animal, his opinion on its kosher status may also be suspect. I liked "Lure" for its use of Cenozoic mammals, a newly found interest of mine. Everyone is interested in dinosaurs, so I have to be different, I guess. Of course, this somewhat outre interest means I picked up some errors, such as Turtledove's having CYNODESMUS, DICERATHERIUM, and SYNDOCEROS, all early Miocene North American mammals, in late Miocene Italy (my reference is THE MACMILLAN ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA OF DINOSAURS AND PREHISTORIC ANIMALS). But what the heck--we have dinosaur movies with cavemen and dinosaurs co-existing, and those are considerably further apart in time, if not in space. And "Secret Names" is a perfect follow-up to "Lure," even though it is set in a post-holocaust future and at first appears to have nothing in common with a tale of prehistoric mammals. In fact, "The R Strain," "Lure," and "Secret Names" form a nice biological triptych. "Les Mortes d'Arthur" is primarily a science fiction murder mystery, with some sports thrown in. I found it similar to some of Isaac Asimov's "Wendell Urth" stories, and wonder if it isn't an homage of sorts to Asimov. The only story I have a real problem with in this collection is "Last Favor." Its evolutionary premise is interesting--and has to some extent been proposed as a model for certain groups here on Earth--but I think there are major problems in assuming its conscious self-application, particularly as described here. Then again, I'm sure if I'm wrong, some biologist will tell me. The final story is "Nasty, Brutish, and ...." It's a bar story, and also a "So there!" to H. G. Wells (in a manner of speaking). Unlike the five stories preceding it, this one at least has some chance of being an alternate history, or at least a secret history. (There is also an excerpt from Turtledove's GUNS OF THE SOUTH, but since it's more an ad than a story, I won't review it here. I do recommend the book, though.) DEPARTURES is a must-buy for alternate history fans, and highly recommended even for the general science fiction fan. %B Departures %A Harry Turtledove %C New York %D June 1993 %I Del Rey %O paperback, US$4.99 %G ISBN 0-345-38011-8 %P 342pp Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | ecl@mtgpfs1.att.com / Evelyn.Leeper@att.com From rec.arts.sf.written Mon Nov 29 17:50:09 1993 Path: liuida!sunic!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!concert!rutgers!ucs.indiana.edu!SHSILVER From: SHSILVER@UCS.INDIANA.EDU (Steven H Silver) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: REVIEW: Turtledove: WorldWar: In the Balance Message-ID: <9311291406.AA06523@rutgers.edu> Date: 29 Nov 93 14:05:13 GMT Sender: nobody@rutgers.rutgers.edu Lines: 52 Harry Turtledove's newest novel, WorldWar: In the Balance, tells the story of an alternate world in which Earth was invaded by aliens in the middle of World War II. Told with his usual attention to historical detail, Turtledove presents a logical view of the reactions of the major powers to the aliens, as soldiers and civilians from the various Ally and Axis powers come to terms with the sudden appearance of a possible common enemy and a possible ally. The fact that Turtledove does not have all the Terran powers join together against the common enemy is a refreshing, and unfortunately, probable occurrence. In the Balance suffers from some of the same features which are its strong points. Turtledove tells the story from the points of view of a number of different characters, ranging from an Illinois minor league baseball player turned soldier to a Chinese widow in an alien concentration camp to the alien fleet commander. Although this technique permits the reader to view the conflict from a number of different angles, it also is somewhat difficult to keep all the story lines straight. The fact that this is the first book of a projected trilogy only makes the complexity of the story that much more worrisome. I see myself having to re-read this book both when its sequel and the final volume come out, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. As with many of Turtledove's novels, readers who know something of history will be rewarded by the ironic parallels Turtledove includes. The portrayal of Vyacheslav Molotov's strong belief in the truth of Communism seems strange in these Post-Soviet days, but they help remind the reader that this book is an historical novel as much as an alternative history novel. One area which Turtledove does not really look into is the effect of the alien invasion on countries outside the World War II Sphere of action. Although he briefly mentions their subjugation to the invading Race, it would have been interesting to see how the aliens treated humans in these areas who were not revolting against them or hindering their movements. Perhaps Turtledove will expand the scope of the second and third books to give a glimpse into Post-invasion life in Africa, South America or Australia. A: Turtledove, Harry T: WorldWar: In the Balance: The Alternate History of Alien Invasion S: WorldWar 1 P: Ballantine Del Rey $: $21.00 p: 496pp I: 0-345-38241-2 D: January 1994 Steven H Silver | "When I get a little money, I Indiana University | buy books; and if any is left, SHSILVER@ucs.indiana.edu | I buy food and clothes." SHSILVER@IUBACS.BITNET | -Erasmus: In Praise of Folly From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed Dec 22 16:02:26 1993 Xref: liuida rec.arts.sf.reviews:452 rec.arts.books:72445 alt.books.reviews:1886 soc.culture.jewish:76261 Path: liuida!sunic!EU.net!uknet!doc.ic.ac.uk!agate!dog.ee.lbl.gov!newshub.nosc.mil!crash!news.sprintlink.net!dg-rtp!sheol!dont-reply-to-paths From: Evelyn.Chimelis.Leeper@att.com Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.books,alt.books.reviews,soc.culture.jewish Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: THE CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP by Harry Turtledove Approved: sfr%sheol@concert.net (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Message-ID: <9312201243.ZM4691@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com> Date: 22 Dec 93 01:59:48 GMT Lines: 71 THE CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP by Harry Turtledove Baen, ISBN 0-671-72196-8, 1993, US$5.99, A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1993 Evelyn C. Leeper This is, I suppose, an alternate history of sorts. Magic works, all the gods and goddesses and other supernatural beings are real, and so on. Yet except for a few minor name changes (the District of Columbia is the District of Saint Columba, for example, and Los Angeles is Angel City), everything else is pretty much the same. While this is extremely unlikely in a real alternate history (is that an oxymoron?), it hardly matters here however, since this story is *not* trying to be a classic alternate history story. I mention it only for those who have come to expect Turtledove to write alternate history stories. There are two aspects to this book: plot and puns. The plot involves David Fisher, an inspector for the EPA (Environmental Perfection Agency) and his investigation of a possible leak at a toxic spell dump. This leak appears to be causing babies to be born without souls. The puns are layered on top of the plot--often, in my opinion, obscuring it completely. It's too easy to get so wrapped up in spotting puns that you stop following the storyline. And Turtledove is shameless when it comes to puns. Not only does he refer to an overweight psychic and a Britisher who contacts spirits from the past as "the large medium and the English channeler," but he doesn't shirk from talking about the "devil with a blue dress on" or even including as narrative almost an entire verse of "Love Potion Number Nine." It may seem an odd criticism, but I think Turtledove's plot is interesting enough that the constant puns hurt, rather than help, the book. Conversely, the puns are good enough that you sometimes wish the plot didn't distract you from them. I like sushi and I like hot fudge, but they don't mix well either. One aspect of the premise I found fascinating, if a bit paradoxical, was the idea that all religions were "right." With the constant proof of them in everyday life, people in Turtledove's universe are more religious-- because they really believe that they will be punished if they're not. Aside from what ramifications this has for free will and faith versus proof, it leads me to wonder why the god(s) of one religion don't (or can't) punish the believers in a different religion. David Fisher is an observant Jew (actually another nice touch--one rarely finds the heroes of novels to be observant Jews, or even observant anything-elses), but why? He recognizes that all other religions are "true," so why does he remain Jewish? Is conversion not allowed? If so, what does that do to religions that require "informed consent" (i.e., you can become a full member only when you are old enough to make your own choice)? Do these religions never form in this universe? Does it have only religions one is born into? (Or baptized into at birth?) Maybe this whole subject interests me because I've been reading about why people change their religion and it seems to be more a social or emotional thing than that they decide they actually believe the formal tenets of one religion over another. (Lots of stuff here in case there's a sequel, I guess.) At any rate, Turtledove gives one a lot of food for thought here, and this may be somewhat of a surprise in a book that is basically a comedy-adventure. It may be just my personal taste for religious-based science fiction and fantasy, but I found THE CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP enjoyable and surprisingly meaty. If you have an appreciation--or at least a high toleration--for endless puns, I strongly recommend it. %T The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump %A Harry Turtledove %C New York %D December 1993 %I Baen %O paperback, US$5.99 %G ISBN 0-671-72196-8 %P 367pp -- Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | ecl@mtgpfs1.att.com / Evelyn.Leeper@att.com From rec.arts.sf.written Sun Nov 21 18:12:23 1993 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Path: liuida!sunic!pipex!uunet!olivea!hal.com!decwrl!netcomsv!netcom.com!dani From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) Subject: Turtledove: The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump Message-ID: Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1993 06:00:25 GMT Lines: 36 Harry Turtledove's "The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump" is silly, it's overflowing with bad puns, and -- unusual for books of that sort -- it's a good read even without the silliness. The basic premise is a variation of a familiar one: The story takes place in a world just like ours, except that magic does everything that science does here. (Actually, most of the magic is theurgic, relying on divine or demonic powers.) So people drive carpets instead of cars, but LA still has traffic jams, and Japanese knitting mills are still turning carpets out more cheaply than American ones. Badly injured people wind up in the Intensive Prayer Unit and everyone's excited about the possibilities of Virtuous Reality and Djinn Splicing. Central Intelligence really does employ spooks. You get the idea. David Fisher's job at the Environmental Perfection Agency is fairly bureaucratic in nature. He worries about containing the spread of the Medvamp and whether importing Leprechauns will upset the local thecology. That is, it's fairly bureaucratic in nature until he gets a tip that something is wrong with the local Toxic Spell Dump. He soon finds himself way over his head, in a case that seems to involve black magics, the threat of global war, and lawyers from every firm that uses that Dump. The book is no "Operation Chaos" -- the bad puns guarantee that, if nothing else -- but it was fun to read, with a solid story that doesn't *depend* on the silliness. ----- Dani Zweig dani@netcom.com 'T is with our judgements as our watches, none Go alike, yet each believes his own --Alexander Pope From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Jan 17 17:43:21 1994 Xref: liuida rec.arts.sf.reviews:465 alt.history.what-if:3166 rec.arts.books:74206 alt.books.reviews:2053 Path: liuida!sunic!EU.net!uunet!news.sprintlink.net!dg-rtp!sheol!dont-reply-to-paths From: Evelyn.Chimelis.Leeper@att.com Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,alt.history.what-if,rec.arts.books,alt.books.reviews Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: WORLDWAR: IN THE BALANCE by Harry Turtledove Approved: sfr%sheol@concert.net (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Message-ID: <9401131450.ZM864@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com> Date: 14 Jan 94 23:55:19 GMT Lines: 94 WORLDWAR: IN THE BALANCE by Harry Turtledove Del Rey, ISBN 0-345-38241-2, January 1994, 488pp, US$21. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1994 Evelyn C. Leeper First, a warning: this is the first book of a four-book series. ( According to what I've heard, the other three are WORLDWAR: TILTING THE BALANCE [already in Del Rey's hands], WORLDWAR: UPSETTING THE BALANCE [just finished], and WORLDWAR: FINDING THE BALANCE [still to be written].) Nowhere on the cover (or inside) does Del Rey warn you of this, and unlike some first novels which can be read as stand-alone stories, this ends on a very open-ended note, with little if anything resolved. Shame on Del Rey for not warning the reading! (Oh, and the cover art by Bob Eggleton has been flip-flopped. One assumes this is for some arcane marketing reason, but the result is that all the swastikas are backwards.) It is May 1942. War is raging around the world. Major Heinrich Jager is fighting for the Third Reich on the Eastern Front. George Bagnall is a flight engineer for the RAF. Ludmila Gorbunova is a pilot, but for the Soviet Air Force. Moishe Russie is a Jew in the Warsaw Ghetto. Liu Han is a Chinese peasant woman. Jens Larssen is an American physicist on the Manhattan Project. Sam Yeager us a minor league outfielder and science fiction fan from Nebraska. Atvar is the fleetlord of the invading spaceships of the Race. Say what? Oh, didn't I mention it? It seems that in this alternate universe, lizardlike aliens from outer space invade Earth in 1942. Needless to say, this changes the progress of World War II considerably. Alliances shift in interesting ways as humans attempt to repel the invaders. This often involves uneasy truces and alliances, as countries unite with their erstwhile (human) enemies to fight the invaders while trying to avoid conceding any advantage to these (human) enemies that might backfire if and when the Race is defeated. One thing that Turtledove has managed to do is take plot devices and writing techniques that often fail, and make them work. For example, the book starts with a bit of a cliche: the Race surveyed Earth eight hundred years ago and is amazed at the amount of progress made since then, since they show change or progress only over periods of millennia rather than years (for example, between steam engines and powered flight, or between dynamite and atomic bombs). But there is further explanation and elaboration of this as the story progresses and as the history, biology, and psychology of the Race is revealed. the result is that there are REASONS given for this "slowness" on the part of the Race. That's the flip-side of an alternate history, I suppose. An alternate history asks, "What would have happened if Y had happened instead of X?" Here Turtledove asked, "What would have had to have been different for X to happen instead of Y?" It's the difference between induction and retroduction (as described by Charles Peirce). Detectives use retroduction (also known as abduction) to figure out what could have led to a certain result; Sherlock Holmes was famous for it. It is seen in science fiction, but more common is the inductive aspect: build a world, then decide what would populate it. (There's also some rather obvious foreshadowing when the Race complain of the cold in Poland-- in the middle of the summer.) The characters on the whole are well fleshed out, though with as many major characters as WORLDWAR: IN THE BALANCE has, it's not too surprising that a couple of them are still thinly sketched (undoubtedly some of these will be further developed in the remaining volumes). The multiple points of view do give a very good "global" feel to this book that many alien invasion stories lacked--how often is everything told through American eyes, with only passing reference to the rest of the world? Here the parts of the world not portrayed are those which are not on a war footing when the Race arrived, and so have less ability to resist the Race. (The end papers contain a list of all the major characters--and some minor ones--with indications as to which are real and which are fictional creations. I would have hoped the latter clarification wasn't necessary, but after someone asked Connie Willis whether the General Grant character in her LINCOLN'S DREAMS was real or fictional, one never knows. And admittedly some of Turtledove's "real" characters are less famous than others. At any rate, I hope Del Rey continues this for the rest of the series--in a story published over a period of years, some memory joggers are helpful.) Turtledove knows how to write a plot and characters that keep the reader interested and turning the pages. Whether he can sustain this for two thousand pages remains to be seen, but this book is at least a good start. %T Worldwar: In the Balance %A Harry Turtledove %C New York %D January 1994 %I Del Rey %O hardback, US$21 %G ISBN 0-345-38241-2 %P 488pp %S Worldwar %V 1 -- Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | ecl@mtgpfs1.att.com / Evelyn.Leeper@att.com From rec.arts.sf.written Thu May 12 23:58:55 1994 Path: liuida!sunic!trane.uninett.no!eunet.no!nuug!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!news.cac.psu.edu!news.pop.psu.edu!psuvax1!rutgers!indiana.edu!shsilver From: shsilver@INDIANA.EDU (shsilver) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Review: Turtledove's Latests Message-ID: Date: 12 May 94 20:34:39 GMT Sender: nobody@rutgers.rutgers.edu Lines: 74 This month, Harry Turtledove has two new releases, Krispos the Emperor and Prince of the North. The first book is the third book in his Tales of Krispos, set in the Videssan empire while the latter is a sequel to Turtledove's first two novels, Wereblood and Werenight, recently re-released in one volume by Baen as Werenight. There are some similarities between the two books in that when last seen both protagonists, Krispos and Gerin the Fox, were happily married. However, as the two new books open, we learn that Gerin's wife, Elise, has run off with an horse doctor, leaving behind a four year old son. Krispos' wife, Dara, died a number of years before the opening of KtE, leaving Krispos with three sons in their late teens and early twenties. Another similarity is the fact that both protagonists have a son kidnapped, although for very different reasons. Literacy also plays a role in both books, with Gerin promoting literacy successfully in PotN and Krispos having his offer rejected in KtE. Both books deal with the ravages war brings to the common people, and the reader can't help wondering whether this is a reflection on the riots which erupted in Los Angeles last year. (Ironically, in PotN, a great deal of damage is caused by an earthquake, although I imagine the book was finished long before the January earthquakes caused damage to Turtledove's home). Prince of the North contains more signs of Turtledove's humor as he recounts Gerin the Fox's attempts to regain his kidnapped son. His quest for his child is derailed, however, as the gods of the North are weakened and a monstrous invasion occurs, pitting Gerin against his old foes the Trokme and causing him to form a hasty alliance with another former lord of the Elabon empire. From the empire itself, Gerin can gain no aid since the Northlands have been cut off since shortly after the Werenight which occurred at the end of the previous book, five years prior to the beginning of PotN. One nice aspect of PotN is that whereas the earlier book(s) focussed specifically on Gerin and his retainer Van, PotN introduces and re-introduces many characters who Turtledove can now flesh out better than when he wrote the original novels in the late 1970s. On the other hand, Turtledove never really gives a clear physical description of the monsters who are released in the Northlands, simply referring to them as monsters and describing them in terms of rather ugly, hairy humans. In Krispos the Emperor, the antagonists are quite definitely human. Videssos is quite definitely and closely based on the Byzantine Empire which Dr. Turtledove studied to acheive his Ph.D., and that linkage continues to show through in his Videssos books. After twenty-two years of relatively peaceful reign, Krispos has three sons, none of whom seem particularly capable of taking over following Krispos' death. Nevertheless, Krispos sets out to help his sons into adulthood and the responsibilities they will need to take on when the eldest, Phostis, who may not be Krispos' son at all, succeeds Krispos as Avtokrator. Krispos is given the chance when rebellion flares among heretical farmers. Krispos and Sons travel off to meet these farmers with the Avtokrator unaware that his eldest son is sympathetic to the anti-materialist teachings of the heretics. Turtledove's heretics are based, I imagine, on the Albigensians of Southern France, as well as various Byzantine heresies in that they despise the physical world, seeing it as the work of Satan. . . I mean Skotos. Like the Albigensians, the most holy of the Thanasiots end their lives by rejecting food as work of Skotos and wasting away until they can look upon the face of Phos. It is telling how well Turtledove's Videssos is portrayed (and perhaps his own reputation as a writer of alternate histories) that I constantly found myself wondering what would happen if the plot twisted in different ways. For instance, if Krispos died near the beginning of the book when Phostis was first becoming enthralled by the Thanasiots. Unfortunately, this is an alternate history which I'm sure will escape Turtledove's talents, although it could lead to just as entertaining a story as the one told in Krispos the Emperor. From rec.arts.sf.written Thu Jun 16 01:23:12 1994 Path: liuida!sunic!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!uhog.mit.edu!nntp.club.cc.cmu.edu!hudson.lm.com!telerama.lm.com!not-for-mail From: dani@telerama.lm.com Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Harry Turtledove: Prince of the North Date: 14 Jun 1994 22:09:11 -0400 Organization: Telerama Public Access Internet, Pittsburgh, PA USA Lines: 65 Message-ID: <2tlns7$baj@telerama.lm.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: telerama.lm.com Turtledove's "Prince of the North" is competent formula fiction. In this instance, the formula is Turtledove's own: Create a milieu based on a familiar historical model, put a man with relatively modern sensibilities at the head of a military force, and give him a series of conventional or unconventional opponents. (The protagonist can be pseudo or actual Roman, Byzantine, American, whatever, but he can't be so much a product of his time and place that the reader will find him unsympathetic.) "Prince of the North" is set in a fantasy world based on northern Europe (probably north Gaul, less probably England) after the Roman withdrawal and the first barbarian incursions. Sorcery and theurgy both work (the fact that Gerin the Fox, the Prince of the North, has gotten on the bad side of the God of wine is significant to the plot), but aside from that the landscape is familiar. Minor barons in the abandoned lands have declared themselves princes and dukes, lesser leaders have placed themselves under the protection of the more powerful ones, peasants have taken the first steps on the road to serfdom. (As is common in such fantasies, the existence of magic makes incredibly little difference in how people live. A more subtle problem is that although swearing by a God is a near-guarantee of honesty -- the Gods taking a personal interest in such oaths -- this also seems to have relatively little effect on how people order their lives.) The book has a number of subplots, but at its center is an incursion of beast-men. An earthquake destroys an ancient warding and the land is invaded by hordes of ravening, relatively-intelligent, monsters. (One wonders what they ate for the centuries or millenia they lived underground.) This keeps Gerin busy for most of the book -- fighting the beasts, fighting the barbarians who have allied with the beasts, allying with rivals to fight the beasts -- a book written to Baen specifications -- until, with the book about to end, the problem is resolved by a deus ex machina. So one way to look at it is that the book serves mainly to introduce the characters and the milieu: There will be a sequel. I found it an adequate read, but the sense of reading formula clouded my pleasure in the book. I enjoyed the Videssos tetralogy, but this didn't mean that I was looking for another book about a Roman-type military leader (with similar romantic fortunes) backed up by a tough soldier and a well-educated advisor. The fact that the book was so thoroughly first-in- a-series -- with remarkably little difference between the situation at the beginning of the book and at its end -- also detracted. Whether you'd enjoy the book depends on your previous experience with Turtledove. If you haven't read any of his books before, this isn't the place to start: The Videssos tetralogy (starting with "The Misplaced Legion") does military fantasy better, "Agent of Byzantium" does alternate historical fantasy better, and "The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump" is good semi-light fantasy. If, at the other extreme, you're reading and enjoying his Krispos novels, you'll enjoy this too. %A Turteldove, Harry %T Prince of the North %I Baen %D 1994 %P 457 pp %O $5.99 %G ISBN 0-671-87606-6 ----- Dani Zweig dani@netcom.com dani@telerama.lm.com It was mentioned on CNN that the new prime number discovered recently is four times bigger then the previous record. -- John Blasik Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!sunic!news.funet.fi!news.eunet.fi!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!uhog.mit.edu!rutgers!ezmail.ucs.indiana.edu!shsilver From: shsilver@indiana.edu (shsilver) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Review Harry Turtledove WorldWar: Tilting the Balance Date: 13 Jan 1995 09:11:07 -0500 Lines: 90 Sender: daemon@rutgers.rutgers.edu Message-ID: WorldWar: Tilting the Balance by Harry Turtledove Del Rey, 0-345-38997-2, $22.00, 496pp (hardcover), 1995 In the second installment of Harry Turtledove's "WorldWar" alternate history, Turtledove continues to play with themes which have appeared in his fiction since the beginning. Of course, the major trope in which Turtledove works is that of alternate history, of which WorldWar is a prime example. Another major feature of Turtledove's work is the examination of how advanced technology would appear to a less advanced society. While Arthur C. Clarke postulates that the "more primitive" society would see the technology as magic, Turtledove responds (most notably in "Death in Vesunna", IASFM 1/81, reprinted in Wonders of the World #6 and Departures) that less advanced societies are still capable of reasoning out the ideas behind the science. Another Turtledove theme that makes its appearance is the idea of multiple paths by which societies can advance (previously examined in "The Road Not Taken", Analog, 11/85, reprinted in There Will Be War V: Warrior, and Kaleidoscope.) For those who missed the first book of the series, Turtledove has interrupted World War II with an alien invasion by the Race, a race of reptilian creatures whose culture moves at a much slower pace than humans. Armed with weaponry slightly better than late twentieth-century arms, the Race thought they would be pacifying a society with a Medieval level of weaponry at best. Upon their arrival, the various nations of Earth who are not instantly pacified (the USA, USSR, England, Japan and Germany) form an uneasy alliance against the new invaders. Turtledove uses several viewpoint characters, including members of the Race, to tell the story of the attempted invasion. You should probably pick up the first book before attempting the second book, although Turtledove does a good job of recapping what has gone before in the opening chapters of Tilting the Balance without seeming repetitive. In the second installment (of four), Turtledove returns to the same characters, picking up the stories mere days after he left them in the first book (the first two books comprise just over a year's time). Without giving away too much, even after finishing this book it is difficult to say which way the balance is tilting. The Race is beginning to learn to cope with warfare on Earth (Tosev 3), and is waging victorious war against the Germans, Soviets, and Americans. However, the humans are beginning to understand bits of captured alien technology while the Soviets, Germans, Japanese and Americans are all making reasonably steady progress towards their goal of creating an atomic bomb. More interesting in many ways than the war as a whole is Turtledove's depictions of his various characters and their fates (including, in some cases, death). One of my favorite characters from the first novel was physicist Jens Larssen, who spends the last part of In the Balance and the first part of Tilting the Balance trying to reunite with his wife after being sent on a political mission. When he and Barbara finally do reunite, their reunion is blocked by events which occured at the Met Lab while Larssen was away. Following this, Larssen's character turns into a veritable Job. While to my eye it seems that Larssen was wronged and does not act in any particularly despicable way, his characters is shown absolutely no sympathy by either the other characters or the author. When Turtledove enters Larssen's head, we are only treated to self-pity. However, rather finding myself disliking Larssen, I found that I was a bit upset with Turtledove for what he did to Larssen. As I mentioned earlier, Turtledove brings about the death of some of his viewpoint characters. One such event occurs at the very end of the book when one of the lizards troubleshooters, Drefsab goes up against his German counterpart, Otto Skorzeny. Turtledove sets up their encounter in such a way that the death of one of these characters becomes practically inevitable. This volume's title, Tilting the Balance is somewhat ambivalent. When beginning the book, I expected to find either the humans or the aliens to be in a much stronger position than their adversaries. After finishing the book, I find that reasonable arguments exist to say that both sides are in a better position than they were at the beginning of the work. One final point, which I pondered after reading In the Balance as well, was what life was like in the lizard-occupied areas of Earth. Although Turtledove touches on the subject in Tilting the Balance by mentioning how much of the world is under their control, I would still like to see a scene from a viewpoint character in sub-Saharan Africa, Australia, Southern Asia, or South America who is not a combatant, to balance out the concentration camp scenes of Liu Han and Bobby Fiore. I am looking forward to seeing the 1996 and 1997 installments of the series, World War: Upsetting the Balance and World War: Finding the Balance to see how Turtledove bring his World War II to a conclusion. Assuming the next two books comprise a similar period of time as the first two books, however, they will leave open the question (assuming the aliens are not victorious) of what happens when the colonizing fleet arrives in the 1990s. The first book, WorldWar: In the Balance in now available in paperback. The second book, and the subject of this review, WorldWar: Tilting the Balance, will be available in hardcover next month. Steven H Silver = "And then the Renaissance SHSILVER@ucs.indiana.edu = came and spoiled everything." Indiana University = -C.S. Lewis, 1938 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.books.reviews,alt.history.what-if Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!sunic!sunic.sunet.se!news.luth.se!eru.mt.luth.se!news.kth.se!nac.no!Norway.EU.net!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!nobody From: "Evelyn C Leeper" Subject: WORLDWAR: TILTING THE BALANCE Message-ID: <9504241017.ZM7683@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: news@news.media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Date: Tue, 25 Apr 1995 22:59:31 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Lines: 89 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:758 rec.arts.books.reviews:503 alt.history.what-if:14677 WORLDWAR: TILTING THE BALANCE by Harry Turtledove Del Rey, ISBN 0-345-38997-2, 1995, 478pp, US$22 A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1995 Evelyn C. Leeper This is the second of Turtledove's "Worldwar" tetralogy. The first, WORLDWAR: IN THE BALANCE, came out a year ago, and the next two will be out in 1996 and 1997. (This fact is mentioned peripherally in the blurbs and the jacket copy, but is not evident from the cover. I mention it because the reader should know to read the first book first. I am not going to give a thorough summary here.) While the first book set up the premise--an alien race invades the Earth in the middle of World War II--the second continues the many threads started therein. So we're still following stories in the Soviet, Poland, Germany, Britain, China, Japan, Illinois, Colorado, and probably a few more that I've forgotten. (Oh, yes, and Croatia, though not quite the same Croatia that he wrote about in "Ready for the Fatherland." There's something about the Balkans, apparently, that makes them an ideal setting for novels about conflict.) Even Turtledove realizes that he's juggling too many balls and can't keep introducing new characters forever, so he starts eliminating some of them. (Luckily the book includes a five-page cast of characters to help the reader keep the people and the aliens straight.) Personally, I think there may be a few threads too many, and there were one or two that I found myself skimming (Russian tactical maneuvers just don't do it for me, I guess). Intermixed with the stories directly related to the invasion stories are the personal stories, which are not as effective and often seem to have been added either to make some philosophical point or to provide some not-so-subtle motivation for the characters to do what Turtledove wants or needs them to do. The result is that a character at one point completely rejects a certain path of action, while later expressing great admiration for a group that had traditionally followed that path. (It's hard to avoid spoilers, but I'm trying.) This seems just a bit inconsistent to me. In fact, what this character wants is basically that what happened somehow "un-happen," so we have an interesting internal alternate history parallel. One thing I like about Turtledove's writing in general is that he has Jewish characters--real Jewish characters, not just a lab assistant named Saul Rubinstein who shows up in a couple of scenes, but rounded, central Jewish characters who think and act Jewish. And WORLDWAR is no exception. This makes it doubly strange that so many of his other characters seem stereotypical: the Illinois nurse, the Japanese officers, the Croatians, and so on. Maybe this is part of the price of having so many characters: it's impossible to build them all from scratch. Whether this ever veers into something negative enough to complain about is not clear, but some groups do seem to be portrayed fairly negatively (and not just the Nazis, many of whom are the good guys!). The first volume covered about a year, as does this. But Turtledove sets up some long-term events that seem to indicate that either the last two books will cover a longer timespan or there will be room for a sequel. (It is possible he can wrap up the threads in another two years, but it seems unlikely.) Well, okay, I've talked about bits and pieces of WORLDWAR: TILTING THE BALANCE, but what about the novel as a whole? I found it not as enjoyable as the first, but in part this is due to its placement in the series. The first book of a tetralogy is fresh and new, introducing the scenario and characters. The second develops them further, the third (one presumes) will do the necessary setup for the last volume, and the last (one hopes) will wrap it all up. This means that of necessity books two and three won't have the "punch" of the first and last books, and that is the case here. Turtledove does his best, but the sheer multiplicity of story threads, and the knowledge that there are still two years and two more volumes to go, is a bit intimidating. %T Worldwar: Tilting the Balance %A Harry Turtledove %C New York %D March 1995 %I Del Rey %O hardback, US$22 %G ISBN 0-345-38997-2 %P 473pp %S Worldwar %V 2 -- Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | Evelyn.Leeper@att.com "I don't think adversity necessarily builds character, but it certainly gives you an opportunity to display it." --Gary Bean (Open Systems Today, 1/9/95) -- --Alan Wexelblat, Reality Hacker, Author, and Cyberspace Bard MIT Media Lab - Intelligent Agents Group finger(1) for PGP key Voice: 617-253-9833 Pager: 617-945-1842 wex@media.mit.edu http://wex.www.media.mit.edu/people/wex/ "Are we fugitives from the law?" "Yes." "Idiocy is our only option." Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.books.reviews,soc.history.what-if,alt.history.what-if Path: news.ifm.liu.se!solace!paladin.american.edu!gatech!swrinde!sgigate.sgi.com!uhog.mit.edu!news!news From: "Evelyn C Leeper" Subject: Review: THE TWO GEORGES by Richard Dreyfuss & Harry Turtledove Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Keywords: author=Evelyn C Leeper Lines: 83 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu (Graystreak) Reply-To: ecl@mtcts1.mt.att.com Organization: Intelligent Agents Group X-Newsreader: (ding) Gnus v0.94 Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 22:17:53 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Lines: 83 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:915 rec.arts.books.reviews:1477 soc.history.what-if:7352 alt.history.what-if:23802 THE TWO GEORGES by Richard Dreyfuss and Harry Turtledove A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1996 Evelyn C. Leeper The cover describes Dreyfuss as an Oscar winner, and Turtledove as a Hugo winner. Of the two, the latter is perhaps more germane to the book -- Dreyfuss won as an actor, not a writer. But Turtledove has said that Dreyfuss contributed heavily to the dialogue, so perhaps this is a more equal partnership than last year's team of Gingrich and Forstchen. However, this book does have the (apparently) obligatory sex scene. Mercifully, this one is shorter. The premise of THE TWO GEORGES is that there was no American Revolution. The exact details of how this occurred (or perhaps more accurately, failed to occur) are not spelled out. This is actually a good touch, because too often the background is given as a sort of "lump," something like, "Fred mused how different the world would be if Queen Mary had died earlier and her bastard sister Elizabeth had become Queen of England." There's actually something refreshing about NOT getting all the details. Of course, Dreyfuss and Turtledove don't entirely avoid this sort of thing. There are a fair number of references to what Washington or King George (the two Georges of the title) did and how that affected the present. Given that we rarely find ourselves thinking how different our world would be if there were no American Revolution, at least in our daily routine, this does feel a bit artificial. And the main character at one point is reading THE UNITED COLONIES TRIUMPHANT, an alternate history book about OUR world. The book is alternate history but the plot is strictly mystery: the famous Gainsborough painting "The Two Georges" has been stolen while touring the North American colonies and just before King-Emperor Charles III was due to speak in front of it. The radical separatist group, the Sons of Liberty, has stolen it and is demanding a ransom for its return, and Colonel Thomas Bushnell and Samuel Stanley of the RAMP are assigned to recover the painting, which is a major cultural icon (sort of like the original Declaration of Independence). Turtledove is good at research, so it's hard to find errors per se. One of my complaints is more a stylistic one: I find it difficult to believe that two hundred years after the break point we would have any of the same people as we have in our world, and in very similar positions. In particular, I find it difficult to explain how Martin Luther King, Jr., would have been as involved in politics in a society with far fewer racial problems that our own as he was in ours. I also question whether the Irish would be as prominent, since a change in politics preventing the American Revolution might very well have prevented the Irish Potato Famine as well. Other references that served more as stumbling blocks than stepping stones were Beethoven writing his Third Symphony to celebrate Napoleon's uprising against Louis XVI, and the use of "To Anacreon in Heaven" as the North American anthem. Language-wise Dreyfuss and Turtledove sick fairly closely to British English (with references to serviettes rather than napkins, for example), but do occasionally slip, calling trousers pants, or vests undershirts. (I am reminded of the recent report of the British MP who was found dead in "pants and suspenders." To most Americans, this doesn't sound too shocking; however, the American translation is that he was found in "undershorts and a garter belt.") Unfortunately, the mystery part of this novel, which is the main plot, is not particularly well-constructed. Clues are telegraphed, and in general there is a lot of fairly standard stuff going on. There is also a fairly standard romance with Bushnell meeting a professional woman with whom he initially does not get along, and so on. I liked the background of THE TWO GEORGES, even with my reservations, and would recommend it for that reason to alternate history fans. But it is the alternate history aspect that makes this book worthwhile. If that aspect doesn't appeal to you, you can skip it as a mystery. %T The Two Georges %A Richard Dreyfuss %A Harry Turtledove %C New York %D March 1996 %I Tor %O hardback, US$23.95 %G ISBN 0-312-85969-4 %P 384pp Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | eleeper@lucent.com <==NOTE NEW ADDRESS "People are worried about online porn on the Internet. It's the endless `Who's better--Kirk or Picard?' threads that *should* scare them." -- Jim Mullen, _Entertainment Weekly_ Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!solace!news.stealth.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.kei.com!uhog.mit.edu!news!news From: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu (Graystreak) Subject: Review: The Two Georges, by Richard Dreyfuss and Harry Turtledove Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Keywords: author=Kevin Lauderdale Lines: 86 Sender: news@media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Intelligent Agents Group X-Newsreader: (ding) Gnus v0.94 Date: Mon, 19 Aug 1996 20:45:55 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Lines: 86 The Two Georges by Richard Dreyfuss and Harry Turtledove Review Copyright 1996 Kevin Lauderdale The joy in an alternate history novel is in the details, not the high concept. The high concept behind Richard Dreyfuss' (yes, the actor) and Harry Turtledove's (the SF writer, most notably of GUNS OF THE SOUTH, a brilliant almost-alternate history novel about the American Civil War) THE TWO GEORGES is that the American colonies never broke away from England. And now, in 1996, they remain part of the globe-circling British Empire. In order to better cement the bonds between the colonies and England, Gainsborough's painting, THE TWO GEORGES depicting George Washington meeting King George III is touring North America. The painting is stolen, and it's up to Thomas Bushell of the Los Angeles (here, "New Liverpool") police dept. to retrieve it. The atmosphere and dialog are decidedly British and occasionally antiquated. For British readers of this novel, it makes things merely quaint. For us colonials, it makes things nearly foreign. Along with "boot" for trunk and all that pre-1970s British currency -- "that'll be seven and six and a ha'penny" -- we get "jakes" for restroom, a reference at least as old as Shakespeare. It certainly evokes an atmosphere of an America dominated by Britain, but it's also so present that after a while it calls attention to itself. Thankfully, the book does contain maps of the world, but a glossary would have been helpful as well. This is a book that doesn't require you to know British English, American history, or Los Angeles landmarks, but it rewards you if you do. This makes THE TWO GEORGES an extremely entertaining read for UCLA liberal arts majors, and a slightly confusing one for everyone else. It's not that the plot hangs on some obscure element of British history, it's just that a lot of the texture of the book might be lost if you're not familiar with the likes of King Canute and Beethoven's Third Symphony. Fortunately, the names that we need to know are the ones that we will know. In the world of THE TWO GEORGES, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King are still alive, but playing much different roles. In a good alternate universe story, it's not just what changes, but who. Richard Nixon has become a hugely successful used-car dealer. The painting, we soon learn, has been stolen by The Sons of Liberty -- COMMON SENSE is their monthly magazine -- but they're not just anti-Crown, they're against anyone who isn't as white as they are. That makes for better villains than just having them be Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine 200 years later. Everyday life in the North American Union (NAU) in 1996 looks like life in the USA, circa 1936. Apparently the American Revolution only bought us about 60 years of progress. Women's skirts barely rise above their calves, and making a long-distance phone call takes forever as you get switched from operator to operator. You don't fly from one coast to the other in a plane, you take a dirigible. Irish laborers and "Nuevespanolans" do the dirty work, and when you come home from your trip, you drive a steam-powered car: "He turned the key. A battery-powered sparker lit the burner. A twist of thedashboard knob brought the flame up to high. Then he had nothing to do but wait and watch the pressure gauge." That's classic Turtledove. He gracefully slips in the details without being too obvious about it, and there's touch of humor. Bushell, for instance, is given two months to solve the case. This is a world that moves at a leisurely pace. One of the elements that stands out the most is the sense of what police work and crime are like in this all but non-gun world. "Gunplay twice now," says Bushell's assistant, Sam Stanley in amazement. Only twice in a crime novel? This is a far cry from the constant gun play and never-emptying bullet cartridges we see in many novels featuring the police. The USA in this 1996 is like the UK in 1936, where not only did the police not carry guns because the criminals didn't either, but all they had to do was shout, "Stop! Police!" and more often than not, the criminal would. The painting, of course, is merely a MacGuffin which allows the writers to take us across the North American continent, exploring the many facets of this alternate America. But with Turtledove and Dreyfuss, who must have learned something about story, pacing, and dialog during the 30 plus years he's been acting, the trip is a pleasure. The investigation takes us from California to the Nations' capital, with visits to embassy parties and a trip down a coal mine in between. The book is 384 pages of small print, but it's a fast read. If you're a casual reader of science fiction or a die- hard mystery fan, you can safely skip THE TWO GEORGES. You're not missing out on any brilliant new ideas, nor is the mystery all that mysterious. But if you're a lover of alternate worlds, history, or Turtledove, this is for you. P.S. I've written an annotated guide to THE TWO GEORGES, and it's available via the World Wide Web at: http://camis.Stanford.EDU/people/kxl/2Gannotations.html Kevin Lauderdale Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!news-stkh.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: "Evelyn C Leeper" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: ALTERNATE GENERALS edited by Harry Turtledove Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 03 Aug 1998 12:11:27 -0400 Organization: none Lines: 126 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2077 ALTERNATE GENERALS edited by Harry Turtledove Baen, ISBN 0-671-87886-7, 1998, 348pp, US$5.99 A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1998 Evelyn C. Leeper Mike Resnick has edited eight alternate history anthologies; this is Harry Turtledove's first. The first thing I noticed was that there was very little overlap between the authors in Resnick's anthologies and this one. In part that is probably due to the fact that the editors deal regularly with different people, but it also may be connected with the publishers and their emphasis. Baen Books is known for its military science fiction and in this obviously military collection regular Baen authors are featured. So I suppose it's a reasonable prediction that if you like their other works you'll like this. Of course, I am not a big fan of military science fiction. I read this for its alternate history content, which turned out to be minimal, but, thank Ghod, not connected with the perfectly awful and completely inaccurate back cover blurb: "At Gaugemela the Macedonians had Alexander and the Persians had--Darius. Result: world conquest. But what if the Persians had--Erwin Rommel. Or what if George S. Patton had commanded Southern forces at Bull Run, and Lincoln had become a Confederate prisoner? The possibilities are endless. . . ." Alexander, Rommel, Patton, and Lincoln do not appear in this book, nor do Gaugemela or Bull Run. Whatever possessed them to put this on the book?! If one manages to get past the blurb and the rather garish metallic cover with bursting stars with authors' names, what does one find? Well, apparently all the authors' notes on the historical backgrounds that they used were omitted. Since not all the stories have backgrounds obvious to the non-historian, this will make the book somewhat inaccessible to a reader coming to alternate history for the first or second time. After you read alternate history for a while, you pick this stuff up, even if you were not a history major. [Not all stories are commented on. Not every story had features I wanted to comment on.] The first story, "The Test of Gold" by Lillian Stuart Carl, is a reasonable lead-off, though I had the feeling that if this story of Boudica and C. Marcus Valarius was the strongest in the anthology, as the lead story traditionally is, it would be a fairly weak collection. "And to the Republic For Which It Stands" by Brad Linaweaver started out with an intriguing look at Julius Caesar's possible musings about the Roman Republic. Unfortunately, it is burdened with lines like "[h]er breasts are perfect, smooth hills rising and falling like legions marching over countless landscapes of countless campaigns" and expository lumps like "[t]his night of March the fourteenth there is much to think about." "The Craft of War" by Lois Tilton was one of my favorites. She used a different style and an original approach, and managed to avoid making it just the description of battles and maneuvers that so many stories here were. Joy Lynn Nye's "Queen of the Amazons" was an example of what is often called "alternate history," but to me doesn't quite qualify. Everything is described right up to the change, and then it stops. There is no extrapolation of what happens next, which is what I read alternate history for. "The Phantom Tolbukhin" by Harry Turtledove is at least alternate history, and goes a bit beyond the "troop movement" stage, though not nearly enough. "An Old Man's Summer" by Esther Friesner is another story that attempts a different style. Probably the most literary in the volume, it is not the sort of alternate history story one starts out expecting it to be, and it provides a refreshing change of pace to the book. "Billy Mitchell's Overt Act" by William Sanders uses yet another stylistic technique--articles, interviews, and quotations--to tell the story of a different Pearl Harbor and a different result. And Sanders follows his changes through to a reasonable extrapolation of their future, rather than just leaving it hanging. "A Hard Day for Mother" by William R. Fortschen is, not surprisingly to anyone who recognizes the title, about Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, and though the execution is well done, I found the premise a bit weak and the conclusion unlikely. Brian M. Thomsen's "Bloodstained Ground" does have Mark Twain, so I may be more favorably inclined toward it than otherwise. Frankly, the Twain aspect was more interesting than the Custer one, which I suspect was supposed to be the main part. Overall, I found this less rewarding than some of the other alternate history anthologies around. For the person who is new to alternate history, I would recommend the new reprint anthology ROADS NOT TAKEN (edited by Gardner Dozois and Stanley Schmidt) as a better introduction. For the experienced alternate history fan, I would say that this is of more interest for those who are interested in the military aspects of how alternate histories happen than those who are interested in the sociological results. %B Alternate Generals %E Harry Turtledove %T "The Test of Gold" by Lillian Stuart Carl %T "Tradition" by Elizabeth Moon %T "And to the Republic For Which It Stands" by Brad Linaweaver %T "The Charge of Lee's Brigade" by S. M. Stirling %T "The Craft of War" by Lois Tilton %T "Queen of the Amazons" by Jody Lynn Nye %T "The Phantom Tolbukhin" by Harry Turtledove %T "An Old Man's Summer" by Esther Friesner %T "The Last Crusader" by Bill Fawcett %T "Billy Mitchell's Overt Act" by William Sanders %T "A Case for Justice" by Janet Berliner %T "A Hard Day for Mother" by William R. Fortschen %T "The Captain from Kirkbean" by David Weber %T "Viva l'Amiral" by John Mina %T "Bloodstained Ground" by Brian M. Thomsen %T "Vati" by R. M. Meluch %C New York %D August 1998 %I Baen %O paperback, US$5.99 %G ISBN 0-671-87886-7 %P 314pp Evelyn C. Leeper | eleeper@lucent.com +1 732 957 2070 | http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824 "That's how things are--you open the door to a possibility and the next thing you know, an actuality has you by the throat." --Russell Hoban Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!cyclone.news.idirect.com!island.idirect.com!newsfeed.enteract.com!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!gatech!18.181.0.27.MISMATCH!sipb-server-1.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: Harriet Klausner Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,alt.history.what-if,soc.history.what-if Subject: Review: Into The Darkness, Harry Turtledove Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 07 May 1999 14:16:59 -0400 Organization: Netcom Lines: 35 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2289 alt.history.what-if:62508 soc.history.what-if:130800 INTO THE DARKNESS by Harry Turtledove Review Copyright 1999 Harry Turtledove Many of the citizens, especially the elite, still remember the humiliation of defeat in the Six Years War. So when the Duke of Bari disappears, the Kingdom of Algarve invades with the objective being to bring the lost territory back under their control. However, several other countries have signed protective treaties with Bari and see this as an opportunity to wreak havoc on their enemy, Algarve. On the other side, friends of Algarve join the fray too. War spreads quickly as the world seems to have plunged INTO THE DARKNESS. Fighting impacts everyone from the upper class to the lowliest of peasant. This war is deadlier than any before because magic has become even more powerful. Dragons are destroying cities with fire bombs and sea creatures are eradicating ships. The darkness has spread across the continent. Readers of alternate history tales will recognize Harry Turtledove as one of the grandmasters of that sub-genre. His latest tale will enhance his reputation among his legion of fans. The story line never slows down as Mr. Turtledove passionately pleads his case by describing the horrors of "modern" war with weapons of mass destruction that impact on everyone. No one is immune from the strife. Anyone who relishes a world at war plot that uses magic as a major force of power will gain much pleasure by plunging INTO THE DARKNESS. Harriet Klausner %T INTO THE DARKNESS %A Harry Turtledove %I Tor %D Apr 1999 %O $27.95 %P 540 pp. %G ISBN 0-312-86895-2 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!news-peer-europe.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!howland.erols.net!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: Warren Dunn Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,soc.history.what-if Subject: Review: Worldwar: In the Balance, by Harry Turtledove Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 21:51:36 -0500 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Lines: 105 Sender: wex@deepspace.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: deepspace.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2502 soc.history.what-if:168747 Worldwar: In the Balance, by Harry Turtledove Review Copyright 1999 by Warren Dunn I was drawn into this book from the first few pages. Right from the beginning, we are given the situation: The Race -- a group of aliens whose civilization is well over a hundred thousand years old -- is expanding their Empire, colonizing a primitive planet in the Tosev system. The males of the Race that we meet are part of a force to get the planet ready for colonization, and to subdue the natives. Unfortunately, their last probe visited Tosev 3 a thousand years ago, and led the Race to believe humans had no more technology than swords and clubs. In fact, the planet is in the middle of World War II, and humans have just developed rockets, but the German V2 is not yet ready. The United States has just recently joined the war, and is on the road to developing an atomic bomb. But things could be worse for the Race, though they don't know it. They could have arrived ten years later. But they wish they had arrived a hundred years earlier. The Race, short, lizard-like creatures, do not change much in a thousand years, and so have the benefit of time to plan every thing they do down to the last detail. Humanity is an enigma to them, and deprives them of that time. So although they have the technology that we have today -- helicopters, atomic weapons, rockets, microelectronics, automatic weapons, but not laser weapons, humanity is holding its own against this invasion. That the aliens use bullets, drive trucks and tanks, and fly jets is a good idea, I think. It avoids other invasion cliches, where humanity rises up against insurmountable odds. Here, the odds are simply huge. The other idea that I liked was the unexpected use of everyday people in virtually all the plot lines. In a story such as this one, it must be tempting to use the people in authority. But it seems more realistic when the situations are encountered by people who have hardly any authority. To date, the only leaders that only have been seen are Churchill and Hitler, and only for a couple of pages each. Finally, I like the international flavour of the many, many characters. I would hear their various accents as they spoke! Only four are American, and three are ballplayers at the beginning of the book. Two join the army to repel the aliens from US soil, which at this point looks impossible. They see many defeats and a few victories, and wonder how they stay alive through it all. The third ball player is captured by the aliens and used in experiments designed to figure out humanity. In one of these experiments, he is paired with a Chinese woman, who lost everything to a Japanese invasion before being captured by the aliens. They are forced to mate, and end up feeling comfortable enough together that they stay together. The fourth American is part of the team that is developing the atomic bomb. Another Chinese man gets rich by getting many of the aliens addicted to ginger. Two German tankers and a Russian pilot fight the aliens (known generally among humans as Lizards) separately, then end up joining together for several missions, including capturing atomic weapons! Polish Jews welcome the aliens as saviors when they destroy their prison camp, but quickly realize that although they are better off than they were -- they aren't dead -- their new masters just want them as puppets. Finally, there are the British bombers and radar specialists. These guys are learning to use what they have against the Lizards, and adapt it to this new war. Several of the plot lines cross, some diverge, and cross again. It shows how flexible people really are, in spite of ideologies. The English have hated the French for centuries, and the Russians and Jews have good reason to wish the Germans were dead, but they can grudgingly work together if they have to. They may hate working together, but at least most people can put a more essential cause above their personal feelings, at least for a short while. The ones who can't really do that are the Russian, German and Japanese leaders. Instead of pooling what they have, they form the illusion that they are cooperating, when actually they are trying to sabotage everybody else's position. That self-serving attitude could cause humanity to lose the war against the Lizards. We also get to see the war from the perspective of the Race. You can actually feel sorry for the leader of this invasion force. Although he seems to be winning in the long run -- he has overrun much of the planet already -- he is far from in control of the world. Humanity is just too complex for him and his people, so all he gets at staff meetings is more and more bad news. The next book is called Tilting the Balance. By the end of this book, both sides think the balance is tilting in their favour. Who will be right? For a war novel, this one proceeds at quite a leisurely pace, which is good, I think. Every scene shows something new about the characters, making each one of them quite deep. And it makes each of them very human, and very realistic. Even the Lizards are realistic, though completely alien. They have their own views, their own culture, and their own battles to fight on the way to the battlefield. The war is, in effect, just beginning. %A Turtledove, Harry %T In The Balance %S Worldwar %V Book 1 %I Del Rey %D 1994 %G ISBN 0-345-38852-6 %P 565 pp. %O Paperback, US$5.99 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!dreaderd!not-for-mail Sender: wex@deepspace.media.mit.edu From: Warren Dunn Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Worldwar: Tilting the Balance, by Harry Turtledove Follwoup-to: rec.arts.sf.written Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Date: 17 Dec 1999 15:19:47 -0500 Message-ID: X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 Lines: 78 NNTP-Posting-Host: deepspace.media.mit.edu X-Trace: dreaderd 945461988 22879 18.85.23.65 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2522 Worldwar: Tilting the Balance, by Harry Turtledove Review Copyright 1999 Warren Dunn Humans continue to oppose the Lizards, working their way toward building an atomic bomb. The Lizards move to take over the resistant countries. SOME MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD. I would be inclined to say that, although progress was made by both sides of the war in this book, not enough progress was made to justify this as a separate book in the series. It's still too early to tell, but I think when all is done, the Worldwar series probably could be told in three books instead of four. It was still a good read; it just became tiring after a while. After the first book ended with a push to keep the aliens out of Chicago, with long chapters devoted to that cause, I suspected the second book would end on a similar note. I guessed the big finale about halfway through, and I was right. Based on how the Chicago push was written, I was a bit disappointed at how the end of this one was played out -- from an outsider's view, where it only took a couple of pages. That is unfortunate, because the rest of the book is written in great detail, not just about the war, but also about how the war affects people and their relationships. Most affected is Jens Larssen, American nuclear physicist -- at least he thinks he is the most affected. His wife took him for dead, so she married and is now pregnant with another man's child. If it wasn't for the pregnancy, she would have returned to him, but since she picked the other guy, and he has to work in the same place as her, he hates her, and can only think of vengeance. I saw this storyline well in advance- in book one, actually -and although it shows how war can affect a marriage, I don't know if it was necessary. But by his attitude in this book, it may affect the war. I just don't like reading about people who grumble all the time. Also affected is Chinese Liu Han, and her mate, American Bobby Fiore, who finally come down from the Lizards' spaceship. Bobby gets in with some Communists, though, and he ends up leaving Liu Han behind. There doesn't seem to be any emotional baggage on Bobby, but it may still affect Liu Han and her baby. We'll have to wait and see. The Russians fly around, spy, and get to play around with a nuclear bomb. The German scientists find a bomb too much to handle, while tanker Jager gets some action in France, and then in Croatia. The British capture a radar, but can't make anything out of it, because of the micro-electronics. Another group of British are stuck in a tiny Russian city and have to cooperate with an untrusting Russian / German coalition. That was the story I disliked most; I found it quite dull, despite the politics. That's about it on the human side of things. Not too much in the way of advancement. The Lizards continue to press their advantage, but are slowing down because of dwindling supplies. The Lizard prisoners divulge a lot of information in their arrogance, and are shocked when this information turns out to be useful. Ginger continues to hurt them, and because of this and a string of losses near the end, Atvar's leadership may be called into question soon. I felt that much -- or maybe most -- of the stuff in this book could have been cut. The writing was great, however. It made me feel that everything happening was real, and was happening to real people. Close to the end, both sides think the war has finally tilted to their side, but neither one is in a position to win the war. By the end of this book, this opinion is no longer accurate. %A Turtledove, Harry %T Tilting The Balance %S Worldwar %V Book 2 %I Del Rey %D 1995 %G ISBN 0-345-38998-0 %P 597 pp. %O Paperback, US$6.99