Has anyone read Harry Turtledove but me?

[xanaphia]

I think I am the only Harry Turtledove reader in the world. I have never met anyone who knows any of his works (apart from Fascisticide). I am starting to feel lonely.

If anyone has read them, please post. If you haven't, please read them. They are the awesomest.

[Gaelbert]

I've read all of his World in the Balance books, including the colonization ones, Guns of the South, a few of his anthologies, that fantasy series that mirrored WW2, and some of his others. I love Alternate History.

[sun_tzu]

I've read his fourth "World in the Balance" book (it was in the library of a house where I was spending the summer), as well "Guns of the South". Greatly enjoyed both.

[Dervag]

I've read so many of them that it would be faster to list the books I haven't read.

[DomaDoma]

I haven't read any of the more big-name ones - the closest is The Two Georges, an AU where the American colonists came to peace with England before war broke out, but I didn't finish it owing to college - but my favorite is Ruled Britannia, where the Armada took over England and William Shakespeare is enlisted by old cohorts of the imprisoned Queen Elizabeth to foment a rebellion. I find the idea of a subversive dramatic troupe intensely appealing, somehow. And Thomas Phelippes gets a few cameos - from what I've read about him in a book on ciphers, yeah, it's pretty true to life.

Come winter vacation, I will start on the epic series where the South seceded, but first I'll brush up on the Civil War itself. It seems to be some unwritten law among American history buffs that you must know every minute detail of the Battle of Gettysburg, and I... don't.

The series where space lizards invade during World War II... probably not.

[....]

The series where space lizards invade durig World War II... probably not.

http://news.filefront.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/resistancefallofman1.jpg

[SurlySeraph]

The series where space lizards invade during World War II... probably not.

The Worldwar series, yes.

I read it. I hate it.

It's not that Turtledove is a bad writer or anything like that. It's that he systematically and inevitable ends up killing off every last likable character he ever introduces. Usually in fairly terrible, dishonorable ways after they've lost everything they cared about.

Nuclear physicist who's separated from his wife whom he deeply cares about while traveling across the country to help build the atomic bomb? His wife gets impregnated by some jackass abusive sailor and leaves him. After dealing with it well for a while, he goes mildly insane and some other jackass cavalry officer shoots him.

Non-evil, cynical-but-cheerful SS officer? Freaks out, decides he hates Jews after all, gets shot by his friends after trying to nerve-gas Warsaw.

Laconic, lazy, funny alien invader who wants to make peace? Starves to death in a Siberian concentration camp after it turns out that his efforts to stop the fighting have gotten all his comrades enslaved.

There are the creativity lapses. The aliens have starships, but all their combat technology is pretty much identical to modern technology - automatic rifles, laser-guided missiles, transport helicopters, on and on.

Not to mention what most annoyed me. The books are about an alien invasion during World War II. Why the hell are there three or four sex scenes for every combat scene? Why do they never stop talking about how the aliens are all male and have a vastly different sexual culture from humans? Can the author please stop talking about sex for just five pages?

[Dervag]

Come winter vacation, I will start on the epic series where the South seceded, but first I'll brush up on the Civil War itself. It seems to be some unwritten law among American history buffs that you must know every minute detail of the Battle of Gettysburg, and I... don't.Gettysburg never happened in that setting. The divergence point was a year earlier, at Antietam, where a Confederate courier failed to drop a copy of Lee's secret battle plans where US forces could pick it up (historically, he did drop the plans, but McClellan didn't do much of anything with them, so this divergence is a bit unlikely).

But for purposes of that series, it's not actually important to know how or why the South won the Civil War, only that they did so, and that they did so while figures like Stonewall Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart were still alive, after only about a year or so of fighting.


The series where space lizards invade during World War II... probably not.It's actually not bad once you suspend disbelief enough to accept the initial premise. I have a soft spot for it because I read it before any other Turtledove, but you're right; it is not his most plausible work, nor is it his best.


The Worldwar series, yes.

I read it. I hate it.

It's not that Turtledove is a bad writer or anything like that. It's that he systematically and inevitable ends up killing off every last likable character he ever introduces. Usually in fairly terrible, dishonorable ways after they've lost everything they cared about.You exaggerated some of the cases you put in the spoiler, but I see your point. Like the guy who gets shot by some "jackass... officer..." He did not go mildly insane, but rather seriously insane, after a very long sequence of very unlucky things happening to him. As in, he was going to spill a critical secret in such a way as to greatly imperil his nation's war effort, perhaps even decisively.

I think the problem is that we ended up liking different sets of characters. So I wasn't quite as welded to the ones that got killed off as you were.


There are the creativity lapses. The aliens have starships, but all their combat technology is pretty much identical to modern technology - automatic rifles, laser-guided missiles, transport helicopters, on and on.The aliens haven't fought a war in literally tens of thousands of years. They're a very stable species and they've been politically unified since the latest human superweapon was the stone ax. So while their civilian technology has very slowly improved over time, their military technology has remained largely static. To the point where they have to consult ancient (for them) historical records in order to figure out what their own uniforms and weapon systems are supposed to look like.

And since they expected to be fighting knights in shining armor on Earth, the fact that their military technology is 'only' equivalent to what we have at the turn of the millenium today was expected to be amply sufficient.


Not to mention what most annoyed me. The books are about an alien invasion during World War II. Why the hell are there three or four sex scenes for every combat scene? Why do they never stop talking about how the aliens are all male and have a vastly different sexual culture from humans? Can the author please stop talking about sex for just five pages?OK, now you are exaggerating, but I share your complaint. The sex scenes didn't outnumber the combat scenes as far as I can remember, but there were too many of them.

[Kojiro Kakita]

Let see, I only read his Civil War novels, so that is Guns of the South and the Order 191 timeline.

On another note, he was a guest speaker at my school.

[xanaphia]

The series where space lizards invade during World War II... probably not.


It's my second favorite of his serieses, Darkness being my favourite.



Not to mention what most annoyed me. The books are about an alien invasion during World War II. Why the hell are there three or four sex scenes for every combat scene? Why do they never stop talking about how the aliens are all male and have a vastly different sexual culture from humans? Can the author please stop talking about sex for just five pages?

That annoys me too. He's got great stories, why make them R-rated.\



On another note, he was a guest speaker at my school.

OMG I would kill for that.

Just a question: Who do you think the least useful viewpoint character in each of the serieses was. I haven't come up with an answer.

[turkishproverb]

Loved his recent short story "News from the Front."

[Telonius]

Computer ate the last post... Yes, I've read a few of them, at around the same time as I read William Forstchen's "Lost Regiment" series. I think they were sharing notes, because they have a lot of the same qualities. Decent military research, but no brain for politics at all. Overabundance of sex scenes. Nothing wrong with having a sex scene in a book, if it's important and meaningful; but showing it for the sake of showing it is sloppy writing and borderline disrespectful of the audience.

Guns of the South was a decent book, but I didn't really feel like he got Lee's character completely right. Lee has much more depth to him than was shown in the book. It also suffers from the whole "gotta bring up the Holocaust in any alternate timeline story" canard that seems to infect a lot of authors. The way he does it wasn't nearly as annoying as some other authors I've read (Piers Anthony in "For Love of Evil," for example); in fact he was able to bring it up in a way that made sense to the plot. But it was still unnecessary to have it in there.

[Muz]

I read half of the first Worldwar book, but I'm sorry to say I set it down and never picked it up again. The bit that bothered me most was that I was expecting to see more historical figures (Roosevelt, Stalin, Hitler, Churchhill, Hirohito, as implied on the cover of the book) in larger roles, and the fact that they were fringe characters was disappointing. It wasn't a bad book, it just wasn't what I was looking for.

[Kaelaroth]

My brother loves them, and enthuses on about 'em at every oppurtunity. That drives me nuts, as I think they're terrible. I do like counterfactuals, but I find his writing style annoying.

[TheEmerged]

I've read a lot of his stuff, but not lately. For one thing my reading time is not as extensive as before and therefore the "important" (work related) reading takes precedence. The other is that I didn't like the Worldwar/Colonization series -- the first book of Colonization was a serious turnoff, I ended up throwing that book out -- or the direction his "South Wins the Civil War" series took once we hit World War 2. Part of that might be hearing about the area I live in gettering invaded :smallbiggrin:

[Prophaniti]

I love the books of his that I've read, which is mostly The Great War trilogy and American Empire. The one that starts with How Few Remain and tells a history in which the Confederacy gains independance. Great stuff, very compelling. Yeah, he does like to kill the ones you like and raise up the ones you hate, but I find that hightens the realistic feel to it, like reading G.R.R. Martin's stuff. I'm busy feeling sorry for myself because the next book in the series is out and I don't have money... I'll just have to occupy myself with the Horus Heresy, which is by no means a bad thing!:smallsmile:

Definitely my favorite alternate history writer and up there with my favorite overall writers.

EDIT:
*snip*or the direction his "South Wins the Civil War" series took once we hit World War 2. Part of that might be hearing about the area I live in gettering invaded :smallbiggrin:

I kind of agree on that part. He's really only done one thing in the series that I don't agree with, and that's having the mormons openly rebel. I actually know quite a bit about the history of the religion and I simply dont see it happening, at least not the way he does it. Maybe he went to Utah once, didn't like it, and so decided to blow it up in the book, I don't know, but it just doesn't have the same plausible feel to it as the rest of the little twists he takes, to me at least.

[Tweekinator]

I kind of agree on that part. He's really only done one thing in the series that I don't agree with, and that's having the mormons openly rebel. I actually know quite a bit about the history of the religion and I simply dont see it happening, at least not the way he does it. Maybe he went to Utah once, didn't like it, and so decided to blow it up in the book, I don't know, but it just doesn't have the same plausible feel to it as the rest of the little twists he takes, to me at least.

That's actually not too far off the truth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_War

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre

[Dervag]

I read half of the first Worldwar book, but I'm sorry to say I set it down and never picked it up again. The bit that bothered me most was that I was expecting to see more historical figures (Roosevelt, Stalin, Hitler, Churchhill, Hirohito, as implied on the cover of the book) in larger roles, and the fact that they were fringe characters was disappointing. It wasn't a bad book, it just wasn't what I was looking for.Well, making the major historical figures viewpoint characters requires him to write the books from the point of view of national rulers. He can do that, but I don't think it's his preferred style. Also, the leaders of twentieth century nations spend most of their time in their offices dealing with people and paperwork. They don't get around much, which doesn't make for a very interesting story.


I've read a lot of his stuff, but not lately. For one thing my reading time is not as extensive as before and therefore the "important" (work related) reading takes precedence. The other is that I didn't like the Worldwar/Colonization series -- the first book of Colonization was a serious turnoff, I ended up throwing that book out -- or the direction his "South Wins the Civil War" series took once we hit World War 2. Part of that might be hearing about the area I live in gettering invaded :smallbiggrin:Hey, if the continental United States were divided politically, a lot of places therein might very well end up becoming battlegrounds.


I kind of agree on that part. He's really only done one thing in the series that I don't agree with, and that's having the mormons openly rebel. I actually know quite a bit about the history of the religion and I simply dont see it happening, at least not the way he does it. Maybe he went to Utah once, didn't like it, and so decided to blow it up in the book, I don't know, but it just doesn't have the same plausible feel to it as the rest of the little twists he takes, to me at least.Turtledove's approach to Utah in the "Timeline 191" series is really about the idea of escalating troubles that finally blow out of proportion entirely.

First of all, this is a world where a large chunk of the US that disagreed with the US government politically managed to successfully leave the Union only about 15 years after the Mormons fled to Utah. Given that the Mormons really were looking for a place where they could live without having to deal with the US government telling them what to do or interfering with what they saw as their freedom of religion, this would have almost certainly seemed like a valid precedent to some of the more radical Mormons.

In the 1881 war ("How Few Remain,") all the Mormons actually did was engage in what amounted to some passive resistance tactics against US troop movements by sabotaging east-west railroad lines passing through Utah. I don't think that's an unlikely event in a world where there would almost certainly have been an active 'Deseret separatist' movement within the Church of Latter-day Saints, using the Confederacy as a precedent.

It was the US reaction to this sabotage (garrison Utah, clamp down on everything, persecute polygynists, and publically execute popular Mormon leaders) that really caused things to blow up. So in a real sense you could say that the entire mess in Utah that took place in that series of novels can be blamed on the more radicalized, militarized government of the US that grew up after its defeat in the Civil War.