Harry Turtledove books

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Let me ask- and I haven't been watching this subforum lately- has anyone read any of Harry Turtledove's series? I usually don't read fiction but he is a really engrossing reader for anyone into military/alternative history. I got captivated with "Guns of the South"- which had a theory that what if time travel were possible and apartheid South Afrikaaners traveled back to the Civil War and gave Robert E. Lee AK-47s? The South won- and that series goes from there with rematches with the North. He has several other series based on the split American nations fighting each other with other nations allied to one or the other as time moves forward in history to World Wars One and Two, which are totally different from real history but certainly plausible. I think Turtledove is a liberal but he doesn't pull any punches- no matter what character at what level on which side he switches back and forth between, he tells it as they would think it. I've been fascinated but think I'm getting to the last book of the four series I've read now. How about any of you who've read his books? What do you think?
Bill in Ohio

Where Liberty dwells, there is my country.- Ben Franklin
Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever. - Jefferson
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.- Hunter Thompson

Re: Harry Turtledove books

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I like Turtledove. His plots are always interesting, though his characters (particularly women) are pretty two dimensional.

I highly strongly muchly recommend you check out some of a John Birmingham's alt history work. I just finished the After America trilogy and it was the best of the genre, IMO. He is also my favourite Australian writer of fiction, history, comedy and regional defense analysis.
The Drop Bear, Thylarctos plummetus, is a large, arboreal, predatory marsupial related to the Koala.

Re: Harry Turtledove books

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Hey thanks, Doc. I see you're everywhere.
Bill in Ohio

Where Liberty dwells, there is my country.- Ben Franklin
Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever. - Jefferson
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.- Hunter Thompson

Re: Harry Turtledove books

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I read Turtledove up through the WWI novel years ago. Leaving out the Sci-Fi time travel "Guns of the South" (which I did enjoy as I like alt history and sci-fi) the rest of the novels are pretty plausible. Short of Afrikaaners showing up with AK-47's, the Union was inevitably going to win the civil war unless they just got tired of it and walked away. But assuming for the moment that the Union did finally decide the fight wasn't worth it, I think you very well may have had the sort of scenarios that play out in the later books.

Full disclosure: I live in Georgia but I'm Yankee born :o
Last edited by Woodsman on Tue Feb 05, 2013 8:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Member, LGC

Re: Harry Turtledove books

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I loved reading his Videsseos Cycle when I was in high school. Those four books are about how several Roman cohorts from Caesar's army in Gaul are magically transported to another world, which is basically the Byzantine Empire c. 1100 AD. The Romans have to contend with a foreign language, monotheistic faith ( and its various schisms ), armies in which cavalry is paramount, and where magic is very real.
A lot of Turtledove's writing is not terribly original- look at a map of Videsseos and compare it to a map of the Byzantine Empire. It's a mirror image. Videssian? Its Medieval Greek. The religion? Christianity, without Jesus Christ.
But wtf, its an entertaining read and that's the thing that counts in the end.
"... the rich rob the poor under the cover of law. We plunder the rich under the cover of our own courage." - Captain " Black Sam" Bellamy ( executed for piracy, 1717).

Re: Harry Turtledove books

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Like Comedian, I like his Videssos Cycle.

Unfortunately, his other books, while good in concept, fail in execution IMO. I think that when he was younger and less well known and didn't have editors that gave him what he wanted it led to higher quality books.

He really gave the CSA a lot more credit than they deserved in the "Great War/WW2" series, IMO...and he all but wrote in the forward "FEATHERSTON IS HITLER, SEE? EVEN THE 7TH PERSON TO JOIN THE PARTY, LIKE WITH THE NAZIS".

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