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Harry Turtledove Message Board 10/11/2013 7:45:52 PM
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Author Turtledove's Book Reviews

A Different Flesh
The first English colonists reach the North Americas, but they don't find Indians-only Pleistocene mammals and subhuman anthropoids(Homo erectus), which they call 'sims'. The moral implications of this discovery unfold for the next three hundred and fifty years, mostly for the better but not always for the best....
American Empire: The Victorious Opposition
After winning two wars between the states, and losing the last, the USA becomes so socialist and so contrite that she cant/wont see the storm that brews to her south. At the same time Jake Featherston makes a series of power grabs to seal up his control over the CSA. This allows him to set the stage for revenge against the USA and the CSA's war department that held him back and let down his beloved CSA....
Blood and Iron - American Empire 1
Ballantine, Aug 2001, 27.95, 503 pp. ISBN: 034540565X By 1918 the Great War fought in North America and Europe led to the victory of the United States and Germany over the allies. With that success, the United States takes control of the continent by taking territory from the weakened Confederate States and turning Canada into a colony. President Roosevelt facing a socialist reelection challenge led by Upton Sinclair sends venerable w...
Colonization: Down To Earth
This is the second book of the complete Colonization series, set in the 1960's, in the same time line as the preceding Worldwar Tetrology ( 4 book cycle ). It opens in early 1964, one year after the United States launched an advanced spaceship, called the Lewis And Clark, deep into the solar system. Built with technology traded, borrowed, or outright stolen from the aliens that invaded Earth during World War II, changing our history permanently, it may o...

Turtledove booklist

Colonization: Second Contact
The sequel series to the World War Saga, set 20 years after World War: In The Balance, deals with alien colonization of the Earth. With technology stolen from the aliens, humans have 1990's level technology in the 1960's. Because World War II was interrupted, Nazi Germany still occupies most of Europe, except Poland. A violent black market erupts around ginger, the one substance that deprives the alien colonists of their ability to reason. And the questi...
Curious Notions - Crosstime Traffic 2
Tor, Oct 2004, 23.95, 272 pp. ISBN: 0765306948 Crosstime Agent Lawrence Gomes warns his son Paul, who recently graduated from high school, that this alternate earth they are entering is dangerous. The key pivotal point difference occurs when the Kaiser wins World War I and ultimately in 1956 defeated the Americans. Now almost two centuries later, Germany still rules this world with advanced technology, and if they learn about Crosstime traffick...
Days of Infamy
NAL, Nov 2004, 24.95, 464 ISBN: 0451213076 The Japanese plan to bomb Pearl Harbor when Commander Genda persuades Admiral Yamamoto to also occupy Hawaii. That would enable the Japanese to extend their territorial base and make it easier to bomb the American far west and cut the enemy off from allies like Australia and New Zealand. Yamamoto's superiors approve the daring plan. Whites control Hawaii and treat Japanese like third class citizens....
Departures: Stories of Alternate History
This anthology is a nice break from Turtledove's ultra-long novels and series'. It is a hard collection to categorize, because the stories cover a _lot_ of ground. Some are fantasy, some are science fiction, some are alternate historical, some don't fit easily into any of these categories. Some covers themes, such as baseball or Judaism (one amusing little story asks whether a genetically engineered cud-chewing pig would be kosher). Some are totally ...
End of the Beginning
This novel is the second book in the "Days of Infamy" series by Harry Turtledove, after the successful invasion of Hawaii by the Japanese in this Alternate-History series, End of the Beginning continues with the development of society under Japan's rule. The book follows several differnt characters (on both sides) as those characters survive under Japan's rule, battles with the American forces, POW's and American civilians trapped are covered in great...
Gunpowder Empire - Crosstime Traffic 1
When Jeremy Solters and his sister Amanda are not going to Canoga Park High School (class of 2092 or so), they join their parents in trading in an alternate reality where the Roman Empire has endured into the late twenty-first century. They can do this because their reality has developed technology which allows travel between alternate realities so cheaply that apples from "alternates" are for sale at the local Safeway. Since traders in the Roman reality...

Harry Turtledove list of books

Homeward Bound
Del Rey, Jan 2005. 26.95, 608 pp. ISBN: 034545846X The Race as they call themselves travel the twenty light years distance from their planet to invade earth, which is preoccupied with World War II. However, the locals proved adaptive and managed to stop the intruders though the Race was never fully driven off planet (see WORLD WAR: IN THE BALANCE). Over two decades later, a shaky truce has held up between the Race and the humans. However, hu...
How Few Remain - a Novel of the Second War Between the States
A generation after the South won the War of Succession, the Confederate States annexes the Mexican provinces of Sonora and Chihuhuia, angering the United States. The United States declares total war against the Confederate States in 1881. This war however is fought on the lawless frontier where Blue and Grey fight not only each other but outlaws and apaches. The the British Redcoat joins in the fray as along with France, Britian joins into the fray,...
In the Balance - Worldwar 1
A race of lizardlike aliens invades the earth at a key point in our history: World War II. Never was mankind more divided. Never were we more technoligically advanced. The aliens had sent a probe to Earth 800 years ago. Because they took millienia to make a single advance in technology, they've had 1990's level technology for centuries. They arrive in 1942 expecting things to change very little, but find us battling them with tanks, airplanes, and even w...
Into the Darkness - World at War 1
The death of a duke starts a small war that gets bigger as country after country gets pulled into it. The whole book is about this war, seen from different character perspectives (peasants, mages, kings, soldiers, diplomats,etc)....
Jaws of Darkness - World at War 5
Tor, Apr 2003, 27.95, 624 pp. ISBN: 0765304171 The Second World War continues to rage on and over Derlavai. The continent is methodically being razed by the exchange of magical beams of fire, the battle between giant armored beasts, and dragons shooting fire. At first the powerful military of Algarve blitzkrieg to victory through the conversion of the life force of victims, especially the Kauanians. However, recently the tide seems to be tur...
Out of the Darkness - World at War 6
Tor, Apr 2004 ISBN: 0765304384 The great Derlavaian world war is nearly over with major offensives along several fronts that will ultimately determine the victor. Magical weapons of mass destruction have caused havoc on land and at sea. The allies seem poised for a final triumph, but the aftermath may prove costly as they are divided between Unkerlant and its former “friends” now that neither side needs the other. Regardless of the fruits of...

Harry Turtledove novels

Return Engagement: Settling Accounts 1
This book describes the opening stages of World War II in Harry Turtledove's alternate history series SETTLING ACCOUNTS. Jake Featherston, ruthless dictator of the Confederate States and leader of its ruling Freedom Party, has launched a surprise attack on the United States (June 22, 1941), seeking to avenge his country's defeat in the Great War (1914-17). Using "blitzkreig" tactics combining superior barrels (tanks) with tactical air support and ...
Ruled Britania
Shakespeare is approached by Lord Burghley, the aging chancellor of Elizabeth and asked to write a play, on the ancient Queen Boudicca, and her plight to oust the invading Roman legions. It is to be designed to make the Englishmen rise up against Queen Isabella and Prince Albert of Austria and restore Elizabeth to the throne. Meanwhile Shakespeare is commissioned by the Dons to write a play based on the life of His Most Catholic Majesty's life. It i...
Rulers of Darkness - World at War 4
Tor, Apr 2002, 27.95, 656 pp. ISBN: 0765300362 The Derlavian War that has devastated the world is now over three years old with no end in sight. Led by the magic derived from slaughtering the Kuusamians, the Algarvian Empire continues the fight with the Kingdom of Unkerlant in spite of the recent loss at Sullingen. In Kuusamo mages work on developing a new magical “genie” that will stop the Algarve aggression. However, though distant...
Settling Accounts: The Grapple
This is the third book in the alterate history series SETTLING ACCOUNTS, which parallels World War II. The tide of battle has finally turned in favor of the United States in its bitter war against the Confederate States, but hard fighting continues as the Confederate president and dictator, Jake Featherston, refuses to give up. Although the numerical superiority and superior productivity of the American forces continues to wear down the Confederat...
Striking the Balance - Worldwar 4
As the war rages on into 1944, city after city explodes into radioactive firestorms in a tit-for-tat exchange between the Soviet Union, the United States, and Nazi Germany on one side, and the Race on the other. These lizard-like alien invaders are trying desperately to preserve as much of the planet's surface as possible for colonization. But they may be forced to choose between destroying every living thing on Earth to protect their Empire, or calling ...
Supervolcano: All Fall Down
The second book in the Supervolcano trilogy, All Fall Down continues the saga of the dysfunctional and emotionally cold Ferguson family as they attempt to survive in a world drastically altered by the eruption of a supervolcano. Colin Ferguson is a fifty-something, plain spoken police detective in San Atanasio (a fictional working class suburb of L.A.) with a dysfunctional family. This second book of Turtledove's Supervolcano trilogy opens with Colin a...

Harry Turtledove information

Supervolcano: Eruption
This is the story of a dysfunctional family living in various parts of the United States that must learn to survive in a world nearly destroyed and greatly altered by the eruption of a supervolcano under Yellowstone National Park. Colin Ferguson is a hard-nosed detective whose wife of thirty years, Louise, has abandoned him for her much younger aerobics instructor, Teo. Colin never had the slightest notion that Louise had been unhappy or that there were...
The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump
This book is tough to describe. Set in modern-day Los Angeles, except - this world runs by magic, not science. David Fisher, who works for the EPA (Environmental Perfection Agency), has encountered a leak at a toxic spell dump - and stumbles on a major conspiracy that endangers his life, the life of his fiance, and the world. The best part of this novel is undoubtedly the insane puns and fascinating descriptions of a modern magical world. If you live...
The Center Cannot Hold - American Empire 2
As the world licks its wounds from a War and a economic crash, people look for answers and persons to blame. There's not as much 'out for blood' as in the first novel but a considerable amount....
The Great War Series
The Great War is a three-book series in which the United States and the independent Confederate States enter World War I on opposite sides. The U.S. is allied with Germany and Austria-Hungary, while the C.S. is allied with France and Britain. New technology makes this new "Civil War" extremly bloody. Also,the book is told from many different(Northern, Southern, white, black, Socialist, Canadian.) Extremly well written. Continues the story told in "How F...
The Great War: American Front
The first book in a trilogy explaining what could of been! The Confederate States after their victories in the War of Seccession and the Second Mexican Wars has allied to the Quadruple Entente against the Quadruple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy and the United States. When the assasins bullet rings out and Austria goes to war with Serbia, what started as a war in Europe quickly spreads to America. Declaring war in support of her allie...
The Guns of the South: a Novel of the Civil War
Time travelers bring Ak-47's back to the Civil War to try to create a permanent racial division. Time travelers bring Ak-47's back to the Civil War to try to create a permanent racial division. Confederate General Robert E. Lee is approached by a time traveler some time after Gettysburg in the field with an Ak-47 and an offer to help win the otherwise doomed Civil War. With the weapons, the representative of America Will Break (AWB), time travelers from ...
The Victorious Oppostion
In a world that never was but could haven been, the Confederacy won the War of Succession and the United States had to recognize them as a sovereign nation. As the victors, they imposed certain restrictions on the way the United States governed itself. When the Great War broke out, the United States was the winner, wrestling territory away from the Confederacy and bringing it into the union. To prevent Britain from ever being a threat in the USA agai...
Things Fall Apart - Supervolcano 3
Family members scattered across the U.S. struggle to survive following a life-changing volcanic explosion. When a massive volcanic explosion in Yellowstone Park five years ago shot ash and dust into the air, everyone expected there would be long-term problems. But five years after the fact, life in the U.S. is nowhere near normal. The land around the park is uninhabitable for hundreds of miles and the ash has drastically changed the climate. The world is...
Tilting the Balance - Worldwar 2
World War II is interrupted by an alien invasion. Americans, Soviets, Nazis, and, Japanese temporarily call a truce and unite to face a common foe. They agree to pool their resources, but work independently to develop nuclear weapons in secret. Jews in Warsaw who surrendered to the aliens cheer as Berlin disappears in a mushroom cloud, but become disillusioned when Washington, DC is vaporized because the invaders cannot tell one group of human enemies fr...
Upsetting the Balance - Worldwar 3
No one could stop The Race, the alien invaders from a distant star who interrupted World War II. China, the Soviet Union, Japan, Nazi Germany, Britain and the United States worked together to tilt the balance in humanity's favor. Our very freedom was at stake. Finally in 1943, the Soviet Union detonated a nuclear bomb using plutonium stolen from the Race. But these invaders are reluctant to retaliate, wanting to preserve as much of the Earth's surfac...
WorldWar: In The Balance
A superior alien race attacks Earth at the height of World War II. After an alien invasion during World War II involving nuclear explosions in the sky, Jens Larssen travels from Chicago to a temporary United States capital to convince the U.S. that the atomic research project in Chicago must be defended. Patton is eventually called back to do just that and Jens begins a hard journey back to Chicago to try to find his wife and rejoin the lab. The alie...