Harry Turtledove Message Board
Makkabee posts on 8/14/2007 11:52:48 PM
1941-1944, Berg. And casualties in 1939=41 were fairly light, OTL. It wasn't until Barbarossa that you got the real bloodbath going, though the mutual terror bombings of the Battle of Britain weren't exactly fun and games. As for Paris being a ghost town, I doubt it -- too much to do there, too many factories, too much government. There's a good chance they evacuated children to the countryside as in Blitz era London, but the adults would mostly have stayed put. Same for London. Brighton and Norwich weren't obvious targets so I doubt there'd been any serious evacuations there. What sort of military-industrial targets did those cities have, anyway? Why not the naval base at Portsmouth instead?
Jack posts on 8/13/2007 9:53:05 PM
It's a good thing Gizzi said he wasn't going to go for name calling, otherwise I'd have to be insulted at the ''ignorant'' bit. And Gizzi, just because the Internet allows a few nuts to give themselves a platform doesn't mean everyone who rants on a message board gets what they want. Otherwise every political office holder would be impeached or assassinated, the US Army would go into and then pull out of a new country every week, Barry Bonds would be banned from baseball, and the KC Royals would win the pennant. As for the dust jacket, you can't tell me you didn't think it was monumentally stupid as you read it. It gave a lot of information that those who've been reading the series already know, which tells me it's trying to attract new readers, because continued sales of the series depend on selling the existing books to people who don't owe them rather than new books to committed fans. But if you want to put so much faith in the dust jacket flap, please read ''With visionary brilliance, Harry Turtledove BRINGS TO A CLIMACTIC CONCLUSION his monumental, acclaimed drama of a nation's tragedy'' et cetera. Come on, Gizzi, face reality. It's not healthy to be so deeply in denial.
Berg posts on 8/13/2007 6:26:17 PM
I was wondering while reading In At the Death if the number of killed in the TL-191 "Second Great War" would have been more or less than that of OTL World War 2. I think it would have been quite a bit lower. The number of killed in a war is directly related to it's length. The war lasted from 1942-1944. That's much shorter than 1939-1945. Japan would have had a much lower death rate alone. The bomb at Petrograd would have caused major losses, but I bet with the four month warning Paris would have been a ghost town. So would have the three English citys.
What do you think?
TR posts on 8/13/2007 5:53:15 PM
"No one can say for sure whether this is the end or the beginning."
One person can: Harry Turtledove. And he has said it is the end.
By your logic, everything HT has written will eventually be sequalized because the fans "demand" it. I doubt "Guns of the South" will be continued any time soon.
Justin posts on 8/13/2007 5:09:56 PM
Please consider carefully that something that gets mentioned on a book jacket does not imply that people care about it. Death camps are also mentioned in several jackets; does that mean that people want more books because they want to read more about death camps? Just because the review page on Amazon could be unanimous (and it ISN'T; I post there daily) means nothing; do you think it's a democracy, that if everyone wants something, it'll just happen? And 25 or so reviewers do not constitute a majority of people anyway -- does EVERYONE who reads a Turtledove book write a review about it online? What about the opinions of those who don't?
John Gizzi posts on 8/13/2007 11:52:24 AM
I was not aware any of the series made the NYT best-seller list. It will be interesting, then, to see if IATD makes it.
Rather than call names or call others self-righteous or other things that don't apply or get into non-sequitirs, I will simply say that saying consumer reviews don't impact on what books are coming reflects an ignorant about the current market of books. Because of the net, people who write reviews can have as much an impact on whether sequels to books are written. Do I have or claim any insight as to what HT will do? No--only reporting the truth, which is that the discussion on the review page is unanimous anticipating more books on this timeline.
As for people caring about presidential elections and Haiti, they indeed do: please read carefully the jackets and the teasers, which to a book, say who is president at the time and in some cases who is running. IATD is a case in point: citing Tom Dewey and his runningmate Harry Truman. So much of the story line in the whole series has been written about the quadrennial elections and a case can be made that clearly readers wonder who will follow Dewey.
Certainly civil rights has been an underlying theme in each book in the series. I find it hard to believe the author would leave African Americans headed for a separate Republic without finally being integrated in a full society. Again, we are approaching fast a time in the timeline when the civil rights movement should be hitting its stride.
No one can say for sure whether this is the end or the beginning. For all of JK Rowling's insistence that this is the last Harry Potter book, one finds just as many skeptics who say there will be another book after a period as say Harry has hung up his wand.
Jack posts on 8/13/2007 11:26:43 AM
Gizzi, a consensus has to be unanimous or very close to it. It requires more than a simple majority, and MUCH more than a simple(ton) minority, which is what your side of the proverbial aisle has. And even if all the readers and reviewers think this book was the best in the series (they don't because it wasn't) AND are clamoring for more (they're not) they have no power nor authority to compel HT to write more books, beyond saying ''Please? We'll give you more royalty checks.'' And HT's already pretty rich, I think.
Justin posts on 8/13/2007 10:14:14 AM
The books have made the NYT bestseller list on numerous occasions, so the fact that the last book made another list means nothing. If it's the "best" (I happen to think Breakthroughs was the high point of the series), then more reason for the series to end now, before HT ruins it, right? I really don't see the feasibility of writing about the American-Confederate conflict if there's no such thing as a Confederate, and you and I both know that you agree with me even if you won't admit it. You'll correct me if I'm wrong (and I know I'm not), but without the meat of the story, the side items alone can't carry the brunt of the tale. How many reviewers actually give a Jesus flying f*ck about the political elections or the (revived) state of Haiti? And, finally, consumer reviewers don't make the call about making new books; the publishers and authors do that. If Harry feels there is nothing left to write about, and you and I both know that this is the case, then no person in the world can compel him to change his mind. He fulfilled his contract to Del Rey, and they really don't seem to see any new steam coming from the series, so it's time to retire this old horse.
John Gizzi posts on 8/13/2007 9:58:55 AM
This weekend, I learned that IATD had made #6 on the Washington Post best-seller list--the first time, I believe, that any of the books in this series have made that paper's list.
I would strongly suggest that anyone who is interested punch in "Harry Turtledove Book Reviews" on Google, then go to IATD. You will see the enthusiasm, the consensus that this was one of HT's best, and the discussion of the next series.
Anonymous posts on 8/13/2007 9:48:56 AM
some times i think you people have no lives and you don't so bye.
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