Multiple worlds, many wars: ‘Master’ Harry Turtledove’s treasure trove of Alternate History war sagas (Part III)
The World at War series
The WorldWar series
The WarWorld series
The Colonization series
The American Flag series
The Videssos Legion series
etc
all by Harry Turtledove
He’s called the ‘master’ of Alternate History and rightfully so.
Harry Turtledove is an amazingly prolific, amazingly dependable author. He belies the notion that some readers have that once an author achieves great success, he stops delivering good books.
Turtledove is that rarest of rare creatures in the publishing biz. He delivered his best work *after* finding success.
His career-bestselling book was, as I mentioned earlier, Guns of the South.
Bouyed by its success (he’d written a lot of books before then, SF as well as Fantasy, with limited results), he went on to develop the same ‘world’ into a long sequence of novels that, as far as I can tell, are still continuing through multiple linked-series.
There’s an alternate-history retelling of World War I, called The Great War series.
There are three alt-hist retellings of WWII, called The WorldWar, Colonization, and Settling Accounts series.
There’s the American Empire series. The Crosstime Traffic series for young readers. The Videssos Legion if you’re tired of his 20th century retellings and want to go farther back, to the Roman age (but in a fantasy world).
The best thing about Turtledove is that, if you like his work, there’s lots of it waiting for you to read.
You’re not going to run out of Turtledove books for a long while, trust me.
I’ve been reading him for ages, and still can’t catch up! And I’m a voracious reader.
My personal favourite is the World at War series. Because it’s fantasy more than alt-hist.
That is, it can be read in its own right, without you needing to figure out, oh, this is so-and-so, or oh-that’s-winston-churchill and so on.
You can just read it, and enjoy the read.
(And if you’re wondering if maybe, I’m implying that in some alt-hist books you can get a headache trying to figure out who’s actually supposed to be who, and done what, and when, you might be right–that’s the one major downside of alt-hist, if you don’t know the history in the first place, or worse, don’t care much about it!
But in that case, why the hell are you reading this blogpost in the first place?!)
The World at War series is different from most alt-hist books, and most Turtledove books too, because it’s not SF really. In fact, it’s the other side of the river: fantasy. It’s in fact a fantasy retelling of the Second World War.
It postulates the question, ‘What if WWII took place in a world where, instead of technology and modern weaponry, magic and dragons and mages prevailed…”
There are six books as of this writing, of which I’ve read only three. All the titles have the word ‘Darkness’ in them, in case you’re looking them up…
Like all Turtledove novels (and indeed, like most Alt-Hist novels), the World At War series follows several major viewpoint characters–about 15 in each book–through the entire saga.
If you know your WWII history really well–if you’ve read the entire set of Winston Churchill’s histories of the war, for instance–then you’re really going to have a treat ahead.
But even if you’re not a total WWII buff (I’m not) you’ll still find a lot to enjoy.
For one thing, Turtledove isn’t as obsessed with the US-Versus-Them notion, which means he’s able to just tell a story well, with all characters weighed equally, and no inherent biases. On the contrary, he actually manages to bring out the humanity in every one of his characters, even the worst of them.
This being a war saga, there’s never a really dull moment. There’s always people dying, or under threat of death, or surviving impossible odds.
Nations are being overrun, transformed, taken over, wrested back…
Terrible things, shocking things…
But never a dull moment.
In terms of story, at least.
As far as style is concerned, though, that’s another story…
There are times when Turtledove’s methodical storytelling style can seem plodding. Like a perfectly well-bred horse insisting on trotting at precisely the right speed, no matter how much you want (or need) him to go faster.
Perhaps this pedantic prose is the result of the many plotlines and characters he’s juggling. With so many things happening, to so many people, he’s just trying to keep it simple.
He doesn’t try for fanciful descriptions or elegant turns of phrase. Like other prolific genre writers–Asimov is a good comparison–Turtledove’s goal is to tell us the whole story, nothing more.
He tells an excellent story. And he tells it well enough for his purposes.
The idea of dragons being used instead of planes–they drop eggs which explode just like bombs–and of magically charged ‘sticks’ in place of guns, sorcerors casting spells to conceal (or expose) spies, ‘ley’ lines used to transport ships or trains across great distances quickly, and wizards and crystal balls being used by each side to enhance their chances of winning…these and many other thrilling ideas are explored in this fascinating series.
Turtledove’s fascination for history and his enormous output as a writer has led him to start using a pseudonym recently.
Under the byline H.N. Turtletaub, he writes straight historical fiction. You can look up the books on any online bookstore.
Somehow, these titles aren’t as interesting as his alt-hist. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because he’s bound by the historical record.
Although, he is smart enough to use minor, unknown historical characters rather than the high-profile kings and emperors we all know about, which gives him more freedom.
But mainly, I think, Turtledove’s biggest failing shines through in these books: Without an existing framework upon which to ‘grow’ his own ideas and diversions, he settles into a plodding, dull, story of his own making.
It’s not that his Turtletaub novels are boring (I’ve only read two but he’s hardly written three or four so far) but that they’re not that exciting as his alt-hist books.
Of course, this problem rears its head in his alt-hist books too. If you make the mistake of reading, say, an entire series of his in one go, you might end up reeling with boredom and dullness because of the methodical way he presents each episode, each character, then moves on to the next, with predictable regularity.
But what drives you on through his alt-hist series is the over-arching storyline–ripped from the pages of history itself–and the underlying knowledge that ‘this really happened’ as well as the clever ‘what ifs’ he keeps posing, and then following through to its logical conclusion with rigorous intellectualism.
It’s true that Turtledove’s books can get somewhat predictable and reptititive. I wouldn’t recomend stacking a huge pile of them and reading through them all one by one.
On the other hand, if you read the books between other series, or as an alternative to other fiction, why, then they’re quite engaging. Even addictive in a way.
And ultimately, if you persevere, they grow on you. Even the characters that seemed least interesting at first, start to become more interesting, and in the end, turn out to be the ‘real’ heroes or heroines of the tale. Even more so than the famous personages out of the history books.
But then again, that’s only to be expected.
After all, don’t forget. This isn’t history. It’s alternate history.
And it’s best read as an alternative!
I know I haven’t mentioned so many classics–like Pavane, or A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.
Or Alt-Hist in other form like movies (not so many to speak of actually, probably because it’s hard enough to make intelligent historical movies, let alone expect movie-going audiences to appreciate ‘alternate’ histories–”this isn’t really what happened, it’s what might have happened if…” “HUH?”)
Or graphic novels like Neil Gaiman’s excellent 1602. Or even new Alt-Hist novels that are well worth reading like Kim Stanley Robinson’s Years of Rice and Salt…
I guess there’s tons more to be written about the sub-genre, but I’m going to try and wind this series up before it becomes as long as a Harry Turtledove saga!
Just one last word of friendly advice: Don’t read Alt-hist for the ideas or the technology, or the action-adventure alone – although those may or may not be present in the best Alt-hist books.
Read it the way you would a good historical novel series.
For the people and their stories.
After all, there’s a reason why it’s called His-Story. (Although it should actually be Their-Story, don’t you think?)
And why this sub-genre is called Alternate History.
(Concluded.)
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 31st, 2005 at 1:39 am. It is filed under Ashok.
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