Harry Turtledove: a little review of TL 191

Have some of you guys read Turtledove's "Southern Victory" series (aka Timeline 191)? The last four books describe an alternate WW2 where the USA and CSA fight it out to the finish.

I love Turtledove general ideas, even if they aren't realistic AH attempts like Peter Tsouras' but more like allegories where Turtledove expresses his rather cynic view of the world and humanity. That's OK to me, he conveys the idea that human beings are flawed and the world is not black and white but rather many shades of grey. To do that he builds his AH as a parallel of OTL history, where for instance the CSA becomes a version of Nazi Germany. Not very realistic IMO but an interesting concept, especially if you are a military history fan and would like to explore different paths, even unlikely ones.

The thing I don't like is his style. He seems to assume that his readers have an average or below than average education and, it would seem, a below than average IQ. He only uses a third-person narrative, i.e. he tells the story from the point of view of many characters, almost all of them two-dimensional and repetitive. He doesn't seem to bother with technical details when he deals with military stuff, and his description of warfare seems like what a 10 yo enthusiast would write. For instance, Turtledove has a general, who is the alternate version of Rommel, leading a whole army from a tank (equipped with "fancy radios", in HT words) fighting on the front line like a lieutenant or captain and directing all his forces by giving simple unencoded radio orders. He wants to convey the idea that commanders like Rommel fought "from the front". But he doesn't seem to understand that for an army commander to fight from the front means to be close to it in mobile headquarters equipped with specialized command vehicles, communication gear, staff, comm specialists etc. Sometimes Rommel and Guderian found themselves in really tight spots but that was not the normal situation. This is just an example of how Turtledove deals with military matters, which play a central part in these novels. He seems to assume that his readers would not bother with realistic details and "complicated stuff", and this is strange. Many of the readers who buy such books would be those who are interested in history and military topics and probably have an above than average knowledge about those subjects. Tom Clancy and John Schettler became bestseller authors in great part because of the painstaking technical details in their novels.

Thus this series seems like a missed opportunity and I don't know if I would recommend it. I personally find the last four books rather entertaining, and they give also food for thought, but if you don't like a ponderous and repetitive storytelling then probably you are better staying away from the series (eleven books in total).

 

What about his "Worldwar" series, where the aliens attack in the middle of WWII? I haven't read it. Have you?

 

Yes, I read it many years ago. It is a quite original crossover, but it follows the same style and it has the same weaknesses. It is 3rd person POV, with many characters who spend a lot of time in quite pointless dialogues with a lot of repetitions (maybe a little less than in TL 191), and with little attention to technical details. For instance a partisan scavenges radioactive fissile material from a destroyed alien ship and delivers it to the countries fighting the aliens, so that they can build atomic bombs. The "technical" explanation on how it was possible: he carried the stuff in a backpack lined with lead... It was quite entertaining bc it's an original departure from the usual stories about WW2. I tried also a couple novels of the follow-on series but it was becoming boring and I gave up. One thing I have to say about Turtledove is that he is good at describing how normal, decent, even likeable characters can become morally corrupt. I also like that sometimes he "kills" main characters so you don't know who is going to live or die.

 

Sounds like a good place for secret societies, too....if there are aliens´attack there should be mafia involved as well...

 

Thanks for the tip.

 

You are my guest. Btw, if you are undecided you can find some of those books online for free and read some chapters so you can have a better idea and decide if it's worth investing a few bucks to buy the books.