Need help with picking Harry Turtledove books.

[RandMcnally]

I'm looking to buy some of his books, but I don't know which ones to get.

I'm interested in the Great War series and The American Empire. Can someone tell me what order the books are in so I can buy them in succesion. I'm not interested in too much Science fiction, such as Guns of the South, or the ones with aliens.

Thank you kindly

[Kamino Neko]

In order:

How Few Remain
Great War: American Front
Great War: Walk In Hell
Great War: Breakthroughs
American Empire: Blood and Iron
American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold
American Empire: The Victorious Opposition (Not out in paperback yet, the rest are.)

[Kamino Neko]

Actually a little more detail (Attempting to avoid spoilers)

HFR happens about 10 years after the Confederates are victorious in the Civil War.
Great War is that world's version of WWI.
American Empire is the aftermath of the Great War.

Expect to get to like characters only to have them die brutal deaths - Turtledove does that a lot.

Hell...just start carving every adult's tomb stones the moment you meet them...it'll save time. ^__~

(I love the series, BTW, but it's got a body count that could depopulate small towns.)

[RandMcnally]

Are they worth the money? I'm really into counterfactual history. Will I have to use a lot of my imagination to believe that the South one, as in Guns From the South?

[RandMcnally]

Can you recomend any other non-that science fictional (yes, that makes sense) alternate history books, whether they be by Turtledove or not?

[Baker]

I liked The Two Georges. Won't spoil it, but it's cool.

[Kamino Neko]

I thought the Great War universe was fairly believable. It diverges (and this is all in the forward of HFR, so not too much of a spoiler, of course), when a battle-plan drawn up by General Lee, which, in the real world fell into Union hands gets where it belongs and follows more or less directly from there.

There's times when I was dragged out of the book world by the appearance of someone who's ALMOST familiar (In the Center Cannot Hold I've been jerked to reality twice - by the Engles Brothers, and a German Sergent, who, though not named, must have been Adolph Hitler.), or by a punnish name (Like the Engles Brothers, and Lt. Pierre Lapin, who appears in American Front), but it's not a case of breaking suspension of disbelief, so much as amusement on my part at the reference.

[Cat Whisperer]

My favourite Harry Turtledove novel is "The Case of The Toxic Spelldump." Seriously. It's full of incredibly bad puns, and it's set in a world that is governed by magic instead of physics. What more could you ask for?

[Smeghead]

I posted a thread a few months back in about how I thought Turtledove's "Into the Darkness" was one of the worst books I've ever read. A lot of people chimed in on both sides. You might want to search for that thread if you're interested in what people around here think of him. Or not.

[Ephemera]

I discovered Turtledove about two years ago and have read most of his Alternative-History stuff (I've avoided the fantasy stuff. I'm prejudiced against it) and his Great War and American Empire books are easily his best works.

Pretty believable.. even at about five or six hundred pages apiece, you go through them quickly.

[Captain Amazing]

If you're looking for more straight fantasy from him, there's Spell Dump, which was already mentioned, and Thessalonica, which I didn't like as much (in recently Christianized Thessalonica, mythological Greek figures help Thessalonica fight off an invasion).

If you're looking for a fantasy series, try his Videssos series, which is based on a fantasy Byzantium

[FriarTed]

I second The Two Georges (coauthored with Richard Dreyfuss- yes, THAT one)

also, Agent of Byzantium- set in the 1400's- an agent for the Roman Byzantine Empire spies on the Manichean Persian Empire & falls for a MPE female agent; the Empire is the centre of the One Holy Catholic Orthodox Unschismed Church, the most faithful of which are the Arabs, converted by the poet St Mahomet, "There is no God but Allah & Jesus is His Son".

[Fiver]

I very much enjoyed what is probably his least-known book, A Different Flesh.

Premise: A population of Homo erectus entered the Americas from Asia during one of the glacial periods, then no other hominids came until Columbus.

So we have a world where humans are side-by-side with another hominid species; where the megafauna survived, because H. erectus wasn't smart enough to kill them off; where evolution was discovered sooner, and where the Americas have no Indian place names (the Mississippi is called the New Nile, for example).

[lno]

I was disappointed by his WorldWar and Colonization books, but I'm an avid reader of the Great War and American Empire series.

There are a few Turtledove books in hardcover that I'm waiting to appear in paperback - primarily one about Shakespeare as a subversive author in an England that was conquered by the Spanish Armada.

[Lemur866]

First off, "The Guns of The South" isn't that science fictional...The premise of mysterious visitors with AK47s isn't about time travel very much. And it really is his best book.

If you like fantasy, the Videssos novels are very good. "The Misplaced Legion", "Swords of the Legion", "An Emperor for the Legion" and "The Legion of Videssos" are the first 4.

The Great War series isn't that hard to believe...the South doesn't win by magic.

If you are looking for other alternate history writers, try SM Stirling. "Island in the Sea of Time" is pretty good, although strictly speaking it is a time travel story rather than alternate history.

[DesertDog]

Originally posted by lno
I was disappointed by his WorldWar and Colonization books, but I'm an avid reader of the Great War and American Empire series.

There are a few Turtledove books in hardcover that I'm waiting to appear in paperback - primarily one about Shakespeare as a subversive author in an England that was conquered by the Spanish Armada. That would be Ruled Britannia. I just polished that one off.

Right after a performance of The Prince of Denmark Will is approached by conspirators that want him to write a play that will trigger a revolution after Phillip is dead. Then the Spanish garrison commissions him to write another play commemorating Phillip.

It has a definite ending, so I doubt it is the first of a series, but it paints a fascinating picture of Elizabethian-era life in London.

I liked the lizard books better than the Great War and Colonization series. Different strokes, I guess.

DD

[Tars Tarkas]

I just picked up the latest of the American Empire books and am blazing through it. Who is Al Smith? I like the Lizard books the best because i'm more into sci-fi, but the Great War books are really good. I avoid his fantasy stuff like the plague, but i think i may get suckered into them eventually. You could probably skip How Few Remain and head straight into the Great War series (that is what i did, because i didn't know HFR was part of it.) And what makes Lt. Pierre Lapin punnish? Also, do you ever picture those books' Potter character as Colonel Potter from MASH? or am i just warped? And a Sam Yeager cameo would be incredibly funny. I predict bad things for the USA in the upcoming WW2 series.

Just a Big Ugly doing my part to addle the brains of the Race. Want some Ginger?

[Kantalooppi]

I second Guns of the South. It really isn't that science-fictioney - if you accept the one SF plot point (Afrikaaners from future give the South AK-47) the rest pretty much follows from there logically. And it certainly doesn't fall into the typical Turtledovean too-many-characters deluge, and doesn't have too many useless creepily-written sex-scenes (well, except that implied one with General Lee.)

[Ephemera]

Okay, every time I read a thread about Turtledove, his "creepy sex scenes" are brought up. Can someone tell me what makes them so creepy?

[Manach]

Rather enjoyed Turtledove's books, especially his Videssos sequence. Much prefer his Great War series than those awful books by Harry Harrison on a similar topic yet chock full of empty jingoism.

[gobear]

And what makes Lt. Pierre Lapin punnish?

The name translates into English as "Peter Rabbit," although I don't see the pun, just a dorky allusion.

[Captain Amazing]

Originally posted by Tars Tarkas
Who is Al Smith?

In reality, he was the governor of New York who ran for President as a Democrat in 1928, and lost to Herbert Hoover.

[Kamino Neko]

Originally posted by gobear
The name translates into English as "Peter Rabbit," although I don't see the pun, just a dorky allusion.

Yeah, bad phrasing on my part. But that's the allusion, yes.

Originally posted by Aesiron
Okay, every time I read a thread about Turtledove, his "creepy sex scenes" are brought up. Can someone tell me what makes them so creepy?

Of the books I've seen of his that do include sex scenes (GotS, HFR, GW and AE), they're not, on the whole all that creepy, IMO. Often unneccessary, and sometimes...strange (I did NOT need to imagine General Custer 'frosting' a waitress's belly. >_<), but creepy is a word I'd restrict to incest, non-consentuality, pedophilia or other things Turtledove doesn't make any particular use of, let alone overuse.

(FTR, Mark Twain's love scene in HFR is actually fairly well done, IMO.)

[BrainGlutton]

Posted by RandMcnally:

Can you recomend any other non-that science fictional (yes, that makes sense) alternate history books, whether they be by Turtledove or not?



Check out Uchronia: The Alternate History List, at www.uchronia.net. It tries to list, and briefly describe, every alternate-history novel, story, or speculative essay ever published.

I've never found Turtledove's love scenes or sex scenes particularly "creepy." Quite the contrary. What they are is utterly realistic and unsentimental. No one will ever mistake his prose for porn, not even in the tenuous way that Robert Heinlein's sketchily-written sex scenes can be considered porn.

What a lot of readers don't like about Turtledove (we've discussed this in CS before) is that his writing style is clotted, repetitious, overdone. He puts in too much detail. The particular acts, events and sensations of daily life are never skipped over or glossed over. He takes a very long time to tell a story and most of his books are lengthy. But all that shows he has put a great deal of thought and effort into his writing, and he is very good at painting a vivid picture and making a historical or allohistorical period come alive.

[Baldwin]

I don't think anybody's mentioned Justinian. It's not alternate history, but a straight historical novel about the Byzantine Emperor Justinian II, whose reign had some notable ups and downs. It's published under the name H.N. Turtletaub, but that's Turtledove, all right.

Turtledove is incredibly prolific, with ongoing series of novels in science fiction, fantasy and alternate history. He might want to slow down a little and concentrate on quality rather than quantity. His style is definitely long-winded. He credits L. Sprague de Camp's classic novel Lest Darkness Fall with inspiring him to write; that's a bit ironic, since de Camp's style was extremely economical.

[Captain Amazing]

Turtledove has two more books out under the name Turtletaub, "Over the Wine Dark Sea" and "The Gryphon's Skull". They're also straight historical fiction, about two Hellenistic merchants soon after the death of Alexander.

This is a good year for Turtledove fans, because, in addition to the just released new book in the American Empire series, he has two more books due out. The first is the first in a new series...the "Gunpowder Empire" seriesm which is written for young adults. The plot seems to be about a family of time travelers. When the family's two children get stranded in ancient Rome, they have to figure out a way to survive and get back home.

The second, due out in December, is "In the Prescence of Mine Enemies". It's the expansion of a short story he had written with the same name. It's an alternate history novel, taking place in the near future, in a world where the Nazis won World War II, and it's about a community of secret Jews, and their attempt to both practice their faith and keep it secret from the authorities.

[Jonathan Chance]

Yeah, those should be fun. Though 'Gunpowder Empire' seems quite close to deCamp's 'Lest Darkness Falls' and Piper's 'Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen'.

[Quartz]

I've found Turtledove a very variable author.

I enjoyed Toxic Spell Dump and The Misplaced Legion series, likewise Agent of Byzantium.

I found his alien invasion series utter drek, and his alternate American history failed to hold my attention at all. I found the Krispos series puerile (perhaps deliberately), and the one about American and Russian astronauts landing on an alternative Mars (Minerva?) a straightforwardly utterly boring and derivative Cold War story.

Spell Dump aside, it seems to me that his writing is vastly better when he's writing a story which draws upon his real-world classical knowledge.


I've never encountered a creepy sex scene in his works.

[BrainGlutton]

Posted by Baldwin:

I don't think anybody's mentioned Justinian. It's not alternate history, but a straight historical novel about the Byzantine Emperor Justinian II, whose reign had some notable ups and downs. It's published under the name H.N. Turtletaub, but that's Turtledove, all right.



Posted by Captain Amazing:

Turtledove has two more books out under the name Turtletaub, "Over the Wine Dark Sea" and "The Gryphon's Skull". They're also straight historical fiction, about two Hellenistic merchants soon after the death of Alexander.



Actually, it's spelled "Turteltaub," not "Turtletaub" -- "-el-," not "-le-." (Important to know if you're looking up the name in a library catalog.) My guess is "Turteltaub" is his real name and "Turtledove" its English translation.

Under the name "Turtledove" he has also published Between the Rivers, set in ancient, early-Bronze-Age Mesopotamia (before the emergence of any states or kingdoms larger than one city) -- which almost qualifies as "straight historical fiction" except that it is set in a world where the gods and demons and ghosts of Mesopotamian mythology are entirely real, or else everyone is having a set of shared consensus hallucinations (before the "breakdown of the bicameral mind," and all that).

[Ephemera]

Household Gods is pretty good. It's about a modern lawyer that is put into the body of a Roman tavern keeper's body for I don't remember how long and the ensuing culture shocks.

[LurkMeister]

Originally posted by BrainGlutton
Actually, it's spelled "Turteltaub," not "Turtletaub" -- "-el-," not "-le-." (Important to know if you're looking up the name in a library catalog.) My guess is "Turteltaub" is his real name and "Turtledove" its English translation.
No, "Turtledove" is his real name. See this article (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Turtledove) in Wikipedia. And this is from his website (http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/faq.html#1.):
Turtledove elected to use the psuedonym H.N. Turteltaub (his initials, plus the original German version of his name) on his historical novel Justinian. The reason for this decision has to do with the way bookstores currently order books based on previous sales. Had the book been published under Turtledove's own name, more copies of the historical novel would have been ordered than the publisher believed would sell. Turtledove's next book would have had orders placed based on the sales of Justinian, which could hurt his sales if Justinian's sales were low. Sales were high enough that Turtledove's publisher purchased more historical novels by him.
His website, BTW, is a good source of info on his work; very comprehensive, and generally up to date.