I was just over at Amazon.com, putting the Garden State soundtrack on my wishlist when I glanced down and saw that Amazon was recomending Days of Infamy, a Harry Turtledove novel, to me based on the other books in my list. Not being familiar with the title, I clicked on it to see what it was about (the occupation of Hawaii by Japanese forces in the wake of Pearl Harbor) and was surprised to find that it was a book that’s being released in three days.
I, of course, put it on my wishlist as well but, good god, how does the man manage to write so many books at once? He only just released Return Engagement earlier this month and In the Presence of Mine Enemies only ten months ago. Not that I’m complaining… I love the man and he’s easily one of my two favorite authors but it’s amazing that he manages to churn out such detailed novels in such short time.
Early in his career, Turtledove invented a device that lets him communicate with parallel universes; this device can only communicate with similar devices in other universes, which of course were created by various parallel world versions of Turtldove. The various Turtlesdoves in the multverse set up an agreement where they wrote a fictionalized version of their history of their particular universe, and passed it along to their alternates to pass off as alt history novels in a different universe. Each Turtledove only has to write a single book or two, and then gets dozens of them to sell.
Well, see, the **Aesiron **in the OP is actually from the Ruled Brittania universe that **RandomLetters **alluded to in his post. He somehow got that Turtledove’s interdimensional device and decided to play a little joke on everyone here at the expense of me by posting his universe’s date of publication for this universe’s novel.
He is very VERY fast sometimes, it’s true. But I also find that the quality goes down as he releases more. Certainly is his series he becomes very repetitive.
When I first read the name, I thought you were talking about Allen Iverson, the basketball player, but that didn’t make any sense so I read it again, saw you said Eric, and it suddenly made even less sense, which is to say none at all.
I was surprised to see a new author in Analog, Harry Turtledove who was just as good as that sorta new author Eric Iverson that I liked so much. I think it was in the same issue that they explained that he wanted to start using his own name. For this thread I envisioned the long lost Eric Iverson chained in Harry’s basement cranking out alternative history books.
That link says Turtledove publishes straight historical novels under the pseudonym “H.N. Turteltaub.” I figured they were the same person – but I always thought “Turtledove” was the pseudonym!
It was OK. It’s a juvenile and therefore not as deep or as bloody as some of his other, more military books. But if you know what it is going in it’s quite good.
Wouldn’t the Lord Kalvan book make a great movie? Piper is one of my favorite authors! The last line, the signature, in his short story “He Walked Around the Horses” is so freaking funny, if you know your history.
Oh, and I said Piper is one of my favorite authors, even though I know full well he’s been dead for over forty years. Grumble, grumble, why’d he have to go and do that?
