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
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.)
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.)
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?
Can you recomend any other non-that science fictional (yes, that makes sense) alternate history books, whether they be by Turtledove or not?
I liked The Two Georges. Won’t spoil it, but it’s cool.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
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”.
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).
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.
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.
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
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?
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.)
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?
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.