# Need help with picking Harry Turtledove books. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 31, 2003, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-picking-harry-turtledove-books/192041 "2003-07-31T02:48:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-picking-harry-turtledove-books/192041/21 "2003-07-31T20:55:52Z")
> [@](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-picking-harry-turtledove-books/192041/22 "2003-08-01T01:22:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*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. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-picking-harry-turtledove-books/192041/23 "2003-08-01T02:26:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*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.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-picking-harry-turtledove-books/192041/24 "2003-08-01T02:44:46Z")
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](http://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. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-picking-harry-turtledove-books/192041/25 "2003-08-01T04:08:10Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-picking-harry-turtledove-books/192041/26 "2003-08-01T04:44:58Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2003, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-picking-harry-turtledove-books/192041/27 "2003-08-02T16:12:52Z")
Yeah, those should be fun. Though ‘Gunpowder Empire’ seems quite close to deCamp’s ‘Lest Darkness Falls’ and Piper’s ‘Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen’. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2003, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-picking-harry-turtledove-books/192041/28 "2003-08-02T17:28:47Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2003, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-picking-harry-turtledove-books/192041/29 "2003-08-02T21:11:16Z")
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). ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2003, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-picking-harry-turtledove-books/192041/30 "2003-08-02T21:45:41Z")
_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. ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2003, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-picking-harry-turtledove-books/192041/31 "2003-08-02T23:14:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*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. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-with-picking-harry-turtledove-books/192041.md?page=1)