Harry Turtledove

**Alexander the Pretty Good** · 09-11-2005, 03:51

I've read a number of his books at my local library over the summer. I have some comments and questions to share with the literary section of the Org. This contains some pretty big plot spoilers, so be warned if you are in the middle of some of his works - you may not want to spoil some of the surprises.

First of all, I really like a lot of Harry Turtledove's works. Generally they seem to be solid-to-great historical fiction that happens to be alternate history. I particularly enjoy the "Southern Victory" series, which is really long and a big what-if the South won the US Civil War. Great stuff. The US as the USSR? The CSA as Germany? Pittsburg as Stalingrad? Incredible.

I find his writing style somewhat tedious at times. I'm no great critic, but he repeats a lot of the plot throughout his books. It sometimes seems he can't get over what happened in the past to get on with the present. You can pick up a book in the middle of a series and learn very quickly what happened in the past 5 books if you pay attention. Also, if you read multiple series, some of the combat scenes seem to blend and blur together. But that isn't so well defined as the numerous repetitions. I can't give a good example, but I'll try to explain.

Every chapter is from a different point of view of a major character - there is about a dozen per book and maybe twice than that per series. In almost every chapter, it seems, Turtledove rehashes the motivations and history of the point-of-view character. I'm making this into a bigger deal than it is, but this is one negative detail that just sticks out to me.

He also writes too much. And on the books there is no chronological order of the books. Which is why it is easy to pick up the book in the middle of a series or skip series entirely. But as I said earlier, you won't miss much if you pay attention. I like the Wikipedia article because it gives some nice timelines for the different series.

One other thing I noticed is his depictions of sex in his writings. Some of the earlier books had fairly graphic as well as frequent sexual situations. Some of the newer books are tuned down - somewhat. And I don't think this trend is uniform, either. I can't explain why he does it, and am wondering if anyone else has seen this.

So, I would recommend these books, generally. Has anyone else read some? Have anything to share about them?

**Alexander the Pretty Good** · 09-15-2005, 22:18

Nobody's ever read one of his books!?

**Alexanderofmacedon** · 09-15-2005, 23:40

Dude, holy cr*p. I have! I thought I'd never find some one who has, but I guess I did. I read the Darkness series. It's really good. I'm basing the mod I'm making on it. (If I really do make one)

Good reading

**Alexander the Pretty Good** · 09-15-2005, 23:47

The Darkness series was one I stepped into the middle of without knowing the order. Pretty good, though not much to distinguish it from some of his other works besides the setting - which I think is the real reason to read the books. To see how he plays with setting.

**Alexanderofmacedon** · 09-15-2005, 23:53

Oh man, those are the only books I've ever bought with my own money. I love em so much. You should read them all in order

Lots of reading though

**Reverend Joe** · 09-16-2005, 02:55

The Darkness series is probably his best. The alien invasion was good too, but I got tired of it after the first book.

He is my 4th favorite author, after Carl Hiaasen, Hunter S. Thompson, and Henry Miller (respectively.) Any history buff should read his series.

However, I don't follow your problems with chronology... all his books seemed to go in pretty good chronological order, with some characters doing things at the same time.

**Alexander the Pretty Good** · 09-16-2005, 03:08

My problems with chronology is just that the order of books in the series isn't clearly labelled in large print. The books all say stuff like "Author of the prize winning books, Out of the Darkness, Lords of the Darkness, and Into the Darkness" which leads me to think that that is the order of the books. And that isn't the order.

I guess what I'm saying is on the first page there should be a nice list of all the books in the series preceding the book, so that I know which books I need to read first.