Constantinople
Banned
That's a very strange book. And rather poorly known, even here!
(Much less the sequel NO ONE seems to have read.)
I read a Harry Turtledove book last night
- Thread starter Burton K Wheeler
- Start date
That's a very strange book. And rather poorly known, even here!
(Much less the sequel NO ONE seems to have read.)
Dan Reilly The Great
Banned
I read the first couple books in the Worldwar series, but got fed up by the third one. There was too much "this is happening because the author says so" rather than "this happens for a logical reason." I found his characters to be kind of mixed and feel like he wanted us to have a bit of sympathy for the Lizards while failing utterly in doing so, also the whole love triangle with Jens Larssen, Sam Yeager, and Barbara was horribly written. Larssen was killed off in a pretty meanspirited way for no apparent reason and Sam Yeager seemed like Turdledove had a man crush on him.
I had this idea to write a fan-fic where Larssen starts to have his breakdown, and Colonel Groves actually acts like the real historical person would have acted and realized that translators are getting easier to come by, but nuclear scientists are more important and tells Sam Yeager to go fuck himself and ships him off to the front where he gets killed while on the toilet.
I had this idea to write a fan-fic where Larssen starts to have his breakdown, and Colonel Groves actually acts like the real historical person would have acted and realized that translators are getting easier to come by, but nuclear scientists are more important and tells Sam Yeager to go fuck himself and ships him off to the front where he gets killed while on the toilet.
Hope this isn't necroposting...
So I recently read Turtledove's latest novel, Bombs Away. The characters were mostly forgettable and the writing quite repetitive, but I found the basic premise intriguing: Truman grants MacArther permission to use nukes in the Korean War, and everything goes to shit when the Soviets retaliate.
Turtledove creates a slow-motion train wreck as the USA and USSR drop atom bombs on each other (and allies) on a one-to-one basis over the course of a year (and counting, as there will be follow-up books). First the USA nukes strategic rail junctions in Manchuria (like Harbin), then Stalin A-bombs similar sites in NATO countries, both sides nuke each other's home territory, and so on. The Soviets also invade the FRG, but that just bogs down with all of the nuclear bombing and isn't treated with much gravity in-novel.
This course surprised me. I was expecting mass outrage and/or hysteria, declarations of war and full mobilization, and titanic battlefronts across Europe. Or maybe the USA abuses its 25-to-1 nuke disparity in early 1951 and knocks the USSR flat in a few weeks. Instead, all the characters just seem to apathetically get on with their lives ("Oh, downtown Los Angeles is now an irradiated crater. Looks like I'll have to adjust my refrigerator delivery route...") as the superpowers essentially engage in nuclear terrorism against each other.
How plausible do you think this slow-paced, "low intensity" nuclear exchange is?
So I recently read Turtledove's latest novel, Bombs Away. The characters were mostly forgettable and the writing quite repetitive, but I found the basic premise intriguing: Truman grants MacArther permission to use nukes in the Korean War, and everything goes to shit when the Soviets retaliate.
Turtledove creates a slow-motion train wreck as the USA and USSR drop atom bombs on each other (and allies) on a one-to-one basis over the course of a year (and counting, as there will be follow-up books). First the USA nukes strategic rail junctions in Manchuria (like Harbin), then Stalin A-bombs similar sites in NATO countries, both sides nuke each other's home territory, and so on. The Soviets also invade the FRG, but that just bogs down with all of the nuclear bombing and isn't treated with much gravity in-novel.
This course surprised me. I was expecting mass outrage and/or hysteria, declarations of war and full mobilization, and titanic battlefronts across Europe. Or maybe the USA abuses its 25-to-1 nuke disparity in early 1951 and knocks the USSR flat in a few weeks. Instead, all the characters just seem to apathetically get on with their lives ("Oh, downtown Los Angeles is now an irradiated crater. Looks like I'll have to adjust my refrigerator delivery route...") as the superpowers essentially engage in nuclear terrorism against each other.
How plausible do you think this slow-paced, "low intensity" nuclear exchange is?
I liked the idea of Worldwar, but I wasn't wild about the execution. I ended up re-writing it all in my head as to how I would have done it..
My relationship with Harry Turtledove fiction is...mixed.
On the one hand, TL-191 is what got me into alternate history. It and Fatherland
And as has been pointed out, he's good at characterisation - and he's not afraid to show characters as grey rather than heroes or villains. Even on the level of countries - OK, we all hate the CSA, but the Prussia-like USA isn't exactly a barrel of laughs, either (admittedly they're just harsh, not evil like the CSA, but...). And Worldwar was good - the way that the Race assumed Tosev 3 would develop like they did is a clever flip of the way so much sci-fi assumes that aliens will be humanoid bipeds. Plus, Agent of Byzantium and the short story he wrote for Friends of the Foundation about the fall of Trantor are damn good.
On the other hand...
1) He repeats himself ad nauseam.
2) He doesn't seem to do rewrites - if you read The Great War: American Front, you can see in a thousand little places what the series was originally going for (for example, Jefferson Pinkard and Jake Featherston actually showing grudging regard for blacks, rather than the alt-Nazis they became when he realised that his publisher wouldn't go for a 'Confederacy good, US Nazis' story), which is really jarring when set against the later books.
3) He writes ten books where three would do. Though can't really blame him for that, who here would turn down a chance to make more money?
4) He doesn't really explore implications. In TL-191, the Socialists are one of the two main parties: that changes the fundamental nature of American policies and ideas on 'welfare states', but he doesn't ever delve too deep. Likewise, the Republicans are shown to be an actual third party rather than having one guy in Congress: he could have shown the US going for coalition governments. But he never did...
On the one hand, TL-191 is what got me into alternate history. It and Fatherland
And as has been pointed out, he's good at characterisation - and he's not afraid to show characters as grey rather than heroes or villains. Even on the level of countries - OK, we all hate the CSA, but the Prussia-like USA isn't exactly a barrel of laughs, either (admittedly they're just harsh, not evil like the CSA, but...). And Worldwar was good - the way that the Race assumed Tosev 3 would develop like they did is a clever flip of the way so much sci-fi assumes that aliens will be humanoid bipeds. Plus, Agent of Byzantium and the short story he wrote for Friends of the Foundation about the fall of Trantor are damn good.On the other hand...
1) He repeats himself ad nauseam.
2) He doesn't seem to do rewrites - if you read The Great War: American Front, you can see in a thousand little places what the series was originally going for (for example, Jefferson Pinkard and Jake Featherston actually showing grudging regard for blacks, rather than the alt-Nazis they became when he realised that his publisher wouldn't go for a 'Confederacy good, US Nazis' story), which is really jarring when set against the later books.
3) He writes ten books where three would do. Though can't really blame him for that, who here would turn down a chance to make more money?
4) He doesn't really explore implications. In TL-191, the Socialists are one of the two main parties: that changes the fundamental nature of American policies and ideas on 'welfare states', but he doesn't ever delve too deep. Likewise, the Republicans are shown to be an actual third party rather than having one guy in Congress: he could have shown the US going for coalition governments. But he never did...
A slow-motion nuclear war like that is not plausible at all. If the Soviet Union dropped even one bomb on the US, America would be howling for blood and call for immediate overwhelming nuclear destruction. If they dropped one on France or the UK, I think they would insist on the same thing, and I think it would be most effective in a "the best defense is a good offense" sense.
Turtledove does get one thing right. Hiroshima bombs are not that big. When used on a large city like Moscow or Los Angeles, they cover a surprisingly small amount of the land area. While they would no doubt kill tens of thousands or 100k+ people, and the cities would be temporarily paralyzed by rescue services and supply issues, the cities would in general be largely unaffected aside from any very important areas or people that got hit. In particular, certain targets like rail marshaling yards require very precise targeting in order to be affected. The scene in which the Chinese quickly get their rail lines up again reflects this, in my opinion. And, the Chinese at that time would certainly have few qualms about throwing people into an irradiated area to fix things.
Anyway, I've said it before, but Bombs Away is just a very bad book. He's just not putting any effort into his books and it shows.
My relationship with Harry Turtledove fiction is...mixed.
On the one hand, TL-191 is what got me into alternate history. It and Fatherland
On the other hand...
1) He repeats himself ad nauseam.
2) He doesn't seem to do rewrites - if you read The Great War: American Front, you can see in a thousand little places what the series was originally going for (for example, Jefferson Pinkard and Jake Featherston actually showing grudging regard for blacks, rather than the alt-Nazis they became when he realised that his publisher wouldn't go for a 'Confederacy good, US Nazis' story), which is really jarring when set against the later books.
3) He writes ten books where three would do. Though can't really blame him for that, who here would turn down a chance to make more money?
4) He doesn't really explore implications. In TL-191, the Socialists are one of the two main parties: that changes the fundamental nature of American policies and ideas on 'welfare states', but he doesn't ever delve too deep. Likewise, the Republicans are shown to be an actual third party rather than having one guy in Congress: he could have shown the US going for coalition governments. But he never did...
I agree with most of this.
I should read Trantor Falls. Some of his non-alternate history is pretty good. "The Road not Taken" is, quite frankly, a classic, and I have seen a number of people reference it in regard to the recent news of the EmDrive.
A review of Bombs Away that I read on Goodreads - had to share it
LOL
Elliott from Goodreads said:
LOL
A review of Bombs Away that I read on Goodreads - had to share it
LOL
This made me literally LOL
.