Does anybody know anything about Harry Turledove?

[Walt Starr]

I am contemplating his book How Few Remain and moving into the entire The Greaat War and American Empire series, but thought I'd see what DUers familiar with this line think of his alternate history.

[Streetdoc270]

1. ...

I have only read 'The Guns of the South', and one other that I can't remember the title but it was a WWI theme. However I thought they were well done, he is an engaging writer and the books are hard to put down

[semillama]

2. They aren't classics of western lit, for sure

but entertaining. How Few Remain is probably the best of the lot. Turtledove gets heavily critiqued for being formulaic, but if you ignore that, it's really interesting to follow the chains of events along to se what could have happened. I enjoy them.

[blindpig]

3. I find him unreadable

I first heard "Guns of the South" on Radio Reader and really enjoyed it. I'm a real fan of alternative histories so thought he'd be right up my alley. Tried two of his books, can't remember which, and just could not get through them. That's pretty bad, I'll suffer through bad or uninteresting prose for a good concept. Maybe it's just me.

[Orsino]

4. Loved How Few Remain...

...but lost interest in later installments, and his alternate history diverged more and more from our own.

Guns of the South is good science fiction.

[Walt Starr]

5. I'm about a third of the way into How Few Remain

and love it. I've ordered the Great War series because of this one book.

[HawkerHurricane]

6. He's a real historian

turned science fiction/fantasy/alternate history writer.

His field of specialization is Byzantine Empire; his 'Videoses cycle' gives a good fantasy version of it. But his hobby is Civil War; many of his books start off with that a run with it.

For another Civil War AltHist, try Harry Harrison's 'Stars and Stripes Forever'... England declares war on the United States, but makes a critical error...

[Walt Starr]

7. Well, I've read How Few Remain

and am hooked. I've purchased the next three novels in the series nad am into the third chapter of the next book in line.

[semillama]

8. I just read "In the Presence of Mine Enemies"

and yes, it follows the Turtledove formula, but I really enjoyed it. It takes place in present-day Germany, but in a timeline where America didn't enter WWII until very late and the Axis powers won. The story focuses on a set of German Jews who are passing as Aryan Germans, and on a change in the political tone...

I enjoyed it as much as How Few Remain, perhaps because this is a stand-alone book.

One thing I really like about Turtledove is that he concentrates on relating the big events through the perspectives and lives of a diverse array of characters.

[Walt Starr]

9. The array fo characters is larger in this second book

Only two people are really back from How Few Remain, George Armstrong Custer and Theodore Roosevelt. So far, Roosevelt is only a character in passing, too. Often referred to as he is the Democratic President of the United States of America, but nothing "on stage".

Custer is his buffoon self as he was in the first book.

Heck, even Whig President of the CSA, Wooddrow Wilson, makes an appearance in this novel!