I have no objections per-se to parallelism or the appearance of OTL personalities in a AH works, when used sparingly, in plausible context for the scenario, like an Easter-Egg for the more observant/informed reader. The trouble with Turtledove is that in many of his stories these are central plot points. Now to be fair ‘World War’ wasn’t too bad in this regard, yes there were lots of OTL characters, but because the POD from OTL was just as the series started, it made sense in that context. The ‘Great War’ series started off ok, but as soon as you realise Featherstone= Copy/paste= Hitler, it became annoying, and made what had been quite an interesting alt-WW1 Scenario sadly predictable.
My quick summary:
CSA has a harsh & unfair peace treaty: check…. Lots of unemployed Veterans: check….. Anton Dresser=Anton Drexler, (didn’t even bother changing the name).. Hyper-inflation: check,…. Tin Hats=Stalhelm… There’s “Goebels”… Plebescite and Anschluss (Kentucky=Austria): Check… aand war is coming…. NOW! “Red Beard=Barbarossa” (again didn’t bother changing the name…even launched on the same date!!!!)... Pittsburgh=Stalingrad… Gas Trucks/Gas chambers…. V weapons… and Yep Americas gets Nukes right on schedule!!... Aaand Featherstone’s dead! (But to be fair, at least he didn’t shoot himself in his bunker. So there is that.)
Those aren’t ‘Easter Eggs’ that is smashing you over the head with a chocolate Wrecking Ball!!!
“The Man with the Iron Heart” and “In the presence of Mine Enemies” are even worse:
- Post War Germany=Iraq.
- Fall of the USSR=Fall of Nazi-Victory Germany.
I found that last one was particularly irritating because I had studied Gorbachev and the collapse of the USSR at University, so for me, his lazy copy/pasting of events and personalities just seemed even more blatant!
And I think the real shame here is that in both those books, there were nuggets of interesting and original scenarios (How would the Allies have reacted to an organised German resistance campaign post WW2 and what life would be like for ‘Undercover Jews’ in a Nazi-Victory Germany) And I would have loved to have explored those ideas in more depth in a more plausible and original way.
I enjoy Alternate History because, if it is done well, it is original and unpredictable and thought provoking. But sadly with his copy/paste approach Harry Turtledove sometimes makes Alternate History as predictable as Regular History!