should i stop reading Turtledoves books?

mattep74 · Feb 8, 2006

Ok, should i in the name of humanity stop reading Turtledoves books?

Reason i ask is the following

First time i read Breakthrough and had around 100 pages left, WTC happened
When i reread it last month and was nearing the finish Hamas won the Palestinian election and the Danish cartoonproblem blew up

When i began reading victorious oposition in 2003 i got a few pages and then i heard that our foregin minister Anna Lindh was stabbed and i will soon start that book again. I think i read another of his books when Madrid was bombed

When i waited for Alternate Generals 3 the Londonbombings happened and i got AH 3 the next day

pisces74 · Feb 8, 2006

Nah they would've happened anyway. enjoy a good book, who knows the way things are going it may be your last

Dr. Strangelove · Feb 8, 2006

You should stop reading them, even if each time you read one world peace happens and famines end

Basically, they suck. The plots are good, I mean, but the books suck. Harry Turtledove would be an awesome writer if he published his histories as brief summarizing leaflets instead of fat, overhyped novels.

Flocculencio · Feb 8, 2006

Dr. Strangelove said:
You should stop reading them, even if each time you read one world peace happens and famines end

Beat me to it.

Basically, they suck. The plots are good, I mean, but the books suck. Harry Turtledove would be an awesome writer if he published his histories as brief summarizing leaflets instead of fat, overhyped novels.

Harry Turtledove would be a decent writer if he stuck to pulp sci-fi/fantasy/AH like he did before around 1995. Now he's just got pretensions of being able to write "serious" AH epics but doesn't have the skill to back it up. It's Robert Jordan syndrome- neither of them are good enough writers to be able to pull off multivolume monsters.

He should have stuck to stuff like Agent of Byzantium (for AH) or Tales of the Fox (for fantasy) or the Videssos series (for AH-fantasy). Those were Turtledove books and they were fun and readable too

eek: )!

Agentdark · Feb 8, 2006

Am I the only one who likes Harry Turtledove novels....

SionEwig · Feb 8, 2006

Agentdark said:
Am I the only one who likes Harry Turtledove novels....

No, I do also along with a couple of friends and two of my sons. And yes, I do recognize the flaws that many contain.

Flocculencio said:
It's Robert Jordan syndrome- neither of them are good enough writers to be able to pull off multivolume monsters.

There is that, but I think that it is more of the Stephen King syndrome, someone would publish his grocery list if he submitted it. Turtledove has become a victim of his own success and popularity, sometimes I wonder if he signed contracts for a large number of books and never thought that he would actually have to write them. That said, he is still better than a good number of AH writers out there.

TyrannusZero · Feb 8, 2006

I like them and if you don't like them, don't read them. Get a hobby that isn't bashing a man's work. I mean there are worse books out there.

And Doc, well, I'm not going to say anything, I don't want my cover blown here.

Chris · Feb 8, 2006

Agentdark said:
Am I the only one who likes Harry Turtledove novels....

Heretics!

Seriously, HT is GREAT with single books (and WorldWar), its just when he starts long rambling serieses....

Chris

Flocculencio · Feb 9, 2006

SionEwig said:
There is that, but I think that it is more of the Stephen King syndrome, someone would publish his grocery list if he submitted it. Turtledove has become a victim of his own success and popularity, sometimes I wonder if he signed contracts for a large number of books and never thought that he would actually have to write them. That said, he is still better than a good number of AH writers out there.

The difference is that King is a much better technical writer than Turtledove is. King's background is in Lit while Turtledove's is in History and in this case it shows. Turtledove simply doesn't have the skills to properly pull off anything more than pulp fiction.

King does have the ability to actually write good huge epic novels more often than not (he definitely has his share of duds, most notably the last Dark Tower book, but they're in the minority). Turtledove, on the other hand doesn't have the skills to keep a story moving for that long without it bogging down in endless repetitive detail, unnecessary character proliferation and stale plotting*.

A comparison might be between Robert Jordan and George R.R. Martin. Jordan has written 12 Wheel of Time books so far (or is it more now?) and, like Turtledove (or like King at the end of the Dark Tower series, for example) gets bogged down in bad plotting, irrelevancies and repetitiveness. Now IMO Jordan is even worse than Turtledove because this staleness began to show so much earlier in the series (around book 3 or 4). Martin, on the other hand, writes lengthy novels and has gotten carried away by the plot so much so that he's had to increase the number of books. However, he's still in control, he knows roughly where he's going and he's a good enough technical writer to be able to sustain interest in most of his characters.

*Stale plotting is an especial problem with Turtledove. It wasn't so noticeable with stuff like his Videssos series which compensated for the mirror-image Byzantium/Persian wars with a rollicking pulp-fantasy tale. However in stuff like the Great War and related series and the Darkness Verb-ing series it really does show.

Thande · Feb 9, 2006

Flocc said:
It wasn't so noticeable with stuff like his Videssos series which compensated for the mirror-image Byzantium/Persian wars with a rollicking pulp-fantasy tale.

I always thought Videssos would be better if the Romans had just being thrown into the OTL Byzantine Empire rather than Turtledove's fantasy pastiche. As it is, as far as I can tell the only difference is that he can do the tired old "oh, and magic works too, but interestingly enough has had absolutely no effect whatsoever on the development of society."

Flocc said:
However in stuff like the Great War and related series and the Darkness Verb-ing series it really does show.

Agreed...particularly the Darkness Verb-ing, because you know exactly what's going to happen anyway - at least in Great War you are kept guessing to some degree.

pisces74 · Feb 9, 2006

IMO HT has a tendency to hyperfocus on certain social issues. However he has written quite a bit more then I, so I'll defer to his success

Flocculencio · Feb 10, 2006

Thande said:
I always thought Videssos would be better if the Romans had just being thrown into the OTL Byzantine Empire rather than Turtledove's fantasy pastiche. As it is, as far as I can tell the only difference is that he can do the tired old "oh, and magic works too, but interestingly enough has had absolutely no effect whatsoever on the development of society."

Ah, but you see, it doesn't pretend to be anything more than pulp fantasy which is why I can forgive the lack of exploration of the societal effects of magic being possible. Same thing as with 'Agent of Byzantium'. It's so obviously pulp that I can forgive it it's flaws- I'm not looking for anything more than an hour or two of entertainment out of it.

Thande · Feb 10, 2006

Flocc said:
Ah, but you see, it doesn't pretend to be anything more than pulp fantasy which is why I can forgive the lack of exploration of the societal effects of magic being possible. Same thing as with 'Agent of Byzantium'. It's so obviously pulp that I can forgive it it's flaws- I'm not looking for anything more than an hour or two of entertainment out of it.

Well - in the case of Videssos it's not the magic thing so much (though I can forgive that in this case because, as you say, it's pulp). I just think it would be a LOT more interesting for the Romans to confront their OWN world in this situation, with Rome long gone and the spiritual successor to their empire being an absolute monarchy which practices an exclusive monotheistic religion.

Flocculencio · Feb 10, 2006

Thande said:
I just think it would be a LOT more interesting for the Romans to confront their OWN world in this situation, with Rome long gone and the spiritual successor to their empire being an absolute monarchy which practices an exclusive monotheistic religion.

True enough. It's a pity that Turtledove wasn't creative enough to come up with that idea. That's one story which I could concievably see him do properly in an epic form. After all he is a trained historian and without the effort of having to come up with crude and clumsy parallels to OTLs history he might well shine.

Zyzzyva · Feb 10, 2006

Flocculencio said:
Stale plotting is an especial problem with Turtledove. It wasn't so noticeable with stuff like his Videssos series which compensated for the mirror-image Byzantium/Persian wars with a rollicking pulp-fantasy tale. However in stuff like the Great War and related series and the Darkness Verb-ing series it really does show.

Sorry to be kinda anal, but I thought Videssos was the Byzantine/Islam wars. (Makuran is Persia, Mahagara is Manzikert ect).

I hadn't thought about it until now, but I think Thande's idea is great. And its definitely a sight better than the usual 2006-19xx ISOT.

Dave Howery · Feb 10, 2006

Should you stop reading HT's book? If you like them, no. If you don't, yes.

pretty much simple as that....

Thande · Feb 10, 2006

Zzyvya said:
I hadn't thought about it until now, but I think Thande's idea is great. And its definitely a sight better than the usual 2006-19xx ISOT.

Thank you. It arguably seems more obvious than what Turtledove did do...apparently though the reason for this was that the sequence of events was like this:

1) Turtledove is a student at CalTech. Turtledove reads "The Lord of the Rings". Turtledove drops out of CalTech. (The events are not unrelated

)

2) Turtledove writes a story in which he ISOTs a Roman legion into Gondor 100 years after the events of The Lord of the Rings. The new enemy of Gondor is a reborn Witch-king of Angmar.

3). Turtledove gets into Byzantine history.

4). Turtledove changes his previous story's setting into a fictionalised version of Byzantium, replacing the Witch-king with Avshar.

(This is from his essay in 'Meditations on Middle-earth')

Zyzzyva · Feb 10, 2006

That makes sense.
Not quite related, but when i saw Narnia (LWW), I kept thinking of Videssos all the way through the battle at the end, and thinking Ceasar would have wiped the floor with these people.

Count Dearborn · Feb 10, 2006

One of his that is good is The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump. I wish he would write a sequel.

pisces74 · Feb 10, 2006

Since this is turning into a wish list page

Rome Eternia- where rome never fell, discovered the new world, and the world is embroiled in a secret cold war between Worshippers of Isis, Worshippers of Mithras, and jews, since open war would disrupt taxes going to the emporer espionage and sabotage is done in secret to discredit the other faction

the 5 heads- a pod where America doesn't join with europe in WWII and a 5 sided luke warm war breaks out between America, Allied Europe, Facist europe, Communist Russia, and Imperial Japan.

Twilight 2000- I'm fairly sure you could snatch up the copyright for this in a song, and I have no idea why a novelization of this RPG never materialized. I would buy adventures just to read the plot progression, the system was far to complicated for my pea brain actually play.