- The World at War series
- The WorldWar series
- The WarWorld series
- The Colonization series
- The American Flag series
- The Settling Accounts series
- The Videssos Legion series
Etc. All by Harry Turtledove.
He's called the "master" of alternate history, and rightfully so. Harry Turtledove is an amazingly prolific, amazingly dependable author. He belies the notion that some readers have, that once an author achieves great success, he stops delivering good books.
Turtledove is that rarest of rare creatures in the publishing biz. He delivered his best work after finding success. His career-bestselling book was, as I mentioned earlier, Guns of the South. Bouyed by the success of that stand-alone bestseller (he'd written a lot of books before then, SF as well as Fantasy, with limited results), he went on to write several other sequences of alt-hist novels that were not sequels to GotS but employed the same exciting blend of action, history and technology-clash in multiple series, some of which are still continuing.
There's an alternate-history retelling of World War I, called The Great War series. There are three alt-hist retellings of WWII, called The WorldWar, Colonization, and Settling Accounts series. There's the American Empire series. The Crosstime Traffic series for young readers. The Videssos Legion series and a second series linked to Videssos, if you're tired of his 20th-century retellings and want to go farther back, to the Roman age (but in an alternate 'fantasy' world).
The best thing about Turtledove is that, if you like his work, there's lots of it waiting for you to read. You're not going to run out of Turtledove books for a long while, trust me. I've been reading him for ages, and still can't catch up! And I'm a voracious reader.
My personal favourite is the World at War series, because it's one of the only long alt-hist series that can be enjoyed without any knowledge of history at all. That is, it can be read in its own right, without you needing to figure out, oh, this is so-and-so, or oh, that's Winston Churchill, oh, that's Roosevelt, and so on. You can just read it, and enjoy the read.
Although of course, if you do know the history of WWII in some detail, you're going to have double the fun!
The World at War series is different from most alt-hist books, and most Turtledove books too, because it's not SF really. In fact, it's the other side of the river: fantasy.
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Article comments
1 - Warren
Turtledove has always been my favorite, though I've branched out since reading GOTS. His stand-alone novels are better, IMO, than the series books.
Have you read Harry Harrison's Stars and Stripes books? Talk about jingoistic!! I normally will finish a trilogy no matter how bad -- once I get started, I want to finish it. I quit Harrison's trilogy after book two (which I made myself finish). I told the plotline to one of my history profs, and he cracked up. But it's encouraging to new novelists -- you read it and think "I can write better than this! This got published, so there's hope for me!"
2 - Steven H Silver
In your first paragraph, you make it sound as if Turtledove has written sequels to Guns of the South, which is not the case.
3 - Ashok K. Banker
Dear Mr Silver,
I've revised that paragraph to read more clearly now, emphasizing that the other books are 'not' sequels and GotS is a stand-alone. Thanks for pointing it out, and I appreciate the heads-up from you.
4 - Steven H Silver
Glad to be of service. We'll be using a quote from this essay on the back cover of Harry's forthcoming novel, Every Inch a King, due out from ISFiC Press in November.
5 - Ashok K. Banker
Dear Steven (if I may call you Steven), I'm honoured to be quoted! It's my very first cover quote, by the way, and it's only fitting that it should be for one of my favourite authors. The pleasure, truly, is mine.
6 - Ashok K. Banker
Steven, one more thing. Could you credit the quote as follows:
"Ashok K. Banker, Blogcritics.org"
Thanks.
7 - Bruce Hiland
Hello I'm looking for a littlt guidence of Turtledove's book. I starter Blood & Iron but after a few chapters I felt I was missing something, where should I start so all the series fit into place. Thanks for your help.
8 - GARY M. KIRK
I have recently read Turtledove's books regarding the Japanese attacks and occupation of Hawaii. Not only are they highly intertaining, they have served as a sort of "case study" or group of "case studies" for culture clashes. In particular, of course, as such for the "Sword and the Chrysanthemum," but also for a more recent serious political science work by S.P. Huntington, which I believe was entitled something like, " Clash of Civilizations." This latter deals with a more global and recent conflict between all the civilizations on the planet. However, Turtledove's fiction gives some texture to what Huntington is saying in general or theory. Food for thought in a hungry world.