DBWI: The Turtledove TL-191 Discussion Thread.

Well, I've just finished reading 'In at the Death' which concludes Harry Turtledove's TL-191 series, where Lee's special order 191 were lost by the Confederates and found by US troops, resulting in McClellan's victory at Antietam and an eventual victory for the US in the American Civil War (OTL War of Succession).

I'm just wondering what people thought of it?

Generally, I have to say I enjoyed it, but I thought I'd comment on a few things.

It seemed a bit wierd having Britain and the US as allies in the two World Wars, and that combined with there being no CSA meant North America was reasonably untouched by war. I found that striking, and I wonder if Turtledove's history was 'better' than ours? OK there were still many casualties of war, but perhaps not as many. 6 million Jews were murdered rather than 5 or 6 million blacks, so that evens things up, but in TL-191, there were only two Atomic Bombs (Super Bombs) dropped, compared to OTL's 6.

It tickled me that Franklin D Roosevelt, Secretary of War (TL 191, POTUS) seemed to be very friendly with Winston Churchill, but given the scenario that had unfolded, it was plausible. Stalin in Russia seems to have been a brutal b*stard though - I wonder how long that alliance would have lasted had the series continued.

Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, generally it was a good read about their rise to power in Germany, but it's blatantly just a re-painted version of Featherstone and the Freedom Party. I mean, Turtledove even called the Nazi's founder, Anton Drexler! Hmm. I wonder what inspired him there? What they did to the Jews was pretty horrific and essential the same as what happened to blacks in the CSA, although the fact that the Nazis took over most of Europe and were able to ship Jews from all over the continent was very chilling.

Anyway, I'm going on about the big point here, what did you all think?
I'm particularly interested to hear your opinions of the different characters.

I liked the fact that there were so many from all over the world, and how their paths would cross every now and then.

Too much convergence, and overly repetitious - we all know Hitler had one testicle, thank you, you don't need to keep on mentioning it!

God, I hated his TL-191 books. It was as if HT just cracked open a WW2 history book and replaced Featherston with Hitler, the C.S.A. with Germany, and the blacks with Jews.

I have to say my favorite part of the whole series, though, was the small cameo he gave Featherston in The Center Cannot Hold.

Stalin was a giant jackass

Me, I didn't think the National Socialists made sense. Well, OK, the FP hate the Blacks, I can at least understand that, they caused the rebellion that lost the CSA the kriffing war. The Jews in Germany... did nothing of the sort. Their main war planner, Rathenau, was supposedly Jewish for Christ's sake, and still did a better job IMHO than this Speer character. No, Turtledove just has his fictional German FPs going after a well-established, well-integrated minority group just because he needs a racist analogue.

My books are excellent! Better than any of the crap that you peons shovel out!!

Admiral Canaris said:

Me, I didn't think the National Socialists made sense. Well, OK, the FP hate the Blacks, I can at least understand that, they caused the rebellion that lost the CSA the kriffing war. The Jews in Germany... did nothing of the sort. Their main war planner, Rathenau, was supposedly Jewish for Christ's sake, and still did a better job IMHO than this Speer character. No, Turtledove just has his fictional German FPs going after a well-established, well-integrated minority group just because he needs a racist analogue.

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Yes, I mean, Germany going after the Jews of all people!
I mean, the 'Soviet Union' (Communist Russia for those that haven't read the series) might have been understandable if they did it, but in Germany?
The Slavic hatred was more plausible, IMO. They lost portions of the Empire to Poland, after all, including Danzig.

I think I have to complain about how our great hero General George Armstrong Custer died battling a bunch of savages ! I mean come on the great hero of the first Great War dying against natives of all people ?Shit he survived against the rebs , brits , canucks , and even held down those backstabbinb mormons down when they dared rise against us during the Second Mexican War.

Someone should make a timeline for this post 1945. It would have been interesting to see if the US and Soviet Union ever would have come to blows.

Knowing Turtledove he'd probably just turn each nation into an analogue for one in OTL, meaning there'd be a long cold war and one would eventually fall apart peacefully in the 90's.

Turtledove's anglophobia shows up all the time...after winning the alt-Second Great War (what was it called again?) and doing fine throughout the 1950s, he suddenly changes his mind and has Britain crash to irrelevance for no reason, like he's not original enough to work out what a superpower Britain would look like, and he has to let it drop to a second rank position as happened after the end of the Second Great War in OTL...

And that metaphor about the bombing of London vs. its atomic bombing in OTL was really heavy-handed. Not to mention that implausible way in which the British stop the Germans using their rockets (blatantly copied from Featherston's, of course...)

scourge said:

I think I have to complain about how our great hero General George Armstrong Custer died battling a bunch of savages ! I mean come on the great hero of the first Great War dying against natives of all people ?Shit he survived against the rebs , brits , canucks , and even held down those backstabbinb mormons down when they dared rise against us during the Second Mexican War.

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Blame those redcoat-nostalgic canucks for that. It was Turtledove's editor who pressed him to remove such a "conflictive" figure be cause they feared that the books would not sell well on the other side of the Great Lakes. In the last moment he wrote the cheesy piece about the siux war and chose a little known officer that was killed in the mormon uprising to make his part. Jack Pershing, I think.

Tocomocho said:

Blame those redcoat-nostalgic canucks for that. It was Turtledove's editor who pressed him to remove such a "conflictive" figure be cause they feared that the books would not sell well on the other side of the Great Lakes. In the last moment he wrote the cheesy piece about the siux war and chose a little known officer that was killed in the mormon uprising to make his part. Jack Pershing, I think.

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That's just a rumor that rabid Turtledove protecting weirdos spread. Turtledove rarely actually uses an editor anymore. The quality of TL-191 and the PlanetBattle series shows that.

What I wonder about, would life in a Communist Government been as bad as portrayed by Turtledove? In our timeline, the only Communist Government ever set-up was in the People's Republic of China.

The PRC is a wreck, although one can contribute that more to the fact it keeps getting in unwinnable wars with its more powerful neighbor, Japan.

So would a Communist Government in Russia have really been as bad as portrayed by Turtledove?

ObssesedNuker said:

What I wonder about, would life in a Communist Government been as bad as portrayed by Turtledove? In our timeline, the only Communist Government ever set-up was in the People's Republic of China.

The PRC is a wreck, although one can contribute that more to the fact it keeps getting in unwinnable wars with its more powerful neighbor, Japan.

So would a Communist Government in Russia have really been as bad as portrayed by Turtledove?

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Are you kidding me? As we saw with the Chinese, communism is inherently unstable. The Russians would've been destroyed by the Germans, yet they weren't. I'd find it hard to believe that the communists could've tkane power from the Tsar in the first place, though.

Another thing, Turtledove dances around the nuclear issue in a way that I, as a Philadelphian, find insulting. It's as if he wants to forget that the whole nuclear exchange ever happened, so he has it dropped on Japan. It's insulting to the Japanese and it's inuslting to the people who were lost in that sad battle. Furthermore, the whole firebombing of Dresden was obviously supposed to be based on the bombing of Newport News.

Iliek the end but the spainish american war just made no sense, why would america not annex cuba!!

I don't know... I quite liked TL-191.

Archangel Michael said:

I have to say my favorite part of the whole series, though, was the small cameo he gave Featherston in The Center Cannot Hold.

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I forgot about that. It was amusing to see him begging for work off a black foreman.

The other cameos were interesting. Jeff Pinkard landing at Omaha Beach, Flora Hamburger as a Congressional Aide, Willy Knight as a failed businessman...

Actually, D-Day is something I'd like to bring up. Nothing like it occurs IOTL. Harry actually hit a creative vein. Two million men invading the stronghold of Europe...

LordInsane said:

Yes, I mean, Germany going after the Jews of all people!
I mean, the 'Soviet Union' (Communist Russia for those that haven't read the series) might have been understandable if they did it, but in Germany?
The Slavic hatred was more plausible, IMO. They lost portions of the Empire to Poland, after all, including Danzig.

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Obviously you didn't read the sections where it is very graphically described the suffering Slavs and Poles suffered under the Germans. Hitler hated everyone, the Jews most of all.

thecreeper said:

Iliek the end but the spainish american war just made no sense, why would america not annex cuba!!

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Because it had no reason to?

ObssesedNuker said:

What I wonder about, would life in a Communist Government been as bad as portrayed by Turtledove? In our timeline, the only Communist Government ever set-up was in the People's Republic of China.

The PRC is a wreck, although one can contribute that more to the fact it keeps getting in unwinnable wars with its more powerful neighbor, Japan.

So would a Communist Government in Russia have really been as bad as portrayed by Turtledove?

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Communist Russia? lol. as if that would ever hapen

The D-Day landings were, hands down, as The Doctor said, the most interesting part of the series. It was truly quite amazing. Of course, we all know that if that were tried in real-life, the men would be slaughtered from the artillery and machinegun fire. And no one would be as stupid as Hitler as to not send those "Panzer" divisions to defend the beaches.

Sort of ASB, but I think that part is redeeming of the whole series.

Nietzsche said:

The D-Day landings were, hands down, as The Doctor said, the most interesting part of the series. It was truly quite amazing. Of course, we all know that if that were tried in real-life, the men would be slaughtered from the artillery and machinegun fire. And no one would be as stupid as Hitler as to not send those "Panzer" divisions to defend the beaches.

Sort of ASB, but I think that part is redeeming of the whole series.

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Oh, I don't know, there are all kinds of crazy people. Remember, Featherston actually thought he could exterminate 1/3rd of his population while engaging a superior enemy in a total war. If you can do that, then this Hitler character actually seems quite sane by comparison.

Apropos: Did any of you know there actually was an "Adolf Hitler" in the German Army? He did get the Iron Cross, 1st and 2nd Class in the war. It's a little spooky... did HT base his guy on a real person? And won't this Hitler's descendants sue him when they find out?