Re: CHAT: Turtledove (was: RE: Nov 11th)

John Cowan:
> And Rosta wrote:
>
> > (because "try Harry Turtledove" was
> > what I got when I solicited a recommendation of books to read from an
> > august conlanger).
>
> C'est mich, and I apologize for not replying sooner in more detail:
> the matter has been on my queue, but just hadn't gotten unshifted to the
> front.
I hadn't realized I am due another list. I look forward to it.

> There are three flavors of Turtledove's uchronias: sf-flavored
> (_Worldwar_,
> _A World Of Difference_), fantasy-flavored (the Videssos and
> Krispos books),
> and neither (_Guns of the South_, _The Great War_).  Which you
> like, I suspect,
> depends on your tastes in other respects.
I guess "Neither" is this one I prefer. My favourite books as a child
were Joan Aiken's series beginning with _The wolves of Willoughby
Chase_ & in my teens I enjoyed (though was not as captivated by)
Len Deighton's _SS GB_. and then a couple of years ago my interest
was reawakened by reading _Fatherland_, which was much better than
I expected it to be. I think I prefer uchronian fictions where there
is simply a reasonably plausible divergence of history from actual
history, so I guess I would prefer _The Great War_ to _Guns of the
South_, though I did enjoy Stephen Fry's _Making History_ (though
this is partly because I venerate Stephen Fry).

One delightful discovery in my recent unchronian investigations
was L. Sprague de Camp's _Lest Darkness Fall_, which apparently is
a classic of the genre though previously unknown to me. Here I find
a novel whose premise (finding oneself transported back to Roman
times and seeking to avoid the Dark Ages)is one that has long
occupied my daydreams (leading to such anxieties as (i) feebly,
the only technologies I have sufficient knowledge to introduce
would be steam engines & printing, and (ii) whether I, looking at
things selfishly, would really prefer a world with no dark ages
but with no English [This is similar to the parent's quandary in
addressing the question of whether or how one would relive one's
life differently if one's current memories were transported back
in time into an earlier version of oneself: the quandary is that
whatever improvements can be made to one's life, there is the
risk of failing to conceive the same offspring]. The only other
novel like _Lest Darkness Fall_ in this respect in my experience
is Nicholson Baker's _The Fermata_. The narrator of that novel
shares certain traits with conlangers (the being engaged more
with a private inner world than the outward public one, and
the imposition, on this inner world, of self-created structures
of antipragmatic, achievement-inhibiting scruple and regulation).

> I agree that _A World Of Difference_ is very weak; I had actually
> forgotten
> about it when I gave you the blanket recommendation, and was at first
> confusing it with _A Different Flesh_, which is much better (about the
> survival of *Homo habilis* in the New World; the Pepys pastiche is
> priceless).
OK. I'll get that one.

> > This sounds like _How few remain_, which I bought but haven't read. Is
> > _The Great War: American Front_ a sequel, or what?
>
> It is. _The Great War_ will, when complete, be a continuous
> four-volume novel
> about the alternate WWI, primarily from an American perspective, with
> _How Few Remain_ as its prequel.
>
> > BTW, the best Alternative History/Uchronian work for *conlangers* I've
> > come across so far is _For want of a nail_ by Robert Sobel.
>
> I agree.
>
> > I am surprised Sobel's book (1973) found enough of a
> > readership to remain in print.
>
> It was in fact out of print for many years.  The current edition is
> a by-product of the ongoing revival of uchronian fiction.
That reminds me, I failed to locate the uchronia that ubicates the
heimat of Piat. Something by someone with a jewish-sounding name.
Avram Davidson? Called something like "The notebooks of Doctor
[something-middleeuropean-sounding]". Any idea where I can find
it?

--And.