In the Balance: An Alternate History of the Second World War (Worldwar, Volume 1)

Harry Turtledove trained as a historian, and 'alternate history' novels are one of his specialties. This is the first book in a series that I liked a lot, but many didn't. If you're not prepared to take this series on its own terms, don't bother.

The premise is that in May, 1942, just as the human race is getting ready for some serious mutual bloodletting, invaders from another star show up. These are the Race, known to humans as 'the Lizards', a species that has developed VERY slowly and patiently, and has conquered two other inhabited worlds. Both the alien races the Lizards have previously encountered were much like them. Humans aren't.

The Lizards have only sublight travel, and last surveyed Earth during the Crusades. They expect humanity to have advanced as much in 800 years as they or the other conquered races would have -- that is, barely at all. So they deploy their supersonic fighters and tanks, ready to roll over knights on horseback, and run smack into armies that are outclassed in some respects, and fully competitive in others.

A big factor determining if you'll like this series is whether you're willing to buy into the premise. You could say that these books are highly artificial -- let the Race arrive in 1932 and they'd walk over humans, let them show up in 1952 and they'd be nuked before they got a foothold. Or you can say 'the Race' is carefully contructed. Turtledove obviously started with the idea of an invasion during WWII that would be neither a pushover nor doomed, and the Lizards' characteristics follow logically from that plot requirement. As it is, humanity and the Race are "In the Balance," just matched to each other. This delighted me, but it clearly annoyed some of the reviewers.

The other big factor in deciding whether you'd like this series is pace and scope. The story develops a bit slowly, and not everyone will like following dozens of characters scattered over the globe as they make their separate decisions to fight or cooperate with the invaders, and try to stay alive in a world turned upside down. Also, things won't be resolved quickly, any more than the real WWII was over in a few months. Again, this annoyed some, but left me with lots to look forward to.

The "World War" series develops over four books, till the humans and the Race reach temporary balance, and continues in the "Colonization" series, when the aliens main settlement fleet finally arrives. If you want everything settled in one novel, this is definitely not for you. If, like me, you enjoy following dozens of characters spread through years and continents, you'll probably like this series.

Turtledove's characters are mostly well drawn, and the plotting fairly tight. His knowledge of history shows, and I mostly believed his assessments of how Hitler, Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt would have reacted to these events. There are some things I would have insisted on changing if I was his editor, but overall I liked all four of the "Worldwar" series, and eagerly await the third volume in the "Colonization" series.

I don't always like Turtledove- he can be long-winded at times. But this one I did enjoy. I believe science fiction is best when it only minimally changes reality- you get one or two allowances for impossible things, and then work from there. This is what Turtledove does- assume WWII, and assume alien invaders at that time. Both are possible- it just didn't happen. And the neat addition- the alien invaders aren't really that advanced. In fact, if they were to have arrived when we humans were another 50 years advanced, they'd be technologically inferior.

But they don't, and thus the conflict of the story. Turtledove writes the characters quite well, and I remained interested in all of them. You feel the real emotions of these characters; you want to see what they will do next; you understand why they respond to these problems because part of you would respond the same way. Sometimes you see a long list of characters at the beginning of a novel (such as War and Peace or the never-ending Wheel of Time series), and you think, "Oh, no- I'll never be able to keep them all straight!" In this case, each character is clear, distinct, and easily remembered. Thus Turtledove pulls us from the Russian steppes to Nazi Germany to alien space craft to the radar detectors of Britian and the battlefields of Chicago- and we eagerly follow along to see how next the world can stem off invasion. Or participate with it.

Turtledove's first Worldwar book introduces us to the Lizards, an alien race bent on conquring the planet during World War II. An interesting read in alternative history sci-fi, to say the least, one that WW II military buffs will be especially pleased with. Turtledove's narrative takes us from the US to the German front to China to Russia, and how humans attempt to resist conquest. Especially good are the "talks" amongst world figures Molotov, Ribbentrop,Hull et al, and each regime's reaction to the invasion. Ultimately, Turtledove asks us: What would happen if, during the period of tense alliances and fierce battles of WW II, an even greater enemy bent on conquering the entire planet appeared? A solid series, and an especially solid start.

I know Turtledove has a large following and sells a lot of books in the alternate history subgenre of science fiction. Wondering if such appeal would translate well to me, I picked this one up as an interesting starting point - And It Was.

Glossing over the recap, I'm jumping right into the strengths of this book. Despite the myriad of characters each one feels real, with personality, emotions and reasons. Each one feels like a character and not a caricature - no mean feat, I assure you. This is the sign of a very strong writer and it assuaged my doubts. I came to this volume believing that a PhD historian with a penchant for military sci-fi would be a shoot-em-up action writer sacrificing characters for technology and situations. Turtledove does know the nuances of history and includes remarkable details of weapons, systems, aircraft and tanks, but he tells these things through the words and actions of the characters, not as info-dumps.

The plot moves forward, with the construction of the aliens and their Race carefully planned to fold into the happenings of World War II . . . creating a fascinating tale.

I have some problems with the book as well. The Core Premise of the book is that the Aliens weren't expecting the humans to be as technologically advanced as they turned out to be. The problem is that Turtledove repeats this surprise over and over and over and over and over again. In fact many important plot points are pounded into reader like a jackhammer through pavement that it gets annoying.

Not annoying enough for me to give up on him. I'm going to pick up the next book in the series and put it into my reading list. We'll see how that goes.

- CV Rick

After reading Guns of the South, I thought I would give the World War series a chance. I went into it intentionally ignorant (no sneeking a peek at the back cover) and was shocked to the point that I laughed out loud when I found out what the historical twist was.

As in Guns of the South, the "twist" in this work of historical fiction would make many dismiss it as a big work of extra-cheese. But just like "Guns," Turtledove pulls of the impossible by making what would appear to be ridiculous at first glance into a masterwork.

I don't want to spoil more, but if you are a WWII fan, or simply a history buff and have an open mind, you will be pleased. SF fans will NOT be let down.

Harry Turtledove secures his title as master of alternate history in this thrilling book for fans of history and sci-fi alike. In this alternate history of WWII, a reptilian alien culture called the Race ( labelled "the lizards" by humanity) launch a massive invasion of war-torn Earth in May, 1942. Expecting the conquest to be a walkover, the Race soon realizes that humanity is going to be far more difficult to passify than anticipated. Turtledove takes us on an exciting journey accross the globe, from Nazi-occupied Europe (where the aliens face the brutal efficiency of Hitler's war machine) to the suburbs of Chicago (where General Patton attempts to halt the alien onslaught). Turltedove expertly tells the story of a huge cast of memorable characters, some fictitious, others prominent historic figures. We are shown the struggle of a Chinese peasant woman and the desperation of a Jewish family in Warsaw. We join an RAF bomber crew on a suicidal mision and ride with a German panzer commander against unstoppable alien war machines. Likewise, we also get to see the war through the aeyes of the Race. We get to experience the suffering of an alien pilot with the misfortune to be captured by the Japanese. We also get to experience the inner workings of the Race's military and political hierarchy. Turtledove also forces us to look at humanity's own shortcomings. In some ways humanity seems to be far worse than the Race (such as the Nazi and Soviet death camps and the Japanese enslavement of China's populous). All in all, Worldwar: In the Balance is a must read for any fan of sci-fi OR history. In a fascinating story of bitter enemmies forced to unite against the greater foe, Turtledove brings together the horrors of war and the strength of the human will to survive adversity to weave on of the greatest tales in the history of sci-fi.

This book is a well written alternate version of WWII. The fiction is blended so well with fact that it is hard to tell the difference. The characters are developed well and there is a great amount of carry over between the books in the series of events and conversations. Set against the backdrop of WWII, the story begins as the "Lizards" show up for their conquest and colonization of earth. Unfortunately for them, their reconnaissance probe took 1000 years to transverse the distance to and from their planet and earth. In the time since, mankind has made just a few improvements to the weapons of war. What follows is a story line filled with enough plots and subplots to satisfy all of the readers' sci-fi cravings. Buy the hardback - you'll want to read it again.

The concept of this book (and the series to which it belongs) is, as far as I know, unique. Though Turtledove had already been known for alternate histories, throwing in an alien invasion makes automatically doubles as a sci-fi. This concept was what drew me into reading it, though I have not picked up either genre in several years.

One problem that any alien invasion plot must defeat is how any civilization that is capable of travelling the stars could possibly find conquering the human race a challenge. Turtledove attempts to solve this problem by explaining how slow non-humans are to advance their own technologies. As plausible as this may seem, one still wonders how such aliens must advance at all beyond their 100,000 year head start. To further soften the alien advantages, however, Turtledove has his aliens still reliant on bullets, helicopters, and tanks. We are expected to believe, then, that an interstellar empire still hasn't discovered means of defense more elaborate than, say, 21st century technology.

Such problems aside, however, one can see that Turtledove's contrivance is, nevertheless, superior to any other that has been used. Clearly, laser shooting, anti-grav using, teleporting aliens wouldn't have taken more than a week to annihilate the planet, and there would be no book to write. Keeping this in mind, one becomes more forgiving of the idea.

The historical details, Turtledove holds a PhD in history, are the real gems to be found in the book (and series). The reader will become more familiar with German Panzers and T-34's and other such tanks, as well as other kinds of weapons, in a way that might not have have interested him/her before. The characters are many and varied, and each has his/her own tone that seems suited to ethnicity and gender.

I hope the rest of the books are as good as this one and do not get bogged down in the mundane aspects of war. War, as many commentators have noted, contains long stretches of boredom between brief horrific acts. Novels about war should not imitate that reality too well. So far, I have not been bored.

When I read Guns of the South by Turtledove, I was disappointed that the "alteration" was caused by time travellers smuggling AK-47s to the Confederacy. I'm enjoying The Great War tetrology much more because the "alteration" is a natural re-writing of a historical event. So I didn't have high hopes when I saw WWII was to be altered by an alien invasion. BUT THIS BOOK IS GREAT! Turtledove takes the oldest cliche in pulp sf-the invading lizard race- gives it twists and turns and drops it into WWII. My sense of wonder was 1st stirred when it was revealed in the prologue that the lizards , although more highly advanced than humans, progressed at a much slower rate. The aliens , who think they are invading a nomadic bow and arrow culture, find us with radio, flight , and explosives. Now they realize they have to kick tail fast or the earth will be counterattacking their home world much sooner than they can devise appropriate defenses. There are the requisite reality figures-mostly world leaders and a slew of characters so large there is a dramatis personae given. The action hops from China to the US to Poland to space as we catch every facet of the struggle from different viewpoints. Every character has a unique insight into the War, Mr. Turtledove has provided an excellent way to escape from the real world for a day or 2. Now, excuse me, I have to sign off and begin part 2, Worldwar:Tilting the Balance.

This is the first Harry Turtledove offering I've read, and I must say that I am impressed. I usually read Science Fiction, and mostly Military SciFi at that; so mixing Alternate Military History with Aliens from other worlds isn't that different from what I normally choose to read.

To be honest with you, the quality of this story is actually above what I normally read - the characters are better developed and more varied than in most Military Scifi books. The aliens, their culture, and and their level of technology are believable.

This is neither a "quick read", nor a "slow read"... I found it to be evenly paced, with each chapter containing enough intersting material to keep things interesting. Indeed, the ability of Mr. Turtledove to crank things out at such an even pace is almost eerie - with each Chapter coming in consitantly at almost exactly 28 pages.

A few "warnings" about content: 1) There is a decent amount of sexual situations and scenes, but they are well done, and fit within the storyline. 2) This being a military-oriented book, there is of course a fair amount of violence and bloodshed. 3) This book does not contain an "ending", as it is part of an ongoing series.