Sometime ago I read a book about time travelers from the future who went back in time in an attempt to change the outcome of the civil war. Can anyone tell me the title? Thanks Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
There must be dozens of alternate history novels with this plot. However, depending on when you read it, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it was "The Guns of the South" by Harry Turtledove, as that seems to be one of the most well-known.
Great book! The cover, with General Lee holding an AK-47, is very ... uh ... well ...
Posted by MIB (Member # 426) on :
The Ak-47 is generally used by third world nations because they're reliable accurate and cheap. So....uhhhh.....yeah. Ak-47s are a good fit for the south.
Maybe you can help me out. I once saw a book at Barnes & Nobels that I thought was interesting, but I didn't buy it. Like an idiot, I didn't bother to write down the name of the book either. It was one out of a series of books about an alternate history where rather than WW2 being all about us against the axis nations, we were all banding together to struggle against a hostile alien force that made their way to our liitle corner of the universe.
Does that sound familiar to anyone?
[ November 15, 2001: Message edited by: MIB ]
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Same author, Harry Turtledove. He's writing a "sequel" series set in the 60's -- the world is divided between humans and aliens, and the arrival of alient colonists threatens to upset the fragile balance of power.
Posted by MIB (Member # 426) on :
I've just looked at some reviews for his books. The general idea I got from the reviews is that the story is good, but Turtledove describes every aspect of everything in excruciating detail. Plus he has this bad habit of constantly "reminding" the reader of what has already been established through out all of the books.
Even if the story is good, I don't think I can stuggle through one of his books if he pays as much attention to detail as the reviews said. Some detail is good, but the point of fiction novels is to leave some of it to the imagination.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Please read The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick.
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
Oh, I just thought of one: Harry Harrison's Rebel in Time, where they take the dchematics for the British Sten gun back, since its simple construction makes it easy to replicate given 19th-century industrial standards.
Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :
My sister wrote a book about the battle of Scary Vreek, here in WV. In the story, a soldier travel to todays Scary Creek, and falls in love with a girl in this time. It turned out well, at least what I've read was good, but she has never tried to get it printed.
Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :
Turtledove RULES.
but skip the 'Alien Invasion' series.
His BEST alt-universe series is the one which is entirely feasable, but starts with an altered outcome to the Civil war (no time travel involved in this one, though)
"How Few Remain" is the first book, and tells the story of the Second Civil War, showing us a few familiar characters (Custer, T. Roosevelt), and introducing a slew of original characters.
He followed this up with the "Great War" Trilogy about the First World War, "American Front," "Walk in Hell," "Breakthroughs" with the CSA allied with the UK and France, and the USA allied with Germany.
Most recently, he's started a new trilogy in the same universe, hot on the heels of the first one (which was originally going to be a tetralogy, but he decided to continue it further), entitled "American Empire," the first volume of which is "Blood and Iron," which deals with the aftermath of the war and the rise (and apparent fall, fortunately) of a Naziesque political party in the CSA.
I don't think his details are 'excruciating,' anywhere near Clancy's, and his characters are quite human and the way the various story threads occasionally brush together is brilliant.
Posted by EdipisReks (Member # 510) on :
MIB, the ak-47 might be cheap and reliable, but it is NOT accurate. believe me, i've fired several ranging in quality from cheap chinese made ones taken from viet cong during 'nam to brand new high quality yugoslavian makes. NONE of them come close to an an m-16, hk g33, or FAL. the turtledove alien invasion series was a bit silly for my taste, so i never read his other stuff. i'm guessing that the civil war ones are ok?
--jacob
Posted by Mr. Christopher (Member # 71) on :
A teacher-friend of mine recommended Turtledove; he told me about the alien series.
Now, I was in a bookstore once and I saw a Turtledove novel that had a Nazi space shuttle in orbit and JFK on a computer... Which series is that?
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Colonization: Down To Earth.
That is the second Aliens stories. While the first series tells about the war fought between humans and the aliens, the second series focuses on relations between the two years in the 1960s when the wave of alien colonists arrives ...
Posted by Woodside Kid (Member # 699) on :
He's been doing it for years, over a wide variety of historical eras. There are two that I read a few years ago that i liked. The first, called "Agent Of Byzantium" (I think; its been a while), is set in a world where the Byzantine Empire never fell and Mohammed was a Christian saint. The second was called "A Different Flesh." In it, he postulated a world where the first Europeans to reach the New World found two continents populated by homo erectus instead of Native Americans.
Posted by Woodside Kid (Member # 699) on :
Another time travel book based around the Civil War is "Bring The Jubilee" by Ward Moore. In that one, a time traveller from a world where the South won the war goes back to the Battle of Gettysburg. He proceeds to foul things up, and our world is the result.
[ December 18, 2001: Message edited by: Woodside Kid ]
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Don't diss the AK-47 so lightly. You just haven't held a good one yet. (Or you are a lousy shot ) We have cheap Chinese junk here in Finland (no, not for the navy, I mean junk-quality Kalashnikovs ) for the deep reserves, some average-quality ex-DDR stuff for the regular force, and then these native versions with lighter, hollow plastic stocks and grips and a different flash suppressor. Those handle like a dream at longer ranges (200-400m), compared with the various 5.56 rifles that just can't take crosswinds. (Or then I was just given a particularly shitty M-16 for comparison. Wouldn't surprise me.)
Plus, a Kalashnikov can fire through foliage and snowy undergrowth, whereas you can protect yourself from a M-16 -armed opponent by building a snow fort. An armor-piercing 5.56 round is a joke. And when you hollow out a 5.56 into a tracer, the only thing you can trace with that is local wind patterns. When one hits you, you go "ouch"... When a 7.62 hits, you don't go.
As for alt-history writing, just imagine what fertile ground Finland is for that. WWII books are surefire bestsellers around here to begin with, so guess how the ones where we actually somehow end up *winning* some would sell... Oh, boy.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
So what's the general feeling about Harry Turtledive's "Colonisation" trilogy? I ask because I recently bought the three books (�3.99 from a local bookshop because they were damaged - but I can't see how! ), but haven't had a chance to read them yet. Is there anything that would seriously spoil my enjoyment of reading them (other than his attention to detail)?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
My personal complaint would be that they tend to just go on and on and on. Lots of characters, lots of pages, lots of locations, but in the end I wind up feeling like the payoffs were far less than I deserved for wading through it all. But then, most of my favorite books of the past few months have been as dense as dense can be, so maybe I'm just bouncing off Turtledove's particular style.
Posted by EdipisReks (Member # 510) on :
Timo, i'm a good shot, and i've fired a "high quality" yugoslav akm (the type with the double thick receivers, supposedly reducing the flexing that the stamped body ak's are so imfamous for) and it still sucked. the m-16's i've fired (and i've fired a lot going from the orginal Stomer AR-15, to the current M-16A2 and M-4 carbine) are all very accurate and very rugged. the valmet is supposed to be much higher quality than any eastern bloc rifle, so don't use it in M-16 vs. ak-47 debates . i can believe that the 55 grain round from the 60's and 70's couldn't go through foliage or snow, as it was poorly designed and too light to be effective against materiel. the new 62 grain nato round has no problem going through foliage, and will certainly go through snow (though the Norwegians still don't trust the round, and are still using 7.62x51 nato HK G3 rifles as the mainstay of their forces). there is a good article on the balistics of the nato 5.56 round here. in regards to the deadliness of the 7.62x39.5 round, it has approximately the same terminal balistics going through the abdominal cavity that a .38 special has, where a 5.56 tends to spall and twist, and tear up your insides (same thing that the Soviet Bloc 5.45 round did, despite that round not having an effective hollow cavity as had been rumored). case in point, a friend of my family was a navy SEAL in Viet Nam. he was shot twice in the chest from about 50 yards by a vc armed with an ak-47 and survived (pretty nasty wounds, and he lost a lot of blood, but he was able to get out of the hotzone with the assistance of another navy SEAL). in other skirmishes, he had shot several vc in the thoracic cavity from distances of 200 yards or more (with iron sights), and not once did the target fail to cease life with one shot (after all, it's shot placement that counts, and he could do it with a stock M-16A1 at 200 yards and the vc couldn't at 50 with an ak-47). the original 55 grain 5.56 might have sucked going through snow, but it's great at going through people. also, if you think 5.56 AP rounds suck, then try punching through a class 4a ceramic or spectrashield vest with a slow, fat, and lazy 7.62x39.5 round. it ain't gonna happen . i'd say that the 7.62 round you are thinking of that lets itself be known when it hits is the 7.62x51 nato round, because the 7.62x39.5 round doesn't anymore than the 5.56 does.
) We have cheap Chinese junk here in Finland (no, not for the navy, I mean junk-quality Kalashnikovs 
