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TL-191 question

Coiler

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Now I actually haven't read any TL-191 books in person, so I'm curious: Is anything after How Few Remain itself even worth it?
 
Now I actually haven't read any TL-191 books in person, so I'm curious: Is anything after How Few Remain itself even worth it?

Hoo boy, now there's a question and a half, considering the entire series stretches to, like, 15 books or so?

I have fond memories of the alt-WW1 series, and 'The Centre Cannot Hold' interregnum, but gave up before we got to alt-WW2

Maybe try the very first in the series and go from there?

Edit: 10 books, but still, that's a huge number to invest time into
 
Now I actually haven't read any TL-191 books in person, so I'm curious: Is anything after How Few Remain itself even worth it?
I read through the entire series at the time of publication, though by the time of the Second Great War books I was mostly reading them out of sheer boneheaded reluctance to stop a series once started.

Broadly speaking, the Great War books were flawed but had some entertaining moments. The interwar books were quite patchy and were a crime against Hemingway, but not without the occasional decent bits.

The Second Great War books were expensive toilet paper where Turtledove was just phoning it in. The most memorable examples of that were when he had two separate scenes where the same characters met for the first time (presumably written twice from the same notes without even realising he'd written the scene before) and how he couldn't be bothered to make up a name for the new tanks and just kept calling them new models.
 
The Second Great War books were expensive toilet paper where Turtledove was just phoning it in. The most memorable examples of that were when he had two separate scenes where the same characters met for the first time (presumably written twice from the same notes without even realising he'd written the scene before) and how he couldn't be bothered to make up a name for the new tanks and just kept calling them new models.
I have also pointed out this scene (does it count as irony if two people point out the two scene thing?), and I had the same thought about the tanks but I don't think I've ever vocalised it.
 
Probably the best way to sum it up is that when the series was originally announced, it was going to be How Few Remain, the Great War trilogy, and then one follow-up book called The Great War: Settling Accounts, which I think would have basically summed up the whole analogous Depression/Nazis/WW2 thing.

So I think the problem arose from Turtledove having put enough thought into one book's worth of stuff and spreading it out over, er, seven.
 
I liked the Great War books when I was fourteen or so, but even then I could tell they weren't as good as How Few Remain.

They're not bad. They have some fun stuff. They're just not particularly good, either.
 
I liked the Great War books when I was fourteen or so, but even then I could tell they weren't as good as How Few Remain.

They're not bad. They have some fun stuff. They're just not particularly good, either.

The first few were very good. The last one, i never even finished.
 
To be clear, I just meant the actual WW1 trilogy. After that the quality very much falls off the proverbial cliff.
 
Probably the best way to sum it up is that when the series was originally announced, it was going to be How Few Remain, the Great War trilogy, and then one follow-up book called The Great War: Settling Accounts, which I think would have basically summed up the whole analogous Depression/Nazis/WW2 thing.

So I think the problem arose from Turtledove having put enough thought into one book's worth of stuff and spreading it out over, er, seven.
To be completely honest the whole "TL 191 had to be rewritten and expanded" theory has never popped up for me anywhere but from posts by you saying it was a thing, Tom.
 
To be completely honest the whole "TL 191 had to be rewritten and expanded" theory has never popped up for me anywhere but from posts by you saying it was a thing, Tom.
I'm not sure if it was ever explicitly mentioned in the blurbs in the backs of the books (or the intro at the front), but it was covered I think on his website (the amazingly John Hemming one run by Steven Silver) back in the day. Next time I have access to my books I'll see if I can find reference to it.
 
I like Settling Accounts but think Turtledove mistepped in the lack of grunt Confederate POVs and always emphasising CS casualties. The big battles even the early war triumphs always read as if the CS is losing even when winning.

This does fit the overarching theme of a small power vastly outmatched and overconfident but it bleeds a fair bit of tension.
 
Probably the best way to sum it up is that when the series was originally announced, it was going to be How Few Remain, the Great War trilogy, and then one follow-up book called The Great War: Settling Accounts, which I think would have basically summed up the whole analogous Depression/Nazis/WW2 thing.

So I think the problem arose from Turtledove having put enough thought into one book's worth of stuff and spreading it out over, er, seven.
Also, wasn't the original plan that the USA would be the one becoming Fascist but then Turtledove realized that wouldn't play well? In particular that would explain why Flora Hamburger seems so clearly based off of Rosa Luxemburg in the Great War series.
 
Also, wasn't the original plan that the USA would be the one becoming Fascist but then Turtledove realized that wouldn't play well? In particular that would explain why Flora Hamburger seems so clearly based off of Rosa Luxemburg in the Great War series.
That doesn't make any sense tbh. It's an alternate history, there's no meaningful issue with it having a second order counterfaftual in it.
 
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