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Avg. Rating: 4
Excelent take on WW II
(Note that's I'm reviewing the entire series.)
We have a version of Germany that unifies with a version of Austria, only several other nations do not wait to be provoked further, they declare war right away. (Equivalents of Poland, France, Netherlands, and Denmark?)
The version of the UK sits out until in a reverse Dunkurg, the small islands are taken over.
The equivalent of Germany and the USSR divide Poland and wipe it off the map, and then the other powers on the land mass fall to Germany. In the mean time, This equivelent to Germany has been sending out literature painting blondes in a very bad light [who is this version had an empire 1000 years ago.] And they wait for those countries to fall before rounding up the local blondes in their empire and pass a law making red hair dye illegal for blondes to wear as well.
The equivalents of the USSR and Germany then decide to sneak attack each other on the very same day. Only the equivalent of Germans is much better trained. However the winter is Ukerlant's best ally, and so the life energy of blondes is expended to break a stalemate, but it doesn't take long for Ukerlant to use peasents life energy the same way. The eye witness accounts of historical Germans seeing the towers of the Kerlim match up this fictional account. The equivalent of the US joined the war and is obviously working on a version of the MP. They've been fighting this realities version of Japan for a while though.
Later in the series, the historical story of two sharp shooters going after each other (USSR&German) is retold, but with the twist of them both killing each other in this novel.
And the equailvent of Italy gets the equivlent of Germany side tracked just like histroically. (Only in Tundra instead of the Desert)
I'm not sure how to place this country where people wear nothing between their Sandels and Top Hats other than Jewerly, only that I probably wouldn't be able to get any work done at all in such a place.
Later on this version of allies start scoring victories, and an exiled character finds himself treated as a big rat by his ex wife.
A historic Japense inovation that didn't work for them is used quite successfully and was given the same name in this novel only as a combo equivalent to US&UK product. (Combination of a submarine and air craft carrier.) It works better in this book because it's holds more than four Dragons/planes.
In this novel, we see the equivlent of Germany on it's last legs and the equivlent as the equivlent to the USSR completes taking Ukraine back + taking Austria and Poland while the equivlents to the US/UK land in one of these nations and the German equivlent pulls out of the other but then finds US/UK landing troops there to go at them from there as well.
At the wars end we see what is obviously going to be their equivlent to our Cold war going so far as to match diviving Germany into two occuplied countries with figure head puppets, while the equivlent of Tokyo is hit with the equivalent of a nuclear bomb after failing to surrender seeing a demonstartion.
I think the immedate future looks much brighter for the citizens of this version of the US&UK than any place else in this novel.
Yes, Darkness still covers those countries the equivlent of the USSR rules (both directly and indirectly) and even one of the countries on the US/UK side is one large prision.
War is over, darkness remains
Harry Turtledove's magical allegory of World War Two concludes with Out of the Darkness, and much like in the real world, when the war ends, peace doesn't necessarily begin.
Algarve has been crushed and occupied. King Mezentio is shot down at the request of one of his fighters. In the far west, Gyongvar has been obliterated by a magical weapon of mass destruction. Unkerlant has taken Forthweg and installed its own puppet king.
As the war winds down, characters are also trying to pick up the pieces of their lives. Some of them have happy endings, others do not. Garivald finds himself in a mercury mine with Oraste and Ceorl after leaving the war. Bembo loses his girlfriend. Pekka and Fearno get married. Ealstan comes home to his family.
Readers will wonder what happens next in the fantasy world. Will Kuusamo and Unkerlant face down in a Cold War of their own? Will Algarve return to power, or will the Kaunian people ever be free?
History buffs and fantasy fans alike will enjoy the saga. It remains to be seen if Turtledove will revive it for the next generation, like the Return Engagement or Colonization series.
Admirable, but unenjoyable
I chose 2 stars, out of guilt for having not read the earlier books in this series. I suppose those books would have made the large number of characters, races, countries and thier complex relationships easier to track, but I somehow don't think it would have mattered that much. The book seemed to be a very successful exercise in writting about WWII under the fantasy fiction genre, but it didn't grab me or entertain me at all. It didn't say anything new about WWII. If looking for a new take on the war, look elsewhere, there are hundreds of great works on WWII. There were so many countries and characters that it all got watered down, and I ended up not caring about any. Since it is a WWII fantasy-historical fiction novel it also has an understandably predictable ending. I will look for another Turteldove novel, but would not reccomend this one, especially if you have not read the other in the series.
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