Latest Update and Book Review

[skull_bearer]

I need to stop worrying about my parents so much, they have their lives and as much as I want to I can't help them, all I'm doing is being dragged down with them. I need to stop thinking that the world would fall apart without me because there's nothing I could do about it anyway. My fears of leaving my mother alone are the main reason i haven't moved away yet, I can see that. And guess what? My mother sorted it out anyway, and would have whether I liked it or not. I need to live my own life.

Right. Now I need to bring myself to believe all this.

Where I got the idea I'm self-centered, I'll never know.

In other news, I've just finished reading 'The Man with the Iron Heart' by Harry Turtledove, an alternate history book with a great premise- What if Reinhardt Heydrich had survived the assasination attempt and led a terrorist resistrance against the occupying allied armies. Like all of Turtledove's books, the premise is great, the execution is realistic, there's a nice use of mitigating factors that keep it at once true-to-life and interesting, and it's painfully clear that he's really not a very good writer.

This book's problem is with the characters and the gut-feeling of the reader. The characters are all such utter bastards that after a while and quite without meaning to, I found myself rooting for the nazi resistance. Maybe it's because I always root for the underdog, but I think it's also to do with Heydrich being the only halfway decent character in the story. Even the Holocaust survivor is a complete arsehole and the woman protestor is a bitch and if reviewers are putting 'Heydrich' and 'halfway decent' in the same sentence, you know your book's in trouble.

Also there's a problem with the story's moral, Turtledove does do the setting justice, it's mean and horrible and depressing and the Russians are out raping everything in a skirt. In fact, he does it too much justice. What we really needed were some flashbacks of nazi atrocities because just knowing they happened doesn't quite set them up against watching the allies screw the pooch eight ways from Sunday, and by the tim the Russians started sending off Germans in Death Trains to Gulags in retribution for terrorist strikes I officially went 'Fuck this' and went to sit with Mengele and co and joined them in shouting abuse at everyone.

In the end, it was a good book, atmospheric and it dragged you along at full tilt and left me exhausted by the time I turned the last page. But when I did, and the Americans left and the nazis were left in control of west Germany, I still had the strength to give them a weak cheer. No offense to Mr Turtledove, I don't think he's a neonazi and I'm sure this wasn't the effect he wanted to give, but he really needs to work on his charactersiation.

Comments

[shadowvalkyrie.livejournal.com]

Right. Now I need to bring myself to believe all this.

Give it time, move out and watch the world not fall to pieces and everything will be fine.

if reviewers are putting 'Heydrich' and 'halfway decent' in the same sentence, you know your book's in trouble

Obviously.

----

General question, if I may: how are you? (I'm still worried, you know.)

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

Much better, in fact, I bounce back pretty fast from these things. I'm hoping to be able to continue my backpacking by Thursday, start off somewhere relatively close, so if I fall to pieces again it won't be so bad.

[shadowvalkyrie.livejournal.com]

Good to hear! But keep us updated, okay?

[splintertalon.livejournal.com]

Ha, I remember sneaking downstairs in the small hours of the morning as an eight-year-old to read Turtledove's World War/Colonization series after my parents forbade me from reading them because of all the sex and violence. Nostalgia flood. :D I remember that series being pretty even-handed with the characterisation, though that's probably just an offshoot of the fact that there were about fifty million different protagonists from various countries and alignments.

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

First one I read was 'In the Presence on Mine Enemies', which totally rocked. I'm not totally sold on Turtledove because it's quite clear he went from writing AU scenarios straight into novels and he hasn't quite worked out the difference yet.

I think this is one of the only books everyone in my head unanimously hated; Erik and Charles were disgusted at the protayal death camp survivors got, Elric and everyone unafilliated were put off by all the characters behaving like dicks, and the nazis spent the whole time not daring to look because oh god this was awful and they didn't want to see what happened next. Until the end. They liked the end, which is the only bit I can read without feeling sick.

[pepperjackcandy.livejournal.com]

At WorldCon one year (2000, unless I miss my guess), Harry Turtledove was bemoaning the voluminious letters he gets critiquing the technology in his books. He went on to say, in so many words, that he wishes he got letters dissecting his characters the way he gets letters dissecting his technical writing.

So I say you write out your critique and send it to him.

Maybe -- just maybe -- you'll help him become a better writer. 8-)

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

Hmm, maybe, that is an idea. I'm pretty sure this wasn't the message he wanted to send. I think he wanted the slow dread and cold inevitability which I did sort of get, but only if I stepped back and imagined other more sympathetic characters in their place.

[arhh.livejournal.com]

I have yet to read that book you mentioned. I loved In The Presence of Mine Enemies. His series about an alternate timeline where the US Civil War had ended in a stalemate and there was a Union and a CSA and then there was a rise of a nazi like figure in the CSA. I believe there is one more book in the series that I haven't gotten to yet, but it is very good. Guns of the South is another one of his that is a great read. His characters and settings he drops them in are main reason I keep returning to his stuff, even some of his earlier fantasy novels which really isn't my favorite genre.

[dried-frog-pill.livejournal.com]

I can't remember which Turtledove I tried to read years ago, but I remember being so confused by the sheer cast of people in it that I had to keep track of. But maybe I'll try In The Presence of Mine Enemies, just to see.

Glad to hear that things are, if not calming down, then at least working out? Maybe?

[c0ld0r.livejournal.com]

"No offense to Mr Turtledove, I don't think he's a neonazi [...]"

He's a Jew, I think how his message at this particular book comes across is rather induced by his presumption that everyone embraced the idea of the Holocaust 100%.
What I mean is that this whole thing must - to him personally - be much more burned into his mind, and he might assume that everyone is on the same level that he is on.
That's why he does not really bother mention things commited by Germans before surrender, which might would have balanced the book out a bit more.

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

Maybe, but still, I'd have thought he would have given the allied characters some redeeming features, or any at all. I study the Holocaust myself, and even that wasn't enough to keep me from subconciously rooting for the nazis.