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.