Comic Genesis Forums

For those who are enjoying this current time travel/civil war thread. I know of a book you may like. It is called "Guns of the South" by Harry Turtledove. It is about a bunch of time travelers.. who go back to change the history of the civil war.. By bringing with them 4 trainloads of AK47's.. and delivering them to Lee.

The setting of the book is historically accurate. (the author is a historian) And the book covers many of the topics mentioned in recent threads. It is my favorate "alternate history" book, so I thought I'd harp on it here..

For the record, I read Guns of the South and How Few Remain before starting this story... and Greg is a huge Turtledove fan in general.

oops.. looking back at the boards again I'm not the first to mention turtledove tonight.. I'm glad to know I'm not the only faaan of these books around here..

speaking of alternate histories.. anyone read 1632?

I've thoroughly enjoyed almost everything I've read by Harry Turtledove. He also does good historically based fantasy and straight science fiction, though he's best known for his alternate history.

I have a copy of 1632. A bit fluffy, but lots of fun. A sequel (imaginatively titled 1633) is due out this summer.

Maccabee

Another alternate history book that deals with a different Civil War is "A Midsummer Tempest," by Poul Anderson. It's set in an AU where Shakepeare is the Great Historian, and every word he wrote is true. This not only means that Oberon and Titania of Faerie exist, but that there were cannons around when Hamlet was Prince of Denmark, and trade guilds in Julius Caesar's Rome. This means they would have had to be considerably ahead of us, technology-wise, so during Cromwell's revolt against the crown they are inventing steam engines and laying tracks for railroads. To top it off, all of the speeches and most of the rest of the book are written in iambic pentameter, disguised by just being typed out as prose on the page but quite obvious if read aloud. Good stuff.