Down in the Bottomlands (And Other Places) [Mass Market Paperback]

Harry Turtledove (Author), L. Sprague de Camp (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1999

In our world, the Mediterranean basin has dried up several times, only to refill. If it hadn't, it would have become a savage desert. But in his world, that's just the way mild-mannered Radnal vez Krobir likes it.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Baen (October 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671578359
• ISBN-13: 978-0671578350
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,918,563 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Harry Turtledove is the award-winning author of the alternate-history works The Man with the Iron Heart; The Guns of the South; How Few Remain (winner of the Sidewise Award for Best Novel); the Worldwar saga: In the Balance, Tilting the Balance, Upsetting the Balance, and Striking the Balance; the Colonization books: Second Contact, Down to Earth, and Aftershocks; the Great War epics: American Front, Walk in Hell, and Breakthroughs; the American Empire novels: Blood & Iron, The Center Cannot Hold, and Victorious Opposition; and the Settling Accounts series: Return Engagement, Drive to the East, The Grapple, and In at the Death. Turtledove is married to fellow novelist Laura Frankos. They have three daughters: Alison, Rachel, and Rebecca.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Allways fun to revisit old friends, October 29, 1999

By 

Sven Allenbach-Schmidt (Greenbelt, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Down in the Bottomlands (And Other Places) (Mass Market Paperback)

The title story is an excellent piece of allohistory, a world in which the Mediterrean Sea never reflooded. A world where Neanderthals (Strongbrows) have not only survived, but hold their own with modern type humans (Highheads) in an atomic age present. A couple of lines in the story make me suspect Turtledove is slipping in a small tribute to Randall Garrett's Gandalara saga, which was about a humanity evolved for the the "Bottomlands". The second story is a classic, de Camp's "The Wheels of If", while the the third is a sequel to 'Wheels' written by Turtledove. A nice salute to a classic, but Turtledove's smooth dialouge clashes oddly with de Camp's two-fisted '30s style speech.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A tale of an alternate Earth, May 18, 2000

By 

Fred Camfield (Vicksburg, MS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Down in the Bottomlands (And Other Places) (Mass Market Paperback)

This is a good novel of an alternate Earth where the Straits of Gibraltar are blocked by a mountain range and the Mediteranean Sea is smaller and below sea level, allowing mining and petroleum production on the margins of the smaller sea. The hero is a guide in a park down in the bottomlands, and the villains are enemy agents set on flooding the area. It is a well developed tale, and interesting to read.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If the Bottomlands were more Pugnacious, October 5, 2008

By 

Jedidiah Palosaari "Not My Real Name" (Fes, Morocco) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Down in the Bottomlands (And Other Places) (Mass Market Paperback)

The first novella, Bottomlands, is a brilliant idea for alternative history. Turtledove is often seen as the master of Alternative History, but I must say, after reading many of his books, he is more the master of the Alternative History idea. He comes up with a lot of great ideas. It's the follow-through that he has more difficulty with. His dialogue tends to be uninteresting and unrealistic, his characters not engrossing, and his plots feeling contrived. Not to say that all of his writing is bad, but the trend tends towards the less enlightened. Bottomlands is in keeping with this trend. The idea that the Mediterranean didn't refill, but in historical human times, is a great idea to explore, but I found myself having to skim sections of this novella because the characters felt so unrealistic. I cared not a whit about any of them.

"Wheels of If" is a different story. This was a great twist on the alternative history genre, but sadly it wasn't written by Turtledove, but rather de Camp, and in the 40s. I was engrossed by the story and characters, and intrigued to discover what might happen next. Far too little attention has been paid to the what if of Irish Christianity surpassing Roman Catholic Christianity. De Camp plays with this idea, with novel explanations for alternative universes and how they are entered.

The final novella, "The Pugnacious Peacekeeper", is a follow-up to "Wheels of If", written by Turtledove. The writing isn't as snappy as that of de Camp, but is still engrossing, for de Camp's brilliance still comes through the original idea, extended out a year in time. Turtledove has applied the greater Western knowledge of Islam in the late 20th century to de Camp's world, to understand what a South America might be like. Turtledove gives us an intriguing understanding of multiple religious faiths and the nature of religion itself, while accurately reflecting some key aspects of Islamic jurisprudence, theology, and the Qur'an.