Customer Reviews

Curious Notions (Crosstime Traffic, Book 2)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This second book in the series is lacking what gave the first book some charm: the clear tributes to earlier authors, especially H. Beam Piper. I gave the first book 4 stars, in large part because even though there were flaws in the writing, it did appeal to my love of Piper's Paratime series and specifically the story "Gunpowder God." This book, however, has no such tribute. This is Turtledove going back to the same old Germans-won-the-war that he has been writing about interminably. This time it's slightly different - supposedly it's WW 1 the Germans won - but the world he comes up with is much the same.

Some specific gripes:
1. This book is very clearly a juvenile/Young Adult, and yet it's not being marketed as such. It's being sold in bookstores in the science fiction section, and in libraries on the regular adult fiction shelves, rather than the YA or J sections. This makes it an especial disappointment to adult readers, who expect not only better writing out of Turtledove, but also more mature characters in whatever they are reading.
2. The adult characters are so simplistically stupid and greedy for profit that it is not possibly to regard them as real people. I know that teenagers think that most adults are somewhat slow and stupid - I was one, once - but I didn't want the adults *agreeing* with me on that; I wanted reassurance that there really were a few smart people out there thinking things through and trying to run things properly. In this book, though, the adults are written as being as slow and stupid as teenagers think they are. Paul's father ignores totally obvious problems; characters state aloud that they are more concerned with profit than anything else; the Crosstime people blithely ignore interference with the culture of the timeline they're in and treat the locals like cartoon characters. Even the adults who do fix things and solve problems, such as Sammy Wong, introduced late in the book as a sort of deus ex machina to get Paul and his father out of trouble, do so with a sneer at everyone else who makes mistakes and complete contempt for the locals.
3. Some things are so obvious that they really, really shouldn't be done. Gosh, the Germans, the Triads, everyone is out to find and imprison Paul and he knows it. Wong has hidden him in a hotel with luxury service. So of COURSE Paul sneaks out of the hotel for a hamburger, without discussing it first, telling anyone where he's going, leaving a note, or even, for Pete's sake, dropping bread crumbs. Oh, come ON. And then, after leaving the luxury hotel, which Paul has called a luxury prison, he gets caught and thrown in a real prison, the real prison gets glossed over as if there were no real differences between it and the hotel except for the occasional interrogation. Paul spends less time thinking about how miserable he is in prison than he ever did in the hotel.

There are gaping holes in logic, and a gaping lack of rules for Crosstime. I mean, by now, everyone who reads SF at all has a notion of the principle of cultural non-interference. Ignoring that background notion without any explanation of why this culture wouldn't have such rules, is just careless. In fact, careless or thoughtless is what I'd say Turtledove was here. The book was slapped together with no thought to character development at all, no attention to the *good* cliches of alternate timeline stories, and most of the effort going into the bad cliches of young adult fiction.

I save my 2-stars for things that have serious editing and continuity flaws, and 1 star for things that are downright unreadable, and this is neither. The story is readable, it's just not very good, and that's why it gets a mediocre rating. There are even a few things I liked about it. The clues that the home timeline is not, in fact, our timeline, are reasonably subtly done. There are some culturally stereotyped characters, but at least the stereotypes are thrown around fairly evenly; there's not any one group of people who has all the intelligence and culture, or any one culture which is particularly worse than all the others. The length of the book is OK. Mostly, the copy editing was well done; there are only a few noticeable typos and grammar errors, quite good by today's rather lowered standards.

It's not awful. It's just not very good.

Not many Sci Fi/Fantasy authors today turn out anything I will pay money to buy. I suppose I was spoiled by the really first rate speculative fiction I grew up reading, written by the likes of Robert A. Heinlein, Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Niven and Pournelle, and others. Most of those authors are gone now, and it just doesn't seem to me that the ones writing today are nearly as good. When I picked up Harry Turtledove's Videssos Cycle back in college, I really had hopes that here was a new author who would prove worthy of his forebears. Alas, lately Turledove is not turning out to be, if his recent work is anything by which to judge.

This is a real pity, as I really want to like his stuff. I absolutely loved the Videssos Cycle, and I keep hoping he'll turn out something just as good, or even almost as good. His recent work seems shoddy, poorly thought out, and badly edited. This book shares a flaw common to much of Turtledove's work, and which I remarked upon in my review of his novel "Homeward Bound" -- endless repetition of the same point. In this novel, the point that is brought forth again and again and again is the difference between the value of money in the earth that the hero comes from, and the one in which he finds himself as the book unfolds. When the main character reflected on this for the third time, I started counting. The author makes the point no less than nine times throughout the book. This sort of thing gets intensely irritating. What makes it ironic is that early in the book the young hero wearily braces himself to listen to his father tell him something he's heard (and understood) many, many times before, and Turtledove accurately portrays the young man's exasperation at this patronizing repetitiveness, and then he turns around and does the same thing to the reader himself!

Unfortunately the repetitiveness which is fast becoming Turtledove's trademark is not the only flaw in this book. As other reviewers have noted, the adults in this book seem far too dull and slow witted, especially the German authorities. It's as though Turtledove got his idea of what German secret police are like from watching too many B grade WWII movies, where Gestapo men are portrayed as sinister, sneering bullies who are dangerous, but ultimately are stupid bumblers, easily outwitted by the hero. The hero, Paul Gomes, is portrayed as smarter than any of the adults around him, which is not bad in and of itself, but then, having made Gomes so smart, Turtledove gets him into trouble by having him do things that are inexplicably stupid and careless for a character as smart and quick witted and Gomes has been built up to be. Gomes gets stuck on this alternate earth by failing to take an obvious and easy path to safety and help that literally stands open in front of him: after the German authorities raid his house and take his father into custody while he was out, he has an opportunity to go inside the house before they return to it, and escape back to his home world and report the matter to people who can help get his father back, and he doesn't. Turtledove was obliged to keep Gomes stuck in this earth, or no adventure would follow to write about, but he could have solved this problem with the simple and obvious expedient of having the Germans leave a couple of men in the house to snatch young Gomes up upon his return, and having Gomes evade them somehow. The second slip of this type comes when Gomes, after having been taken to a place of safety by a man who has come from his home world to assist him, sneaks out without telling this man simply because he's bored and wants to get out for few minutes. Of course he gets nabbed immediately. The problem with this is not only that this supposedly very clever character suddenly becomes so stupid, but also that the same authorities who couldn't find him for weeks when he was moving around and living in an area of town they were actively combing, find him mere minutes after he emerges in a place where they were never even looking.

And finally, there is a far more basic flaw in this book, and one which is common to "Gunpowder Empire", Turtledove's first book about an earth where they have discovered how to travel to other dimensions with alternate earths. Supposedly, the people of this earth are running so low on resources, not only various raw materials, but food as well, that the only way they can sustain themselves is by sending people out to these alternate earths to bring back such necessities. Yet in both books of this crosstime travel series, the method we see them use to do this is totally inadequate to the task. In both books we see a little mom and pop store selling goods to the locals better than they can make themselves, and using the profits from this to buy produce. There is just no way that the single truckload of produce sent back every few weeks could ever justify 1) the presumably enormous expenditure of energy needed to effect travel between dimensions, 2) the expense and difficulty of manufacturing obsolete electronics solely for this export market (it's too outdated for these people to use at home), 3) the expense and difficulty of inserting people into a modern world where birth records, school records, identification papers, business licenses, etc. all have to be altered or forged, 4) the risk of tipping off people in this world to the possibility of travel between dimensions, and probably some other flaws I simply haven't spotted yet. There is just no way that the tiny dribs and drabs of foodstuffs an operation like this could haul in could ever justify the outlay of money, effort, and risk that this operation entails. This seems even more incredible when Gomes remarks to another character in the book that some of the alternate earths discovered are ones where people never evolved. Well if there are no people there to compete for resources with, why not colonize those worlds? Why not relieve overcrowding by sending colonists, and alleviate hunger at home by setting up modern, efficient, productive farms there? The haul from that would dwarf anything that operations like the one described in this book could ever hope to bring in. Turtledove attemtps to provide a second justification for the main characters' presence in this alternate world by noting that they need to keep an eye on the natives to make sure they don't develop crosstime travel on their own. But how is a little corner shop located in a poorer neighborhood in a city far from the centers of power on this world going to keep its finger on the pulse of technology there? The basic premise behind this whole story (and the one of "Gunpowder Empire" just doesn't ring true at all, which really hurts suspension of disbelief, and makes it hard to get into the story.

So all in all, what you have here is a basic premise, crosstime travel, that is a pretty great as an idea around which to build a sci fi story, but unfortunately, Turtledove makes a hash of it with a flawed justification for such travel, characters who step out of character and do inexplicably stupid things for no other reason than that he can't make the story work if they don't, and his wearisome repetitiveness. All this is a shame, because the basic idea of crosstime travel is a great one, and Turtledove is certainly capable of so much better. Maybe he should go back and reread Poul Anderson's short story "Eutopia". Anderson treated the idea vastly better in that one story than Turtledove's been able to do so far in two novels.

Curious Notions (2004) is the second novel in the Crosstime Traffic series, following Gunpowder Empire. Lawrence Gomes is a CT employee living in San Francisco in an alternate timeline where Germany has won the Great War. Paul Gomes is his son. They are storekeepers in the Curious Notions shop where electronic gadgets are sold to get money to buy foodstuffs for the home timeline.

In this novel, Lucy Woo is a Chinese girl who works in a shoe factory in this alternate San Francisco. Charlie Woo, her father, is a radio repairman who knows a lot about the current electronic industry. He has been puzzled over the gadgets sold by Curious Notions for some years.

One morning shortly after Paul and his father took over the store, Inspector Weidenreich dropped in to inspect their identification and business permit. He finds nothing out of order, but questions Paul about their source of supply. Paul denies any knowledge of the buying side of the business and refers the Inspector to his father, who is not in the store at the moment. The Inspector leaves, but promises to come back to see Paul's father.

When Lawrence comes in a few minutes later, he is less than pleased to learn of the Inspector's visit. Paul's Dad pulls several names out of the phone book and, when the Inspector returns, gives him the names as suppliers of the gadgets sold in the shop. Charlie Woo is included in this list. The Germans promptly take in Charlie for questioning.

Lucy Woo is rather angry about the situation and visits Curious Notions to express her opinion. Paul passes on her complaints to his Dad and arrangements are made to release Charlie Woo. Paul continues to see Lucy after that and they have several conversations. However, Paul underestimates Lucy's intelligence and gives her some significant hints about his origins.

In this novel, the Germans continue their investigation of Curious Notions, leading to the apprehension of Paul's Dad. Now Paul is on the run with the entire German empire on this tail (at least it feels this way). Lucy thinks about the clues and comes up with the Crosstime Secret. Everything is really going well . . . Not.

This novel shows another aspect of being an agent for Crosstime Traffic: a sufficiently advanced society is more difficult to fool. Even worse, such a society is probably capable of developing crosstime travel if the secret comes out. Crosstime Traffic has made a major mistake in opening Curious Notions.

Of course, flooding the alternate timeline with perfect counterfeits would be even more disastrous to the Crosstime Secret. Such an operation would require large quantities of small bills, thus making the juxtaposition of two identical bills very likely. Moreover, the transposition device would be fixed in place since the foodstuffs would have to delivered to the homeline. Thus, the Germans probably would soon learn of the counterfeits and would quickly follow the trail back to the device itself. Voila tout, no more Crosstime Secret!

Highly recommended for Turtledove fans and for anyone else for enjoys tales of alternate history and travel thereto.

-Arthur W. Jordin

The second of Turtledove's young adult books about a late 21st-century world (presumably our own) which trades with alternate lines of history for foodstuffs, without the people in the alternate histories knowing that there are alternate worlds.

Paul Gomes has recently graduated from high school and is going with his father to an alternate version of his native San Francisco where the Germans won WWI and later conquered the U.S. There, they will run Curious Notions, a store which sells consumer electronics primitive by the home timeline's standards, but well in advance of local gear. The money from sales go to buy local produce to ship to the home timeline.

But the novelty of the items cannot help attracting attention--from a Chinese-American repairman and his daughter (whom Paul soon falls for), from the German occupiers, and from Chinese tongs. Paul, his father, and his new friend and her family soon find themselves in the middle . . .

Good, interesting page turner. Turtledove develops this idea better than he did in the first book, and captures your interest.

Still, there are annoying flaws. If Paul and his dad can get forged papers and unlimited real and phony local currency from their home timeline, then why are they bothering to run such a risky operation at all? Just buy the produce, or run a sham business that generates just enough money to avoid suspicion at all the produce they are buying. And how much produce are they buying? We see one episode in which Paul must convey dozens of crates down to the dimensional machine. It is clear that he is not used to it, and he makes it clear (through discussion of his father's aches and pains, after all, he is in his forties!) that his dad doesn't do much of that either--and no one else can have access to the subbasement, where the machine comes. There's no sense that enough is being sent home to justify the expense of keeping two employees here. Not to mention the risk, since it is drummed into our heads that the Germans could easily develop Crosstime technology if given enough info, and put the home timeline at risk. Is the truckload of garlic that is being sent home worth the risk? Something smells here.

Turtledove is improving these young adult books (although political correctness is still omnipresent, presumably to make library buyers happy) but he needs to give these books as much care and attention as he does his adult books, to make them work.

Recommended, at least more than the first one.

This is the second in Turtledove's Crosstime Traffic series of juvenile science fiction. Set in our timeline of around 2190, and with us having discovered how to cross to other universes, with Earths of quite different alternate history. A venerable theme in science fiction, and since Turtledove has made his name as an acknowledged master of alternate history, one might expect much here. Following in the footsteps of H. Beam Piper's stories. Unfortunately, the book falls short on several aspects.

Firstly, what glimpses we catch of our timeline in 2190 make it seem little different technologically from currently, aside from the ability to move between universes.

Secondly, the premise that we need to trade with other human inhabited worlds for food grown there is ridiculous. In this book, the example given is garlic. Our world is depicted as being short of food growing capability. But the book also refers to us having discovered uninhabited worlds. Well, in this case, as far as growing food is concerned, the best way is to let some of us emigrate there and farm on a massive scale. Even with today's farming technology, industrialised farmers would leap at the chance to cultivate the best virgin soil of entire worlds. Plus, in today's developed countries, less than 3% of the population can grow enough to feed the rest, and usually also generate surpluses. Imagine what farmers 90 years hence could do, with even better crops and machines. Plus being able to choose at will the best land on other Earths. Along these lines, S M Stirling described a similar scenario in his Conquistador book. He depicted in detail how using mid 20th century farming methods, people could comfortably grow enough food in a parallel world.

For the sake of argument, we might imagine some foodstuffs that cannot be grown in a large scale, and are high value enough that we might trade with other worlds for. Super-truffles perhaps. But not garlic! The last time I checked, garlic can indeed be grown on large farms. So too for any common, cheap food. That is what makes those common and cheap.

Now Piper and others like Keith Laumer who depicted parallel worlds postulated that we might trade for valuable human made artifacts. Especially if we were a more advanced society, where most things were mass produced. Turtledove should have also used this premise here. Because his other key idea in this book, that we need to surveil some alternate worlds, for our own safety, does make sense.

But in the instance of the book, it is implausible that if we are surveilling that world, that we would also pay our way when there, by selling slightly advanced items. Very dangerous. While he uses this to introduce plot complications, the basic premise is flawed. The last thing we would do on such a world. In his first volume, this selling strategy is fine, because that world is so far behind us. Not here.

But suppose we can put all this aside about the book's verisimilitude. What about the plot line? Sadly lacking in the arena of gripping writing. All the villains are cardboard. The final action scene was trivial. And the boy hero telling his girl friend about a better America and then taking her to it? Well, 30 years ago, Jack Finney did it much better in "Time And Again".

You see, if Turtledove was a hardcore military SF writer, which he primarily is not, then he could have done something with the basic plot of this story. Built it up quite well as a military confrontation. And perhaps as somewhat of a mirror image to Stirling's Drakon, where the Draka of a more advanced parallel universe were trying to get at us. Now we, circa 2190, might put forces into the book's Earth, against a repressive hegemony. Then again, he has successfully written long series about mainly military events. So in a future book of this series, perhaps he can try the above. And drop the juvenile protagonists. Not really his forte. And it does limits the scope of what he can depict.

In a world where Russia reacted just a little more slowly to the outbreak of war, Germany was able to pump its entire army into France, avoiding the Battle of the Marne and defeating France, England, and Russia in detail to end World War I. Years later, it discovered the atom bomb and defeated and occupied the United States. Now the Crosstime Traffic corporation watches the Germans carefully, and does everything it can to be sure the Germans don't learn the secret of the ability to pass across alternate planes of earth. While it watches, Crosstime trades with this plane, dumping archaic VCRs and other electronic equipment that is completely outdated in the home plane, but fully up-to-date in a world where science has moved a little more slowly (in the absense of cold-war competition).

Teen Paul Gomes and his father take up operation of the San Francisco branch of Crosstime Traffic, buying produce from California's central valley and selling electronics. Although Crosstime hasn't realized it, both the Germans and the Chinese Tongs have noticed that the shop, Curious Notions, sells equipment that is ahead of what even the Germans produce for themselves. They may not guess the crosstime secret, but they certainly suspect something. Paul's father's clumsy attempt to divert German attention to the Chinese gets Lucy Woo's father arrested--and Lucy goes to Paul to complain.

Author Harry Turtledove is at his best realizing alternate history worlds and a world where the Germans prevailed in WWI is certainly not a stretch. A less vibrant, less developed, and less electronically capable San Francisco is a believable outcome of such a war--and the war that followed and allowed Germany to occupy the United States. The economic notion of selling electronic devices retail and buying truckloads of produce is harder to swallow. Why, for example, wouldn't Crosstime have introduced a single product design (say a VCR) and manufactured it locally, selling through distribution (the way VCRs are sold in America today?). Selling through a single retail shop and buying single truckloads of produce seems incredibly inefficient--and exactly the type of thing that would call for attention from curious police.

CURIOUS NOTIONS (and indeed the entire CROSSTIME TRAFFIC series) is targeted largely to the young adult market with its teenage protagonists and the innocent romance between them. Turtledove's strong ability to create and describe alternate worlds, however, will help the series appeal to adult readers as well. A bit more work on the economics and Turtledove will have a definite winner in this series. Even without that, it's an enjoyable story.

This is a well-written, fun-to-read book, but it's ultimately a big letdown. There's not a lot that actually happens. Much, much worse: almost none of what happens is affected by the protagonists!

This is pretty much a fatal flaw. The book's teen heroes are nice, likeable characters, but they DON'T AFFECT THE PLOT. They basically stand around waiting for the adults to do stuff. Secondary characters make almost all the decisions and take all of the meaningful actions, many of which happen "off-screen". For instance: at separate points in the book, each of the two teens' fathers is arrested by the bad guys. In each case, twenty pages later, the father shows up again, having been sprung in some unspecified fashion by unnamed and unseen (adult) agents. There's some good stuff about taking responsibility for your own actions, but it's vitiated by the fact that the ostensible heroes hardly make any of their own decisions.

I have a couple of minor quibbles as well. First, the story (both in the home timeline and in the alternative) is set around the year 2100, but neither setting seems to me consistent with a date that far in the future. Second, Turtledove picks a somewhat unusual divergence point for his parallel history--the Germans won the *First* World War--but doesn't do anything special with it; apart from following the Kaiser rather than the Fuhrer, the villains are typecast Teutonic goons.

I won't give this book less than three stars, because there's nothing actually *bad* about it. But Harry Turtledove is a fine, fine writer. He can surely do better than writing a book in which the purported main characters are mostly irrelevant to the story.

Mr. Turtledove doesn't seem to have a franchise to write in Piper's paratime universe, so instead he has created a poor knockoff. Instead of the resource depleted home timeline being saved by the discovery of the Ghaldron-Hesthor field generator, Turtledove's timeline is saved by the work of a pair of scientists named Galbraith and Hester. Duh! At least these folks don't seem to have uninvited guests wandering in and out of moving crosstime conveyors.

Piper's paratimers took great pains to preserve their technological advantage so that they could continue to sponge off of countless unsuspecting other worlds. They had a special police force for the purpose of protecting the secret, police who were authorized to kill or to erase the memories of anyone who stumbled on the truth. Turtledove's agents are clumsy, pale bunblers compared to any of Tortha Karf's agents.

Turtledove's travelers are told to keep their mouths shut, but otherwise seem to lack any close support network or real-time oversight. Despite claiming to be covert, the focus of the story, is a shop called "Curious Notions" which sells devices significantly more advanced than anything available to local technology. Hello! If that doesn't attract enough attention, they have truckload orders of produce frequently to their downtown San Francisco location, but none of it ever seems to leave! For two bachelors? Besides, how do a few truckloads of Central Valley vegetables and garlic make a real difference feeding the entire home timeline?

Finally, when the shopkeepers are cut off from their secret subbasement crosstime conveyor, they have no other means of sending a distress signal or otherwise contacting the home timeline. It's no surprise that everyone they have contact with is at best suspicious as hell, and at worst figures out the great secret. Help takes weeks to finally arrive.

Turtledove introduces some engaging characters, and the story move fairly briskly. But even cursory reflection tears the underlying premise of the tale to shreds. At least this time he is only telling the story from two viewpoints, not the ten or so that have become his usual style.

The book seems to be aimed at "juveniles". Grade school kids will be bored, teenagers will be turned off by the lame boy-girl antics, and adults will (hopefully) see right through the story flaws. Do a little searching and read the original Piper stories instead. His books work for all ages.

In Curious Notions, the second of his Crosstime Traffic series, Harry Turtledove once again carries on the work of H. Beam Piper (from whom the concept is borrowed) and Robert Heinlein in producing an enjoyable story, aimed primarily at young adults, which will entertain almost anyone interested in science fiction and/or history.

Curious Notions is a shop set up by Crosstime Traffic in a San Francisco where Germany won World War I and has dominated the planet for nearly two hundred years. Paul Gomes and his father sell high tech devices from the Home Timeline in order to obtain money to buy produce for their own overcrowded and inflation-plagued version of Earth. Inevitably, the German overlords and the local Chinese-American underworld become curious as to the provenance of the goods on sale at Curious Notions, and the Gomes family is imperiled by not one but two competing sets of bad guys.

The story is clearly written without the excessive number of characters and side plots which often weakens a Turtledove book. I found the glimpses of differences between the Home Timeline and the German ruled World fascinating. There are also some interesting moral dilemmas which are satisfactorially worked out.

Like Gunpowder Empire (the first Crosstime Traffic Book), Curious Notions is diverting and highly entertaining. I look forward to other installments with bated breath.

Ok, not Turtledoves best effort. The dialogue is simplistic and the characters are even simpler. Good guys are good, bad guys are bad. Adults do not think much. Teenagers think about lots of things. There are quite a few flaws in this work. But realize it is written for a teenager not a mature adult. This does not excuse the flaws in logic of the story line (already mentioned in several other reviews), but it does explain the exchanges between Paul and Lucy.
This alternate world is seen from their perspective and Turtledove provides subtle glimpses of the "Home" timeline from Paul's contrasting views of this and his San Francisco. Harry Turtledove does alternate universes better than most and Curious Notions is another good job from the master of parallels. He just should have advertised the youth angle of the book better.
I still enjoyed reading it and even knew of the youth audience before hand. It is a quick, simple read that provides another look at a post World War defeated America occupied by Germany. After I finished reading my copy I lent it to another friend who enjoys the SF genre. I was that confident in my recommendation.

Sam Hendricks, author of Fantasy Football Guidebook and Fantasy Football Almanac 2009 (available 1 May 2009)