Customer Reviews

Darkness Descending (World at War, Book 2)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Turtledove's usual formula is to write a story set in our world, but with different events. This time, he's reversed the formula: different world, same events. This series (which began with "Into The Darkness") tells the tale of World War II reenacted by a plethora of fantasy kingdoms. Strange as this idea may be, it's working very well. The first volume was good, enjoyable military fiction, and this one is no different.

Events proceed more or less according to historical schedule. Algarve launches a massive blitz against Unkerlant, which, although initially successful, runs into some problems with the local weather. Lagoas attacks the Yaninan colonies in the Land of the Ice People, and Kuusamo joins the Anti-Algarvian alliance. I won't say any more, for fear of giving away the plot. But if you know WWII history, you can probably guess what happens.

My review of "Into The Darkness" included my analysis of the story's politics. I shall now make some modifications.

I formerly stated that Unkerlant represented Russia. I now see that it stands in for China, as well. Gyongyos (Japan) invades Unkerlant, which must symbolise the Sino-Japanese war, since Japan and Russia didn't fight until the last weeks of WWII.

I also stated that Yanina represents either Italy or the Balkans. I now see that it represents both. It's status as a buffer between Algarve and Unkerlant suggests the Balkans, whereas it's colonial presence in the Land of the Ice People (Africa) suggests Italy.

I also assumed that Siaulia was Australia. This now seems unlikely. It is mentioned that the Derlavian powers are fighting a naval war there, which would suggest the East Indies.

Now, for some more analysis. (I hope you guys at Amazon don't mind these long reviews).

Interestingly, it is mentioned that Unkerlanter behemoths are larger than Algarvian ones. This probably recalls the Russian T-34, which was perhaps the best tank of its era.

It is also interesting to note Kuusamo's (i.e., the U.S.'s) reason for joining the war. In real life, the U.S. only joined the war after its territory had been directly attacked. In this story, however, it joins in response to the cruel Algarvian institution of the victory camp (i.e., Dachau, Treblinka, et al). In short, the U.S. is given a more altruistic motive than it actually had (this is not a criticism of the USA- I think Pearl Harbor was reason enough!). This may well be an example of Turtledove's politics shining through.

There you have it! I could say a lot more, but it probably wouldn't interest you much! But be assured, when the next book in the series comes around, I'll be there to review it!

Harry Turtledove's sequel to "Into the Darkness" is an interesting and enjoyable book about an alternate universe where magic rules. In this universe, there are nations who serve as proxies for the nations which fought WWII, e.g. Algarve is Germany, Unkerlant is the Soviet Union, Zuwayza is Finland, Forthweg is Poland, Valmiera is France, etc. We see dragons instead of aircraft, behemoths instead of tanks, leviathans instead of submarines.

The period of time paralleling WWII in this book is roughly Summer 1941, to Spring 1942. As a result we get to see the equivalants of Operation Barbarossa, and the beginning of an alternate Holocaust.

Turtledove has not created a mirror of our own universe and thrown magic, dragons, mages, and behemoths into the equation. This is a seperate universe, which results in differences which can be significant. For example, the equivalant of the Jewish people, the Kaunians, are rounded up for execution not merely because of their race, (which is, of course, why they are chosen), but because their blood sacrifice results in powerful military magic.

However, the people of this world are well aware that a person's lifeforce can be sacrificed for magic. This results in strained credulity because the Kaunians' reaction parallels that of the Jews in our own world, which is unbelievable, given that the Kaunians have a greater knowledge than the unfortunate victims of the Holocaust in our world.

Turtledove does a masterful job of creating characters. The sheer number of characters is almost overwhelming, but less so than the first book of this series. To his credit, Turtledove always makes me think when I read his books. This book benefits from not being an absolute duplicate of our world, and is a worthwhile read.

In Darkness Descending, Harry Turtledove continues his series of World War II fought with dragons and magic. Algarve has invaded Unkerlant and is gobbling up territory at a fast rate. Then winter kicks in and slows down Algarve's advance. Sound familiar? Furious at the slow down, King Mezentio of Algarve commands the slaughter of Kaunians so their life energies can be harnessed for magic. Thousands of Kaunians are murdered in victory camps. King Swemmel, a chilling depiction of Stalin, vows to use the same methods to drive the Algarves from Unkerlant. This world, so steeped in magic and feudalism, has now entered a grim modern era of mass slaughter and despair.

I picked up this book because of the cover and despite myself I enjoyed the book. Let's face it, Harry Turtledove's strengths are not style or characterizations or subtle themes. His style is flat as are his characters. With the exception of the Zuwayzan foreign minister Hajjaj, all the characters are corrupt, weak, or just flat out frightening in their callousness (ie King Swemmel of Unkerlant and King Mezentio of Algarve.

His strength is in his knowledge of history and wars. This knowledge is put to good use in his detailed description of battles, diplomatic intrigues, and social nuances. I had fun matching up events and character to real historic events and characters.

His other strength is in the scope of his works. He goes for the epic and that's really the only reason to read this work. Dozens of characters with ridiculous names parade through this work caught up and ground up by massive social forces they cannot control.

One of the main things I like about this novel is his use of dragons, behomoths, and leviathans. He strips them of their magic and wonder and reduces them to nothing more than beasts. They are stupid, easily manipulated, and are often a nuisance. This adds to the grim tone of the novel. Squalid beasts in a squalid world.

Looking forward to the next book.

Mr. Turtledove's second book in his "Let's Fight WWII With Magic" series is better than his first. It may be that I am finally remembering the names of his characters and who they belong to without constantly referring to the glossery.

The concept of the series is cute and Mr. Turtledove's execusion is clever. Indeed it is the matching of Magic-World events with Real World events that is the most fun aspect of the book. But in truth, if you don't have some interest/knowledge of WWII history, I suspect this book falls low on the charts. But then again, why would you be reading a Turtledove book if you weren't interested/familiar with history?

I will grant him that he is making enough changes so that the outcome of the book is not absolutely set in stone. The Japanese (Gyongos) do attack Russia (Utlanders) here unlike our world and the American counterparts enter the war before their Pearl Harbor equivalent. The "Manhatten Project" set up IS extremely clever.

So, in brief, a decent read for its size and ambition. If you enjoy historical trivia and appreciate the clever concepts better than the wooden characters (Mr. Turtledove's perpetual weakness), then go for it.

Harry Turtledove continues his fantasy version of World War II set in a world parallel to our own. Most (Turtledove is not afraid to kill of some of his characters, but I'm not telling who...) of the same characters are back for this book with continuations of the plot lines they were on in the first book.

Like the first book, Turtledove does a good job with his combat scenes and perhaps not as well with other kinds. The way in which he continues to draw parallels between WWII and his own war kept this reader interested. By the second book you are also better able to keep track of which character was which and more apt to care about what was happening to them.

The same things that are good about the first book, are also the same things that are wrong with the second book. The parallels to WWII continue, but to what purpose? Sure its neat and clever, but after two books and almost 1500 pages, so what? Yes, certain things are different in Turtledove's war - but I am willing to bet money that at the end of the war Algarve is beaten. As I mentioned in my other review, why not use this alternate reality to show what went wrong in our world. Some of Turtledove's characters can be a little wooden and he seems to use the same types of characters in all his books - the one that leaps to mind is the nasty nationalist women who is behind the lines while her brother fights in the army (trust me she is in Turtledove's books about the alternative-Civil War). And Turtledove should definitely stay way from writing sex scenes, they sound horrible.

As another reviewer mentioned, if you liked the first book you will enjoy this one. Honestly, I was hoping for more from ths series then the author has delivered so far, but there is enough going on to keep a reader interested. Just make sure you read the first book first.

And that's because his writing style has become very old and boring. Sure, the first few turtledove books you read are very fun and good, but as you read more and more of his books you will come to realize that he really isn't as great a writer as you thought he was. As I struggled to finish this book I kept getting annoyed at how the characters all say things in almost the exact same way. Everyone talks the same, whether they be Unkerlanter, Algarvian, or Jelgavan, it doesn't make a hell lot of difference. The way everyone speaks, if not the exact words they use, are all the same.

Algarve (Germany) has invaded the enormous kingdom of Unkerlant (Russia) and is on its way to taking Cottbus, the capital, when the horrid Unkerlant winter slows the Algarve war machine down and then forces the invaders back. The Unkerlantsrs have learned that by using snow shoes on their Behemoths (giant rhino like creatures that act like tanks) they can achieve greater mobility than their Algarvian counterparts. Because of this, now Unkerlant has its first real hope of the whole war.

Turtledove does a great job, as usual, of portraying the war and the hardships the soldiers go though, but fails miserably when it comes to the civilians and those left on the home front. He tries to be ambitions and have a lot of dramatic stories going at the same time without realizing that the more ambitious he tries to be with every character, the less ambitious be ends up being with EVERY character. For instance, he tries to go for a heartbreaking drama with one character being forced to give away her body to an occupying soldier in order to keep her grandpa alive, but the way he writes it you'd think this was no big deal. Turtledove is very good at writing about war, but when it comes to drama he is so absurdly bad it's not even worth talking about. He is unable to gain any sort of sympathy for his characters, which is a shame because he had a lot of potential in this story.

People new to Turtledove will be enchanted by the worlds he creates and his unique style of writing, but the more of his books you read the more you realize he really isn't that great of a writer, certainly not up to par with some of the great writers we have today. He tries hard to improve; I can tell he does, but he doesn't seem able to do it. If you read this review, please leave a comment.

Re-read value; very low.

Darkness Descending (2000) is the second fantasy novel in the World At War series, following Into the Darkness. In the previous volume, the Algarvians have rounded up the Kaunians in their country and put them in camps. In Kuusamo, Pekka has found a anomaly in magic and takes it to her Masters. In Lagoas, Fernao notices that the foremost Kuusaman theoretical sorcerers are no longer publishing articles and takes this information to his Master. Cornelu has unexpectedly come home to Tirgoviste. In Forthweg, Major Spinello has sent Brivibas to the work gangs and Vanai has given herself to Spinello protect her grandfather. Istvan's unit on Obuda has been transferred back to the mainland to fight in Unkerlant.

In this novel, the Algarvians are advancing across the seeming endless plains of Unkerlant and King Swemmel has ordered that all food must be hidden or delivered to his inspectors to keep it from the invaders. Marshall Rathar has come south to learn why the Unkerlantian army is being pushed back so quickly. Gyongyos has once more invaded far western Unkerlant and the Zuwayzin have pushed their border with Unkerlant back to where the Treaty of Bludenz had set it.

Fernao has come to Kuusamo to find out about their new research, but is rebuffed. Marquis Skarnu has discovered love with a Valmieran peasant woman while his sister meets her match in Colonel Lurcanio. Trouble is brewing within Ealstan's family.

This series is an allegory of the World Wars. However, the various national characteristics have been scrambled to preclude identification by stereotypical characteristics. For example, the Argarvians are red headed, with waxed mustaches. The Yaninans are short and wiry, with olive skins, dark eyes, dark hair, and thick bushy mustaches. The Kuusaman are short, with swarthy skin, dark hair, and brown slanted eyes. The Gyongyosians are tall, with blondish hair and beards. The Obudan Islanders have coppery skin. The Kaunians are blue eyed and blonde headed.

The Forthwegians have a mania for mushrooms. The Gyongyosians do not eat goat meat. King Swemmel of Unkerlant has a passion for efficiency. The Forthwegians are stubborn and persistent. The Ice People herd camels and the Kuusaman herd reindeer. The Yaninans have bagpipe bands. Every day dress is also mixed in this story, from the kilts of the Algarvians to the pants of the Kaunians.

The major difference from the real worldline is probably the Kuanians, who are the persecuted people of Derlavai. Long ago the Kuanians built an empire that conquered most of the known world, leaving relics such as roads and memorial arches throughout this domain. Then they were defeated and dispersed, with only Valmiera and Jelgava remaining as predominantly Kuanian states. Throughout the known world, however, the Kuanians are known for their scholarship and classical Kuanian is the international language of diplomacy and trade. In effect, the author has combined the Jews and the Romans in this worldline. However, the names -- i.e., Kaunas, Jelgava, and Valmiera -- are Latvian, probably reflecting Baltic history.

Recommended for Turtledove fans and anyone else who enjoys speculative fiction with a strong historical and moral component.

-Arthur W. Jordin

"Darkness Descending" is the second part of Harry Turtledove's reworking of the World War Two story set on a planet where technology is based on magic rather than machines.

Dragon riders replace aircraft, Behemoths replace tanks, East and West have been transposed, Eurasia has been moved to the Southern hemisphere so that Scandinavia becomes equatorial, and names and superficial national characteristics have all been changed. But this is real history, not alternative history. Again and again the terrible events of the book are based on real historical incidents.

Some of the changes to racial characteristics are impishly amusing, such as the fact that the people who correspond to the Finns live in an equatorial climate and look like Zulus, while the Saraha Desert becomes "the land of the Ice people," the Gyongyosian people who correspond to the Japanese are physically large, and the Kuusamans who correspond to Americans have epicanthic folds.

Other changes are rather more biting - the "Kaunians" who correspond to Jews are tall, blue-eyed, and blonde.

What Turtledove appears to be trying to do with this series is to study how different people responded to a time of great evil. Some people were sucked into taking part in that evil, some fought against it, others just tried to live through it. The changes to the names and characteristics of the participants seem to be intended to give the reader an opportunity to leave behind some of our emotional baggage about the holocaust so that we can try, not to justify the wrongs which people did in terrible times, but to understand how it could have happened.

All but two or three of the characters in the first few books books are fictional - Hitler is King Mezentio of Algarve, Stalin is King Swemmel of Unkerlant, and Marshal Rathar gradually morphs into Zhukov. This actually makes the story more exiting, as the characters are presented well enough that you care about them: we all know how World War II turned out but the readers has no such certainty about the fate of the fictional characters.

The six books of the series each corresponds very roughly indeed to about a year's real historical events. The second book, "Darkness Descending", covers events corresponding to those between the opening phases of Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's attack on Russia in 1941, to just before the launch in May 1942 of Operation Blue, Hitler's drive on the Caucasian oilfields.

The series is best read in the correct sequence. All the books of this series have the word "Darkness" in the title, but the publishers refer to it as the "Derlavi" series, this being the name given in the books for the great continent which corresponds to Eurasia. The full sequence of books in their correct order is:

"Into the Darkness"
"Darkness Descending"
"Through the Darkness"
"Rulers of the Darkness"
"Jaws of Darkness"
"Out of the Darkness".

Bottom line: the mood is as black as the titles indicate, but the series is a very exciting read.

HArry Turtledove is a master of his craft. Keeping so many personalities alive and in constant motion, thru a story encompassing SIX VOLUMES (!!!) is more than impressive.

With the setting and character introductions out of the way, Turtledove is able to jump right into the action with this second installment in the World at War series. This one picks up where Into the Darkness leaves off, with the invasion of Unkerlandt and Algarve in full swing and ... there is far too much in this massive plot for me to put down here. Lets just say that a lot happens, as the fortunes of war sway one way then another, and major events unfold that will determine the direction of the entire series. Each character is following their own separate journey, largely being dictated by world events out of their hands.

DARKNESS DESCENDING, while long, eases the frantic-seeming pace of INTO THE DARKNESS where the point of view character changed practically every other page. The same style of switching characters (and situations) frequently was used here, but not in such a confusing and jarring way as it was in that first book. And, I was glad to see that Turtledove stuck with the same POV character lineup for this second volume, helping the reader feel more comfortable with names and situations through familiarity. Really helped give this book a more smooth feel.

I see some of the other reviewers here have criticized Turtledove's seeming lack of ability to portray emotion (particularly with Vanai and her terrible circumstances). While I agree to some extent, I think its just his style of writing that leaves much of the emotion up the the readers' imagination.. Obviously its a BIG DEAL for Ealstan to leave his parents house, but you wouldn't know it just by reading Turtledove's description of the event. While you know Talsu hates seeing the Victory Arch torn down, you just have to imagine it for yourself to get the emotional intensity. Maybe its that Turtledove thinks a little bit goes further than it does, or maybe he thinks its better for the reader to just put himself in the characters position to get the emotion. Either way, his characters do come off as wooden when their emotional reactions to major events are either glossed over or ignored. If you can expect it (like you should if you've read Turtledove before) you can get past it without it taking too much from the story, but if you need to have the emotions explained this book won't be your favorite.

Overall though, I was very pleased with the way the story progressed in DARKNESS DESCENDING. Each of the characters are going through major changes, and none of the story seems like filler. Hopefully Turtledove can keep it up in Through the Darkness. Recommended!