Customer Reviews

Jaws of Darkness (World at War, Book 5)

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Harry Turtledove's "Darkness" series - originally supposed to be a four-book series - is now in its fifth book. However, given that there's less than a year's worth of World-War-II-as-Fantasy left to tell, he probably will not suffer much further from Robert Jordan's Syndrome...

This book takes us through most of 1944, from the aftermath of the massive tank battle at Kursk (Durrwangen in the series) and the retaking of the Ukraine (Grelz) by the Soviets (Unkerlanters), through a possible late version of Guadalcanal or an early version of Iwo Jima (on Becehsely), the Warsaw (Eoforwic) Uprising, Omaha Beach and the liberation of Paris (Balvi), the crumbling of [German] forces in Belgium and the Netherlands (the withdrawal from Valmiera) to the Soviet armistice with Finland (Zuwayzi) and the flip-flop of Romania & Bulgaria (Yanina - which to this point in the series had been playing the role of Italy).

As before, the majority of Turtledove's attention goes to the Soviet-[German] (Unkerlanter-Algarvian) conflict with Western Europe playing a smaller role and the Pacific War (save the Manhattan Project) being given only casual attention. While Turtledove certainly deserves credit for bringing the half of the European War attention that we in America so often fail to give it, it would have been nice to see him give the Pacific War its due as well. As always, he highlights the evils of war in general and how it affects the footsoldier and the villager every bit as much as the general and the minister. His characters are reasonably three-dimensional in terms of their perspectives even if he never lets you forget the "funny hats" - identifying characteristics - of the characters (possibly a necessity given the size of the cast of characters he has to work with here).

As with his other "Darkness" novels, I enjoyed this one. I do hope he wraps up the story in the next book, though (which has been tentatively titled "Out of the Darkness" for some time now and will probably see the light of day in 2004). Harry Turtledove's series are always interesting and I'm glad to have read them, but it would be nice to actually see him find an ending for at least one of his series at some point.

Jaws of Darkness (2003) is the fifth novel in the World At War fantasy series, following Rulers of the Darkness. In the previous volume, Leudast and his men have captured the so-called King Raniero trying to escape from Herborn. Vanai's pregnancy makes her disguise cantrip wear off too soon and she is captured by Algarvian constables. Gyongyos comes up with their own variant of the life force magic. Garivald and Obilot escape from the Unkerlant inspectors.

In this novel, the Algarvians are hard pressed in the south within the Duchy of Grelz and in the north near the Forthwegian border. The Kuusamans and Logoans are pushing back the Gyongyosians in the islands and harassing the Algarvians in Valmiera with dragons from their iceships. The Kuusaman theoretical sorcerers, together with the Logoan Fernao, are beginning to teach other sorcerers how to use the new forms of magic. Garivald gets impressed into the Unkerlantian army and learns to read and write.

Personal relationships become even more complicated, with Vanai having her baby and Krasta becoming pregnant by either Colonel Lurcanio or Viscount Valnu. Leino and Pekka both yield to temptation and let the future take care of itself. Foreign Minister Hajjaj of Zuwayza acquires an unexpected romantic interest in his own household. Leudast finds himself becoming romantically involved with a peasant girl and learns to use his connections to his advantage.

This series is an allegory of the World Wars. Most reviewers assume that it mirrors World War II, but certain aspects are more like World War I. However, the geopolitical environment in this series does not mirror the govermental status of nation states within the 20th century. Where are the representive democracies or the authoritarian states? Absolute monarchies in the analogs of Russia and Germany suggests WWI. However, none of the other monarchies, with the possible exception of Kuusamo, appear to be constitutional governments (either written or unwritten). Such conditions have have not occurred in the real world since the Magna Carta and most surely not since the Declaration of Independence.

Again, this series has a simplified background, avoiding the complex interplay of politics within councils, parliaments, or legislatures and leaving the real decision making in the hands of the monarchs. This allows the author to present his lessons with minimal distractions. Although the author does not preach these lessons, he does have the characters expression some very good points. In other words, he makes the reader think without being intrusive or boring.

An editorial reviewer mentioned Habukkak as a test of WWII knowledge. It is a trick question, for Habakkuk is not an alias. Search the web under ice+ships.

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

-Arthur W. Jordin

Alternative History master Harry Turtledove is back with the fifth installment of his "World at War" series. Turtledove's fantasy world is one that parallels our own - both the people and nations as well as the events of the war in which they find themselves. This book roughly parallels the events of late 1943 in 1944. The tide has turned against the "Germans," they are being forced out of "Russia" and the mainland has been invaded by the "British" and "Americans." The little people and how they are effected by the war continue to be Turtledove's main focus - individual soliders, relatives on the homefront, the persecuted "Jews", etc.

All of the characters that you have grown attached to over the last four books are back in this one. Since this is the fifth book in the series we finally get to see some of Turtledove's long arcing plot lines begin to come to an end. Ealston finally learns, accidently, the truth about Vanai before he met her; the "Manhattan" project is beginning to be used in battle and some of the other characters are beginning to meet other characters. The end of the war is in sight and Turtledove looks like he will probably be concluding this series in another book, maybe two. Turtledove's portrayal of the life of soldiers of combat remains vivid and realistic.

The same problems are back for this book as well. I have been waiting five books for Turtledove to change something about this war - something that would make it different than World War Two. I have finally given up on that idea. The events of Turtldove's world are only meant to parrallel our own, the author is not out to offer any insights or explain how things could have been different. If Turtledove had taken that route, I think the series could have been so much better. Turtledove's characters remain somewhat wooden and one-dimensional - if I hear about how naive Krasta is one more time or about her going shopping I may scream.

If you have stuck it out this long with this series, you obviously reading these books because you enjoy them. If you didn't like the books you would have stopped reading after the first one. The fifth book will not disappoint, it lives up to its partners in the series. Just make sure you read the first four before you read this one.

Fifth book in the series is a winner!

Harry Turtledove's Derlavai series is one of his best. While he is known for alternate history, historically accurate novels where certain events are tweaked and the story played out, this is a fantasy retelling of World War II. To keep matters confusing, he's plunked the Eurasian landmass in the Southern hemisphere, turned it upside down, and removed about 80% of Russia (which explains why there is no China equivalent). Then he gave each country different names, borders, national characteristics, and mixed up the languages. Thus the Algarvians (Germans) all have Italian names, the Kuusamans (Americans) have Finnish names, etc. Oh, one more important twist. All the technology is sorcery. So this series could be called "Fantasy history" or even "fantasy alternative history."

Once you figure out which country lines up with our own history, you know what ought to happen, but it's still a great read even when 90% of the events line up with our own timeline. Sometimes he conflates one country into another; Valmiera was clearly France, but Jelgava served the role as both Spain and Belgium. (Another reviewer suggested it was the Netherlands, but that was Sibiu, one of the few countries covered previously that has no role in this book.) The Kaunians are both the Polish Jews and the descendents of the Roman empire (somehow the citizens of France and Spain, but not Italy, hmmmm?)

New developments in Book V include the sorcerous equivalent of an aircraft carrier: a magical floating iceberg carrying dragons. The Manhattan (Naantali) Project finally shows practical applications in the war, even as the enemy tries to destroy it (which did not happen in our timeline!) French (Valmieran) resistance fighters include what little sorcery they can get, in one case a young teenaged girl who works with Skarnu.

All the viewpoint characters are back from Book IV, too. With room to develop them over five novels, there is room for character growth. Some show it, most don't; they just go on being themselves. What shines in Jaws of Darkness is the turn of the tide that occurred in our 1944 and how Turtledove shows the changing fortunes of his world and its people. With the Russians (Unkerlanters) retaking their territory from the Germans (Algarvians), who are also on the run in the West (East), not to mention the entry of the US (Kuusamo) into the fray, things are happening. We know what's coming, but the great writing and the interesting characters keep us reading.

Some typos were in the first edition, but my biggest complaint was the slapdash job on the map. Lots of new cities were written in badly, and one country has its name written incorrectly! With action in so many places, the map is crucial; too bad the publisher did it on the cheap.

Turtledove's fifth book in his Darkness series is his best yet. The year in his book is the equivalent of our 1944. Even though anyone who is familiar with World War II knows what will happen, it is still an interesting and exciting read. Turtledove goes brings in elements of our timeline such as a magical Manhattan Project, the Warsaw Uprising, and the Holocaust, and Vengeance Wepons that are in this case magically guided. However there are some twists. In Turtledove's world, the Germans (Algarvians) know about the Manhattan Project and are trying to stop it. And the "Allies" are just as horrified of the Death Camps and go out of their way to shut them down.

All in all, this is an outstanding book with lots of action. One small flaw would be the number of characters to keep track of. While some are exceedingly interesting, some, like the two wizards at the "Naantali Project," seem very redundant.

I would definitely recommend this book and look forward to reading the last book in the series. I am just not sure how I will wait until next spring.

Harry Turtledove's major rewrite of World War Two fought in a world of magic moves to a conclusion, but the story is far from over.

The aggressor superpower Algarve (Germany) now finds itself on the defensive, having being driven from Unkerlant (Russia) into Forthweg (Poland.) In the east, Algarve is on the run from Valmeria (France) and Jelgava (Greece). Under pressure from Unkerlant, Yanina (Italy) breaks its alliance with Algarve and declares war on its former partner. In the north, Zuwayza surrenders to Unkerlant, and in the south, the Lagoans and Kuusanans begin to use their new magical weapons.

With all of Turtledove's stories, the individual characters are as appealing as the whole story. Ealstan manages to secret away his Vanai from the Kaunian quarter where she was captured at the end of the last story. Istvan and his comrades are captured by the Kuusanans. Pekka and Fearno are engaged in an affair during their research, and Pekka's husband Leino, who now comes out as a viewpoint character, has martial troubles as his own. Bembo is still fat and taking bribes. Krasta gets knocked up, but by who?

The series is slowing down, but you still want to read the conclusion.

This fifth title in the overly long "World At War" series actually picked up the pace a bit from the previous plodding volume, Rulers of the Darkness, which in my opinion was the low point of the entire story. Here we really get to see some progression towards the conclusion of the story, as major events and revelations occur and some of the long-lived story arcs finally reach their purposes. Where the previous volume felt like a series stuck in a rut, this one steers towards definite conclusions, and brings the close of the story into sight.

JAWS OF DARKNESS finds Algarve hard pressed on all sides, as Unkerlandt relentlessly presses forward with their seemingly endless supply of everything in the West, and a Kusuuman/Logoan force establishes a beachhead in the East. It seems like a loosing fight now for Algarve and this book simply chronicles one defeat after another as their empire shrinks. Of more interest to the reader, each of the individual viewpoint characters undergo significant changes in this book, making it stand out to me as one of the best of the series. As each of these characters continue to be developed, many of their stories reach their full potential only in this book. As each is swept along by world events, with very little influence on where they'll be or what will happen to them, these stories are what really make these books worth reading.

That being said, this book still suffers from some of the same repetitive and often annoying descriptions and occurrences that have plagued the entire series. Most of this stems from Turtledove's writing style, with his insistence on relentlessly reminding the reader about each character's idiosyncrasies. If there is a single reader that doesn't remember Zuwayzi(sp?) don't wear clothes or that Forthwegians love mushrooms (and Algarvians don't) or that Gyongyosians won't eat goat, I would be truly surprised. Coming off as being almost insulting to the reader, this habit of Turtledove's to hammer in well-known ideas is something that he just can't seem to get away from and really has hampered my enjoyment of every book of his I've read. That, and the poor use of character dialogue to explain situations to the reader can make for a frustrating read, but if you've enjoyed the previous books of the series, you should enjoy this one.

"Jaws of Darkness" is the fifth part of Harry Turtledove's six-volume 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, while the desert war which in the real WWII took place in the North African desert is shifted to the equivalent of Antarctica. 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 four books appear to be fictional - Hitler is King Mezentio of Algarve, Stalin is King Swemmel of Unkerlant, and Marshal Rathar gradually morphs into Zhukov by about book four. In the last two books a few more historical figures such as Eisenhower are recognisable.

The fact that most of the characters are fictional actually makes the story more exciting, as they 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. In fact, the fictional characters in this series seemed quite a bit more vividly real to me than those in some of Turtledove's other books set in worlds much more similar to our own!

The six books of the series each correspond very roughly indeed to about a year's real historical events. This fifth book, "Jaws of Darkness", mostly covers events corresponding to those between late 1943 and late 1944, shortly after the fall of Paris.

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. It is also sometimes described as the "World at War" sequence. The full set of six books in their correct order is:

"Into the Darkness (World at War, Book 1)"
"Darkness Descending (World at War, Book 2)"
"Through the Darkness (World at War, Book 3)"
"Rulers of the Darkness (World at War, Book 4)"
This book, "Jaws of Darkness"
"Out of the Darkness (World at War, Book 6)".

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

The Second World War continues to rage on and over Derlavai. The continent is methodically being razed by the exchange of magical beams of fire, the battle between giant armored beasts, and dragons shooting fire. At first the powerful military of Algarve blitzkrieg to victory through the conversion of the life force of victims, especially the Kauanians.

However, recently the tide seems to be turning as the military of Lagoas and Kuusamo have brought the war to the Algarvian homeland. A sorceress-driven ship of ice has transported their deadly dragons to rain firebombs at the heartland of the enemy. Though the Algarvian might has been dented for the first time in this long war, either side could win the fight especially if one side obtains more powerful magic to use in the fray. In this world gone mad, the little people such as Ealstan and his beloved wife Vanai, a Kaunian, want to simply raise their child in a safe environment, but genocide rules the planet.

Though a fantasy equivalent to World War II, aficionados of the Great War as well as the genre's fans will enjoy this superb entry in Harry Turtledove's strong "Darkness" series. The big events of WW II are cleverly changed into a fantasy realm yet here is no question what they equate to in the real world. That and great characters simply trying to survive on a stage of mass destruction are what makes Mr. Turtledove the master of historical fantasy. JAWS OF DARKNESS uses sorcery to paint the true horrors of World War II on everyday people.

Harriet Klausner

Mr Turtledove does it again. I have rarely been disappointed in his books and he keeps up his high standards in this WWII analogue series!