Customer Reviews

Tilting the Balance (Worldwar Series, Volume 2)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Basically taking up where the first book of the series left off, TILTING THE BALANCE continues in the same vein of interesting characters, plus exciting war-time situations & sex/romance, aliens, and technology development.

The subplot I found most interesting in this book is the ginger drug habit developed by a significant number of the lizard-like aliens. Mr. Turtledove does an excellent job of describing the mindset of the addicts - for some reason I especially enjoy following the progress of the Veteran Alien Tank Driver Ussmak (who has to face both Nazi Panzer tactics as well as his ginger addiction), and the Alien pilot/prisoner Teerts (whom the Japanese purposefully addict).

This 2nd book from the series literally "ends with a bang", and I'm looking forward to continuing with this series - which is turning out to be almost as addicting to me as ginger is to the Lizards.

It wasn't until I got into this book that I began to realize that the first volume ("In The Balance") was a package of preludes rather than a story in itself. This one has some delicious concepts. Such as a woman who remarries when her husband is missing and presumed dead. Only to have her ex show up alive and well. The lizard invaders have a weakness--ginger is a drug which gets them high and is addictive ("don't bogart those ginger snaps, my friend...pass 'em over to me"). Winston Churchill makes a tour of inspection of military readiness on a bicycle. A minor-league baseball manager utilizes his civilian skills when he becomes a sergeant. One of his ballplayers, along with a Chinese woman, becomes an experimental animal so that the invaders can study human mating. The couple end up proving that not speaking each other's language and not having chosen each other in the first place are not necessarily obstacles to love. FDR has to deliver his "fireside chats" from "somewhere in America", because the country is as much a battleground as anywhere overseas. I still think "Guns Of the South" is Turtledove's masterpiece, but this 4 volume set is still worth the read.

I liked the first book so much that I hurried out to by the second installment in the series. Now that I am two books into the series, I am somewhat disappointed in emphasis Turtledove puts on average human characters that do not have a birds-eye view of the political situation. He attempts to show us progress by repeatedly using Atvar (the alien fleet commander) as a sounding board by which to reveal the political situation to the reader. It doesn't seem as though we get enough of this from the human point of view, however. I'd like to see what is going on in the White House and in British Parliament. I'd like to know what the great historical figures think about the situation. The closest we get to such points of view are narratives about Molotov or occasional glimpses of FDR or Hitler that are far too short.

One subplot that had me on the edge of my seat was the Jens storyline. I felt a great deal of sympathy for Jens and was earily suspicious about the fate he would receive. Without revealing the plot, I would just like to say that I wish I could have seen more reaction from Barbara, who seems rather callous in regard to Jen's situation. Why has she reacted (or rather not reacted) this way? I would like to see some more depth of character from all involved in this plotline.

All in all, this book is still worth reading, despite a few disappointments. The knowledge that Turtledove brings to his writings is certainly rare and I still like the attention he pays to various historical details, many of which were likely to be lost on me. That I recognized many such details only indicates that there must have been many more.

The book was mostly enjoyable, though did seem to sometimes skip about and dwell on unimportant characters. My main problem with this book was the subplot dealing with Jens/Barbara/Sam. This seems forced and unrealistic. My impression is that Sam would have been in serious trouble for shacking up with someone elses wife. Instead the author wants us to feel that the husband is the bad guy. It just doesn't play out. Sam, you cheating scoundral, I hope you get nuked in the third book. (and don't beg off that you thought the husband was dead. Missing for a couple of months does not a death make.)

In the first volume of this series, Turtledove has set up the intriguing premise of 'What if alien invaders had arrived in the middle of WWII?'. In order to tell his story from a variety of view points he has introduced several 'main' characters including Americans, Chinese, Russians, Polish Jews, Germans and alien invaders.

TILTING THE BALANCE picks up pretty much from the end of IN THE BALANCE with the same characters and various subplots. The aliens had expected an easy victory but where surprised to find how much the humans had progressed in short few hundred years since their survey ship had left. They were also appalled to discover how wet and cold the earth was, they had never before encountered a planet with such a wide variety of conditions and were totally unprepared for the conditions. The humans were proving to be distressingly adaptable, former enemies were forming alliances to fight back, they were even managing to reverse engineer captured alien technology which was causing the invaders no end of problems. But with the colonizing ships already enroute, just twenty years behind the aliens had no option but to press on.

This is a very interesting concept but it would probably be much better as a single volume, two at the most instead of the planned trilogy that grew into four volumes. As is usual with stories told from many viewpoints, and with multivolume stories, the author reintroduces each character when their storylines return. Turtledove carries this a bit too far, repeating the same information over and over. He also drags out each plot line, going into far too much detail which makes the overall storyline drag. I found myself skimming over much of the last half of the book, looking for something new and more interesting to happed.

Overall I would rate this series a solid five, but due to the overlong execution of the story, this ready should be two volumes at the most, this particular installment just barely makes a four.

After reading the first book in this series I was pretty much hooked. I thought it was a very interesting idea to have invaders from space interrupt WWII. What is most interesting is that the aliens have our current level of technology.
However, In the second book I started abridging Mr. Tutrledove's writing pretty brutally. There are so many contributing plots that really don't contribute, and each sub-plot just rehashes the same themes. When I came to the sections with the Russian Pilot Ludmilla, I knew we would hear about how her German mechanic was always trying to get in her pants but he was such a good mechanic she'd put up with it. Every Time. So I'd read the first paragraph and the last in her section. Yawn.
Heavy handed abridging was the key to enjoying this series. The idea is fantastic, and I'm still tempted to read further into the colonization series.

The whole idea behind this serie is kind of lame. What if during the second world war aliens invaded our planet? I mean, come on, you got to be kidding, right? No? You'r serious?

But it works great. The combination of that well familiar WW2 flavour, the historical characters in bizarre situations (Molotov negotiating with the Lizards was worth a laugh) and a well executed what if scenario is highly entertaining. Its a fun read and I enjoyed it a lot.

About part II in particular, the story simply continues, it is not worse of better than part I and I haven't finished part III yet. It doesn't really make sense to review the independant parts, its one story in four booklets.

In Worldwar: Tilting the Balance, spring is returning to the northern hemisphere. With the changing weather, the advantage in battle shifts back to the Race. The aliens come from a world drier and hotter than Earth, and even in summer they are uncomfortable. The winter was almost unmanageable.

But with the warmer weather, the Race finds itself facing other difficulties. Since the aliens planned for a fast conquest against medieval warriors, they find the unexpected resistance quickly draining their supplies. More importantly, they find themselves battling corruption within their ranks. To them, ginger is a highly addictive drug which creates a sense of overconfidence, and an underground drug trade has developed. Aside from the basic disciplinary problems, soldiers under the influence frequently commit blunders leading to human victories.

In the first book, the Russians and Germans managed to steal some plutonium from the Race. Polish Jews forced the German courier to give up half the German share, which they smuggled to the United States. No country yet understands how to make plutonium, and now only the Russians have enough to make a bomb. But Japan learns some key details from a captured alien pilot, and the other countries are progressing. The Race has already used nuclear weapons to destroy Berlin and Washington. Now the world waits to see which country will be the first to use nuclear weapons against the Race.

Turtledove's huge cast of characters is the focus of the second Worldwar volume. At this level, the novel is quite eventful. Turtledove gives readers an unfortunate love triangle that arises when one of the principals is mistakenly assumed dead. He also adds a major nuclear accident and the subsequent scapegoating, a subplot around unrequited love, several characters who go into hiding, and some effective use of real historical persons. He even kills off a couple of major characters.

Meanwhile, Turtledove's portrayal of individuals from the Race is commendable -- he manages to make them different from humans, but with analogous positives and negatives. Unfortunately, until an eventful final chapter, little of this seems to effect the global situation.

A larger problem with the ongoing saga concerns the motivation for the conquest of Earth. The aliens repeatedly complain about how wet and cold it is. Presumably their probes were sophisticated enough to report this. So why are they bothering? Turtledove emphasizes how carefully and deliberately they make their decisions, often taking centuries. Yet they've already sent a colony ship to a world unsuitable for them. Perhaps Turtledove can justify this, but after two volumes, it looks like a major plot flaw.

There is still much to like in Worldwar: Tilting the Balance, and Turtledove has plenty of time to overcome the present flaws. If he doesn't, at worst he will still have created an interesting work.

Despite my critical comments above, I am enjoying this series. Even where it seems padded, Turtledove still makes it entertaining.

Turtledove doesn't always write well. Sometimes he can get bogged down in the minutiae of all his knowledge, I think, and the story drags. Not so in the World War series. I am learning more about WWII, and enjoying it as well. The characters are excellently portrayed, and Turtledove really gets into their minds. He can balance out a multiplicity of characters, keeping them all separate and easily understandable, unlike say Robert Jordan in his fantasy series. And Turtledove really sees it from the perspective of each of his characters! Male or Female, Chinese or Russian, Human or mythical lizard, he's done his research, and projects himself in a believable way into the mind of each character, so we see the characters come to life and act true to life.

This story continues the fight of the ware to end all wars. Turtledove uses the standard of this genre of multiple stories progressing at once, switching between them soap opera style. There are times when the story does bog down a little, but there are so many stories going on at the same time that one can breeze through that section to move on to the next more exciting part. And this isn't just one subject, as some alternative history gets into. There is military conquest, love and romance, cultural anthropology- there are a number of different themes progressing concurrently through the text, to satisfy any reader's whim. So far, I would definitely recommend the series.

First, the good news. I found Book Two of the Worldwar series readable (though a tad drawn-out); the saga is developing nicely, the ongoing tussle between alien invader and Allied-Axis resistance well depicted, especially in the last pages. However, halfway through, it suddenly occurred to me that the Lizards must be either masochists or have some kind of deep-seated deathwish. Why do I hold this opinion? Think about it. You command an invasion force from a distant star system. Your primitive, pre-Sputnik adversaries are crawling about at the bottom of a steep gravity well. Literally, you hold all the high ground. Then why waste valuable soldiers, pilots and hardware at all? WHY NOT SIMPLY DROP HEAVY ROCKS ON TOSEV 3 FROM ORBIT? All right, that's a bit of a simplification. But the solar system is littered with ample ammunition for your purposes. With big chunks of meteoric iron and rock you can flatten the largest cities, with no need for nukes; with smaller chunks you can pulverize factories, farms, airstrips and railroad stations. Operating from space, you are in effect fighting a three-dimensional war against two-dimensional opponents, able to strike easily at any point on the globe. And yet here are our spacefaring Lizard enemies floundering in the cold mud, harrassed by our tanks and infantry, stretched to their very limits. What's wrong with this picture?