6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A groovy book, July 19, 2008
As a longtime fan of Harry Turtledove, I've read many of his works, but his "Crosstime Traffic" series is among his best. The premise - a world in the late 21st century that has discovered the ability to travel between alternate timelines - is one that he has used to create some imaginative divergences and the civilizations they have spawned. The timeline in this book is typical of this creativeness; an atomic war in 1967 had left a Southern California at a pre-industrial level of technology, splintered into squabbling domains.
His plot is just as engaging: the Mendozas, a family researching the origins of the war in the remnants of the UCLA library, find themselves in the middle of a war between the kingdom of the Valley and the Westside. Their neighborhood is quickly conquered, and teenaged Liz Mendoza draws the unwanted attentions of Dan, a young soldier in the Valley army. As the war drags on, the Mendozas come under suspicion, and they soon find themselves having to navigate both sides of the war while struggling to complete their project.
Turtledove succeeds in creating an entertaining tale for readers. Though the characters are somewhat underdeveloped, his alternative Los Angeles is well-visualized, with people living in the ruins of 1960s America, using the leftover artifacts as best they can and adopting the slang of the era as their everyday language. Readers should not be put off by the "juvenile fiction" label; this is a novel that can be enjoyed by people of all ages.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Harry needs to re-read the Heinlein juveniles, August 23, 2009
This review is from: The Valley-Westside War (Crosstime Traffic) (Mass Market Paperback)
Like many other reviewers, I was interested in this vision of a southern California where the familiar is mingled with desolation. It was fun. I really did like the book overall and for the same reasons given by other reviewers. But I also agree with many of the criticisms.
1) Turtledove talks down to his young readers. Heinlein did not do that. There is too much repetition (as some have pointed out) of arguments, etc. Teenagers want to be treated with respect. Mostly Harry does that. His characters are in difficult situations, usually not of their creation, and they generally come off well. That is, they get by, using their wits and the advantages of their knowledge. Luck plays a part too.
2) No ipods or sliderules. OK, this is something Heinlein did too. He had characters using log tables and sliderules for astrogation in Starman Jones. Granted, I don't know if anyone could have predicted mice or touch screens, etc. Still Heinlein came up with no-moving parts controls for the giant starship in "Universe" so he might have done something. But Turtledove should know better than to talk about iPods etc. Some of the repetition in other places could be used to imagine the technology of the future.
3) If the Cross-time corporation is so concerned about mention of the cross-time travel, then use some hypnotic suggestion or other techniques to help the characters not slip up. It won't catch everything, but give the characters some help. Like explaining that all passwords should not reference things knowable in the current time line, no matter how cute.
I think the slips that Liz makes are fairly natural, and actually are part of the growth of Liz's character. She learns the difference between ignorance and stupidity. I think all of that is pretty well done. Still, more training for Liz would be useful.
Dan is handled pretty well, I think. But if he really has any ambition or gumption, the things he has seen and learned should motivate him to want to improve things in his home area. If he were really wise, he would realize that working with the Cross-time folks, even in a limited way, would do more than railing against them. But that is a step well beyond where he is now. His reactions I think are pretty natural.
A cute little paragraph deals with the dissemination of scientific knowledge. I do, however, think that journals would get around faster than two years.
It is a good book and the series is getting better (Gladiator was very good.)
Kick it up a notch, Harry.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Crosstime Traffic At Its Finest, July 12, 2008
Harry Turtledove's Crosstime Traffic series, based on the time travel concept originally developed by H. Beam Piper in the 1950s and 1960s, is Turtledove at his finest. Crosstime Traffic is a giant international corporation in our world circa 2097 which uses the secrets of traveling between alternate worlds to exploit and sometimes help them. In earlier volumes in the series Turtledove has written of worlds where the Soviets won the Cold War, the US Constitution was never written, or the Roman Empire still exists. The Valley-Westside War is his finest work in the series thus far.
In this alternate, a nuclear war broke out in 1967. One hundred thirty years later, the ruins of Los Angeles are populated by petty kingdoms struggling for power. In the middle of the conflict the Mendoza family, agents for Crosstime Traffic, are doing historical research trying to find out why war broke out back in 1967. A young soldier for the Valley side in the fighting recognizes there's something different about the Mendozas and hangs around them trying both to find out more and to get into the good graces of the Mendoza daughter, Liz.
The depictions of post-war Los Angeles and the society that grew up there are very well done. Los Angelenos in our own time will be particularly intrigued by the geography of the setting, which covers much of the Westside and parts of the San Fernando Valley. Much of the language used is also amusing, being a mixture of 1960s hippy lingo and Valley slang. As always in this series, Turtledove's teenage protagonists learn some useful lessons and some important moral issues are discussed.
I trust this Turtledove series continues for many more volumes, and my only regret is that I can't get a job at Crosstime Traffic myself!
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