Curious Notions : Crosstime Traffic--Book Two

Rating:
Summary: Good, but flawed alternate history adventure for teens
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: entertaining young adult alternate earth thriller
Review: Crosstime Agent Lawrence Gomes warns his recently graduated from high school son Paul that this alternate earth they enter is dangerous. The key pivotal point difference occurs when the Kaiser wins World War I and ultimately in 1956 defeated the Americans. Now almost two centuries later, Germany still rules this world with advanced technology that if they learn about Crosstime trafficking, they have the skill to steal the idea and use it to conquer other earths.

In that environment, the Gomes open up Curious Notions, a shop to sell electronic equipment in San Francisco but their real purpose is to get raw materials for their timeline. However, the state-of-the-art merchandise that is common back home comes to the attention of the German Occupation Police Inspector Weidenreich. He demands Paul reveal who supplies them with such advanced gizmos; Paul mentions a local Cheese merchant who obtains the goods from China. The Chinese Triads are curious about the shop too. As Paul befriends Lucy Woo, the authorities, the Triads, and the Gomes play a game of cat, cat and mouse with the Woo family as the cheese.

CURIOUS NOTIONS, the second Crosstime Traffic book, is an entertaining young adult thriller. Readers will believe that this German occupied American of the future really happened as Harry. Turtledove provides the right levels of "factoids" especially when indigenous Lucy narrates. The story line is exciting with Paul inadvertently marking Lucy and her family as their suppler to the police because the Gomes chose to sell items they know will bring official and criminal attention on them when they are to remain inconspicuous. Still this is a fine entry that will send curious readers seeking the premier tale GUNPOWDER EMPIRE.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: Holes
Review: I'll keep this short and sweet. There are too many holes in this plot to make it believable. While I understand that it may have been written as "young adult" fiction, it is not placed in stores as such.

Regardless of where it is, there are just too many holes in the plot to keep anyone interested. I can only hope that Mr. Turtledove will stick to the type of involved plot writing he does best, and abandon this sort of nonsense.

Don't buy it, don't borrow it, don't bother with it.

Rating:
Summary: Creative Alternative Worlds
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: sadly lacking
Review: 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.