Home :: Books :: Science Fiction & Fantasy  

Arts & Photography
Audio CDs
Audiocassettes
Biographies & Memoirs
Business & Investing
Children's Books
Christianity
Comics & Graphic Novels
Computers & Internet
Cooking, Food & Wine
Entertainment
Gay & Lesbian
Health, Mind & Body
History
Home & Garden
Horror
Literature & Fiction
Mystery & Thrillers
Nonfiction
Outdoors & Nature
Parenting & Families
Professional & Technical
Reference
Religion & Spirituality
Romance
Science
Science Fiction & Fantasy

Sports
Teens
Travel
Women's Fiction
Alternate Generals

Alternate Generals

List Price: $5.99
Your Price: $5.39
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 >>

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Big-time hit and miss book
Review: I really expected better from this. Unfortunately, very little of this is actually worth reading, and it inspired me to do my own alternative general stories after seeing how badly some of these authors had tried with theirs.

For example, one story involves Caesar having a nightmare where some one tells him he'll get assassinated. Well whoop-de-doo, what does that have to do with alternative history? One story about Boadica didn't seem to offer any thing alternative: she fights the Romans and gets defeated - wait that happened in real life!

Some are actually pretty decent. The story on a historical figure much like Sun Tzu conquering Greece I thought was interesting. The story about Lee preventing the Charge of the Light Brigade was clever, particularly the ending ("Aye, it would have been the valley of death!"). The story "Tradition" was interesting just in the fact it took a real event (the German navy headed for the Ottoman Empire that the British didn't stop) and took it another route (the British do try to stop it).

I would not suggest buying this book though. Overall I was seriously disappointed by this. Like I said before, write your own "alternative general" story. It will probably be a lot better - and make a lot more sense.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Master of Alternate History --- And some other greats!!!
Review: I saw this book while I was looking for The Two Georges. Never found that one, but I'm still happy. Some great stories in here -- Lee as a British commander, President George Custer . . . the list goes on.

If you're looking for stories that measure up to Turtledove, though, you may be a bit disappointed. All the stories are good, but Harry can blow most of them away, and he shows it with his contribution.

All in all, a great summer read. Get out the towel, crash by the pool, and pull this book out of the beach bag.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Turtledove a very good author, not so great an editor.
Review: I see that another reviewer has already commented on the same points I was going to make, and on the same stories. I realize that in order to be interested in Alternate History, one needs to be well-versed in "real" history. However, there are very few of us who are knowledgable on all facets of history. The story about the Goeben read like a good war story, but not being familiar with the actual history of the event hurt my enjoyment of it as an Alternate History story. Other stories in the book were also hurt by the lack of introductory material. For example, I got the point of the story "A Hard Day For Mother, but I wouldn't have if I hadn't seen the movie "Gettysburg." I could not help but wonder if there weren't a lot of readers who missed the point of that one. Also, there were several typo's in that story that were annoying. I don't know who to blame for that, perhaps an over-reliance on spell-check programs. Those will not catch the use of "out" when you meant "our" for example. This is admittedly minor, but it is something that shouldn't have happened in a professionally published book. I realize that Turtledove was not the sole editor, even though his name was the only one on the cover, but if he is going to be the one up front, perhaps he should've looked at these things. This was a good book, but it could've been a lot better with the attention to a few details like introductions and proofreading.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not for dropouts!
Review: I've always been a fan of Specualtive history. That's why this book popped off the shelf into my hands. If one can get past the doubious cover art and blurb on the back (Rommel with the Persians... Patton at bull run? Nope, they're not in THIS book), it's not too terrible.

A few of the stories are downright rotton. Some of those same stories are so obscure it makes them uninteresting. Others are so-so, and a number of others are top notch. It's a shame that the selection wasn't more carefully managed.

The best of the bunch in my opinion, which make the book worth reading just for those stories are:

-The Charge of Lee's Brigade,
-Billy Mitchel's Overt act - (The best in the book, and totally worth a read)
-A Case for Justice
-Vive L'Amiral
-Bloodstained Ground

Billy Mitchel's Overt Act, by William Sanders is the best of the bunch. It's a shame that most of the rest didn't match up to its quality.

Bottom line, some of the stories aren't bad, but most are mediocre.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: An inconsistant compilation of Alternative History
Review: I've always been a fan of Specualtive history. That's why this book popped off the shelf into my hands. If one can get past the doubious cover art and blurb on the back (Rommel with the Persians... Patton at bull run? Nope, they're not in THIS book), it's not too terrible.

A few of the stories are downright rotton. Some of those same stories are so obscure it makes them uninteresting. Others are so-so, and a number of others are top notch. It's a shame that the selection wasn't more carefully managed.

The best of the bunch in my opinion, which make the book worth reading just for those stories are:

-The Charge of Lee's Brigade,
-Billy Mitchel's Overt act - (The best in the book, and totally worth a read)
-A Case for Justice
-Vive L'Amiral
-Bloodstained Ground

Billy Mitchel's Overt Act, by William Sanders is the best of the bunch. It's a shame that most of the rest didn't match up to its quality.

Bottom line, some of the stories aren't bad, but most are mediocre.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not what I expected.
Review: I've read several of the "Alternate" series of books, and enjoyed them by and large, but this one was a real struggle to get through. Some of the stories seemed really obscure, and I'm a history buff. Also, the back cover was really misleading about the contents.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not for dropouts!
Review: It seems that most of the reviewers did not read thier H.S. school history text books. Know a little about history before you read alternate history books. There was no story in this book that I did not know the real history, as it happen. I am no history buff, but I did finish school.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good, but not great
Review: The book delivers what it says it does. Some of the stories have interesting notions, but don't really do anything spectacular with them. The book would have been improved if the editors had included an afterword on each story discussing how the incident described in the story was different from the real world, and (if applicable) why that's important. Some of the historical episodes, such as Bodicca's revolt against the Romans, and the flight of the Goeben and Breslau in World War I, are rather obscure. The voyage of the Goeben, for example, was literally a crucial episode in world history, but most people are not World War I buffs and won't understand this, and how important the alternative resolution in this story was.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Very disappointing! -Try an alternative
Review: This book had the classic SciFi ripoffs, cover art alluding to a story not in the book and a back page teaser that talked about stories not in the anthology.

As always Turtledove's ONE story was good though it seemed more of a book excerpt than a short story. Several stories had clever twists but seemed stretched out even for short stories. There are more than the usual number of downbeat endings which may appeal to some. A rewrite of a few of the stories would have helped this collection.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great Stories
Review: This book is great for people with a love of history. I enjoyed almost all the stories, especially one with Lord Admiral Nelson commanding the French! The Romans didn't make it into the modern era as the cover suggests but it was an excellent book despite that small let down.


<< 1 2 3 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates