In the Balance (Worldwar Series, Volume 1)

Rating:
Summary: Immense, and Immensely Entertaining!
Review: Harry Turtledove's "World War - In the Balance" series weaves a vast tapestry of unforgettable historic and fictional characters set in the backdrop of WWII. In an alternate version of history starting in 1942, an armada of alien beings invades the Earth, equipped with what we moderns will readily recognize as Space-Age weapons and technology, such as integrated circuits, smart bombs, supersonic jets, night vision, etc. Mankind, ill-equipped in comparison, fights back valiantly with tools that "The Race", as the aliens call themselves, are unfamiliar with - spontaneity, initiative, craftiness, and all-too-human lowdown treachery.

This huge four-volume epic spans the entire globe as human cultures struggle to find common ground on which to oppose the ultimate foe. The pre-existing conflicts on Earth at the time, such as China's civil war, involving Chiang's Nationalist Chinese Kuomintang versus Communists versus the invading Japanese, provide for endless conflict and lively stories and substories throughout the series.

Despite the sheer magnitude of the effort, Turtledove, like a master juggler, makes it look easy, and keeps all the balls in the air as the plots and subplots progress, and they never get boring. The series is such a pageturner that at the end, my only disappointment was that there was nothing left to read. It's really that good.

You'll be rooting for characters both factual and fictional, human and alien, as master storyteller Turtledove gets inside the heads of all his characters, and shares their outlook with you.

"World War - In the Balance" is an immensely entertaining and satisfying read, and will delight both history and science fiction readers. Very highly recommended! Be sure to read "The Guns of the South", another masterwork by this ace storyteller.

Rating:
Summary: An Uneven Book
Review: Here's a series that in many respects is terrific, but it has a few major flaws, particularly including the author becoming a bit too impressed with himself. The books are long winded and repetitive. If you've waded through Robert Jordan's long, never ending Wheel of Time series, you can appreciate an occasional recap to remind you of who the characters are and what their motivations are. But Turtledove not only does that from book to book, but does it constantly, mind numbingly, throughout each book. Wehrmacht Col. Jager for instance tells you almost every time you meet him of how he didn't realize Jews were being killed. Each character seems to redundantly trot out their pet themes every time they are introduced. Given that Turtledove uses the technique cut-aways to deal with competing subplots, that means this happens a lot--just about every time he returns to a particular character. How many times can we read about Ludmilla and her reaction to the attempted rape? Over and over again, evidently. They say and think the same things constantly. It is beyond tedious--it begins to be padding, a sign of an author who badly needed an editor. This series could've been brilliant as a trilogy. It's still fun as a four parter--but not perfect.

Rating:
Summary: In the Balance
Review: I don't always like Turtledove- he can be long-winded at times. But this one I did enjoy. I believe science fiction is best when it only minimally changes reality- you get one or two allowances for impossible things, and then work from there. This is what Turtledove does- assume WWII, and assume alien invaders at that time. Both are possible- it just didn't happen. And the neat addition- the alien invaders aren't really that advanced. In fact, if they were to have arrived when we humans were another 50 years advanced, they'd be technologically inferior.

But they don't, and thus the conflict of the story. Turtledove writes the characters quite well, and I remained interested in all of them. You feel the real emotions of these characters; you want to see what they will do next; you understand why they respond to these problems because part of you would respond the same way. Sometimes you see a long list of characters at the beginning of a novel (such as War and Peace or the never-ending Wheel of Time series), and you think, "Oh, no- I'll never be able to keep them all straight!" In this case, each character is clear, distinct, and easily remembered. Thus Turtledove pulls us from the Russian steppes to Nazi Germany to alien space craft to the radar detectors of Britian and the battlefields of Chicago- and we eagerly follow along to see how next the world can stem off invasion. Or participate with it.

Rating:
Summary: A great start to a fantastic series
Review: I have to admit, I approached this series with some trepidation. However, once I started reading these excellent books, I was hooked.

Harry Turtledove does a great job of taking historical based fiction (World War II) and weaving in an entertaining science fiction story. Without giving too much away, the general plot is that in the midst of WW2, an alien race determined to conquer the earth for future colonization arrives, forcing enemies to unite against a newer, far deadlier foe. This book is the first in a series that chronicles that struggle.

Turtledove has a huge cast of characters from just about every corner, and army, of the world. We see the war unfold through the eyes of these characters, both human and alien. Despite the large numbers, Turtledove manages to weave subplots and characters together to create an engrossing, entertaining story.

This is one of the better alternate history stories I've read. If you're a fan of sci-fi and history you'll enjoy this book.

Rating:
Summary: Very Close to Pornography..
Review: I was never more disappointed in any book I read. The story went directly from the eve of invasion by the aliens to "Oh, my, they're here!" with no explination no how they got here. The book was also more concerned with the characters sex life. They spendt 90% of their time having sex, with the aliens forcing their captives to have sex, because they didn't reproduce sexually and were doing 'research'. Even earth people who weren't in captivity seemed to spend most of their time having sex. I will never read any by Mr. Turtledove again.

Rating:
Summary: I liked This Book
Review: The book In the Balance is a very good book about World War II, it is based on the fact that Hitler, and all the other leaders of the world at that time are uniting to conquer Aliens. The aliens are from a world called "Tosev 3" and they are very scaly and inhumanlike, which is why their nickname is "Lizards". There are some people who have spaceships and they are in space orbiting around Tosev 3 trying to destroy the planet.

Rating:
Summary: fan of alternate endings and alike.
Review: this books was pretty good, it certainly filled the need i felt. some of the characters situations are a little boring and are not developed to well. but the story is great, when i read it i look at it like a modern day army fighting a wwII army. technology of the lizards is about what our technology is now, so that make's it interesting. it's not the best he could have made it but it is definitely worth reading, it can become addictive which is good, i recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: fan of alternate endings and alike.
Review: this books was pretty good, it certainly filled the need i felt. some of the characters situations are a little boring and are not developed to well. but the story is great, when i read it i look at it like a modern day army fighting a wwII army. technology of the lizards is about what our technology is now, so that make's it interesting. it's not the best he could have made it but it is definitely worth reading, it can become addictive which is good, i recommend it.