Forum:Birmingham

An idea sort of came to me from nowhere earlier, and it was that we might want to make an article on John Birmingham. A very short article, just saying he's the author of Axis of Time and a sentence or two explaining the connection. AoT was heavily, heavily influenced by HT. The writing style is very different but the story feels like Turtledove in the 90s. The same or similar plot, the same or similar subplots, the same or similar protagonists, the same or similar antagonists, the same or similar conflicts, the same or similar resolutions. The pacing is different, but only moderately so. And Birmo has a number of characters react to the news of the time travellers with some variation of "Next you'll tell me space lizards have landed" (space lizards being anachronistic; the sci fi of the day focused on little green men and Flash Gordon-type villains who were either humans by another name or radically different from anything Earth-like). He even gives FDR an aide named Turtletaub, which you'll recall is the name HT's relatives were using in the early 40s. And that very kind of wink-wink fan service itself, while pretty widely used, is a common feature of HT's work.

With Lit Allusions and especially Turtledove's Literary Influences having joined the party, I guess I got to thinking about how it can work in the other direction, too. Turtle Fan 20:00, April 20, 2010 (UTC)