Turtledove's Tropes

Because Harry Turtledove often writes alternate histories set in roughly the same time periods, or that address many of the same themes, certain specific ideas often turn up as plot-points in separate timelines.

The Accidental Deaths of Werner Heisenberg
German physicist Werner Heisenberg meets an unfortunate accidental death in two Turtledove stories. In Worldwar, Heisenberg is killed when the atomic pile he is working on melts down. In The Man With the Iron Heart, Heisenberg is accidentally shot in the head by one of Reinhard Heydrich's German Freedom Front terrorists.

Exception to the rule: Heisenberg apparently gets a break in In the Presence of Mine Enemies where he appears in the form of a proud memorial statue. Although he is presumably long dead at the story's beginning, the manner of his death in that timeline is never addressed, giving us no reason to assume he died prematurely.

Americans in a Provincial town of the Roman Empire
Household Gods and Gunpowder Empire start from different premises – in the one case time travel to the historical Roman Empire, in the other a "sidewise" travel to an alternate timeline where the Roman Empire survived. The two resulting stories have, however, very many similar plot elements. In both cases, it is essentially the story of modern American(s) living clandestinely in a provincial Roman city, having a perfect knowledge of Latin which in itself does not impart a complete understanding of the nuances of Roman society; facing the daunting prospect of being irrevocably marooned in the Roman milieu and deprived of many things conceived of as indispensable amenities; needing to deal with the prevalent institution of slavery in general and establishing a personal relationship with one individual slave, in both cases ending with setting her free (a woman slave in both cases); being caught in a dangerous invasion from beyond the imperial boundaries and consequently developing willy-nilly a strong partisanship and a fervent hope for the victory of the Roman legions.

Auchinleck vs. Model
In OTL, British General Claude Auchinleck and German General Walther Model never faced each other during World War II; the former fought primarily in the Middle East and North Africa, while the latter fought primarily in the Soviet Union.

In the works of Harry Turtledove, Auchinleck and Model have faced each other not once, but twice. The first time came in the short story "The Last Article", wherein Auchinleck fights a doomed guerrilla war against the invading Model in India into 1947. The second time came in The War That Came Early: Two Fronts, where Model, as commander of Afrika Korps, (rather than Erwin Rommel) meets Auchinleck in North Africa in 1943. Nothing really comes of the latter face-off.

The Babe Always Calls his Shot
Babe Ruth's legendary called homerun from the 1932 World Series is fondly remembered, but actually shrouded in mystery (did he actually mean to call his homerun, or was his dramatic pointing something else). In the works of Harry Turtledove, Ruth undeniably calls his shot. In "Before the Beginning", the time-viewer confirms that Ruth indeed was calling his shot. In "The House That George Built", Ruth, a minor leaguer, calls his shot while playing for Baltimore Orioles in the early 1920s. In The Disunited States of America, a "George Herman" called his shot while playing a game of rounders.

Benjamin Butler Sucks!
While this bias is probably borne out by the historical record, Turtledove works the idea that Union General and onetime military governor Benjamin Butler was a slimeball (at least from a Confederate perspective) into three works. In The Guns of the South, Robert E. Lee and his colleagues revile Butler. In How Few Remain, Abraham Lincoln has few kind thoughts about Butler. In "Must and Shall", Neil Michaels views a statue of Butler, concluding that Butler was an unlikely choice for such an honor.

Border guard, soldiers enforcing annexation
Both How Few Remain and Into the Darkness have a scene early in the book where soldiers (Confederates in the one case, Algarvians in the other) arrive to enforce the recent annexation of a territory to their country {Chihuahua and Sonora/Bari) and talk with a border guard who is engaged in taking down the former ruler's flag. However, the scene which began very similarly in the two books ends in a diametrically opposite way - the Mexican border guard, unhappy with the dimunition of his country but resigned to it, carefully folds the flag of Mexico, to be taken back to what is left of the country; the Barian border guard, enthusiastic to be reunited with Algarve, contemtuously drops to the ground the flag of the Dutchy of Bari, which had ceased to exist. Regrdless of this difference, in both books the annexation itself is achieved bloodlessly but provokes a war (Second Mexican War/Derlavaian War).

The Butler Did It!
At one point in each story, both Southern Victory and Atlantis are set in agrarian societies which have reproduced the slave labor-fueled plantation-based economic system of the antebellum American South, as well as the social systems which buttressed it. In Southern Victory, the Confederate victories in the War of Secession and Second Mexican War ensured that the system was able to endure into the early 20th century. Though the CS abolished slavery in the 1880s, its rigid racial hierarchy left black people with few economic opportunities aside from working at jobs once filled by slave labor, under conditions quite similar to those found on slave labor-fueled plantations. Meanwhile, at the outset of Liberating Atlantis, the Antebellum South's slave-based economy has been translated to the lower states of the United States of Atlantis in the early 19th century, in keeping with the series' ongoing theme of parallelism between American and Atlantean history.

Liberating Atlantis and American Front each introduce us to a character, Frederick Radcliff and Scipio respectively, who use a rather unique position in black society to destroy the plantation system. Both are majordomos of large estates and live lives of relative privilege within the limitations imposed upon the black subsociety, being allowed to occupy themselves with domestic rather than farm labor, and eventually being entrusted with authority over other servants. Both contentedly served their masters throughout their youth, becoming well educated by black standards, though each obtained his education at white sufferance and for white purposes rather than for his own edification.

In middle age, a series of serendipitous events lead both men to become involved in rebellions which will fundamentally reorder their societies. Scipio discovers that some of his fellow servants are well on their way to rising up in armed rebellion and, despite reservations, elects to join them rather than betray them to Anne Colleton, those being the only two options available to him. Frederick Radcliff spontaneously murders an overseer and finds himself thrust, unexpectedly but willingly, into the leadership role of the Servile Insurrection.

Both men find themselves briefly occupying leadership positions in the short-lived self-declared breakaway governments under whose flag their followers fight, then eventually become reintegrated into the nations which had originally been their homes, though with a permanently changed and (temporarily, in Scipio's case) improved state of race relations.

Dick Nixon Gets Dicked
Harry Turtledove has made a fair amount of sport out of Richard Nixon.

In "Hindsight", a time-traveling author writes a fictionalized account the Watergate scandal in 1953, two decades before the Watergate break-in actually took place.

In The Two Georges, co-authored with Richard Dreyfuss, Nixon appears as "Honest" Dick, the owner of several steamer (a steampunk automobile) dealerships in New Liverpool (a version of Los Angeles where the United States never revolted). This is a reference to a political ad run by the Democrats in the 1960 Presidential election, which showed a picture of Nixon with the caption "Would you buy a used car from this man?" "Honest Dick" is also referred to as "Tricky Dick" by people who don't like him, which was a nickname Nixon's opponents began calling him during the lead up to the 1950 U.S. Senate election in California. He makes a spectacle of himself, swearing loudly in mixed company (transcripts of the White House tapes reveal Nixon swore profusely) before being murdered.

In Second Contact, in a scene set in 1963, a Congressman with a large nose and unshaven jowls seems to have reservations about providing the Chinese Communists with aid against the occupying Lizards. Nixon was known throughout most of his political career for his fiery anti-communism, which emphasized the significance of his decision to recognize the People's Republic of China after two decades of national shunning. The description of his large nose and unshaven appearance is similar to his appearance during the 1960 televised debate with John F. Kennedy.

In the novel version of Joe Steele, an unnamed Nixon appears as an Assistant Attorney General who makes his bones investigating and prosecuting communists during the late 1940s and early 1950s. His large nose (likened to Bob Hope's) and his black curly hair match Nixon's, as does his anticommunist credentials.

In The Grapple, a soldier named "Dick" is part of a crew that sweeps Congresswoman Flora Blackford's office for surveillance equipment in 1943. His immediate superior, Carl Bernstein has to stop Dick from speaking lest he go on for too long. Carl Bernstein was one of the investigative journalists who broke the Watergate story. Another soldier in the same unit is named Bob, and his last name is presumably Woodward. Turtledove may be fudging Nixon's identity in this one, as the OTL Bernstein and Woodward were just being born in 1943-4. Still, the basic unflattering portrait of Nixon is part of the joke.

In his essay on how to write alternate history, "Alternate History: The How-to of What Might Have Been," Turtledove buries a Nixon joke in a section reminding timeline predictors of the ripple effects of PODs: "This is one of those places where you can cheat. If you've got a world where the American Revolution never happened, Richard Nixon won't get born (one possible advantage to learning different words to "America the Beautiful"). But if you need a used-car salesman called Tricky Dick in the late twentieth century of that world, go ahead and stick him in. Just be aware that you are cheating, and then sin proudly. Don't drop him in for no better reason than that you haven't thought through the consequences of your change."

Divorced Los Angeles Police Officers Drink Too Much
Lieutenant Shapur Razmara ("Getting Real") and Detective Ralph Sandars ("King of All") were known to go on the occasional drinking binges after they had divorced their respective spouses as had Colonel Thomas Bushell of the RAM's New Liverpool offices (The Two Georges). So does Lieutenant Colin Ferguson (Supervolcano) although he is recently separated from his wife rather than divorced.

Edward VIII Holds the Throne
Edward VIII abdicated in 1936 in OTL. He remains Monarch of the United Kingdom in both The Two Georges and Southern Victory well past that year.

Exploited women workers, a bullying foreman
Both Sylvia Enos in American Empire and Lucy Woo in Curious Notions are driven by economic need to a workplace where the mainly-female workforce is harshly exploited and suffers from a tyrannical and bullying foreman. Though set in different timelines and in widely disparate times and places (early 20th Century Boston in the one case, late 21st Century San Francisco in the other) the atmosphere in the workplace and the character of the bullying foreman are virtually identical in both books. Incidentally, both are placed in timelines where the United States has strong links to the Kaiser's Germany.

The 33rd President Always Ascends
In OTL, 32nd President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in April 1945, just a few months into his unprecedented fourth term. Vice President Harry Truman ascended to the office as 33rd President.

Turtledove has written only a few stories about a 33rd President, but in all of the them, the new president has ascended like Truman did, rather than being elected in their own right after the 32nd President completes a legal term.

In Worldwar, 32nd President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies in 1944, and is succeeded by Secretary of State Cordell Hull, after (Vice President Henry Wallace was killed a few months earlier). In Southern Victory, Vice President Charles W. La Follette succeeds 32nd President Al Smith after Smith is killed in a bombing raid in 1942. In Joe Steele (both the novel and the short story), Vice President John Nance Garner becomes the 33rd President upon the unexpected death of 32nd President Joe Steele in 1953.

Alternate Precedence leads to Alternate Presidents
Turtledove has taken several opportunities to introduce unique moments to the history of the presidency in several of his fictional works, moments that have no OTL analog as of yet.

The most dramatic of these is arguably Joe Steele, wherein Joseph Stalin is born an American citizen and is elected president in 1932, holding the office until his death in 1953. He creates an authoritarian regime over the course of 20 years. While several presidents have flirted with a certain amount of authoritarianism, for good reasons and bad, none have developed a Stalinist regime. Upon Steele's death, he is succeeded by Vice President John Nance Garner, who becomes the second president to be impeached in that world, and the first to be convicted and removed. While two presidents have been impeached in OTL (Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton), neither were convicted.

In Southern Victory, Calvin Coolidge is elected in 1932, but dies before his inauguration, something that has never happened in OTL. Al Smith is serving as president during the Second Great War, when a Confederate bombing raid hits the executive residence, killing him in 1942. No president has ever been killed directly as a consequence of warfare.

One of the above plot devices is also found in "Must and Shall", where Abraham Lincoln is killed by enemy fire when he wanders too close to an active Civil War battlefield. This is in contrast to OTL where he was murdered by a deranged thespian after the main theater of the war had already wound down, and imminent peace was a foregone conclusion.

In Worldwar, Vice President Henry Wallace pre-deceases President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944 (also from a wartime attack). When FDR dies later in 1944, he is succeeded by Secretary of State Cordell Hull. While nine vice presidents have ascended to the office of president, there has never been cause to go further than vice president into the line of succession. Nor has any US VP ever died from violence. In the sequel trilogy, Colonization, President Earl Warren is discovered in 1965 to have taken part in international crimes. In response, he commits suicide, something no sitting president has ever done, although unsubstantiated rumors persist regarding Warren G. Harding.

The short story "Vilcabamba" sees the presidency become a hereditary position instead of an elected one after an alien invasion in the 22nd Century. The POTUS also acts as the Prime Minister of Canada.

Also-rans that get the Nomination
Harold Stassen made several attempts to capture the Republican nomination in OTL, but never succeeded. In Southern Victory, he is heavily implied to be the GOP's candidate in 1944, and is definitely their candidate in 1948 in Joe Steele. In Worldwar, Vice President Stassen actually becomes president in 1965, succeeding President Earl Warren when Warren commits suicide.

Robert Taft also pursued the GOP nomination in 1940 and 1952 in OTL. He gains the 1952 nomination in Joe Steele. He's also a nominee in 1940 in Southern Victory, but as a Democrat, not a Republican.

Madame President
Women are elected President of the United States in the 21st Century in both Homeward Bound and "Elder Skelter".

Repeat Nominees: Willkie in '40 and Dewey in '44
In three works, Wendell Willkie is the Republican Party nominee for the office of President of the United States in 1940, just as he was in OTL: Joe Steele (both novel and story), where he is defeated by incumbent Joe Steele; The War That Came Early, where he and isolationist Republican candidate Alf Landon are defeated by incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt, and; Southern Victory, another three-way race where he and Democrat Robert Taft are defeated by incumbent Socialist Al Smith, although in this timeline, the GOP is a comparatively minor party.

Similarly, Thomas Dewey, the 1944 GOP candidate of OTL, is a candidate in 1944 in the novel Joe Steele (there is no GOP candidate in the story) and Southern Victory. In a perverse twist, Dewey runs as a Democrat in Southern Victory, and actually wins the presidency in that work. Even more "alternately", his OTL rival Harry Truman is own Vice President.

Mikhail Gorba-who?
Mikhail Gorbachev, the still-living former Russian leader who dismantled the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War, is mentioned posthumously in a few Turtledove stories set in futures where he has already died. He personally appears very briefly in two novels - The Two Georges and Aftershocks - in virtually identical roles as "Mikhail Sergeyevich," chief protocol officer at his country's embassies in the capitals of United States analogs.

Grant Back on the Sauce
In both Southern Victory and The Guns of the South, disappointment at the Confederate victory over the Union causes Ulysses S. Grant to relapse into alcoholism.

Help From Heroes' Dead Relatives
In Werenight, Gerin the Fox receives a brief message from the ghost of his deceased older brother. Though the message is confusingly nonsensical at first, it later proves to contain invaluable information which allows Gerin to triumph in his climactic battle against Balamund.

In Krispos of Videssos, Krispos falls into a drug-induced trance after being given narcotics by Trokoundos. In the trance, Krispos meets his father, who had been dead for some years. Krispos's father helps his son reawaken memories of country along the Kubrat border which the family had travelled in Krispos's youth. This in turn gives Krispos knowledge of the country's terrain which allows him to steal a march on Harvas's Halogai army.

In Between the Rivers, Sharur's late grandfather accompanies Sharur on some of his adventures. The ghost sometimes offers Sharur useful advice, though he provides mere comic relief, even to the point of annoying our hero, at least as often.

Outside of fantasy stories, or in fantasies which are meant to be comedic as opposed to dramatic, or are meant to be very realistic and relatable from the perspective of readers who live in a non-magical world, characters do not deal directly with deceased relatives. Characters will often take some sort of motivation, inspiration, or solace from the memories of their lost loved ones.

Historical Figures Die of Natural Causes on Schedule, and it's a Big Deal
While Harry Turtledove has both prolonged and cut short the lives of a number of historical figures in his alternate histories, he has also had several people who died of natural causes in OTL die on the same schedule in his fictional works, using those deaths as plot points of varying degrees of importance.

On-Schedule Deaths are Pretty Important
Despite being born in the USA, Joseph Stalin still dies on March 5, 1953 in Joe Steele. Here Stalin, re-imagined as the titular Steele, has been President since 1933. His death leads to a whole raft of negative consequences for the country.

Stalin also dies on schedule in the short work "Ready for the Fatherland". His death helps abort an atomic war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union which would have developed into Armageddon.

Ruled Britannia is built around the pending death of King Philip II of Spain, as England, which fell to the Spanish Armada, seeks to free itself from Spanish rule. Not long after Philip dies in September 1598, the English people, inspired by a play written by William Shakespeare, successfully revolt against the Spanish.

In Southern Victory, Calvin Coolidge's death on January 5, 1933 means he is the first President-elect to die before inauguration. It also means Herbert Hoover, the Vice President-elect is President, which has multiple consequences both foreign and domestic for the United States. Similarly Kaiser Wilhelm II's death on 4 June 1941 is the trigger for the Second Great War in Europe.

On-Schedule Deaths are Just Part of the Scenery
Not every on-schedule death is particularly relevant to the story. In Southern Victory, Richard Harding Davis also dies on schedule in April 1916. While General George Armstrong Custer, who'd been the subject of sharp criticism from Davis, finds cause to celebrate, Davis' death doesn't seem to cause many ripples.

Vyacheslav Molotov implicitly dies on November 8, 1986 in the Worldwar series, but Turtledove doesn't really examine the consequences of his death.

Neville Chamberlain dies of cancer in November 1940 in The War That Came Early, just as in OTL. However, as he'd been out of office for some time, his death is simply mentioned in passing.

Charlie Ross, press secretary for President Harry Truman, dies in December 1950 in The Hot War as he did in OTL. His death has no impact on the outbreak of World War III in that series, but Truman does continue to miss Ross into January 1951.

It's Either Himmler...
In both Worldwar and In the Presence of Mine Enemies, Heinrich Himmler becomes the head of state for the Greater German Reich, with Hermann Göring having undone himself (Worldwar) or simply predeceasing Hitler (In the Presence of Mine Enemies).

...Or a Disgruntled General
However, Hitler has been overthrown by generals horrified by Hitler's increasing irrationality. In "Ready for the Fatherland", Erich von Manstein shoots Hitler dead in 1943 and then becomes ruler of Germany. In The War That Came Early, General Heinz Guderian, as the leader of the Committee for the Salvation of the German Nation, replaces Hitler as the leader of Germany in 1944. In both stories, Germany manages to exit the war with many of its territorial gains intact.

Huey Long, Enemy of Tyrants, is Shot to Death
Huey Long was publicly assassinated in OTL Louisiana when he was shot by Carl Weiss. Long is also publicly assassinated in Louisiana in Joe Steele and Southern Victory. In both works, Long was a possible hindrance to a duly elected president's efforts to seize absolute power. In the shorter version of Joe Steele, Long is "killed while trying to escape" from Fort Leavenworth, implicitly a cover for a quiet assassination.

James McReynolds, Enemy of Tyrants
In Southern Victory and Joe Steele, Supreme Court Justice James McReynolds is a temporary hindrance to a duly elected president's efforts to seize absolute power.

The Nazis Can't Win For Losing
While Turtledove has dealt with several timelines where the Nazis won or at least did better than in OTL, he has also written several stories where the Nazis still manage to undo themselves, a proposition arguably supported by history.
 * The most dramatic example is Worldwar, where Nazi Germany, having survived an extra 20 years, launch a war against the Race, confident that the Race will fall. It doesn't, and the Reich is crushed in short order. Germany has clawed its way back to superpower status by the 21st-century events of Homeward Bound. The text heavily suggests, though it does not definitively state, that the National Socialist German Workers' Party continues to control, or has regained control of, the German government. Whether this party has softened remains unclear.
 * Despite their best efforts, the Nazis are unable to completely wipe out the Jews in the short story, "In the Presence of Mine Enemies", as some hide in plain sight well into the 21st Century. In the novel that expands the story, the Nazis find their rule challenged by reformers who harken back to the democratic ideals found in the slightly softer first edition of Mein Kampf.
 * In the short story "Shtetl Days", the 21st-century German Reich decides to build historical Jewish villages populated by re-enactors. The Nazi demand for authenticity soon gives birth to new Jews, as the Aryan actors begin to identify more with their Jewish characters than with the cruel world the Nazis have built.

No One Bleeds Pinstripes
Turtledove's alternate histories very often result in great New York Yankees playing their careers elsewhere.


 * In "The House That George Built," when George Ruth (sometimes called Babe) finally managed to break into the major leagues he played for the Philadelphia Phillies, Boston Red Sox, and St. Louis Browns, but never the Yanks.
 * The void in baseball history left by Ruth's absence is filled by Buzz Arlett, who plies his trade not for the Yankees but for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Even after Arlett's retirement, the glamor that his presence gave the Dodgers has made them into perennial contenders, as the OTL Ruth did for the Yankees.
 * In Southern Victory, Lou Gehrig plays football instead of baseball, like all historical baseball players named in the series. Gehrig plays not for a New York team (which could be thought of as a Yankees analog) but for the Philadelphia Barrels.
 * In Worldwar, Mickey Mantle plays for the Kansas City Blues.

Orson! Orson! Calling Orson!
At least four Mormon characters in Turtledove's work are named "Orson". There is Orson Sharp in the Days of Infamy series, and there are three Orsons in Southern Victory. This probably has historical justification; apparently this name was indeed very popular in Mormon culture at some point. One of the three such named characters in Southern Victory is Orson Sharp, a historical founding father of the Church.

Oswald Mosley Calls the Tune
Although he doesn't quite rule Britain in Southern Victory, Oswald Mosley is extremely powerful and influential as Minister of war in the British government from about 1932 to 1944. He apparently attained the office of prime minister in the backstory of In the Presence of Mine Enemies. He also has tremendous influence in Worldwar, and his influence is hinted at in The War That Came Early.

Prime Minister Horace Wilson
While an important figure in British history as Neville Chamberlain's most trusted advisor, Sir Horace Wilson was never an MP, much less a PM. However, in both Southern Victory and The War That Came Early, Wilson becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Losing Parents Is Hard
The murder of Sylvia Enos in The Victorious Opposition led George Enos, Jr. to wrestle with feelings of anger and bitterness from which he had not recovered by the end of the series.

The death of Marie Galtier in The Center Cannot Hold pushed the normally lighthearted and humorous Georges Galtier to experience inconsolable grief.

In The Victorious Opposition, Nicole O'Doull's grief at the death of Lucien Galtier leaves her feeling somewhat tender, to the point that she is hurt by her husband's sardonic comment about the sordid circumstances of his death--though Leonard also feels a profound sense of loss at his father-in-law's passing.

Gerin the Fox deeply mourns the death of his father, naming his oldest son in his father's honor and desiring revenge against the Trokmoi for decades.

Krispos is deeply affected by the death of his father. This is expressed in many ways throughout the trilogy of books which tell his story.

The death of Arthur McGregor inspires his daughter to devote her entire life to avenging him. Later, Mary's death traumatizes her young son.

Ethel Radcliffe is so affected by the death of her father that she spends two decades plotting her revenge against William Radcliff, who was responsible for the pirate's demise. Ethel kills him. She is so driven to avenge her father that she cares nothing for the facts that she will die herself; that she will leave behind her husband and children; nor that William Radcliff had shown her mercy at Avalon and that she had benefited from his generosity and providence since then.

Losing Parents Is Hard, But Other Things Are Harder
In The Center Cannot Hold, Lucien Galtier reflects on the death of his wife by thinking that he had thought losing his parents had been hard. He quickly amends this to say that it had been hard, but that losing his wife was much harder.

Later, in Return Engagement, Leonard O'Doull considers Marie's death to have been one of the greatest sources of pain in his married life with Marie's daughter Nicole. Two other sources of pain were the deaths of Lucien himself and of Leonard's mother, the latter of which occurred offstage and was never commented on at the time. O'Doull quickly concludes that these parental deaths had not been painful enough to pose any serious disruption to the happiness of his life in Riviere-du-Loup.

In Drive to the East, Cincinnatus Driver mourns his mother, but does not feel as heartbroken at her loss as he might have, since she had already been half dead from Alzheimer's, and he is more concerned with himself and his father surviving genocide.

In The Man With the Iron Heart, Diana McGraw reflects that, had her mother died instead of her son, she would have experienced emotional pain, but not as much as she did at losing Pat.

In the Atlantis series, the death of Edward Radcliffe affects his sons Henry and Richard not so much as the death of a parent, but as an illustration of the threat which Richard Neville poses to New Hastings.

Cassius Madison grieves for his father and mother as well as his sister, but his grief comes within the context of mourning for the millions of black people who died under the genocidal Freedom Party, which lessens the feeling of individual loss.

This dynamic may be reversed in the case of Krispos, who remembers his father far more often than he does his wife, his sisters, or his foster brother, even decades after the elder Phostis's death.

Losing Parents Is Not Hard
Frederick Radcliff thought of his father from time to time, but never seemed to feel his loss, which occurred when Frederick was only three.

Jorge Rodriguez does not have much of a reaction to the news of Hipolito's death.

The younger Phostis, Evripos, and Katakolon never seem to give much thought to the late Dara.

George Enos, Jr. quickly comes to terms with the death of his father.

Especially if the Reader Never Met Them
Anne and Tom Colleton often think back on their deceased brother Jacob, at least in the years immediately after his death; and in Walk in Hell and Breakthroughs, his memory drives them to seek revenge against the leaders of the Congaree Socialist Republic. After Anne's death in Return Engagement, Tom sometimes remembers Anne as well, but neither one ever spares much of a thought on their parents, who had died offstage before the characters were introduced--and while Anne and Tom were quite young.

Jake Featherston lost both of his parents before his character was introduced in American Front, meaning they died when he was in his early 20 at the latest, an age at which most people still have a great deal of parental involvement in their lives, especially people who are unmarried (as Jake was). Nevertheless, in ten novels as a viewpoint character, with scores of scenes he narrates, Featherston mentions his parents only twice: once to say that his father had been an overseer who resented manumission of slavery (a stance with which the younger Featherston disagreed) and once to say that he had never allowed his mother to fuss over him while she lived. Neither reference gives any sign of a mournful tenderness; the former carries no emotional charge whatsoever, while the latter seems to suggest some irritation and resentment.

Neither Skarnu nor Krasta ever gives much of a thought to their deceased parents, despite both siblings being major POV characters throughout the six books of the Darkness series.

Vanai, another Darkness character whose parents were killed before the action of that series commences, likewise thinks but very seldom of her parents. However, she does go into mourning when she learns of the death of her grandfather, Brivibas, who had taken her in and raised her after her parents died.

Shakespeare's recusancy
Biographers of William Shakespeare sometimes suggest that both he and his father may have been Catholics, in defiance of Elizabeth I of England's imposition of the Church of England as England's national religion. There is a fair amount of evidence that the elder Shakespeare may have been a recusant, but it is not definitive: He was fined for failing to attend Church of England services, and in the 18th century a signature of dubious authenticity was found on a written pledge made to St Edmund Campion, swearing to remain a Catholic in his heart despite the difficulty of receiving Sacraments regularly in the face of Protestant persecution.

For Will Shakespeare himself, there is no hard evidence of recusancy, merely speculation and assumed double meaning in some of his writings.

In both his Shakespeare-POV stories, Ruled Britannia and "We Haven't Got There Yet," Turtledove uses the idea that John Shakespeare was Catholic throughout most of a lifetime of persecution. He also shows Will, while not as willing to profess the faith himself, at least sympathetic to Rome. In Ruled Britannia Shakespeare mulls over the fact that he finds Catholic ritual appealing, and indicates that, if he were allowed true religious freedom, he might adopt Catholicism. In "We Haven't Got There Yet," after reflecting that his father had practiced Catholicism, the narration adds that William "retained some leanings that way himself."

Stan the Man
Turtledove has on two separate occasions named female POVs' young grandsons Stan: Stan Enos, grandson of Sylvia Enos, in Southern Victory; and Stan Neft, grandson of Diana McGraw, in The Man With the Iron Heart.

Storm=Strom
In The Victorious Opposition, Turtledove implies the presence of the historical figure Strom Thurmond by having Anne Colleton make an offhand reference to "Storm or something like that" when a Freedom Party Congressman who strongly resembles the historical Thurmond is speaking to the crowd. In Liberating Atlantis, Thurmond is invoked by Storm Whitson.

Terrible Cooks, But Not Too Terrible
In any Turtledove story, be it fantasy, alternate history, science fiction, or straight fiction, short story, standalone novel, or series, any time a character finds himself in a situation in which a meal must be hurriedly prepared under field conditions, he will almost invariably find himself being served meat that is "burnt on the outside and raw on the inside," and Turtledove will mention that he eats it anyway.

Tough But Loveable Sergeants
In all of the Turtledove works describing the life of combat soldiers - Southern Victory, Worldwar, Darkness, The War That Came Early as well as various stories and stand-alone books - there are recurring appearances of tough sergeants who are often hated by the soldiers under their direct authority but are also appreciated by them. (The character Istvan in the Darkness series starts out as a raw recruit, mercilessly disciplined and punished by Sergeant Jokai]; after having undergone terrible combat and being promoted to sergeant, Istvan is startled to find himself copying the mannerisms of Jokai - who was killed in the meantime - and then reflects that "Of whom can one learn how to be a sergeant, if not of a sergeant?") As especially evident in the multiple-character series, sergeants act in much the same way in all armies, whatever the regime, ideology and cause they serve - Democracy, Absolute Monarchy, Fascist and Nazi or Communist. Also the magical weapons used in the Darkness series make no difference to the character of the sergeants, and also the non-human soldiers of The Race have their close approximation.

A VIP's Death Sparks World War II
Much as the assassination of Franz Ferdinand triggered World War I in OTL, Harry Turtledove has used the death of a prominent person to help trigger several World War II analogues. In Southern Victory, the death of Kaiser Wilhelm II helps trigger the Second Great War. In Darkness, the death of Alardo, Duke of Bari is the catalyst for the Derlavaian War, a war closely based on our World War II. In The War That Came Early, the assassination of Konrad Henlein triggers a different World War II in 1938.

America Imperialized
In Curious Notions, In the Presence of Mine Enemies, Days of Infamy, The Gladiator, "Getting Real," and "Vilcabamba," the United States is, in whole or in part, the victim of imperialist exploitation by outside powers.

. . . But Still A Threat
In Curious Notions, Days of Infamy, In the Presence of Mine Enemies and The Gladiator, said external powers are concerned that the US could still pose a viable threat to them, not just in American territory but on the world stage, if it were to launch a determined rebellion or resistance. Indeed, in Days of Infamy, the story ends with the U.S. retaking Hawaii, and the timeline more or less converging with OTL.

In "Getting Real" and especially "Vilcabamba," however, the imperialists are inclined to laugh off American resistance.

Canada Vital to US Survival After the Country is Cut in Two
In both the Worldwar, and Settling Accounts series, the United States is cut in half by foes, and desperately requires the infastructure of Canada as a method of getting men and materiel from one side of the U.S. to the other.

Confederacy Subject to Harsh U.S. Occupation by 1940s
In both "Must and Shall" and Southern Victory, the victorious United States defeats and occupies the entire Confederate States, placing it under martial law and initiating retributions against anti-U.S. rebellion. In addition and in comparison, the occupation of the C.S. in Southern Victory begins in 1944, rather than beginning in the 1860s and continuing into at least 1942 as had occurred in "Must and Shall."

The Disunited States of Germany
In The Two Georges, In High Places, and The Disunited States of America, the German states never unified, and remain small kingdoms well into the 20th and/or 21st Centuries. This may be the case in A Different Flesh as well, as an apparent World War II analog involved Prussia rather than Germany.

The English Channel is "the Sleeve"
In "Down in the Bottomlands" and "Running of the Bulls", the English Channel is called "the Sleeve", as the French call it in OTL.

Germany goes to Mars
In both In the Presence of Mine Enemies and Worldwar, Nazi Germany makes a manned trip to the planet Mars, although in Worldwar, the United States goes there shortly after. In addition, in The Disunited States of America, Prussia is one of two countries to send manned flights to Mars (the other being California). For a switch, the Germans send an unmanned probe to Mars in Curious Notions, and decide not to bother with any manned missions.

Italy: Unreliable Ally
In the works of Harry Turtledove, especially those set during World War II, Italy resembles an albatross around the neck of its allies, usually Germany, and rarely aids its allies.

In Southern Victory, Italy refuses to meet its obligations to the Central Powers in 1914, just as its OTL counter-part did. In this timeline, however, Italy stays out of the war completely, rather than changing sides to the Entente as it did in OTL 1915. It also avoids participating in the Second Great War.

In The War That Came Early, Benito Mussolini expresses panic at Adolf Hitler's plan to launch war in 1938. Even after the war breaks out, Italy officially declares war on the Allies, but limits its involvement to a half-hearted conflict with Britain in North Africa, and refrains from participating in Europe altogether. Italian support for the Spanish Nationalists in the proxy war in Spain is also halfhearted.

In Worldwar, Italy surrenders to the Race relatively quickly, and only the presence of German troops in Italy proper keep it from falling altogether. After the Peace of Cairo, Italy is independent, but remains a vassal of the Reich.

In the Darkness series, Yanina an analog to several of the lesser Axis powers, including Italy, is pretty worthless and ineffective, with a few exceptions.

Japan Attacks Soviet Union/Russia
In OTL World War II, Japan and the USSR fought a series of border skirmishes in the late 1930s, then reached a ceasefire and remained at peace with each other all through World War II until the Soviets invaded Japanese holdings in mainland northeastern Asia in August 1945.


 * In The War That Came Early, in which the main war begins while the Soviet-Japanese war is still festering, the Japanese take advantage of Soviet distraction in Europe to launch an ultimately successful offensive to gain Vladivostok.


 * In Southern Victory, Japan makes territorial demands on the Russian Empire after the Second Great War. Much like The War That Came Early, Japan is seeking to control parts of Siberia.


 * In the Darkness series, Gyongyos, which is a Japanese analog, resumes its earlier war in the sparsely inhabited forests of the Gyongyos-Unkerlant border region, again forcing Unkerlant to keep an eye on its remote frontier while fighting a major war at the other end of its massive territory.

Japan By Any Other Name
The Japanese are referred to under the standard name "the Nipponese" in both Worldwar (by the Race) and "Birdwitching" (by everyone).

Japan Controls Korea
In In the Presence of Mine Enemies, Southern Victory, and The Two Georges, Korea fails to be liberated or liberate itself from the domination of Japan. (For a switch, the Race controls Korea in Worldwar.)

Japan is Divided by the United States and the Soviet Union
In both Joe Steele and "Ready for the Fatherland", World War II ends with Japan divided up between the United States and the Soviet Union. In both stories, the Soviets control Hokkaido. In both stories, this arrangement is followed in less than a decade by a war where each side attacks the other's territory with an atomic bomb before they reach a peace treaty of status quo ante bellum.

Japan vs. U.S.: Grudgematch
In several of Harry Turtledove's timelines, Japan and the United States became enemies much as they did in OTL, without regard for Point of Divergence.


 * In Southern Victory, Japan develops into the USA's second-most hated enemy (though it might be tied with Britain), after the Confederate States, over the course of the first half of the 20th Century. The US and Japan are at war during the Great War, the Pacific War, and the Second Great War. Neither party gains a decisive victory over the other in any of the three wars. With the complete defeat of the CSA and the weakening of Britain in 1944-5, Japan becomes the USA's only remaining rival.


 * In The War That Came Early, despite US isolationism and Japan's actions against the Soviet Union, a Japanese-American war breaks out in January, 1941.


 * In Joe Steele, for many of the same reasons as OTL, Japan still attacks the United States in WWII. This war ends with a bloody invasion of Japan by U.S. forces, and the partitioning of Japan into two countries, analogous to OTL Korea.

In the Days of Infamy series, the antagonistic relationship occurs basically on schedule. However, Japan goes to one more extreme and occupies the whole of Hawaii, rather than simply raiding Pearl Harbor.

And Japan Takes Midway
Japan is able to occupy Midway during a variant of World War II in multiple Turtledove works, including, but not limited to: Days of Infamy, Southern Victory, The War That Came Early, Worldwar and "News From the Front".

The Kaiserreich Occupies Belgium
The Kaiser's Germany occupies Belgium after winning a World War I analog in both Southern Victory and "Uncle Alf", and presumably (but unstated) in Curious Notions as well.

German Congo
The Belgian Congo is ceded to Germany in both Southern Victory and In the Presence of Mine Enemies, after a German victory in WWI in the first case and WWII in the second. In both cases, the Germans were nastier rulers than the Belgians, but Turtledove spares us the details. The fate of Belgian Congo in "Uncle Alf" is not mentioned.

No Israel
The modern state of Israel, recognized in 1948, rarely exists in the works of Harry Turtledove for one reason or another. It does exist in "The R-Strain," but is subject to never-ending attacks upon its sovereignty, with "no end in sight" well into the 21st century.

Israel Defeated
In "Occupation Duty", the Kingdom of Israel was defeated and conquered by the Philistines when Goliath slew David sometime around 1000 BC, and any concept of an Israelite/Jewish identity ceased to exist. In "Next Year in Jerusalem" and "Les Mortes d'Arthur", Israel is defeated by the Arab World in the 21st century. (The two stories may or may not take place in the same timeline). In "Shock and Awe," a rebellion by a Jewish sect, led by a thinly disguised Jesus, is defeated by the Romans in AD 30.

Israel Stillborn
In Worldwar and In the Presence of Mine Enemies, outside forces prevent the Zionist dream of a Jewish homeland from coming to fruition. In Worldwar, the Race encourages Jewish settlement of Palestine because Jews are among the Tosevite peoples most amenable to Race governance. The Race shows no inclination to extend them statehood, however. In In the Presence of Mine Enemies, we meet the far darker specter of the Nazis controlling the traditional Jewish homeland.

Kentucky Plebiscite
The state of Kentucky has joined the Confederate States after a plebiscite in The Guns of the South and Southern Victory. In fairness, the plebiscite in Southern Victory was to rejoin the Confederacy.

A Major War Starts in the Wake of a Territorial Dispute Involving Germany
In Southern Victory, the Second Great War starts after Germany refuses to return Alsace-Lorraine to France. In Worldwar, the Race-German War of 1965 begins when Germany attempts to reclaim Poland, which it claimed was rightfully German.

Austria-Hungary Forever
For one reason or another, the Austro-Hungarian Empire survives into the 20th and/or 21st centuries in Southern Victory, Curious Notions, The Disunited States of America, and The Two Georges (though Hungary doesn't get name recognition in the last). Its status in "Uncle Alf" (where the Central Powers won World War I) is unaddressed.

The Ottoman Empire Forever
For one reason or another, the Ottoman Empire survives into the 20th and 21st centuries in Curious Notions, Southern Victory, and The Two Georges. However, in the last two it is implicitly a puppet of even larger empires. Its status in "Uncle Alf" (where the Central Powers won World War I) is unaddressed.

The Brazilian Empire Forever
For reasons never clearly explained, Brazil is still an empire in Curious Notions and Southern Victory. In the former, however, the Empire is beholden to the German Empire who, it is implied, restored the Brazilian monarchy which had been toppled before the POD.

The Russian Empire Forever
For one reason or another, the Russian Empire continues to exist after 1917 in The Two Georges, Southern Victory, "Uncle Alf" and The Disunited States of America. In Southern and "Uncle," the House of Romanov is still in charge, which is probably (but not explicitly) the case in the other two as well.

More Monarchism
The above several entries are specific cases of a more general theme, appearing in numerous Turtledove works – timelines where historical developments facilitated the survival and/or restoration of monarchies where they have become extinct in OTL.

These include, among others:
 * In The Two Georges, the American and French Revolutions were both nipped in the bud, and with them modern Republicanism as a whole. Monarchy remains the common form of government throughout the world as of 1995, with republican forms of government being confined to the Swiss cantons and some Italian and German city states of marginal importance.


 * In OTL, the First World War culminated with a great fall of old monarchies and creation of many new republics (as well as one newly-created monarchy, Yugoslavia). A different outcome of WWI could have a different fate for monarchies:


 * In Curious Notions the victorious Imperial Germany not only preserves its own monarchy and props up those in Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, but also actively restores fallen monarchies, e.g. in Portugal, Brazil and China – all of which remain in place at the end of the 21st Century.


 * In Southern Victory, Imperial German victory in the Great War gives an extra lease of life to existing monarchies (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Russia), and also leads to restoration of old ones (e.g. Poland, where a monarchy abolished in the 18th century in revived as a German satellite, and France where a monarchy abolished in the 19th century is revived by rabid anti-German nationalists). Already earlier in Southern Victory, victory of the Confederacy makes possible the stabilization of Habsburg monarchy as the decades-long government of Mexico, where it was a fleeting unsuccessful interlude in OTL. Brazil also retains a monarchy for much longer than in OTL, but the circumstances are not explored.


 * However, Southern Victory also includes the fall of the Spanish monarchy (a few years after the OTL fall, which was followed by a restoration after a 44-year interregnum); the end of the Canadian monarchy (which still persists in OTL) and in particular the attainment of the goals of Quebecois republicanism; and a victory for Irish republicanism that is both earlier (a republic is established in 1916 or 1917, not 1937) and more total (victory in all 32 counties instead of just the lower 26) than it was in OTL.


 * In In the Presence of Mine Enemies, the Japanese-backed puppet monarchy of Manchukuo survives into the 21st Century, where in OTL it was dismantled after barely a decade.


 * In the Days of Infamy series the Polynesian monarchy of Hawaii is restored as a Japanese puppet after the islands' conquest by Imperial Japan.


 * In Crosstime Traffic's home timeline, as recounted at the end of The Disunited States of America, the monarchy in Iran is restored, apparently due to a Western military intervention in the middle 21st Century, and the re-installed Shah acts with savage repression against the overthrown Ayatollahs of Qom.


 * Some of the numerous mini-states into which the United States broke up after the 1967 nuclear war in The Valley-Westside War developed monarchist governments, with their specific kind of ceremonial and ritual (for example, a King a wears a 20th century-style business suit as his royal regalia).


 * Medieval-style monarchism dominates western Europe at the close of the 21st century in In High Places.


 * In Gunpowder Empire, the whole of Eurasia is dominated by a string of stable and long-lived empires, including the 2000-year old Roman Empire, its even older rival Persia, the younger but still many centuries old Lietuva (a rough analogue of OTL Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth), and further east China and two empires sharing India. Of the latter three only scant information is given and no explicit reference is made to their form of government, but they can be assumed to be monarchies, too.


 * The breakdown of American society in "Half the Battle" results in a monarchist resurgence as new nation-states emerge in southern California.


 * In "Les Mortes d'Arthur," Siberia breaks away from the Soviet Union sometime after the story's 1985 publication date, and establishes a monarchy which is incumbent in the 22nd century.


 * "Trantor Falls" is set in a far future where humanity has attained a Class III civilization. Monarchy is the form of government which presides over this civilization, though "Trantor Falls" shows its importance waning as the Galactic Empire dissolves into numerous competing factions. It should be noted, of course, that Turtledove was constrained in the premise of this story by canon already established in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series.

The Nation of Quebec
Quebec is an independent country in Southern Victory and "Elder Skelter". It is also independent in The Disunited States of America, but that features a North America that is totally Balkanised, so Quebec's status as a country isn't as remarkable.

Nazi Germany Survives World War II
Nazi Germany manages to continue after World War II in "The Last Article", "The Phantom Tolbukhin" In the Presence of Mine Enemies, "Shtetl Days," "Ready for the Fatherland", and Worldwar. In most of these, Germany actually wins the war, but in Worldwar and "Ready" WWII ends in a stalemate where all the major players survive. And while the Nazis aren't in power at the end of The Man With the Iron Heart, it is strongly implied that they will be making a comeback within the foreseeable future.

Palestine: Sleepy Backwater
In Southern Victory and The Two Georges, Palestine is specifically referred to as a sleepy backwater province of the Ottoman Empire. In Gunpowder Empire, another alternate Palestine-as-sleepy-Turkish-province is referenced, but that actual timeline is not shown.

Pearl Harbor Attack a Failure
In both Southern Victory and The War That Came Early, the Imperial Japanese Navy launch an attack against US Naval Forces stationed in Pearl Harbor and in both cases it fails due to the US Navy discovering their attack force.

Protracted Russian Civil War Post-World War I
Russia falls into a lengthy civil war after being on the losing side in a World War I analog in both Southern Victory and Curious Notions. In the former, the resulting war begins for much the same reasons as in OTL, in the latter the circumstances aren't specified.

The President Lives in the Gray House
Southern Victory and Worldwar have Executive Mansions known as the Gray House. In the former, the Confederate President resides in the Gray House in Richmond. In the latter, the Gray House is the home of the American President in the new capital of Little Rock (the original White House having been nuked along with Washington, DC during the Race Invasion of Tosev 3).

Revanchist Britain and France
Britain and France become revanchist after losing a World War I analog to Germany in Southern Victory and Curious Notions, and both are soundly trounced by the Kaiserreich in a rematch a few decades later. The difference is that in the former, seven of the series' 11 volumes take place during those conflicts, while in the latter, barely a page is devoted to each war.

Russian Alaska
In Southern Victory, The Two Georges and The Disunited States of America, Alaska is a Russian territory into the 20th and/or 21st centuries.

Southern Empires Join Northern Barbarians to Resist Even More Northern, Even More Barbaric, Barbarians
In King of the North, Gerin the Fox, an Elabonian feudal lord-turned-sovereign monarch, joins with the Elabonians' longtime enemies, the Trokmoi who live to the north of the Empire's lands, in an uneasy alliance to fight the Gradi, a much crueler, much more aggressive barbarian tribe from even farther north. In Beyond the Gap, the Raumsdalian Empire, the Bizogots, and the Rulers copy the same dynamic both geographically and socio-politically. In Krispos of Videssos, survivors of Kubrat help the Videssians fight Harvas's Halogai, albeit not terribly effectively.

The Soviet Union survives into the 21st Century
In Worldwar and The Gladiator, the Soviet Union still exists into the 21st Century. Gunpowder Empire briefly refers to an (unseen) alternate in which the Soviet Union and the United States fought World World VI in the 2090s.

"The Emperor's Return" also depicts the Soviet Union as existing in 2003. However, that story was published in 1990, and few people would have predicted that the USSR was going to collapse in 1991.

"Les Mortes d'Arthur," written in the 1980s when the USSR was still going strong, features a USSR existing in the 22nd century, although it has been reduced to a rump state known as "Moscow", since Siberia seceded and formed its own monarchical country.

US Conquers Canada after the North Loses the Civil War
In both Southern Victory and The Guns of the South, timelines where the Confederacy won the American Civil War, the United States invades Canada and occupies it. In the latter, it happens very shortly after the Civil War. In the former, it happens during the Great War, more than 50 years after the War of Secession.

Vile France
Turtledove has portrayed France negatively on any number of occasions.


 * In Atlantis, France is defeated in the French and Spanish War and stripped of its Atlantean colonies. It is however later instrumental in achieving victory in the Atlantean War of Independence, a direct analog of the American Revolution which involves some of the same historical figures. In the very first chapter of "New Hastings," François Kersauzon (a Breton) indicates his willingness to share a meal with Edward Radcliffe by saying that he'd rather sit with an Englishman than a Frenchman. In "The Scarlet Band," Englishmen Athelstan Helms and James Walton continue to make miscellaneous disparaging remarks directed at the French.
 * In "Before the Beginning", France is described as turning out some of the best second-raters in the world, and its high society is implied to be quite anti-Semitic - that is, until the time-viewer's discovery puts them in their place.
 * In Curious Notions, France is dealt repeated military defeats by Germany, permanently losing its influence in European and world affairs. However, Turtledove throws France a bone by suggesting that the German Emperor likes the nightlife of Paris better than his own Berlin.
 * In Every Inch a King, the fantasy kingdom Narbonensis is based on France. Narbonensis is the hereditary enemy of Schlepsig, the homeland of Otto of Schlepsig, the book's only POV. Thus, in the narration, Narbonensis is repeatedly derided.
 * In In High Places, France (In High Places) is the home of a primitive backwater civilization, and has balkanized into the nativist Kingdom of Versailles and the slightly less primitive Berber Kingdom of Berry.
 * In In the Presence of Mine Enemies, France is annexed to Germany, and for the most part meekly puts up with this. (Possibly justified by actual history.)
 * In The Man With the Iron Heart, France comes across as barely capable of administering its occupation zone. French officers are so touchy that they would rather compromise security efforts against the German Freedom Front than admit their dependence on the stronger Allied Forces members, though they do indeed rely on military and economic support from the Allies. They are also seen as treacherous, willing to play the United States and Soviet Union off against each other. Meanwhile, while some German characters acknowledge that the US, USSR, and UK are entitled to attempt to occupy Germany by right of conquest, all are disgusted and outraged at being subjected to occupation by France, which Germany had defeated.
 * In Ruled Britannia, France is in a very difficult geopolitical situation, as its Hapsburg enemies have encircled its territory.
 * In "Someone is Stealing the Great Throne Rooms of the Galaxy," France is described as "a second-rate power on a third-rate continent on the most insignificant planet in the galaxy with a glorious future behind it," and the French are generally portrayed as a craven, contemptible people.
 * In Southern Victory, France begins by supporting the Confederate States for opportunistic purposes, and during the Second Mexican War is generally perceived by the Confederates as a freeloading ally, demanding political influence in Richmond and spoils of war but doing little to attack the US militarily. During the Great War France is the first of the Western members of the Entente to bow out when discipline in the ranks breaks down and the French Army Mutinies. Quebecois reflect that they feel no ties to their ancestral homeland because its government and society have become hopelessly corrupted in the century and half since the Seven Years' War. Characters in Occupied Canada remark that the Quebecois "act French", in that they indulge in sexual harassment. In the interwar years France eagerly embraces political authoritarianism and revanchism. In the Second Great War France is soon exposed as militarily impotent but diplomatically arrogant, with its foreign minister making obscene comments on the public record. Finally, France is attacked with an atomic bomb (which is specially mentioned as decapitating the Eiffel Tower) and apparently begs for mercy immediately thereafter, suggesting a failing of national courage. At the end of the series the possibility of a French reascendance in the foreseeable future is slim to nil, nor is this seen as undesirable.
 * In The Two Georges, France is the leading member in the Holy Alliance, a distasteful federation to say the least. Its representative in the North American Union, Comte Philippe Bonaparte, is an iconic caricature of a degraded, obnoxious French aristocrat.
 * In "Uncle Alf," Adolf Hitler reflects on how disgustingly degraded the French are. (Conversely, having such a despicable character say this may be intended to make us sympathetic to the object of his scorn.)
 * In the Videssos series, the lone French (well, Gaul) character, Viridovix, while portrayed as a protagonist, has several qualities which could be viewed as distasteful, such as a willingness to side with the Roman soldiers of Marcus Scaurus to save his own life, and a rather overactive libido. These are consistent with traits which Turtledove uses to show French decadence in other works.
 * In Worldwar, the French begin the story occupied by and collaborating with the Nazis. As the Race make inroads into France, the French collaborate with them as well, to the point that Leslie Groves fears they will offer to help the Lizards make chemical weapons to use against human soldiers. In the Colonization trilogy, France appears equally willing to kiss the Germans' arses and, after the Race-German War of 1965, the Lizards' tailstumps, unlike most other occupied people shown in the series, who are nationalistic first and foremost even if they are willing to accommodate occupiers for their own purposes. Meanwhile, Free France is seen as something of a joke of a country which exists on international sufferance. And nearly all French characters are portrayed as bombastic, cowardly, touchy, and/or immoral, especially the male characters. The exception is the sympathetic long-suffering POV character Monique Dutourd, who is heartlessly used as a catspaw by the Nazis, the ginger mafia, the Lizards, and the Purification Squads (an analog of OTL minor collaborators who insidiously and hypocritically led "patriotic" postwar mobs to brutally punish women for sexual misdeeds), when all she wants is to be left alone to write treatises on Roman history. (Again, much of this is justified by what happened in actual history.)

It should be noted, however, that France is portrayed in a perfectly inoffensive if not complimentary light in The War That Came Early, The Disunited States of America and "Les Mortes d'Arthur." "Ils ne passeront pas", the main characters are two sympathetic French soldiers trying to survive the harrowing Battle of Verdun.

Who Needs Vichy?
After Germany conquered France in OTL 1940, it directly occupied broad swaths along the northern and western coasts to its empire, but left about a third of France's territory in the southeastern corner in the hands of Vichy France, a puppet regime made up of Frenchmen who either held Fascist sympathies or were just opportunists. In both Worldwar and In the Presence of Mine Enemies, Germany continues to rule France after World War II ends, and eventually dispenses with the collaborationist regime, annexing the whole of the country outright in the former.

This might or might not be in keeping with Turtledove's Francophobia, as documented in the entry above this. It is possible that the Germans found working with Frenchmen as nominal equals, even Frenchmen who were on their side, too exasperating to be worthwhile.

Washington, DC is NOT the U.S. Capital
For one reason or another, Washington, DC is rarely the capital of the United States in Turtledove's fiction after the point of departure. In In the Presence of Mine Enemies, the capital became Omaha, Nebraska after Washington was destroyed in the Third World War. In Worldwar, the capital is moved to Little Rock, Arkansas after it is destroyed by the Race. Both of the proceeding Washington destructions were by atomic bombs. In Southern Victory, Philadelphia is the de facto capital (although Washington remains the de jure). In "Vilcabamba", Grand Junction, Colorado is the de facto capital; Washington (along with at least 75% of the OTL United States) is occupied by the aliens known as the Krolp.

The World Turned Upside Down
In both the Derlavai series, which is a sorcerous analog of World War II, and The War Between the Provinces series, which is a sorcerous analog of the American Civil War, Turtledove gives his fantasy worlds a map in which the southern hemisphere is the site of the action (both wars were fought principally in the northern hemisphere), generally puts southern points in the north and vice versa so that the climate conditions will be comparable (one notable exception is the Land of the Ice People, a North Africa analog) and also reverses the maps along longitudinal axes, so that, for example,geographical areas in the southwest of the Derlavaian and Detinan maps play roles analogous to points in the northeast of the real world map.

Abbreviated World Wars
The analogs of World Wars depicted by Harry Turtledove are usually much shorter (and sometimes more destructive) than their OTL analogs. World War I lasts a matter of weeks in Curious Notions and "Uncle Alf". In Southern Victory, the Great War ends in 1917, one year earlier than the OTL WWI. In both Southern Victory and Worldwar, the second round of warfare between major powers comes to an end in 1944, one year earlier than in OTL, but with much more cavalier use of atomic bombs. Moreover, in Southern Victory, the Second Great War begins in 1941, a few years later than in OTL, where the conflicts that were folded into WWII began in 1937 in Asia and in 1939 in Europe. In Atlantis, a war similar to the Seven Years' War (a world war in all but name) appears to have started a few years later than in OTL (Turtledove was ambiguous on this), and its Atlantean theatre (which is the only aspect the novella pays attention to) lasts barely a year.

The Battle of Volgo-Stalin-Tsaritsyn-Grad
In OTL, Stalingrad (originally called Tsaritsyn, now called Volgograd) was the scene of a pitched battle from 1942-3 between Soviet and German forces. Many historians believe that the Soviet victory was the climax of the European Theater of World War II. Harry Turtledove has repeated this theme at the exact same site in several timelines.

In Southern Victory, we learn that the Russian socialists have met their definitive end in Tsaritsyn, marking the climax of an analog of the Russian Civil War. Joseph Stalin is among the socialists killed. This happens around 1925.

In The Disunited States of America, we learn that the critical battle of the War of the Three Emperors (evidently a partial analog of World War II) was also fought at Tsaritsyn sometime in the 1940s.

In Joe Steele, the climactic battle of World War II takes place at Trotskygrad. This is the result of the "mad libs" reassignment of national leaders and commanders in this version of WWII, which does not actually differ significantly from the OTL war until 1945.

Turtledove also patterned the Battle of Pittsburgh in Southern Victory and the Battle of Sulingen in Darkness directly upon the Battle of Stalingrad.

Blondes as the Underclass
In two fantasy works, the Darkness and The War Between the Provinces, ethnic groups that are distinguished by their blond hair stand-in for OTL groups that have traditionally been oppressed. In the former, the Kaunians stand-in for the Jews (although there are certain historical similarities to the Kaunian Empire and the Roman Empire). In the latter series, blondes do double duty, paralleling the black slaves of the United States, and to a lesser extent, the Native Americans.

Broken Shoe-String Awakens the Sleeping Giant
In both How Few Remain, and Days of Infamy, the United States attempts fighting its foes half-heartedly on a Shoe-String Budget. This ends badly for the US as it did during the Second Mexican War and the 1st Battle of the North Pacific.

After these defeats, the US then pulls out all the stops and hits back with everything they have, in both The Great War Trilogy and End of the Beginning, resulting in victory in the Great War and the 2nd Battle of the North Pacific/Liberation of Hawaii.

Californian Cities Attacked by Asian Countries
In both Southern Victory and "Getting Real", Los Angeles is attacked by an Asian power. The Japanese bomb the city in Southern Victory in the 1930s, and the Chinese attack outdated American defenses in "Getting Real." Both countries attack L.A. in order to humiliate the United States, a plan that succeeds in each story.

In Days of Infamy, Japanese forces based in Hawaii launch an aerial bombing raid on San Francisco.

Chemical Weapons in WWII Analogs
In both Worldwar and Southern Victory, events analogous to World War II see the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield. In the former, the banned weapons are used in a measure of desperation against the Race. (The implicit unasked question is, since the Race are not human, has the ban really been violated?) In the latter, no ban on such weapons was ever signed, and they are simply used as a matter of course, with some soldiers reacting in a somewhat blasé manner to them.

Duping Enemies To Surrender Despite Numerical Advantage
In How Few Remain, Jeb Stuart captures an American fort. He does this despite commanding a force far too small to overwhelm the US garrison through an elaborate deception: The night before, he has his men tend multiple campfires and generally create the hustle and bustle of a much larger force than they actually are. Believing himself to be outnumbered, the US commander surrenders. On realizing Stuart's deception, the commander is so indignant at having been duped that he appeals to Stuart's honor to release his men and allow them to refight the battle without deceptions. Stuart declines.

In Darkness Descending, Istvan's squad encounters an Unkerlanter force of unknown number while out on patrol in the wild forests in that kingdom's western frontier. The mage in Istvan's squad, whose name escapes me right now, casts a spell which amplifies the sounds of the Gyongyosian soldiers so that it sounds as though the squad is a regiment. As they approach the Unkerlanters, they hear the sounds of a brigade-level unit. Istvan is about to give up the pretense and surrender when an Unkerlanter soldier requests that Istvan accept his unit's surrender. The Unkerlanter unit was also a squad, and its number included a mage who had attempted the same trick. Despite the Unkerlanter mage casting a more ambitious spell--trying to pass a squad off as a brigade instead of a regiment--the Unkerlanters were more thoroughly deceived and were the first to surrender.

Germans Blow Up St. Paul's Cathedral in the 1940s
In both In the Presence of Mine Enemies and The Man With the Iron Heart, St. Paul's Cathedral is specifically noted as being destroyed by Germans. In the former, the Cathedral (and most of London) is destroyed by a German invasion early in World War II. In the latter, the Cathedral is destroyed by a German Freedom Front truck bomb. In Southern Victory, London is subjected to German atomic bombing; it can be inferred that St. Paul's Cathedral was destroyed then too, but it is not specifically referred to.

Germans Destroy the Eiffel Tower
In three Turtledove works, the Eiffel Tower is destroyed by Germans during a World War II analog. In Southern Victory, the Tower is melted down to a stump when Paris is destroyed by a German superbomb. In The Man With the Iron Heart, post-war terrorists level the Tower with a truck bomb in 1946. In The War That Came Early, the top 50 feet of the Tower are destroyed in aerial bombings in 1939.

...just as an unfortunate weatherman happens to be on the top
In The Man With the Iron Heart, a weatherman falls on the Seine River along with the upper half of the tower when it is knocked down but escapes with only a broken wrist. In The War That Came Early, the upper half of the tower is destroyed by German bombers instead, and the unfortunate weatherman (if he happens to be the same) gets blown to pieces too little to fill a coffin. We can only speculate if there was also a weatherman in Southern Victory, though any remains are unlikely to be found if that was the case.

Multi-lateral Cold War
In two stories, "Ready for the Fatherland" and Worldwar, the Cold War that develops after a World War II analog is fought out by several parties jostling for position. In "Ready for the Fatherland", the United States (Ready for the Fatherland) and England face not only the Soviet Union, but Nazi Germany as well. In Worldwar, the Race is added to that mix.

In In the Presence of Mine Enemies, World War II ended with the United States being the only remaining non-Axis superpower in the world. It coexisted with Germany and Japan for three decades before being pummeled down to vassal status in World War III.

Nuclear Free-For-All
In OTL, only the United States has used atomic bombs in war, using two against Japan in 1945. But in many of Harry Turtledove's timelines, belligerents involved in major wars have traded multiple atomic weapons.

In Worldwar, the Soviet Union, Germany, and the United States swapped several atomic attacks with the Race in the year before the war ended. Subsequently, during the Race-German War of 1965 and even during peacetime, even more bombs were swapped.

In Southern Victory, members of the Entente (including the Confederate States and Britain) and the Central Powers (including Germany and the United States) attacked members of the opposing alliance several times with atomic weapons before the Second Great War ended.

In In the Presence of Mine Enemies, Germany and the United States used atomic bombs on each other during the Third World War.

The Valley-Westside War is set in an alternate where both sides' casual use of nukes during the Russian-American War in 1967, resulted in the world being set back so that most societies are barely medieval by 2097.

Not surprisingly, in The Hot War series where the Korean War escalates to a nuclear World War III between the United States and the Soviet Union, multiple cities are destroyed by atomic bombs on both sides.

The only major work where atomic weapons are not used at all is The War That Came Early. In this series, the USA's bomb project is cancelled in 1942, and no other country is revealed to be building one, although the series does end with Albert Einstein's efforts to restart the project.



Germany uses the A-bomb first...
Germany is the first country to develop and use the atomic bomb in Southern Victory, In the Presence of Mine Enemies and Curious Notions. It is also the first human nation to deploy an atomic bomb completely using its own technology, without any material captured from the Race, in Worldwar (the Russians previously used such a short cut).

...on the United States
In In the Presence of Mine Enemies and Curious Notions, Germany drops the first atomic bombs on the United States.

Russia Is Where the First Human-Made Atomic Bomb Is Used
In Worldwar, the Soviet Union detonates the first human-made explosive-metal bomb against the Race near Kaluga; in Southern Victory, Germany uses the first superbomb against Petrograd.

Atomic Bombs Rarely Called By That Name
Atomic bombs are called by other names in Harry Turtledove's fiction. In Southern Victory, they are popularly called "superbombs." In Worldwar, they are called "explosive-metal bombs" interchangeably with the conventional "atomic bombs." In "Ready for the Fatherland", they are called "sunbombs". In "Down in the Bottomlands" they are called starbombs. In "Birdwitching" (where everything from OTL has a "magical" name) they are called "sorceries of mass destruction."

The Sunbomb
"Sunbomb" is a term that describes atomic weapons in Southern Victory and "Ready for the Fatherland." In the former, the term refers specifically to the then-theoretical hydrogen bomb. In the latter, it is (evidently) applied to atomic weapons generally.

Cities Destroyed by Atomic Bombs in Multiple Timelines
The following cities were the site of successful atomic bomb-attacks in at least two Harry Turtledove timelines:
 * Hamburg (Southern Victory, Worldwar)
 * Los Angeles (The Hot War, The Valley-Westside War, "Half the Battle")
 * Norwich (The Hot War, Southern Victory)
 * Paris (The Hot War, Southern Victory)
 * Philadelphia (In the Presence of Mine Enemies, Southern Victory)
 * Seattle (The Hot War, Worldwar)
 * St. Petersburg/Petrograd/Leningrad (The Hot War, Southern Victory, The Valley-Westside War)
 * Tokyo ("Ready for the Fatherland", Worldwar)
 * Vladivostok (The Hot War, "Ready for the Fatherland")
 * Washington, DC (In the Presence of Mine Enemies, Worldwar)

Multiple National Capitals Victims of Atomic Attacks
In a number of Turtledove's writings, several national capitals fall victim to damage or destruction courtesy of the atomic bomb. In The Hot War, the capitals of France (Paris), the Soviet Union (Moscow), and Ukraine (Kiev), are subjected to atomic bombing in World War III. In Southern Victory, the capitals of Russia (Petrograd), France (Paris), Britain (London), and the United States (Philadelphia) are subjected to superbomb attacks. In Worldwar, the capitals of Germany (Berlin), the United States (Washington, D.C.), Japan (Tokyo), and Denmark (Copenhagen) are attacked during the Race Invasion. During the Race-German War of 1965, Germany's new capital Nuremberg is destroyed by a Race explosive-metal bomb, and the capitals of Romania (Bucharest) and the defunct nations of Turkey (Istanbul) and Poland (Warsaw) were destroyed by German bombs.

See Also:Places Subjected to Atomic Bombing



Post-Nuclear Societal Regression
Both "Half the Battle" and The Valley-Westside War are set in a post-nuclear Los Angeles where medieval kingdoms have sprung up fighting over small tracts of land. Another story, "Secret Names", shows Texans living as hunters and gatherers once again after a nuclear disaster.

One-State Water
On Earth, it is quite common to encounter water in both its solid and liquid states. Turtledove has twice constructed alien societies where this is not so.


 * In A World of Difference, the planet Minerva is dominated by temperatures at or below the freezing point of water for most of the year, and the Minervans and other organisms of that planet have evolved to prefer ingesting solid ice to liquid water. During the summer months, water melts, though it remains quite cold by terrestrial standards. During particularly severe summers, Minervans sometimes resort to drinking water in its liquid form, but they find this distasteful. They use cold water for bathing and hot water as a weapon.
 * In Worldwar, the Race has limited exposure to ice. Exactly how limited their exposure is, is the subject of some inconsistencies within the text. In In the Balance, as the Conquest Fleet approaches Earth and observes solid ice on the ground in the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, the Lizards reflect that on Home ice is rarely seen outside physics laboratories. In Homeward Bound, the Race acknowledges that solid water in the form of snow is a not-infrequent occurrence in the winter months in their planet's Antarctic Circle, though it does not remain on the ground year-round.

Post-mortem potty activities
Dozens of scenes across Turtledove's oeuvre have a character die violently, followed by the narrative statement that "a sharp stench filled the room as his bowels let go in death," or "a sharp stink told [the current POV] that [the person the POV just saw die] had fouled himself," with only slight variations in the wording. Almost the exact same sentences can also be found throughout the work of Turtledove's friend and occasional writing partner S.M. Stirling.

Racial Enlightenment Not Gender Enlightenment
Turtledove has written several characters, in different stories, who call for reforms of institutionalized racial discrimination within their societies, but who, when given the opportunity to extend their belief in racial equality to matters of gender equality, fail to do so. Examples include Frederick Radcliff in Liberating Atlantis and Alva in Advance and Retreat.

A Rough 21st Century for the US Dollar
In the Crosstime Series' home timeline, "Getting Real" and In the Presence of Mine Enemies, the American dollar has been subject to severe inflation in the 21st century. In the former two stories, the US government mints small aluminum coins--worth $1 in Crosstime Traffic and $10 in "Getting Real"--which are practically worthless. In Crosstime, the most popular coin is worth $100, and a few of them just might be enough to buy lunch.

Unfortunately, the first decade of the 21st century in OTL would seem to suggest that Turtledove might be on to something.

Roman Republic in the New World
Both A Different Flesh and the Atlantis series depict republics analogous to the United States in terms of history, but that adopt governments much more closely patterned on the Roman Republic than the actual US is. One glaring trait is the two-headed executive branch analogous to the Roman Consuls. Interestingly, the initial PODs of both timelines are in prehistory, with the "relevant" POD coming as a result of European exploration in the 15th century.

Sandwich Metal Coins? Yes Please!
In a number of post-apocalyptic worlds, Cladded US Coins (otherwise known as metal-sandwich coins) are things of wonder since the technology no longer allows for their manufacturing. In "Secret Names", shamans agreed these had magical properties and so valuable although regular people preferred older, silver coins. In "Topanga and the Chatsworth Lancers", the disaster was only thirty years old and the survivors knew it was advanced technology that made the coins but they still had value comparable to silver coins. In The Valley-Westside War, the passage of time had been greater but cladded coins were not considered magical. It was more personal preference whether one took those or silver for payment.

Senior Officers Acting Like a Kid With a .22
In the American Empire trilogy of the Southern Victory series, Colonel Irving Morrell goes out on patrol by the Houston-Texas border in a command car with a mounted machine gun. He has a high time shooting up a group of Confederate gun-runners he encounters (with a reference to a kid with a .22 shooting at tin cans). During the Second Great War, General Clarence Potter has less fun shooting a machine gun in his command car at U.S. fighter-bombers attacking his brigade but General Abner Dowling does have fun doing so in Texas against holdouts in a fortified farmhouse.

In the Worldwar series, U.S. General Patton also had fun shooting the machine gun in his Willys MB at Lizard helicopters.

Throat-Slitting as an Act of Mercy
In several of Turtledove's military works, various soldiers (and civilian battlefield personnel such as war correspondents) have slit the throats of comrades (and enemies) who have been fatally and painfully wounded.

Time Traveling Plagiarism
In "We Haven't Got There Yet," William Shakespeare is incensed to learn that a new acting troupe is offering a play which borrows liberally from his own Hamlet. The actors, and the unseen playwright, are in fact from the distant future.

In "Hindsight," it is Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Samuel R. Delany, Robert A. Heinlein and Larry Niven who are plagiarized by the time-traveling Mark Gordian.

The Wireless
Domestic radio service (and international shortwave) is referred to as "the wireless" in Southern Victory and The Two Georges. This Briticism is understandable in a book without the American Revolutionary War (the book is filled with them) but not so understandable for American citizens to use it in a series where the Confederates won the American Civil War and are allied with the British.

Zeiss binoculars are the best binoculars
Worldwar, The War That Came Early, and The Hot War contain passages where characters praise Zeiss for making sturdy, efficient binoculars. In the Presence of Mine Enemies shows that Zeiss has branched out into computers, and is the best computing firm in the Third Reich in the 21st century. A large part of the plot of that novel revolves around a Zeiss employee who is secretly Jewish, and uses his access to their mainframe to delete true evidence and plant false evidence, to lead the SS death squads away from his people.