Turtledove's Literary Influences, Co-Authors, and Creators of Shared Universes

These authors have had significant influences on Harry Turtledove's own career as a science fiction/fantasy author.

Poul Anderson
In 2004, Turtledove and Noreen Doyle edited The First Heroes, an anthology of short stories and novellettes set in the Bronze Ages of various historical and fantastic cultures. The final story was "The Bog Sword," a previously unpublished piece by the late Poul Anderson.

Turtledove prefaced "The Bog Sword" with a short essay in honor of Anderson, who died in 2001. In keeping with the Bronze Age theme of the anthology, Turtledove spoke of a golden era of science fiction, when great authors of an earlier generation caused "the motifs, themes, and conventions of the genre, in forms seminal or conclusive, [to] flourish." Furthermore, "The imaginations of these authors . . . were like the earth in the days of the Greek golden race, being fruit 'abundantly and without stint.'"

Turtledove names Anderson as "one of the great heroes of the golden age." He then pays tribute to Anderson's continuing influence on the writers of the later generation: "But eras rarely end with a definitive period. They tend to transform gradually, as what follows them comes from them.  Poul knew this as well as any of us can."

Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was the author of some of the original classics of the science fiction genre. Two of these, the Foundation trilogy and the standalone novella "Nightfall," provided the basis of Turtledove's inspiration for his very first novel, Werenight, published under the pen name Eric Iverson in 1979. Asimov's themes continue to come up in the various sequels Turtledove would eventually write.

He was also the founder of Asimov's Science Fiction pulp magazine, a magazine which ran some of Turtledove's earliest stories, and in which he, Turtledove, continues to be published periodically to this day.

Asmov himself wrote the Forewords for two of Turtledove's early alternate history collections, Agent of Byzantium and A Different Flesh. The willingness of a giant of the field to attach his name to a young author's early projects helped Turtledove establish himself among science fiction writers of his generation.

L. Sprague de Camp
L. Sprague de Camp wrote Lest Darkness Fall, which was first published as a pulp science fiction serial in 1939, and was first printed as a full-length novel in 1941. Lest Darkness Fall is considered to be the original alternate history novel written for mass market consumption of the modern era, and thus de Camp is widely hailed as the founding father of that genre.

Turtledove has stated that Lest Darkness Fall inspired his interests in both alternate history and Byzantine history.

Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Heinlein was the author of many classic science fiction short stories, novels, and anthologies.

Turtledove contributed an essay titled simply "Thank You" in the collection Requiem: New Collected Works by Robert A. Heinlein and Tributes to the Grand Master, published shortly after Heinlein's 1988 death. In the essay, Turtledove touchingly describes how it was Heinlein who drove Turtledove to persist in his goal of establishing himself as a professional writer of fiction.

Robert E. Howard
Robert E Howard was a prolific writer of fantasy and other genres of fiction in the early 20th century. Despite dying at 30, he was able to leave behind a large body of work, which has remained popular through the years (due in part to the efforts of L. Sprague de Camp to keep it in the public eye).

Turtledove has said many times that he is a fan of Howard's work. Howard's influence can occasionally be seen throughout the Turtledovean canon, and especially in Turtledove's several homages to the man.

JRR Tolkein
JRR Tolkein is best known as the author of the immortal fantasy classic The Lord of the Rings. In his youth, Turtledove was an avid Tolkein fan, and, long before his first publication of fiction, he wrote an unpublished Lord of the Rings fanfic. In the 1980s, he would rework this piece into the first draft of his original Videssos series.