Forum:The Big Swith:Discussing as we read (spoilers)

Harry Turtledove: Index > The Big Swith:Discussing as we read (spoilers)

I thought it might be nice to give ourselves a venue where we could discuss the book as we read it, like we did back in the EZBoard days.

First Impressions

First thing I've noticed (other than things I've written articles on, and have scattered thoughts about those on the talk pages) is that Poland still extends Jews legal equality (social equality is another matter, of course) and even has Jews in its army fighting alongside the Germans. This of course disgusts many a Nazi, but Warsaw has stated in no uncertain terms that it expects it allies to respect the civil rights of all Polish citizens. Berlin is respecting their wishes in this matter, reluctantly perhaps, but scrupulously. They're making much of the fact that they're Poland's guests and are only there at Smigly-Rydz's request. One almost gets the sense they'd respect Polish neutrality if Poland asked them to; anyone who's ever read a history book knows they wouldn't, but the reasons given in the book are intriguing. It seems they're afraid that if they get too high-handed, Poland will make a Switch of its own--unlikely to rate as a Big Switch, but given their strategic location it would certainly not be a Little Switch. Turtle Fan 22:47, July 19, 2011 (UTC)

Well, I just finished it, thanks in part to it coming on Thursday and my wife having her physical on Friday. This is easily the best book in the series, both on its own merits and in comparison to the previous books in the series. It was just fun to read. Things happen and history diverges and characters are starting to become interesting. I am now looking forward to volume 4 in much the same way I looked forward to the earliers volumes of 191. TR 21:14, July 23, 2011 (UTC)

Really? I've got about two-fifths to go though I started earlier than you. I'm reading at a rate of four chapters a day. I'd agree with your assessment of its enjoyability. Turtle Fan 21:21, July 23, 2011 (UTC)

Soviets

Skipped ahead to skim through the last chapter in search of clues. It looks like, despite having all of Europe coming down on them, the Soviets are actually winning.

I don't know if "winning is the right word. How about "not losing"?

Well as I said, I just skimmed, and I haven't gotten up to that point yet. Given how many enemies they have, a draw is still very much to their credit. Turtle Fan 21:22, July 23, 2011 (UTC)

Japan

The Japanese are fighting the US and have invaded French, British, and Dutch colonies as well, so Western Europe is on the US's side there. However, Japan is also winning. My predictions of complicated cobelligerencies would seem to be coming true.

I guess I'd say their position is quite similar to their OTL position between Pearl Harbor and Midway. So "winning" the short term, but I don't see how they can do much better in the long run. TR 21:14, July 23, 2011 (UTC)

UK

Walsh does resign in protest over the big switch and advocates returning to the war against Germany. He doesn't become an MP but he gets deeply involved in politics and brushes elbows with some--hopefully some historicals. Wilson is becoming more dictatorial and has Scotland Yard harrassing opposition figures. Wilson's a fairly obscure figure in OTL and I'm amused that HT's two versions of him are so different: the dovish restorer of democracy to a country that's been retreating from it for most of a generation, then the hawkish autocrat in a country whose democratic traditions have never been stronger. Turtle Fan 16:55, July 20, 2011 (UTC)

I saw that. It seems Ronald Cartland is the point man for the anti-Wilson crowd. Eden and MacMillan are in the mix, plus a couple of others I think are historical. And of course Walsh. I really have no context in the Google search, so I don't fully see all the particulars.

Cartland's a good choice. Eden and MacMillan we already have, though in the latter case only because of a sketchy lead-in to a fairly obscure short story. Which doesn't necessarily make them bad choices, but you know I'm always on the lookout for new historicals.

For what it is worth, Macmillan actually appeared directly in that story, which is indeed obscure. TR 14:30, July 21, 2011 (UTC)

So while Wilson goes from collapsing a semi-fascist government to establishing one, Eden goes from establishing a semi-fascist government, or presiding over its establishment at least, to trying to bring one down. You get the feeling HT's kind of just making it up? Turtle Fan 19:07, July 20, 2011 (UTC)

I suspect HT pulled Wilson out of a hat in IatD as the guy who'd make peace under any circumstance, and then with this series realized just what Wilson's PMship could become.

I'd never heard of Horace Wilson when HT pulled him out of nowhere. Then for a while I had him confused with Harold Wilson. (That might be why I thought Horace was Labour.) I still know next to nothing about him, so I couldn't say. Turtle Fan 00:56, July 21, 2011 (UTC)

Eden I kind of buy in both settings. In WW, without its Empire, Britain is dependent on trade and military aid from other countries. From what I can tell, the real Eden was pragmatic enough to realize that the US was an ocean away, and Germany was one of the big obsticles keeping the Race back. Similarly, the Eden of TWPE is probably smart enough to realize that Germany is going to turn around and bite Britain when it can do so. He's also about 26 years younger than his WW counterpart, so that might be part of it. TR 22:05, July 20, 2011 (UTC)

Maybe. Unlike other Conservative PMs of the era, it's possible to imagine him acting independently of the US in the Cold War if the circumstances were right. He wasn't as staunch an Atlanticist as a Macmillan, and he wasn't as ideological as Thatcher. Of course, hardly anyone in the industrialized democracies was as ideological as Thatcher. Turtle Fan 00:56, July 21, 2011 (UTC)

So, the way things end with Cartland, Walsh, and their little band--I will make the following hedged prediction: Cartland is running the country by book 6, or he's dead by the end of book 4. Not much middle ground there.

Yes, British politics do seem to have reached the "win or die" stage. Turtle Fan 21:28, July 23, 2011 (UTC)

Incidentally, was HT's rechristening of the BUF black shirts as "silver shirts" deliberate or not? TR 21:14, July 23, 2011 (UTC)

Beats me. They were Silver Shirts in TL-191. I let it slide there for reasons I can't do here, because they were founded long after the POD, even though many historical figure characters seemed to keep forgetting that they were in an alternate timeline. But Silver shirts were worn by the American fascists, not the British.

Yes, that's why I am somewhat puzzled. While HT does make his mistakes, that one seems such an easy one, I can't help but feel that it was a deliberate shout-out to his long time readers.

I'm all for winking to the fans, but not at the expense of factuality. Turtle Fan 01:23, July 24, 2011 (UTC)

For the purposes of our little project here, we have a choice: either by moderator fiat call them blackshirts, and then literary comment, rather as we did with Friedrich Wilhelm V or craft the article calling them Silver Shirts with a certain amount of speculation and include a literary comment. TR 22:02, July 23, 2011 (UTC)

We should probably go with Option B for the sake of being more true to what HT wrote. Turtle Fan 01:23, July 24, 2011 (UTC)

Every country's fascist party needs its own shirt color, after all. That way everyone's presorted into teams for the water balloon toss and pie-eating contest and other games at the annual World Fascist Symposium and Family Picnic. Turtle Fan 21:28, July 23, 2011 (UTC)

USA

I think Peggy also does do some speechifying. FYI. TR 17:11, July 20, 2011 (UTC)

That's to be expected. Turtle Fan 19:12, July 20, 2011 (UTC)

Well, got that wrong. She was just yelling at her friends.

What? That's not very useful. Hell, I do that with my friends now, it hasn't done a damned thing for my political agenda. Turtle Fan 21:30, July 23, 2011 (UTC)

I'm guessing Herb will be a new POV.

Who died? Turtle Fan 21:30, July 23, 2011 (UTC)

Sergei Yaroslavsky. Kind of sad, actually. TR 21:45, July 23, 2011 (UTC)

Aww. Well at least HT made Anastas a replacement--for Delgadillo. Remember when HT used to make replacement POVs related to the characters they were taking over for? (Well he did that as recently as Hossbach, I guess. . . . ) Turtle Fan 01:30, July 24, 2011 (UTC)

I fear that McGill's going to wind up at Unit 731.

Ouch. Turtle Fan 21:30, July 23, 2011 (UTC)

McGill needn't go there, but when we last see him, he's got a rifle and shooting at Japanese planes in Manila. It hasn't fallen in the last pages, but well, I can't see how it won't. And we don't have any POW POVs at this moment.

No POW POVs is a good thing. They're BORING!! I hope HT comes up with something else. Turtle Fan 01:30, July 24, 2011 (UTC)

Herb ends the last Druce scene by saying he'll re-enlist once a declaration of war comes through. It's not a given that he will be a POV because of this one statement, but I think doing so will serve a dual purpose of giving us a replacement for Yaraslovsky and an American front-line fighter in the Pacific, provided of course McGill gets captured.

Yeah, I guess. God knows we need more front-line grunts as POVs. Turtle Fan 01:30, July 24, 2011 (UTC)

It was nice of HT to have the Hawaii attack be relatively speaking, no big deal. TR 21:14, July 23, 2011 (UTC)

Churchill's death

Long before Hess's air drop or Churchill's "accident" or anything like that, there's a fair amount of foreshadowing about what's to come. Harcourt and Sergeant Smokey bitch about the fact that the high command is dominated by the right wing and would probably sooner switch sides. The official Soviet newsreader says some fairly nasty things about the UK and France--specifically, that they're not making any effort to suppress their right wing parties, among a few other insults--and this prompts Sergei's sloshed CO to cry out "Bring on the French and English!" Turtle Fan 00:56, July 21, 2011 (UTC)

There was a certain amount of that in W&E-Radio Moscow slammed the Western Allies for not doing enough in Norway, so Russia was probably going to have to invade Finland to keep it from capitulating to Germany. TR 20:51, July 21, 2011 (UTC)

They showed little interest in praising their allies in HW, too. But I don't believe they ever said "Hell, we might end up fighting the Westerners soon" before.

I just read the scene where Hess lands, by the way. Walsh finds him in some field and escorts him to the nearest large town, Dundee. It's a long walk and Hess spends the whole time saying "Don't you think it would be great if you joined us in a war against the Bolsheviks instead?" and Walsh grows more and more annoyed. Turtle Fan 23:36, July 21, 2011 (UTC)

I'm just now reading the parts where they react to Churchill's death and I don't believe it was the SS per se. One gets the sense it's more like Chamberlain says "Gee, I'd like to take you up on your offer, Hess, but Churchill keeps getting in the way." Then Hess is like "I see. Well--You know what we'd do with someone like that in Germany? Why don't you try that yourself?" I don't want to blame Chamberlain himself, but it appears to have been an inside job by someone who's very sympathetic to the Germans and maybe got help from Hess. The MO was to run him down with a Bentley and officially it was a DUI.

Another thing is, there are an awful lot of scenes between Hess's mission and the Big Switch. Most of those scenes involve characters saying "I hear the Brits and French might be changing sides one of these days." In-universe the book covers a pretty short period, so you can't just have the Allies go from waging total war against Germany to saying "Oh, hell, let's join 'em" one scene later. Still, I might wish HT had something else going on in there to break up the repetition a bit. Turtle Fan 18:27, July 22, 2011 (UTC)

Eh, I didn't mind it so much. If anything, I would have liked more behind the scenes stuff. Especially in France: since Germany was sitting on their soil, I think a couple of scenes of conflicted right-wingism (nationalism vs. anti-Bolshevism) would have added a little texture. TR 21:14, July 23, 2011 (UTC)

I'm Done!

There's no doubt it was infinitely better than HW and quite a good deal better than W&E as well. It wasn't perfect, of course. I'm going to break down my reflections on each POV's arc, with some thoughts about the metastory saved for the end.

Characters

• Dernen: A shame he's first off alphabetically of those who are still alive because it means I have to lead off with a shrug of ennui. I feel he's come the least far since HW. I still can't figure out why he hasn't plugged Baatz from behind, especially after he thought about it for a whole paragraph. Though in his final scene Baatz did seem to be behaving a bit, and there was the comment about his being almost as dangerous to the enemy as he is to his own men.

Dernen has sufficient plot threads to become interesting in a short time frame. The sniper plot point did fizzle, but could return next volume. And I do think Baatz at some point is going down. A potentially interesting plot line would be Dernen's new buddy (blanking the name) finally killing Baatz, and then Dernen having to cover it up. And now there is every possibility (almost probability, the way Baatz dwelled on it) that Derenen's friend who surrendered himself to the French one step ahead of the SS will suddenly be thrown back into the mix.

Adam Pfaff (making a red link to try to inspire us to create the article). Yes, that would be interesting. Though I'm sure that it wouldn't be that hard to cover it up if Pfaff waited for an auspicious moment; in a war that large, such moments come up with regularity.

As for Storch, he may be repatriated (or Baatz may just have been talking out his ass, or he may be waylaid by Jake Featheston getting all cranked out on the way to a meeting of the Rulers' Feminist Association). If he is, it's not that unlikely that the SS would come find Dernen in connection with it, but it's no guarantee either. HT does periodically have another POV drop in on a character who had started off in scenes narrated by someone else and then dropped off the map: Carsten hiring Isabella Antonelli, Yeager the Younger running into Telerep's friend eight books after Telerep bought the farm with no fanfare, Oraste teaming up with Sidroc in Swemmel's gulag. The fact that HT doesn't make a big deal out of such meetings adds a certain sense of scale to the universes he's creating which I've always enjoyed. Turtle Fan 00:19, July 27, 2011 (UTC)

• • I will say that he's a somewhat useful POV for giving us a bug's-eye view of the Nazis becoming more totalitarian. Sort of a Reggie Bartlett, if you were to condense his GW and AE roles: loyal to the country, doing his duty as a soldier, distrustful of its authoritarian party and giving us the contours of the state security apparatus.

• Druce: Part of me was disappointed that she didn't get involved in some interventionist movement. Then I caught myself. After the massive disappointment that was TG, one of my criticisms was that we had no civilian POVs. (Flora doesn't count because she spent all her time attending strategy sessions with the Joint Committee on the Convenience of the Plot, talking to FDR about the Bomb, or doing things that anyone could do, like listening to the news on the radio.) It really is nice to have someone who isn't trying to influence events but is showing us what the effect of the geopolitical shakeups we're watching unfold through others' eyes is on ordinary folks, those who can't or wouldn't want to influence developments but simply must go about their business. As long as that's what she's doing; when the last TL-191 civilian, Mary McGregor, wasn't being a terrorist, she was subjecting us to such a tiresome stream of banality and boredom. She spent whole paragraphs making toast! There are ways to tell an interesting story from the view of ordinary schlubs whose immediate concerns take precedence over the diplomacy and warfare, but those stories have to be ABOUT something! And Peggy's is.

Let's not forget the little report she wrote and presumably sent to FDR. TR 15:46, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

No, let's not. And let's hope HT doesn't forget it, or get waylaid on his way to the Rulers' Feminist Society Convention by a cranked-out Featherston. Turtle Fan 00:50, July 27, 2011 (UTC)

• Fujita: I was worried that HT would pull a Hip with him: Have an ordinary, not-too-unsympathetic guy suddenly become a heartless monster because he's been ordered to do something monstrous, until his mind abruptly breaks under the psychological strain. Maybe HT's learned something since then. (It does almost feel that this book was written in response to fan criticism, doesn't it?) Instead Fujita feels more like he's a person being subjected to the Millgram Experiment: He knows what he's doing is wrong on some level, but there are so many external pressures on him to do it, pressures that come from an authority he'd always respected in the past; so he's subconsciously doing mental gymnastics to minimize his own sense of responsibility for the sin: thinking of the prisoners as "logs," frequently repeating that he's only following orders, remaining as ignorant as possible about what's going on inside the inner compound. Well done, HT. And, as grisly as it is having him where he is, it's a nice change not having him in the Chinese hinterland or, now, the Philippines or a European colony providing the twenty millionth combat scene of the series.

I won't oppose him growing a conscience, so long as it is in fact GROWN over time, not exploded into life in a single scene as with Hip. TR 15:46, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely. And I hope that conscience doesn't equal suicide as it did throughout TG. I found that stuff disturbing and very objectionable. Turtle Fan 00:50, July 27, 2011 (UTC)

• • As an aside, I couldn't help noticing that since the switch no two countries which are signatories to the Geneva Convention are at war with each other. That means that abuse of POWs is going to become universal. And we thought 191 tended toward the grim.

• Goldman: You know, whenever you read or even think about anything related to Holocaust studies, the mind tends to go straight to death camps and ghettoes. It's easy to forget that at first, and for years afterward, the Nuremberg Race Laws were about being complete bastards to the Untermenschen, not wiping them out altogether. Sarah's giving us a story that's not often told: Jews under Hitler trying to make the best of a bad situation, but not a situation so bad that there was no best to be made of it. I was reminded of one brief scene in one of the Colonization books where Moishe Russie confesses that he sometimes gets nostalgic for his life in the Warsaw Ghetto. Reuven is astounded, as was I when I read it. Moishe shrugs, points out that it's where he and Rivka fell in love, and kind of says that, even in the bad times, life goes on. (Which is in keeping with some of my own memories of the leaner years in my life story though of course they never got a tenth so lean as that.) Reuven doesn't understand, and neither did I at the time; but now it's like we're reading what he's talking about.

• • All that being said, I still wish the father were the POV. A young girl who never did anyone any harm but is getting persecuted just the same tugs on the heart strings in ways that a cynical old smart-ass can't, but Samuel's the one who makes all the salient points and gives Sarah's scenes most of their interest value.

• Harcourt: The not-too-political who reluctantly does his duty when the government turns nasty is nothing new for HT, and is a trope which has led him to miss a lot of opportunities to do something really interesting with a character. (Whatever happened with Potter's Plotters?) I feel like Harcourt is well suited for it, though: He'll be a solid POV, never boring us even when he's doing something routine that's necessary to move the metastory along, which will be most of the time. He may, though, have his back broken by a certain straw right around the time the series enters its final act. That backbreaking could take any number of forms: Open rebellion, a la Ussmak or Larssen; making a fateful decision that goes against the grain on the surface but is in keeping with his values deep down, a la Yeager or his perhaps-kinsman Jager (or more recently, Walsh); or simply a quiet, none-too-flashy transfer of his support from one claimant on his loyalties to another, a la Galtier. Or something else altogether. But I can see him becoming the story's sleeper agent. He bears watching.

He was quite quick to remember 1789. TR 15:46, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

A lot of characters played fast and loose with allusions to pre-industrial history, didn't they? A shame we only got one new historical figure to show for it. Turtle Fan 00:50, July 27, 2011 (UTC)

• Hossbach: He's never going to be one of those POVs who, either through personality, or through an unusual role, or through exploits of derring-do, pops out as among the series's most memorable characters; but he's a Chester Martin, solid workhorse who can carry a lot of the plot, so much that he can free up the flashier characters to be able to do something whimsical. His relationship with his crewmates is pleasantly warm, especially when it comes to helping "Adi" keep up his cover story (which Adi didn't even realize he was doing through all of the last book and most of this one.) He's so comfortable around them that it's getting harder and harder to think of him as a stone-faced loner, despite HT dropping in reminders of the fact with irritating frequency. (Show us, don't tell us?) I wish they'd move onto a Panzer III, though, even if that would screw with the crew dynamic. (Could get us to some sort of climax with "Adi," though.) The Panzer II is just too obsolete and they're on a front where the enemy don't fuck around.

• Jezek: It seems HT kind of wrote himself into a corner with this one. I don't doubt that he went to Spain because there was nothing else to do with him logically: He couldn't get to Russia, he certainly wouldn't have fought for the Germans, the offer of becoming a French civilian could have held no appeal for him after all that's been established about him to date, and Swiss internment would have been BORING! If this were TL-191 or Worldwar or Derlavai, he proably would have stopped a bullet right before the ceasefire or otherwise met some conveniently-timed end.

• • Now if the mutiny Harcourt and Demange had foreshadowed had materialized, Jezek could have been our man on the pro-mutiny side, Harcourt on the loyalist side. It seems clear, though, that there was no place for that in this book's overall plot. Maybe in later installments, but how are you going to keep Jezek on ice that long? Oh well. I guess we can hope that a non-communist POV will make the Republic seem less obnoxious, if nothing else.

I think Jezek's going to get Sanjurjo. That would be an appropriate payoff for Jezek's thread. TR 15:46, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

Maybe, though if HT doesn't start making Spain relevant to the A story, even that's going to be pretty meaningless. Turtle Fan 00:50, July 27, 2011 (UTC)

• Lemp: I take it back about Dernen being the character who's developed the least since HW. There is just NOTHING going on with this guy, is there? His missions are hardly any less repetitive than those of Rufus Q Whatchamafuck. I mean, he did try; HT threw him a few interesting reflections; but come on! You definitely got the feeling HT was just making shit up for him to do. Search for the remnants of Hess's plane? Well, Walsh already told us all about Hess, so that was superfluous. And it's by far the most interesting scene he had. At least HT used him pretty sparingly. And I don't say that to be mean or anything, because I don't dislike him; it's just--There's nothing there!

Lemp could easily be replaced by just about anyone at this point. His sections, which used to be moderately interesting because they weren't frontlines infantry combat, are quickly running out of usefulness. TR 15:46, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

Should get even more exciting now that Germany isn't fighting anyone who's a major naval power. Really the only hope for Lemp is a career change, or at least a transfer to another MOS: Intelligence, maybe, or naval attache to some diplomatic mission or something. But that would come out of nowhere. So would getting drawn into another coup attempt somehow. Turtle Fan 00:50, July 27, 2011 (UTC)

• McGill: As he did last year, he spent most of the book amusing me with his side adventures. Then the bomb went off and it was hard not to feel bad for him, even though he's not exactly the most emotionally moving character in HT's canon. (If anyone cares I think I would probably have to say that Ussmak is.) His hospital scenes, of which there must have been at least three, managed not to feel repetitive, though I couldn't tell you how.

Healing does require progress, I suppose. TR 15:46, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and when you've only got three or four months' worth of story, you kind of have to do it that way. HT did a good job of keeping the scenes fresh, with the first mostly dedicated to the impact of the loss on the character, and then the others were heavy on exposition that would otherwise have had to come from a more active POV. He spread the exposition around efficiently this time. Turtle Fan 00:50, July 27, 2011 (UTC)

• • I'm not so sure he'll end up in Pingfan, by the way. It does appear that the barracks Fujita had to build were meant for Westerners, but if HT wants a POV there, he'd be more likely to give Herman Szulc or someone Yaroslavsky's slot. Those guys who are still in Shanghai are certainly dead men walking, whereas the Boise may make a daring escape and fight on into Book Four. It would be a shame if, after three books as the US's battle ready POV, McGill got taken out of action as soon as the war started.

You are probably right--those guys are dead men walking, and McGill would be much more useful on a ship that isn't under water at this point. TR 15:46, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

Assuming Fujita remains in Pingfan, McGill is the only one who can cover the war in the Pacific. If Walsh had taken His Majesty up on the offer to stay in the Army in a capacity that would never involve fighting alongside Germans he could very well have wound up there, but unless the British Malayan and Singaporean forces have MUCH better luck than in OTL he'd soon be on his way to Pingfan himself. As it is we've got one character doing something incredibly exciting and another doing what he was born to do.

You also might have Szulc or Weingerg or one of the others not become a POV but end up in Pingfan just the same, develop something of a rapport with Fujita, and catalyze his conscience the way Bathsheba did Hip's. They're hard cases, though. Vera would have been a likelier candidate had she lived. She would likely have tried to seduce him. Turtle Fan 00:50, July 27, 2011 (UTC)

• Mouradian: HT often writes supporting characters who are absolutely fascinating when seen through someone else's eyes: Marlowe certainly had that in RB; Skorzeny in Worldwar; from Derlavai, Ilmarinen; from the current series, maybe Demange? And Trasamund is the only thing about The Gap that does not make me wish I could unread the books. Those who get promoted to POV tend to become less interesting through their own eyes than they had been before. Skorzeny and Ilmarinen certainly did, and what about O'Doull? (Well he wasn't fascinating when Galtier covered him, but he did seem pretty cool to me.)

• I worried that would happen to Mouradian. It did to some extent, but not to the point that he's not interesting to watch. And there's stuff inside his head which, while it does downplay the refuge-in-audacity motif that had made him so much fun, is very good in its own right. I'm happy with the addition.

Agreed.

• Rudel: It would have been too much to hope for him to have a crisis of faith in the Fuhrer as a result of his little tryst, and aside from that I knew I wouldn't care about the romance, especially not with a character who just popped up out of nowhere. At least Isidor Bruck and La Martellita have backstories. (We did get a couple of hints that this girl could have been interesting, but she got so little face time that wasn't H-U mooning over her.) Still, if that's the only thing of note that a POV will do all book long, you'd think there'd be some minimal attempt to make it entertaining. AT BEST it was like some dopey chick flick about a dweeby guy trying to learn to be a player; but it didn't even do THAT well!

• At least he, like Lemp, didn't get too many scenes. And to think of how I used to wish for historical POVs as 191 was winding down.

He can still grow a conscience. TR 15:46, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

Sure, but he's still a waste of space in this book. Turtle Fan 01:24, July 27, 2011 (UTC)

• Walsh: Nicely done! In one fell swoop HT has given us a POV in an area where we've been clamoring for coverage and arguably the best-developed character of the series. He's certainly my favorite.

Yep, that was well played on HT's part. If Cartland doesn't wind up running the country at some point, Walsh just might. (I'm being only somewhat hyperbolic.) TR 15:46, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

Yeah. When you get in on the ground floor of a coup, that sort of thing can happen. And HT is certainly fond of turning NCOs into political strongmen, even though it's rare in OTL. (You've got Hitler, and some sergeant in one of the countries that took part in the (rather misnamed) Angolan Civil War, I believe.) Turtle Fan 01:24, July 27, 2011 (UTC)

• Weinberg: I openly disliked him back in the HW era, making him the only character about whom I had strong feelings. I'm fine with him now, but I don't see why HT sent him right back to the infantry after making him a commisar. That's what confirmed for me that he's just making shit up in Spain.

Now that we have the Czechs, maybe Weinberg becomes the politician again? La Martellita uses her pull to keep Weinberg out of harm's way? TR 15:46, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

Maybe, though his being stuck in a revolving door between two different positions would do nothing to reassure me that his character arc has been carefully plotted out. Turtle Fan 01:24, July 27, 2011 (UTC)

• Yaroslavsky: Once Mouradian became a POV it was clear that Sergei had to go. (Less clear, of course, is why Mouradian is the natural successor to Delgadillo.) At least he went out with a bang. That death scene really captured the surprise, confusion, and mounting desperation you'd expect from a veteran being killed on a routine mission.

I knew he was doomed, but there was still that little piece of me hoping that he'd miraculously land in a haystack or other soft object that would allow him to be captured by Harcourt or something. Or he could have become a guerilla like Moss. TR 15:46, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, he was a nice guy, easy to like. When HT kills off someone like McSweeney or Pinkard or Sidroc--to say nothing of a Big Bad like Featherston or Heydrich--you want to stand up and cheer. Most characters who die are met with a shrug of indifference: the death may have been significant, but the character who died was someone we could take or leave. The death of a favorite character provokes a different reaction altogether. But when someone like Sergei gets it, someone for whom we had mildly positive feelings but kind of took for granted, there's a sense of "Gee, what a shame!" and a hope-against-hope that he'll make it after all. Turtle Fan 01:24, July 27, 2011 (UTC)

• • I don't get why HT only kills characters off one per book, and always in the final POV rotation, though. I rather liked the way death would come out of nowhere and take whomever it pleased, whenever it felt like it in earlier series. When my favorite characters died, I felt the blow; and everything had a real sense of danger. (Maybe not lame deaths that came out of nowhere like Nellie's, but you know what I mean.) Now it's more like an episode of Star Trek: Regular cast members die rarely, and only in season finales or some otherwise significant episode, so most of the time, if your favorite character is in a bind, you know he'll work his way out of it soon enough. Opportunities to build tension will be lost if this continues, though I don't think any have been yet.

Not sure either. In fairness, he's be doing this off and on throughout his career, but this is certainly the first series that he's waited until the bitter end to kill off a POV for an entire series. Maybe in Volume 4, we get that massive kill-off seen in TVO. TR 15:46, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

True. The first two TL-191 books followed this pattern. I do kind of like the possibility of a bloodbath: There was something deeply satisfying about OotD. Even though, thinking back on it, the only character I remember dying was Sidroc, who deserved a lot worse than he got. I know there were others but I'm blanking on whom. Did Pekka's cuckolded husband die in that one or the one before it? He wasn't a POV very long. Turtle Fan 01:24, July 27, 2011 (UTC)

Plot

Certainly, just about anything would be an improvement over a WWII AH that moved a few details around and left things chuntering along as in OTL. But while the bar was low, these new developments were quite good. I think that when the Pacific War unfolds next year we'll find that my prediction of a very complex system of cobelligerencies has come true. I hope HT plays that up. Turtle Fan 03:43, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

It's certainly wonderful that this story is shifting from just a front-line perspective to home front and diplomatic stuff as well. It's something HT hasn't done since Derlavai. We've complained about a certain lack of effort in recent years. It's reversed here, and the story is intelligent and creative.

It's grim, though. Actually, as I was thinking about it, there seems to be a theme of "Be careful what you wish for." We've always assumed that appeasement was a bad idea. It probably was; this story still doesn't strike me as the most high-probability ATL following from that POD. But I had assumed things would go better for the Allies when I heard HT was writing a no-appeasement story, and now we see that for all intents and purposes there ARE no Allies. It's not yet clear whether Britain's and France's military situations will suffer for it--though they're in a country which can take a hell of a lot more punishment than Germany could. They've strained their relationships with the US, and though we predictably didn't get a word on the subject, probably the Commonwealth in the UK's case. Their soldiers are demoralized. Britain's political institutions have been morally corrupted and I would certainly assume the French will get it even worse for a variety of reasons.

I gave up on the whole "the Allies would have won if they fought in 1938" canard long ago. Yes, France had generally a better military at that point than Germany. But anyone who pays even the slightest bit of attention to France's military policy at the time will realize that France didn't have the first clue as to what to do with that awesome military, and that France and Britain both had eaten Germany's propaganda up. And let's not forget, Daladier and Chamberlain went home to cheering hordes for bringing saving peace. Hell, in 1940 when the Allies were ostensibly more resolute, they got clobbered.

So I think HT's early depiction of the Allies half-assing it for the first year or so is very plausible. And I think, given the limits of the German military, the failure of the Schlieffen Plan once again is also plausible. And the USSR would have come in at that point; Stalin practically begged Britain and France to enter.

Everything that follows is up for debate. But I have though several times that HT is somehow responding to the nearly utopian version of the Appeasement narrative. TR 16:09, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree. As boring as HW was, it did read pretty true to reality. Perhaps more so than TBS: I can buy France going quasi-fascist and changing sides, I can maybe buy Britain changing sides, but as I said when we were predicting, the moral corruption of its political system is very difficult to accept. And the secondary fronts in Spain and Asia felt like a lot of plot convenience.

Still, the Allies did seem to be in better shape when France avoided falling in the eleventh hour, even if the only thing that saved them was a generous helping of deus ex machina. Now? The Soviets will win in the end. The Big Switch has set them reeling but every indication we've had since then shows that they're drawing on their historical strengths to salvage the situation and the--should we still call them the Axis?--saying "I hope it's not enough." In the OTL winters of 1941 and 1942, Hitler seemed to have his foot to the throat, though he'd pulled out all the stops to get there and it's hard to imagine anything he could realistically have expected to do to get any farther than he did. Giving him the Afrika Korps and the British 8th Army and some other British armies and a well-equipped French army at Stalingrad, and a secure western flank and no Americans in sight would probably have been enough; but, for all these advantages, it doesn't look like he'll be getting to Stalingrad.

Perhaps rather than Axis, and in light of all the Napoleon references, we should call them the "Second Coalition"? TR 06:11, July 30, 2011 (UTC)

The real terror in this series is likely to be that Stalin will win the war and then be able to dictate terms to all of Europe unilaterally. That's . . . not good. Turtle Fan 01:46, July 27, 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. I'd be very surprised if he bothered with much of Eastern Europe outside Poland and Czechoslovakia. No dividing up of Germany this version; it's a probably a Stalinist puppet.

Germany's got--well, what Himmler wanted, at least, and what common sense would certainly suggest is desirable: the British and French on their side. Though details are vague, their situation seems to be at best no better than it was at the same point in OTL, though their advance seems a lot slower despite all the help they're bringing along.

Stalin beat Hitler to the punch in Poland, which is supposed to be something he wanted, and now he's got more enemies than he can shake a stick at. The Spanish Nationalists got to keep their first choice of a leader but the Republic is still around and if Franco were in charge he would have beaten them years ago. It works on a micro level too. Peggy gets home and finds it's not like she remembered. Weinberg got the girl and has an unwanted pregnancy on his hands. McGill gets his ship and ends up being shot at, though that would have happened anyway. Vera, umm, gets her choice of movie? Seriously, though, that does seem to be a theme. Turtle Fan 03:43, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

And Japan got Vladivostok, but, if the fact Hawaii wasn't that bad means anything, they shot their wad doing it. I don't see the U.S. having island hop much in the Pacific based on the quick sketch HT provided at the end. TR 06:11, July 30, 2011 (UTC)

There are several reasons the Hawaiian attack might not be "so bad" as in in OTL, including:

(1) There is no Taranto raid mentioned in this timeline. The Japanese would have not have had the precedent of the British solving the problem of air-dropping torpedoes in a shallow harbor.

(2) Two of the six aircraft carriers which launched the Pearl Harbor raid in OTL weren't commissioned until 1941.

(3) The Mitsubishi A6M Type Zero wasn't in full service yet.

(4) In OTL, I think the bulk of the Pacific Fleet was still based in San Diego at this time.

Fair point. I was so used to thinking in terms of "the scheduled is accelerated", I forgot that no, not everything can and must be accelerated. There is no reason to think that FDR could convince the Isolationists to step up on prepardeness, especially since Japan had been actively fighting the USSR up until like six months before Japan attacked the US.

Still, I think Japan paid a steep price for Vladivostok, and that will leave them worse off for the fight against the USA. TR 19:37, August 11, 2011 (UTC)

We can hope. Even if the Hawaii raid was worse than OTL, though, the US won't be in a two-front war right away and will have far more military resources to use against Japoan, even assuming that FDR is holding back a sizable reserve in the event of the US's being drawn into the European conflict. Turtle Fan 21:01, August 11, 2011 (UTC)

Predictions for the future

Ok, so now that this series is taking off--what's everyone thinking happens in the future volumes?

Since HT has thrown a few references to Napoleon, I'm inclined to think that the combined France, Britain and Germany will still be insufficient to bring the USSR to its knees, and will bleed one or all of them white. Now, Harcourt and Walsh have both floated ideas that coup or revolution might be viable options in their respective countries. France's history since 1789 has been one of scrapping government systems and starting from scratch nearly every time they lose a war. And Hitler has dodged a couple of bullets already.

I'd suggest that the too-repressive governments of Germany and France will be facing the red revolution they've been paranoid of all along as the cost of the war in the east becomes too great for their peoples to bear. Britain will probably see a less dramatic change in government, with Tories, Laborites, Liberals, etc forming a coalition to finally shove out the appeasers democratically, rather than taking to the barricades. I'd be surprised if they wound up communist.

Spain will become another point were communism carries the day. Italy could ultimately ride out the storm and end with Facism still running the show, or it, too, could fall to red revolution (as Mussolini seems to be playing it smarter here than he did in OTL, I kind of doubt that).

The US defeats Japan rather quickly compared with OTL: there is no European theater (for a while at least), and Japan hasn't established itself in the Pacific to the extent it did before and after December 7, 1941 in OTL.

As of right now, the only way I can see the U.S. getting back into Europe would be if one side or the other declares war (no reason or benefit I can see for either side to do this) or if there is another political shift in Britain and France.

So I think what happens is that the war ends with the US and the USSR emerging as super powers as in OTL, but with Communism getting its mitts into two of the continent's economic powerhouses. Perhaps China becomes a much larger Korean War analog?

By my count Books 4-5 will cover 1941-43. Book 6, given HT patterns, will probably be the big peace book, and will probably cover 1944-45.. TR 01:19, July 25, 2011 (UTC)

I've got two or three chapters to go yet--It's been a lazy Sunday. I'll let you know tomorrow. Everything I've seen so far suggests your predictions are plausible. Turtle Fan 03:32, July 25, 2011 (UTC)

Now that I've read the last few chapters I have to say I haven't seen anything to suggest you're wrong. The only game changer I can see at this point would be the US getting involved on the other front on the Soviet side, or maybe a resumption of hostilities between Moscow and Tokyo. Then one of two things could happen: The war becomes a complete mess, with countries which are allied on one front being enemies on another front at the same time. That, or maybe the US getting involved restores the (former?) democracies' consciences, they switch back and we proceed with an OTL war. That wouldn't be very satisfying, would it? Turtle Fan 01:18, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

Another quick thought as to why I'm leaning towards U.S. beats Japan, USSR beats Europe, and neither the twain shall meet is Landon's run as an isolationist. Even FDR harkened back to some the weirdness of WWI. I think HT is hinting that at the end of this conflict, the US will once again embrace "normalcy" in 1944, and decide Europe got what it deserved, and we just barely dodged this mess. TR 06:17, July 30, 2011 (UTC)

I guess, though France just signed a fancy new economic agreement, and the US and UK have always been neck-deep in common concerns that mean the US can't afford to let the UK be enslaved by a continental power, no matter how badly they fall out. (Not in a 20th century POD, anyway; in TL-191 it worked pretty well, I guess.)

Then again, just how far can the USSR project its power? It may occupy all of Germany: Germany led the charge and needs to be punished, and it's easy to roll right over the Northern European Plain when you've already broken your opponents. But the terrain on all the approaches into France is much more defensible, and as for Britain! The Soviets may recognize that they can't go any farther west than Germany, impose a peace on the ex-democracies that lets them know they lost but doesn't punish them to the point of their needing to be sat on to avoid revanchism, and say "You'd better behave yourselves!" Meanwhile if the US did all the work of beating Japan, with more help from the likes of Aung San and Ho than from Wilson and Daladier, they might say "Fuck you, we're not going to help you get your colonies back, and you know you can't do it on your own." That would be fairly important to the Soviet ability to tell the British and French to behave; it would make it much harder for them to reassert themselves.

Actually it's not impossible to imagine the Soviets and Americans getting fairly chummy: Each would hate the other's primary opponent, and would be taking some steps, if barely beyond the realm of token gestures, to help the other out (Soviet support for the CCP, Viet Minh and whatever other communists are useful in the war against Japan, the US cutting off Lend-Lease aid to the Anglo-French and no doubt finding other ways of expressing diplomatic displeasure to one-time natural allies). Turtle Fan 03:10, July 31, 2011 (UTC)

Smolensk=Stalingrad?

How likely is it that Smolensk becomes this war's Stalingrad?

I suppose it's possible. Really, the importance of any such battle will not limited to stopping or depleteing the German advance, but inflicting a heavy toll on Britain and (especially) France. When those two suddenly discover that they are still paying a hefty butcher bill, we'll see the "big switch back".

Actually, I'll make a prediction now: Daladier's government collapses behind a substantial defeat in Russia, as leftists and anti-German DeGaullists unite. Germany then reinvades France (kind of like Italy in OTL), giving the Cartland-Walsh faction the monmentum to non-confidence Wilson. This series of events sahkes the German people's confidence in Hitler, and he finally falls. TR 01:38, August 29, 2011 (UTC)

Hey, Wait a Minute!

Now that I've finished the book and am mentally filing away with books I've finished (well that was redundant) some things have started sticking out.

The main one is, what's the incentive for the Big Switch on the West's part? In Peggy's first scene the misnamed Jerome Beard says that the British and French governments actually hate the Germans, or at least that there's genuine animosity that precludes things like bringing them together to work out arrangements on behalf of distressed travelers from neutral countries. In OTL there was an idea on certain Germans' parts that the various Allies in Western Europe were cultural cousins and that it was unfortunate they had to fight when the real enemy was in the east. Only the Germans (and of course not all of them) felt that way. British, French, Dutch, Belgian, Luxembourger, Norwegian, Danish, even Swedish and Irish: To greater or lesser extents, they all disliked the Nazis. The only exceptions were fascist fringe parties and collaborators who knew which side of their bread got buttered.

But the British and French seemed to make the Big Switch because they wanted to. If not that, then it was because the Brits were so charmed by Hess's visit that they not only reversed their own foreign policy but convinced the French who didn't even have a visitor, by saying "Man, Hess was so awesome!"

Seriously, how did the French come around? In OTL the Brits kept fighting after France made a separate peace, why didn't it work the other way around here? Is France supposed to be so dependent on British support that it gets drawn along in the wake of bilateral Anglo-German negotiations? Maybe there were French diplomats in London taking part in the negotiations, but would it have killed HT to throw in a mention?

And seriously, what did Hess offer? What did the British and French get for their switch? Upon defeating Germany, you might have expected France to get the Saarland and Britain ports on the Baltic, maybe. What can they annex after beating the Soviets? The Raj borders the Soviet Union, but Britain already got all the good parts in the Great Game with the Russian Empire two generations earlier. Mining rights in the Caucasus, I guess. Or maybe the Germans just bought them off with something? Gee, I wonder what. The only other way the Germans could get the Brits and French to switch would be to say "You know you're going to lose if this keeps up, you might as well accept this chance we're giving you to disengage." But they certainly weren't in position to do that.

I'll take a couple of stabs.

In OTL, the big "selling point" Hess thought he was bringing to the table was that Britain would keep its empire and Germany would content itself with being the big boy on the European block. I can't think of a reason why Hess would make any different sort of offer in this series. So that partially accounts for Britain.

Reminds me a bit of the Sopranos episode where Paulie and Feech get into a pissing match. A certain landscaper or something offered to give Feech money if Feech could get him a corner market on business in this one neighborhood, so Feech's men beat up an unaligned landscaper who was a friend of Paulie's mother. Paulie goes to bat for him and Feech says "What's yours is yours, but what ain't is anybody's!"

Anyway, that might be a basis for tempting the Brits to become neutral, but to fight for Germany? Turtle Fan 01:52, August 5, 2011 (UTC)

Presumably neutrality isn't on the table. While it does seem that Britain is fielding token forces, it was their pattern to throw money at their allies in the 18th and 19th centuries. They might be taking that approach here. TR 05:54, August 7, 2011 (UTC)

Maybe. I guess they'd be afraid that sitting out so big a war altogether would mean not having a hand in the new European balance of power? Sitting out never was the British/English style. The only major European war I can think of that saw them maintain neutrality is the Franco-Prussian, and it was clear from day one how that one was going to end. Turtle Fan 19:59, August 7, 2011 (UTC)

There were also a few in Britain who, while not actively pro-Nazi, kind of liked the idea of getting Hitler and Stalin to beat each other up. That might also account for some in the Chamberlain administration (including Chamberlain himself, I think) who may have decided to hold their noses for the moment.

Not the worst argument that can be made for neutrality, but again, to fight for Germany? You'd think the Brits would need more incentive than that. Unless the line of thinking goes "We've been helping out Russia, let's help out Germany for a while so they'll be equally weakened by our intervention." Turtle Fan 01:52, August 5, 2011 (UTC)

Alternatively, never underestimate the power of the fear of communism. *shrug* TR 05:54, August 7, 2011 (UTC)

Apparently. Turtle Fan 19:59, August 7, 2011 (UTC)

Regarding France: in an interesting coincidence, I read a novel earlier this year entitled The Spies of Warsaw by Alan Furst. It is set in 1937, and focuses on a French spy, stationed in Poland who, after a series of adventures, figures out what Germany ultimately has planned (the Ardennes offensive, Case Yellow, specifically), but cannot convince his superiors in the French military to prepare or respond. Two primary issues arise that drive our hero nuts. First, the German preparations are so counter to French Military doctrine (you can't use tanks that way, and we spent so much damn money on the Maginot Line, the Germans have to attack it, so there!) that to prepare would be an admission that the French military is wrong. Second, our hero is frequently astonished by how often his superiors seem more panicked about the USSR than Germany. When I did some additional research, I came to the conclusion that Furst knows what he's talking about. Petain, for example, spent a goodly amount of time speaking about against the commies at home and abroad, and we know where he wound up when things went to hell.

Sounds like an interesting book on the surface, but I've been duped into reading more than one shitty WWII novel. Recommend it? Turtle Fan 01:52, August 5, 2011 (UTC)

Furst's earlier works are stronger. This was ok, but I'd suggest Night Soldiers, his first work. It's a perfectly wonderful novel. TR 05:54, August 7, 2011 (UTC)

I'll take a look. I've got quite a backlog of novels at the moment, between my Vine membership and some steals I found on certain used book sites. Turtle Fan 19:59, August 7, 2011 (UTC)

Additionally, France has Germany on its soil, which can be quite a bargaining chip. Napoleon used it a few times to make "friends".

Hmm, maybe. Given that the French have held out for as long as they have, and had started pushing the Germans back, that seems like an awful lot to ask for. Turtle Fan 01:52, August 5, 2011 (UTC)

Finally, let's not forget that the Allies were not the paragons of resolve in OTL. They didn't want to fight WWI again, which is part of why they tried appeasement for so long. Here, in a war that's looking like it might be going that way again, and with certainly less resolve than in OTL, France has nothing to lose by getting Germany off its soil, and Britain has even less to lose with Germany throwing all of its resources at the USSR, why not switch? I'd even suggest that appeasement hasn't been fully discredited at this point. TR 18:42, August 4, 2011 (UTC)

It's another thing where there are reasons for getting out of the war, but not for switching sides. The Germans would probably have been happy with a stable western flank and a one-front war. Expecting the Allies to fight on their side is really asking for too much, unless they're willing to sweeten the pot. True, if the Brits and French stop fighting altogether, they'll have no spoils of war to show for all the fighting they've done to date, but the spoils they can get from the USSR are less attractive than those they can get from Germany, and even those spoils haven't held their interest enough to keep them in the fight. Turtle Fan 01:52, August 5, 2011 (UTC)

Well, again, my best suggestion is "communism was really scary" and shrug. Aside from that brief period between 1939 and 1945, the West really looked at the USSR as the ultimate evil for the duration of its existence. We forget the efforts the West, the US included, made to strangle communism in its cradle. TR 05:54, August 7, 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the book reminded us of Western support for the Whites. Still, while what you say is true, for much of that period anti-Soviet sentiment was more of a habitual dislike, such as Yankee fans have for the Mets, rather than outright hostility. Kind of a "Hmm? Oh, yeah, fuck the commies." Certainly that seemed to be the state of things at the start of the series. But, shrug indeed. Turtle Fan 19:59, August 7, 2011 (UTC)

I still like the book but the more I think about it the more annoyed I am that the Switch came out of nowhere.

I suspect this is one of those instances where HT is giving us a great deal of credit. He assumes we know the history enough that we can see his logic, so he doesn't necessarily need to bore us with details. While I appreciate his faith, details do make for a stronger narrative, especially when it's details of that nature.

Yes, one does need to strike a balance between presuming too much and too little. I think readers who are well-versed would appreciate the reminders and would enjoy saying "Hey, HT referred to something I know about!" Turtle Fan 01:52, August 5, 2011 (UTC)

(I suppose it's possible HT thinks very little of us, and just assumed we'd go along with any old hand-waving, but I watched a video interview he did at Comic-Con last week, and he discusses the series in such an organized and well-though-out fashion, I'm willing to assume he's not deliberately insulting our intelligence.)

Oh yeah? Can you post a link to the video? Turtle Fan 01:52, August 5, 2011 (UTC)

I found it accidentally while trying to figure out what's going on with SV. Try Turtledove and Comic-Con in your browser. TR 05:54, August 7, 2011 (UTC)

Got it.

Speaking of Comic-Con, I listened to an hour-plus podcast the other day in which Chris Hardwick interviewed Matt Smith and Karen Gillan, with help from his sidekick whose name escapes me and special guest host Wil Wheaton. Wheaton was not being too subtle in his overtures of affection to Gillan, but she was just being nice to him and no more. Then Hardwick asked her what she enjoyed most about the event and she got all excited talking about meeting Brent Spiner, whom she referred to as Data. Wheaton got sulky and was all like "I was on that show too, you know." There was something amusing about the theme of members of the geek royalty reacting to one another the way any other fanboy/fangirl would, though. Turtle Fan 19:59, August 7, 2011 (UTC)

On a similar note, what happened to the minor Allies in the West? With Germany at peace with Britain and France, there's no real strategic need to hold onto the five countries the Germans rolled over, but we all kniow how Hitler could get grabby. Did Britain and France say "We'll help you, but we want the buffer states rehabilitated"? Or was there no limit to Hess's ability to play them?

I think the most logical answer is that Britain and France really aren't negotiating from a position of strength, and/or think appeasement could still work. It's not as if they can come at Germany with an "or else" to a demand that Hitler retreat from Scandanavia and the Low Countries. TR 18:42, August 4, 2011 (UTC)

Thing is, while Britain and France may not have been negotiating from a position of strength neither was Germany. They couldn't say "Or else!" wither, yet it seems like Germany walked away with everything they wanted and conned the Brits and French into believing they wanted what they got as well. I guess that's what Hitler did in Munich in OTL, kind of (except what he really wanted was an excuse to whale away on France) but with a war on . . . I don't know, it just seems like the Brits and French were unaccountably dumb in letting the Germans play them. That or they really did want to fight the USSR all along, but while most of the figures HT mentioned as being involved in the Big Switch were indeed possessed of an anti-Bolshevism streak, it's still seemingly overused. Turtle Fan 01:52, August 5, 2011 (UTC)

Then there's that Franco-American economic agreement. I wonder what that was about. Maybe FDR was worried that the Allies were getting wobbly and was trying to give himself some influence in their capitals so he could try to keep them in the fight? How could he have been worried if the British and French were chuntering along looking resolute in the face of the Nazi enemy and then switched on a dime for no apparent reason? And now that he's cut off Lend-Lease aid in disgust, will the agreement be abrogated? I guess that can be overlooked since it wasn't a major plot point like the Big Switch, but if HT didn't care enough to come up with the faintest hint of a premise for this agreement, why put it in at all?

What page was that on? I remember the German-Swedish agreement, but I don't remember anything about an agreement between the US and France. TR 18:42, August 4, 2011 (UTC)

The same scene. Someone was listening to Radio Berlin, and the announcer said "Great news! We've got an agreement with Sweden!" (Details about that might have been nice too, but we can "assume the gist of it, can't we?) "Much worse, though, is the fact that the French and Americans have made an agreement." The POV thought to himself that this was another of those times when it's best not to let on that you've spotted some logical inconsistency in the news broadcast. I want to say it was the scene where Dernen is in the farm house with the one kid who doesn't know enough to keep his mouth shut and gets in trouble with Baatz, and the other kid who says he wishes he could hear some jazz. Turtle Fan 01:52, August 5, 2011 (UTC)

Ok, found it. It's a Goldman scene, and it comes well in advance of the switch. The announcer portrays it as France trying to drag the U.S. into the war unjustly or something. That might have been pretty close to the truth. And once the U.S. didn't buy off, France decided to make the switch.

Yes, it was early on because the Goebbels-approved newscaster was all like "Fuck France!" instead of "Isn't France the coolest? I can't wait till they come over and play in our clubhouse!" Turtle Fan 19:59, August 7, 2011 (UTC)

I suppose US intransigence might factor into why the Western Allies made the big siwtch. Again, I shrug. TR 05:54, August 7, 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure it didn't hurt. If FDR had been able to say "Don't fuck around with Hitler; if you need a new ally, you've got me!" he surely could have stomped on the crib of whatever Hess and his contacts were cooking up. Of course, the US hadn't been neutral at that point any longer than in OTL, but the situation was quite different--another reminder that, warts and all, this book beat the shit out of HW. Turtle Fan 19:59, August 7, 2011 (UTC)

Speaking of "Why put it in at all?": Peggy's first scene, where Jerome Beard gives her a convoluted escape route through all the combat zones. Then in the next scene she's going out the most direct way possible. Bit of a cock tease. She'd been through bombardments and arbitrary autocracy, but it would have been cool to see her caught up in battle. She's got moxie, God knows, and would no doubt have acquitted herself well. And seeing the ravages of war might temper her interventionism, or it might give her a more mature resolve. As it was, it was interesting when she discussed the issue with Herb at that one scene: Each was motivated by the desire to avoid the most evil thing they'd ever seen--battle for Herb, Nazism for Peggy--and had no real way of understanding the other's perspective.

But if it wasn't going to happen, why not just have Peggy fly to London in her first scene instead of her second? Would have required a little reordering of her and Walsh's respective openings, but Walsh didn't do anything terribly valuable in his first scene, either, so just have him start with the evacuation and feed directly into Peggy leaving. Then each of them would have one more scene to play with later in the book when they were both doing far more interesting things than they were in their openers. Turtle Fan 04:14, August 4, 2011 (UTC)

Best guess-HT used that to backdoor in a report regarding the global situation, and then decided to just get her home instead. Or he used it to show just how little control an individual can have over his or her own life during wartime. Hard to say. TR 18:42, August 4, 2011 (UTC)

It was convenient exposition (we even got an article or two out of it) and I did enjoy how Peggy was swept up in events she couldn't influence--a rarity in latter-day HT novels, as I got into above. Turtle Fan 01:52, August 5, 2011 (UTC)

Britain and France

Britain and France switching sides in the middle of a war where they have taken a lot of casualties is a lot to swallow. What's really going on here?

It's worth remembering that part of the reason Britain and France were so hip to appeasement is that they didn't want to throw a bunch of men into the meatgrinder so soon after WWI. So I don't completely find it hard to swallow that they'd reach a peace. Joining the war against the USSR requires a bit more--I stand by jag-off anti-commies running the show (which there were plenty of those, as discussed above), naïveté (Goebbels sold the Allies on how massive the German war machine was at the time, remember), and maybe a realization that neutrality isn't in the cards. Afterall, from the German perspective, they "jumped" Germany after Germany was protecting fellow Germans and avenging Henlein's murder. TR 19:54, August 11, 2011 (UTC)

HT has something up his sleeves he hasn't shown yet, I hope, perhaps meddlers from the future or a parallel timeline. One clue may be that there are few personal glimpses of the world leaders and high commanders in this series so far; even Hitler doesn't show up that often.

I doubt it's that. I just think HT is taking his fascination with the "little man" to an extreme that doesn't always benefit the narrative. TR

I would be very surprised, and not a little disappointed, if he turned this into a scifi AH. He's already got three PODs, he doesn't need to bring alien space bats into it. I wouldn't mind him doing another scifi AH, though; it's been a long, long time since he has, and they're fun. Turtle Fan 21:13, August 11, 2011 (UTC)

Well, the alternative is that HT has thrown plausibility out the window.

History is replete with governmnents doing utterly stupid things. So just because they are acting stupidly doesn't on it face mean it's implausible. But HT does need to do much more to show us what's going on in those smoky rooms where powerful men gather. TR 16:15, August 14, 2011 (UTC)

The establishments in both Britain and France really did hate Stalin, but both nations also had powerful, broad-based political parties leaning leftward. Making peace, yes; switching sides and actually sending soldiers to fight for the people who were shooting yours a month or two ago? France and Britain were still parliamentary democracies; unless there has been coups behind the scenes, their governments would have fallen and new leaders elected.

We're getting hints that the Wilson government has been growing more authoritarian. Can't say much about France at this point. TR 16:15, August 14, 2011 (UTC)

Hitler didn't pay that much attention to Churchill until it became clear Churchill's government was going to to last. In this timeline, Churchill doesn't even seem to have a cabinet post when he dies.

He was War Minister. Also, the text of the story doesn't suggest that Hitler did in Churchill, but that some part of the British government did it. I know the cover-copy suggests otherwise, but the cover also tells over and over that the book is set in 1941, when in fact the book is set almost entirely in 1940. TR 16:15, August 14, 2011 (UTC)

If HT was going to have Churchill run down by an automobile, he would have been much better to borrow from real history: Churchill was very seriously injured by an automobile in New York City long before the war; having the driver hit the brakes a second or two later could have removed him without involving any mysterious secret assassins. (oldgringo2001)

Then HT would have had to find someone else to "sound the alarm" throughout the 1930s, up until his own work. In other words, killing of Churchill early wouldn't have served any purpose. TR 16:15, August 14, 2011 (UTC)

Looking into my own crystal ball, I can see a possible surprise in the Philippines: Neutrality, with evacuation or internment of US Forces. William Manchester speculated long ago that MacArthur might have delayed responding to news of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor because the Philippine government hoped to stay neutral in the war. This would keep our American Far Eastern/Pacific viewpoint characters out of Japanese prison camps, a topic that HT covered quite thoroughly in his two Pacific War books. (oldgringo2001)

I'd be ok with that, although since Japan is attacking specifically to occupy the Philippines, I don't think Filipino neutrality was in the cards in either TL. TR 19:54, August 11, 2011 (UTC)

They weren't independent enough yet to be neutral, were they? I've always wanted to see a story where the US, which was so deplorably brutal during and after the Filipino Insurrection, never learns its lesson and the Filipinos greet Japan as liberators. Turtle Fan 21:13, August 11, 2011 (UTC)

Well, if we're going to dig into actual Filipino politicos of the time, Japan seems to have had very few problems in getting the big landowners to support its puppet government, and there is that extraordinary cash gift the Philippine president gave MacArthur in 1942. Even for a scrupulously honest government, neutrality would have been a very attractive policy. Japan's didn't particularly want the Philippines for themselves; what they wanted was no American Forces in them to threaten their routes to the Dutch East Indies and their oil, the real main objective of their "Turn South." I'm not saying there was much real hope Japan would leave the Philippines and their people alone if they already had complete independence when war came. And William Manchester really did posit a hope for Philippine neutrality to explain MacArthur's fatal inaction in the first hours of the war. Of course,that doesn't rule out a more plausible explanation: MacArthur dropped the ball. His air chief of the time went on to general another spectacular fiasco, the 1943 "Tidal Wave" raid on Ploesti, Romania.(oldgringo2001)

Colonel Ishii was, unfortunately, real, but his program to develop usable germ warfare seems to be more successful in this history. Maybe we will have a mysterious epidemic in the United States later--or maybe Unit 731's designer germs will be a little too good and ravage Japan. Some Americans did really wind up as "logs" in Ishii's experiments. We'll see. (oldgringo2001)

Don't know that we can say Ishii's more successful yet. That will be an interesting thing to watch though. TR 19:54, August 11, 2011 (UTC)

All we know is that there's been an outbreak in one of the Chinese combat zones, though it's not hard to imagine the cause. Turtle Fan 21:13, August 11, 2011 (UTC)