Ending and Beginning | Striking the Balance (Worldwar Series, Volume 4)

Decent ending to the first half of this marathon series | Striking the Balance (Worldwar Series, Volume 4) | Harry Turtledove

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	• Striking the Balance (Worldwar Series, Volume 4) Harry Turtledove Del Rey, 1997 - 560 pages average customer review:based on 48 reviews view larger image
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Whoever wins, we lose

Much of the book is really more of the same that we've seen from the last two issues... the adventures of the dozen or so characters who've as of yet survived. There's starting to be a lot of repetition, as in book two and three, bashing us over the head with the same old s-word (example, "ZOMFG I love the emperor," Lizard casts his eyes down at mention of the sovereign. "By the emperor"---Lizard casts his eyes down at the mention of the Emperor---"I do say that I love the Emperor"---Lizard casts his eyes down at the mention of the Emperor---"too.")

Even by the end of the book, the war is over and yet we have over a hundred pages left. Aside from the last bit of journey with Heinrich Jager and Ludmila Gorbunova and Mordechai Anielewicz hunting down Otto Skorzeny in Lodz as he tries to detonate another atomic bomb, it's really more and more of the exact same descriptions, especially of the ambassadors at the peace conference---Molotov has a face made of stone, von Ribbentrop is a fat blustering idiot, Shigenori Togo is logical and boring, the American and English ambassadors are the voices of reason, Cairo is hot, Cairo is hot, Cairo is effing hot.

Turtledove also either has little understanding of Nazi Germany, or he disregards the fact that even Hitler and his associates are still humans, or he simply is racist against Germans, or he is simply so biased against Nazis that he lets it interfere with his story. Even branching into the first book of the Colonization series, anytime something bad and stupid happens, it almost becomes like that Family Guy episode with the gag "Who else but Quagmire?"---it becomes like a "OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!", and "Who else but Hitler?" "He's Hiiitler, Hiiitler", "Giggity giggity giggity giggity let's have war!"

According to Turtledove's depictions, Hitler is fully willing to have the Lizards exterminate all of Germany without being able to put up much of a fight, Nazi Germany is so utterly stupid, Nazi Germany refuses to make peace with the Lizards even if they are utterly destroyed. The fact is that while in the late part of the REAL war Hitler was fully willing to destroy Germany just to destroy the Soviet and Allied attacks, he was only willing to do so BECAUSE he had the CAPABILITY of making good on those threats, AND because the very EXISTENCE of the Reich was at stake.

Here, not only are the Germans incapable of fending off a CONCENTRATED Lizard attack (should peace be made with the rest of the nations, the Lizards could focus ALL of their war on Germany), but if they make peace, THE REICH WILL LIVE ON! So there is NO REASON at all for Hitler to risk exterminating his entire Aryan ideal just to irritate the Lizards. Hitler was an evil genius and a brutal person, but he was not a stupid effing idiot.

In the end though, who really wins the war? The Lizards are basically given HALF the world's surface. HALF. ALL of South America, ALL of Africa, a lot of Asia including India and the Middle East, Poland, ALL of Australia, including New Zealand and Oceania, Indonesia, Central America, etcetera. This leaves pretty much only America, Germany, Russia, Britain, China, and Japan as the only independent and free countries of the world. We lost. Big time.

I plan on reading on to the end of this series, but thus far Turtledove's storytelling skills are starting to not make up for his really lazy, monotonous writing and totally outrageous and in some cases downright retarded characterizations of real people. Alternate history doesn't mean outright fantasy---just because things have changed doesn't mean Person A becomes Person B without any journey in between.

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Ending and Beginning

Turtledove continues to maintain interest in the final book of the first subseries of World War. It is a satisfactory ending, and beginning. The plotlines are neatly wrapped up, with a number of shockers. But not too neatly wrapped up- there is a lot of room to see how the two species will develop next to each other.

It is most enjoyable to see the development of history along parallel lines. After all, this is the purpose of alternative history books. We learn more about history by contemplating what might have been, and therefore learn what could be. Turtledove does this very well, showing how the major powers of WWII might have responded to an alien attack. He does this precisely and accurately, not simply using the 1940's as background to his real story, but trying to truly predict what might have been, based on what was- the facts and people on the ground. And so the ending is really very realistic- what we would expect from an advanced species attacking earth, but a species that has a much slower cultural evolution than do we.

It is a bit depressing to see so many cities destroyed by nuclear warfare- especially a good number of cities I've lived in. This detracts a little from the enjoyment of the work. But I am eager to begin reading the next subseries.

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Decent ending to the first half of this marathon series

There is a lot of repetition in these books, and by the fourth book, there is no doubt that it subtracts from the overall quality for those of us who have been following the series all along. It is almost like the oldtime Flash Gordon serials, because at the beginning of each new episode, you have to go thru a recap of the last few episodes, otherwise newcomers would be somewhat lost.

I give this fourth book in the series 3.5 stars (rounded down to 3), as there just isn't enough unique material in this fourth book.

A lot more of the main characters get bumped off in this book, and two of them happened to have been my favorites - but, this is a book about a deadly war, and if characters weren't dying off, it wouldn't be believable.

I'm now moving on to the 2nd part of this Marathon series, with COLONIZATION: SECOND CONTACT. I'm hoping to find some new favorite characters.

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To Every Beginning...an End (Until the next trilogy)

Both the United States and Germany have learned how to make atomic bombs on their own as Worldwar: Striking the Balance, the fourth and concluding volume of Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series, opens. And the Soviet Union is frantically trying to develop the technology. This new development complicates the situation for the reptilian invaders who have interrupted World War II. Their colonization fleet will arrive in 20 years, and they don't want the Earth turned into a radioactive wasteland. Thus, they're reluctant to use their own nuclear weapons for more than retaliation. On the other hand, the speed of innovation among the humans frightens them. While their technology is vastly superior now, if their conquest isn't complete by the time the colonization ship arrives, they believe humans could surpass them technologically and even threaten their other worlds.

But while the humans are doing much better in the war than previously, they still are at a disadvantage. And the alliances between the formerly warring nations are strained at best, particularly in the areas where Germans and Soviets are forced to cooperate (and when the Jews in Poland and Palestine must choose between hurting the invaders and fighting their former oppressors).

Even in the United States and Germany, the rate of production of the atomic weapons proceeds very slowly. But the attacks against the invaders are frequent enough that the alien leaders begin to seriously consider another way to settle the war.

Turtledove continues to follow his large cast of characters, both human and alien, through their many adventures. On this scale, there is much of interest happening. Many characters, especially in Europe, have their loyalties tested repeatedly, despite the dangers of acting morally but in defiance of the potential retributions of their governments. The odd and interesting relationships built earlier in the series often play important roles in this final volume. And interestingly, Turtledove twists some of the characters around, turning sympathetic figures from the earlier books into villains here, and a few unlikeable ones into heroes.

From a macroscopic view, however, the final novel is less satisfying. As with Volume 2, the overall plot moves little until near the end of the novel. The resolution makes sense as the only one possible, but the world that exists at the end of the novel seems much more interesting than the war that created it. This would be less a problem if not for the massive length of this series. But while Turtledove handles the war details and the political maneuvering with intelligence, he leaves readers with unanswered questions that are much more interesting than the original premise. It's glaring enough to make readers wonder why he spent all the time reaching this point.

That's not to say the series isn't worth reading, however. Turtledove effectively and realistically deals with the questions he does start with, and it's an entertaining and thoughtful exploration.

I really hate to suggest such things, especially at the end of a long series. But I think if Turtledove followed up his closing idea, he'd have something much more significant than this.

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During World War II, three of the world's deadliest foes are forced to join efforts to save the planet from aliens, but Earth might be completely destroyed in order to win the war, in the conclusion of the Worldwar series. Original."