โ Scribed by Harry Turtledove
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Alternate-history maestro Turtledove's conclusion to his Worldwar and Colonization sagas, about how lizard-like aliens known as the Race invaded Earth during WWII and were fought to a stalemate by the major Allied and Axis combatants, lacks the vividly described battle scenes of its predecessors, but more than compensates by closely examining the Race's culture and society. While the Race have colonized much of Earth, they're amazed by the human ability to adapt to change. (The aliens' probe some 600 years earlier led them to expect they'd be facing armored knights.) When an American starship makes the trip to Home, the Race's planet of origin, the lizards fear the loss of their technological dominance and decide to annihilate Earth, their colony included... The question of how much common ground exists between the lizards and humans wouldn't have been out of place in old issues of Astounding. The author dramatizes the old "nature versus nurture" argument through the moving stories of a human woman raised from birth by the lizards and of two aliens raised as humans. Fans will be pleased that room remains for a sequel.
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Turtledove brings the saga of the Lizards (the Race) and the Tosevites (Big Uglies, or humans) to a resounding and massive conclusion. The human race has developed a starship, and early in the book, it appears in the skies of Home. That sets the Race by the ears (well, it would if they had any), and their respect for and fear of the Tosevites' rate of change and technological ingenuity has them waiting for the other shoe to drop, though they don't wear shoes. [...] Turtledove keeps the story from becoming too convoluted by focusing on Sam Yeager, successful diplomat in spite of himself, and his family, and on Kassquit, the human baby raised as a Lizard, and thereby produces not only a more coherent narrative but also tours de force of characterization. Which is not to say that the book is free of japes, wordplay, and such odd devices as an aging Matt Damon in a pornographic historical epic, all of which reassure the reader that this is indeed a case of Turtledove in full cry. The whole saga, begun in the Worldwar series and continued in the Colonization trilogy, may not quite equal Turtledove's alternate America books, but it certainly ranks as something few other writers would have attempted and even fewer would have brought off so well. Roland Green
Copyright American Library Association. All rights reserved
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