After the Downfall

Harry Turtledove returns to the world of fantasy with something that isn't- quite- alternative history. "After the Downfall" tells the story of a German officer during the waning days of World War II. As the Russian hordes are about to assault his position he touches a magical stone (just go with it), and winds up transported into a fantasy realm. Fans of the "Legion of Videssos" books will recognize the notion of a magical artifact in this world transporting someone into a magical world. It's not exactly an uncommon theme, and though Turtledove's used it before, I'm willing to let him slide on it this time. The German officer, one Hasso Pemsel, a name so odd I find myself wondering if it's another of Turtledove's puns, arrives in this brave new world and falls in with a group of people who are the Aryan wet dream. Tall, athletic, blonde and utterly convinced they are better than their short, dark, swarthy neighbors who aren't really people, after all, and have no rights to exist beyond those the blondes give them. Seeing what the blondes do to the darker folk makes Pemsel start to look at his own conscience. Remembering what the Russians did on the Eastern Front, he realizes that these are people, just ones that look quite different. Eventually he's given a choice of switching sides, and spends a great deal more time deciding what to do than he might've expected. The story is a little more sex-filled than most of Turtledove's books. Unlike most people I don't have a problem with his depictions of sex (which tend to be less graphic than those of violence, and if you want to show the scope of human existence, you really do need both), but there do seem to be quite a few that come off as wish fulfillment. One doesn't want to think a Jewish writer would have a German WWII officer as a Gary Stu, but I do start to wonder at times. Ignoring that, the story itself is quite good and sets itself up well for a sequel. It is, at the very least, more entertaining and original (well, in some ways, anyhow), than the Atlantis series Turtledove is working on nowadays. I look forward to seeing the next book and what he does with it!

All I have to say is that it is a great book to read and puts a point accross and you don't know it until it happens. Mr Turtledove did it again and it is open for another book to follow.

Another exploration by Harry Turtledove of what happens when people who are not wholly evil find themselves fighting on the wrong side, and of whether there is anything they can do about it ... The story begins as the Russians are over-running Berlin in 1945. Wehrmacht officer Hasso Pemsel and what's left of his once-proud unit are in the City Museum, surrounded by overwhelming numbers of tough Red Army soldiers who have a score to settle with the Germans after what the Nazis did to Russia. In between dodging bullets in what he expects to be his last minutes of life, Hasso notes an inscription on an ancient stone which gives him the impression that the stone was supposed to be a gateway to other worlds. As an act of gallows humour, he sits on it - and his astonished Feldwebel sees him disappear. The NCO leaps, too late, for the stone himself, only to be cut down by Russian bullets. To the advancing Red Army soldiers who loot and rush past his body it is only another stone. Hasso Pemsel finds himself in a completely different place - and the first thing he sees is a tall, magnificently beautiful, blonde woman fleeing from three men, armed with crude weapons, who are pursuing her with obviously hostile intent. Without thinking he acts to rescue her, and this is not too difficult as his sub-machine gun works perfectly in this new world (at least while it still has ammunition.) The lady insists on thanking Hasso, there and then, in the most intimate way that a beautiful woman can thank a man for saving her life, and then shows him the way to her people's capital. As he learns their language, Hasso discovers that this is a world of magicians, spells and unicorns, but no technology. His lady friend is regarded by her people as a Goddess incarnate - a bit like the Dalai Llama, except that this woman is much sexier and has nothing to do with non-violence. Her people are engaged in a war to the death with another nation, and welcome him as a recruit to their army who can advise on more effective ways to fight the enemy. But Hasso soon becomes uncomfortable with the atrocities which his new country inflicts on anyone who gets in their way - crimes which his actions in winning battles for them are helping to bring about. As Hasso's concern grows, both at the evils he sees and the overconfidence of his new comrades, he also begins to look with a new light at the actions of his former country, Nazi Germany. Has he again found himself on the wrong side, and is his new country going down the same evil course to disaster ? Definately one of Harry Turtledove's better and more imaginative works - almost as good as "The Guns of the South." Strongly recommended.

After the Downfall, by Harry Turtledove feels somewhat familiar to an experienced reader of Turtledove's work. We have a fantasy world with unusual magic. We have a sympathetic Wehrmacht officer in the mold of Heinrich Jäger from the Worldwar series. We have some speculations on the nature of Gods (Goddesses actually) in a world where belief in them gives them power. We get medieval battle tactics. We get sex. In this case, however, Turtledove decides to mix them together, add some interesting characters and see what comes out of such alchemy. Hasso Pemsel is not having a good day. You wouldn't either if you were a German army officer in 1945, with the Russians knocking on the door of the Museum in Berlin you have been, improbably, been asked to guard. Joking around with his soldiers, he sits on an Omphalos stone...and finds himself in a different world entirely. With his gun, he saves a blond bombshell from a group of pursuers armed with primitive weapons. His reward from the woman for saving her from her pursuers is somewhat unexpected, but it puts him foursquare on the side of her people, the Lenelli, in their own pursuit of lebensraum in a new land. Hasso learns the language, learns how special Velona really is (a sometime avatar of the Goddess of the Lenelli) and joins their struggle against their even more primitive neighbors in a world of medieval weapons and magic. Fortunately, while Hasso's ammo is limited, his knowledge and ability to help his new found friends is not. Homage to L Sprague De Camp (a la Martin Padway or Harold Shea)? I think so. Wish fulfillment for Hasso? No. Unfortunately, for Hasso, he gets a dose of reality when he gets fully engaged in a war between the Lenelli and the Grenye... As I said above, the novel does have elements seen in Turtledove's earlier work. It would be a mistake to say this was a paint by numbers affair, since he does explore sociological questions in a new way, and some of the mid-rank characters are interesting and well developed (in addition to Hasso, who has the most character growth of course). Turtledove lets us learn more about Hasso's new world in bits and pieces and we get a real sense of what's going on, and the readers sympathies can gradually and naturally change along with the protagonist's. Its not really a spoiler to suggest that the Lenelli-Grenye struggle is very much analogous to the German-Russian portion of the conflict of World War II. The historical allegory is strong, but not overpowering. I wouldn't start here as a first Turtledove novel.It's not Turtledove's best novel, but fans of Turtledove (like me) who have read a decent spread of his work will certainly enjoy it.

Harry Turtledove posits a typical Nazi soldier, in the last days of the defense of Berlin in 1945...Hasso Pemsel...who is supposed to defend to the death the ruins of the old Berlin Museum. All of the antiquities have supposedly been taken to safety in bunkers, but he finds a big rock that he hides behind, taking refuge from the Russian sharpshooters. He sees the information sign is still there, and it says that the big rock is the Omphalos stone, from the temple of Apollo at Delphi. He crawls on top of it and disappears. He of course, reappears in an alternate reality...sort of a cross between Andre Norton's first Witch World novel and A Connecticut Yankee, with gorgeous Goddess priestess, who literally throws herself on her back and spreads her legs for him. The story is an allegory about the Nazis and the way their beliefs about "untermenschen" made them vulnerable to the Russians, and by extension, to the Jews they were so busy exterminating. Pemsel first works for King Bottero, whose tall, blonde people have invaded and subjugated the smaller, darker Grenye. All except for the nation of Bucovin. Bucovin is Russia without the communism...and its leader, Lord Zgomat, is a dead ringer for Lev Trotsky had he lived to run Russia. Pemsel teaches the Lenelli what they are willing to learn about new tactics, and they initially have success in invading Bucovin. Then Pemsel is captured. His Nazi nose is rubbed into the fact that the Lenelli are not kindly conquerors, and that the Bucovins are fighting to save their lives and their homes-- and are just as much people as the Lenelli, or as Pemsel himself, is...or, he reflects, as the Jews in his vanished home world must be. There's lots of action to cloak the allegory, and Turtledove is at his best in his characters... King Bottero is Mussolini in a big blonde way, for example. There are the two noncoms...one Lenello, Orosei, and one Bucovin, Rautat, who are really well drawn three-dimensional characters. This is one of Turtledove's best books in a while. I strongly recommend it. Walt Boyes Associate Editor Jim Baen's Universe magazine www.baens-universe.com