I'm currently reading Turtledove's latest novel in the Great War/American Empire series, The Victorious Opposition. If you haven't read any of his books, he is an "alternate history" science fiction author, asking and answering all kinds of "what if?" questions. Many of his ideas are intriguing -- what would have happened if the US and the British/French alliance were on opposite sides in World War One? But, while I love his ideas, his dialogue needs serious help (although it has seen marked improvement in this latest novel).
Turtledove has a bad habit - which, again, he appears to be trying to shake in Opposition - of trying to recap earlier events through dialogue rather than through narrative. Instead of introducing recurring characters in a new novel through use of a short, narrative blurb, he tries to inform the reader of their history through allusions in the characters' speech. This makes things almost painfully awkward. He also has a tendency to allude to the Great War in this same fashion, trying to maintain the link to that horrific experience through spoken reference rather than through character development (instead of having developed a fear of loud noises, characters will remark on loud noises in some way that connects it to wartime experience). This tends to lead to flat, cardboard characters, saying things like:
[A bar in Canada, 1935]
Bartender: Welcome back, Mr. Moss! How about a beer? It's ice cold -- as cold as the trenches on the Winnipeg front back when you were flying fighting scouts here during the War and you got shot down but that was fortunate 'cause it let you meet that nice Canuck lady whom you later married!
Jonathon Moss: Thanks, bud. Boy, am I worn out -- I feel like I've been in a bayonet charge across a hundred miles of muddy ground like they had to fight through down in Virginia when General Custer couldn't get those armored vehicles he kept asking the War Department for back in 1917 but which he finally got. Yep, I'm that tired. Fry me up a hamsteak, will you?
[Enter a young, newly married couple]
Mort Pomeroy: Gee, Mary, this place is swell! I'm so glad you decided to marry me, even more glad than a doughboy being shipped home when the War ended! Too bad those bombings keep happening back home, eh?
Mary [who has actually been the one planting aforementioned bombs]: Yes, Mort, and I'm so happy, which is unusual since I've been so bitter these past twenty years since the Yanks shot my brother for planning to blow up the railroad and Daddy went out and got revenge on them by blowing up their headquarters and that really pissed them off but they never caught him until he got blown up trying to kill General Custer -- but this history of suspicious activity has nothing to do with little ol' me, of course. Would you like me to order you a hamsteak?
[Enter a Confederate prison warden and a Confederate doyenne]
Jefferson Pinkard: What the... how the hell did I wind up in Canada? Oh, well -- I smell hamsteak, and that's the best smell I've smelled since I could smell the Cordite from our guns as we blew away Yankees down in Texas back in the Great War, which we would have won if the Negroes hadn't risen up against us and made us lose, but for which we will have our revenge. Bartender -- a beer and a fried hamsteak, please! Freedom!
Anne Colleton: Freedom, indeed, fellow Freedom Party member! Although I have no respect for you as a man since I'm a cast-iron lady who's so independent that I even led a South Carolina militia against the Red Negro rebels back in 1916 and eventually lost my plantation and fortune as well as my brother who was murdered by the detestable Red leader Cassius, I can agree with you that the Freedom Party is our path to salvation! The South shall rise again! And we'll liberate Occupied Canada, too, since the Damnyankees stole it from our friends the British back in the War.
[Enter a Jewish woman from New York and her elderly husband]
Flora Hamburger-Blackford: Hosea, you need to eat something, or else you'll fall down dead like my dear departed brother-in-law who was killed after being drafted by those good-for-nothing Democrats and sent off to fight in Kentucky although he was really only my brother-in-law because he knocked up my sister before leaving to fight that stupid war for the Capitalist oppressors. Here, let me order you a hamsteak.
Hosea Blackford [Former President of the United States]: *cough*... *hack*... *wheeze*... Hey, are we in Canada? How'd we get here?
Bartender: Hey, everybody! It's Hosea Blackford, former President of the United States! Hello, Mr. President -- sorry you got trounced so badly in that last election after the economy tanked on you in 1929 and everyone started losing their jobs and homes and living in shanty slums called Blackfordburghs and then the Mormons started giving you trouble in Utah and everyone decided that we needed a President who actually *could* find his butt with both hands! Here -- the beer is on the house! It's as cold as the watery grave that Sylvia Enos's husband George from Boston now occupies and which is why she traveled to North Carolina to kill that Roger Kimball guy who sunk her husband's warship after the war was officially over. I'll get busy on your hamsteak. Or would you like beefsteak? They're the only two known foods in this world, so you'd better order one of them.
Jefferson Pinkard: Did he say President of the United States?
Anne Colleton: I think so.
Jefferson Pinkard and Anne Colleton: Check, please!
Okay, so it may not be quite that bad, but it's close. Turtledove, to his credit, has begun to tone down the lengthy reintroductions that tarnished some of his earlier books (such as Blood and Iron and Breakthroughs, which spent nearly a full 100 pages reintroducing characters) and is finally giving his characters a little more life. I enjoy the grandiose plot lines, and if he can bring the character development and dialogue up to speed, the next trilogy in this series should be good to read (that trilogy will be launched this August, by the way, in the form of Return Engagement).
I have yet to read any of Turtledove's fantasy books, but hopefully someone who has can chime in here on them.
Turtledove has a bad habit - which, again, he appears to be trying to shake in Opposition - of trying to recap earlier events through dialogue rather than through narrative. Instead of introducing recurring characters in a new novel through use of a short, narrative blurb, he tries to inform the reader of their history through allusions in the characters' speech. This makes things almost painfully awkward. He also has a tendency to allude to the Great War in this same fashion, trying to maintain the link to that horrific experience through spoken reference rather than through character development (instead of having developed a fear of loud noises, characters will remark on loud noises in some way that connects it to wartime experience). This tends to lead to flat, cardboard characters, saying things like:
[A bar in Canada, 1935]
Bartender: Welcome back, Mr. Moss! How about a beer? It's ice cold -- as cold as the trenches on the Winnipeg front back when you were flying fighting scouts here during the War and you got shot down but that was fortunate 'cause it let you meet that nice Canuck lady whom you later married!
Jonathon Moss: Thanks, bud. Boy, am I worn out -- I feel like I've been in a bayonet charge across a hundred miles of muddy ground like they had to fight through down in Virginia when General Custer couldn't get those armored vehicles he kept asking the War Department for back in 1917 but which he finally got. Yep, I'm that tired. Fry me up a hamsteak, will you?
[Enter a young, newly married couple]
Mort Pomeroy: Gee, Mary, this place is swell! I'm so glad you decided to marry me, even more glad than a doughboy being shipped home when the War ended! Too bad those bombings keep happening back home, eh?
Mary [who has actually been the one planting aforementioned bombs]: Yes, Mort, and I'm so happy, which is unusual since I've been so bitter these past twenty years since the Yanks shot my brother for planning to blow up the railroad and Daddy went out and got revenge on them by blowing up their headquarters and that really pissed them off but they never caught him until he got blown up trying to kill General Custer -- but this history of suspicious activity has nothing to do with little ol' me, of course. Would you like me to order you a hamsteak?
[Enter a Confederate prison warden and a Confederate doyenne]
Jefferson Pinkard: What the... how the hell did I wind up in Canada? Oh, well -- I smell hamsteak, and that's the best smell I've smelled since I could smell the Cordite from our guns as we blew away Yankees down in Texas back in the Great War, which we would have won if the Negroes hadn't risen up against us and made us lose, but for which we will have our revenge. Bartender -- a beer and a fried hamsteak, please! Freedom!
Anne Colleton: Freedom, indeed, fellow Freedom Party member! Although I have no respect for you as a man since I'm a cast-iron lady who's so independent that I even led a South Carolina militia against the Red Negro rebels back in 1916 and eventually lost my plantation and fortune as well as my brother who was murdered by the detestable Red leader Cassius, I can agree with you that the Freedom Party is our path to salvation! The South shall rise again! And we'll liberate Occupied Canada, too, since the Damnyankees stole it from our friends the British back in the War.
[Enter a Jewish woman from New York and her elderly husband]
Flora Hamburger-Blackford: Hosea, you need to eat something, or else you'll fall down dead like my dear departed brother-in-law who was killed after being drafted by those good-for-nothing Democrats and sent off to fight in Kentucky although he was really only my brother-in-law because he knocked up my sister before leaving to fight that stupid war for the Capitalist oppressors. Here, let me order you a hamsteak.
Hosea Blackford [Former President of the United States]: *cough*... *hack*... *wheeze*... Hey, are we in Canada? How'd we get here?
Bartender: Hey, everybody! It's Hosea Blackford, former President of the United States! Hello, Mr. President -- sorry you got trounced so badly in that last election after the economy tanked on you in 1929 and everyone started losing their jobs and homes and living in shanty slums called Blackfordburghs and then the Mormons started giving you trouble in Utah and everyone decided that we needed a President who actually *could* find his butt with both hands! Here -- the beer is on the house! It's as cold as the watery grave that Sylvia Enos's husband George from Boston now occupies and which is why she traveled to North Carolina to kill that Roger Kimball guy who sunk her husband's warship after the war was officially over. I'll get busy on your hamsteak. Or would you like beefsteak? They're the only two known foods in this world, so you'd better order one of them.
Jefferson Pinkard: Did he say President of the United States?
Anne Colleton: I think so.
Jefferson Pinkard and Anne Colleton: Check, please!
Okay, so it may not be quite that bad, but it's close. Turtledove, to his credit, has begun to tone down the lengthy reintroductions that tarnished some of his earlier books (such as Blood and Iron and Breakthroughs, which spent nearly a full 100 pages reintroducing characters) and is finally giving his characters a little more life. I enjoy the grandiose plot lines, and if he can bring the character development and dialogue up to speed, the next trilogy in this series should be good to read (that trilogy will be launched this August, by the way, in the form of Return Engagement).
I have yet to read any of Turtledove's fantasy books, but hopefully someone who has can chime in here on them.
