Worldwar: In the Balance (New English library): Amazon.co.uk: Harry Turtledove: 9780340618394: Books

Product Description

World War II seethed across the planet. Hostilities spread in ever-widening circles of destruction. Then the real enemy arrived. Out of the skies came an inhuman invasion force, their weaponary overwhelming and with a simple goal: Fleetlord Atvar had arrived to claim Earth for the Empire.

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Customer Reviews

16 Reviews

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4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
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4.0 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)

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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Is it WWII?Is it an Alien Invasion! Is it patronising?, 9 Jan 2002

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dazzawhite@hotmail.com (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Worldwar: In the Balance (New English library) (Paperback)

I'm sure everyone is aware that this is an alternative history novel about an alien invasion force turning up in the middle of the 2nd World War, and yes it is incredible patronising to everyone outside the US (especially us Brits!), and yes the Yanks do save us all (eventually, sort of) but you can forgive that because of the sheer entertainment factor! It's worth reading to experience the considered view of how a different physiology and culture would affect technological development alone. It also feels like reading a history book from a parrellel universe. The scale and breadth of it is stunning. Wonderful stuff. I read it in a few days then RAN to the book shop to get the rest of them. Now I've just fallen over myself to order the next three. I do know poeple who didn't like it, but if you don't, then perhaps sci-fi's not the genre for you...

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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book rocks, 17 April 2002

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martinhpage@yahoo.com (Scotland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Worldwar: In the Balance (New English library) (Paperback)

This is the first volume in an amazing, gritty, well researched, and sweeping tale. It's worth reading just to see what happens when the aliens arrive expecting to find 11th-century technology and instead encounter Tiger tanks.

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Credible, thrilling, touching - could hardly be better, 19 Aug 2009

By

Printul Noptilor (Eastern Europe) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Worldwar: In the Balance (New English library) (Paperback)

This is a novel of alternative history. During the beginning stage of World War II, space aliens invade Earth. Warring nations quickly realize that aliens are a worse threat than ideological adversaries among humans, so the English, Germans, Russians etc. become (admittedly sometimes not-so-friendly) allies. Obviously, the aliens are technologically much more advanced, but humans are not exactly resourceless either.
This is absolutely the most believable alternative history that I have ever read. The characters are amazing and the author has done his homework extremely well. He makes different nations, different mentalities, different historical circumstances so masterfully vivid in front of our eyes that a few minor Russian language mistakes really don't matter.
Now, another reviewer wrote that Mr. Turtledove has made the aliens incredibly stupid. I disagree. They are clearly less intelligent than humans in some aspects but not so much as to seem implausible. Besides, if a novel is to be exciting, thrilling, gripping, there has to be balance, right? If you are to successfully resist a much stronger enemy, you have to be more clever than him, don't you?
Sure enough, I can imagine that some other author would have made the aliens technologically advanced AND intelligent (as well as making the Russians, Germans and Japanese stupid beyond comprehension, as English-speaking authors usually do), and then sent in a bunch of Schwarzeneggers. Those would have shot down a thousand times their number without breaking a sweat, and destroyed the alien spaceships with their hand grenades through sheer luck. You know, the kind of stuff we've all seen in dozens of Hollywood movies. Well, maybe some people like things happening that way. Not me. I say that Mr. Turtledove has skillfully balanced the alien's technological advantage against humans' inventiveness and, in my opinion, succeeded in creating a perfect balance.
After I had completed reading this one, I just had to buy the second volume "Tilting the Balance" and I am currently reading that.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Exciting if it would not go on and on.
Harry Turtledove writes alternative history books. In World War: In the Balance there is an alien invasion during World War II. Read more

Published 20 months ago by A. P. J. Jansen

4.0 out of 5 stars Sci-fi war on Terra Firma
Turtledove has created a niche market all to himself through his alternate-history novels. In The Balance sees the start of a grand war on Earth between humans and an invasion... Read more

Published on 6 Feb 2009 by Mr. G. Battle

5.0 out of 5 stars Another great novel and realistic depiction of aliens
Another splendid novel from this author, the third I have read in less than two months. Aside from the intrinsic fascination of the alternate timeline, one of the author's great... Read more