A cycle of six books by which covers the story of from a global perspective, using from all the major participant nations (). The twist is that this is not the we know, but the same sequence of events transposed onto a generic world which has used to achieve industrialisation. Fantastic equivalents for real weapons and technologies abound: dragons for aircraft, leviathans for submarines, behemoths for tanks. One of the more interesting twists is that the do not match up with the countries they're representing: Turtledove randomly mixed ethnicities and used languages and place names from more obscure countries. For example, the nation of Kuusamo is the equivalent of the United States, but is inhabited by Finnish-speaking East Asians. This allows the reader to take a slightly more objective view of the conflict.

In addition to this, most of the continents are in the southern hemisphere of this planet, east and west are flipped but north and south are not. This means countries which are cold in are often hot in the Darkness world and vice versa: for example, Zuwayza (Fantastic Finland) is a red hot desert country while the Land of the Ice People (Fantastic North Africa) is an icebound wasteland.

This book series contains examples of: •: Sort of, appropriately enough given Turtledove's other works. Putting things in terms, this version of starts when Germany marches into Danzig—Poland is not conquered until the end of the first book. Britain isn't a member of the Allies from the start. And America and Japan are already at war before the main war begins. •: Largely averted; Kuusamo plays the same major role as the United States in, but it's made clear that it's the Unkerlanters (Fantastic Soviets) who do most of the fighting. •: Plenty of viewpoint characters die after featuring in multiple books. They are often replaced by one of their friends or comrades who we've already met in their narrative to ease the transition.

(Turtledove also uses this trick in some of his other series). •: The weapons known only as 'sticks' that infantry use in lieu of guns, being a sort of mass-produced magic wand or wizard's staff that fires an energy blast when a finger is placed into the firing hole.

The blasts can be attenuated by heavy rain. •: This is a fantastic version of, but not everything exactly matches up, the order of events is sometimes different, and expectations are played with.

Dishayen Serial Episode 1. •: Not an actual example, but invoked: Kaunian Vanai creates a spell which allows her to take on a Forthwegian appearance, in order to hide from the Algarvians. Her Forthwegian lover Ealstan is a bit that the spell for some reason makes her look almost exactly like his sister Conberge. •: King Swemmel (Fantastic ), who boils his enemies in huge kettles.

Oddly enough, King Mezentio (Fantastic ) comes across as less crazy (but strong-willed), although he's rarely seen. •: Turtledove likes this trope; there are constant cultural comparisons between the various racial groups and countries — some fairly unpleasant. The one that sticks out is the fact that the people of baking hot Zuwayza commonly go naked except for a wide-brimmed hat and sandals. Most foreigners consider this bizarre, but the ambassador from Algarve goes native - though he still gets funny glances from the Zuwayzi as Algarvians are all circumcised.

•: Deconstructed — while dragons are commonly used for aerial combat, they are nasty, foul-tempered, violent, and stupid creatures who have to be cruelly treated from birth in order to discourage them from killing their riders. •: Pekka's storyline is about the magical equivalent of the Manhattan Project. The is finally used at the end of the last book, but in a slight change to real history, only one is used and it's used against the capital of the Japan equivalent, killing their emperor equivalent. •: The series is about a fantasy version of WWII. With shooting 'sticks' as guns, dragons as aircraft, behemoths for tanks, leviathans for submarines, earthquake-generating spells powered by in place of airstrikes, the America equivalent even develops a. •: Sticks for guns, crystals for radios (these effectively being standardised, mass-produced magic wands and crystal balls respectively), egg-tossers for artillery.

•: The Darkness series does this rather directly, but subverts it somewhat by mixing and matching cultures around — for example, the equivalent of Nazi Germany has Celtic ethnicity and Italian language. • Also done for the purpose of irony as the fantastic equivalent of Jews are described as being fair and blond (the Nazis' espoused 'Aryan ideal') and implied to be the remnants of the equivalent of the Roman Empire (which Nazi Germany took many motifs from). Furthermore, the Algarvians are circumcised. •: Once you've figured out who's who, you know who's going to lose—although not everything is exactly like our.

•: Rule Magic (spells are weakened by proximity to water, while they are powered up when close to ') and Device Magic ('sticks' and 'eggs', magical equivalents of guns and bombs, respectively), as well as some forms of Alchemy. The Nazi-analogue Algarvians also make use of a kind of Black Magic toward the end of the war, as a last resort; it's powered by mass human sacrifice, drawing upon the many ethnic prisoners they took over the course of the conflict. There's also a magical Manhattan Project, utilising heavily mathematical and rigorous investigation of the fundamental laws of magic, much akin to the study of physics. • /: The Algarvians' Holocaust-powered superweapon, which uses mass human sacrifice in what is implied to be a, or rather the Powers Below. •: At least two of them, including the. •: Like all Turtledove's fantasy settings, this one runs on two basic rules of magic—the 'Law of Similarity' (two visually similar things are magically connected) and the 'Law of Contagion' (two things that have touched are magically connected). Research magicians find a new universal principle connecting the two laws, which allows them to make a.

•: Mezentio is Hitler, Swemmel is Stalin, etc. •: Most countries' people seem to follow roughly the same dualistic religion, and swear by 'Powers above!' And 'Powers below!' The Gyongyosians, being the odd one out, instead worship the stars, and swear by them. The Ice People are the only ones whose religion actually mentions 'gods' and they are considered backwards and primitive by everyone else. •: They're considered rather stupid creatures that 'pilots' have to beat with crops to get them to cooperate.

The NOOK Book (eBook) of the Into the Darkness: A Novel of the World At War by Harry Turtledove at Barnes & Noble. FREE Shipping on $25 or more! Find great deals on eBay for harry turtledove darkness. Shop with confidence.

•: The Zuwayzi have no nudity taboo due to the heat of their homeland leading them to mostly go naked except for a wide-brimmed hat and sandals. •: Used extensively; hair colour, along with clothing (kilts vs trousers vs tunics) is the main racial identifier. Algarvic (Fantastic Germanic) peoples like the Algarvians, Sibians and Lagoans (Fantastic Germans, Danes/Norwegians and British) have red hair. Kaunian (Romance and Jewish) peoples like the Jelgavans, Valmierans and the Kaunians of Forthweg (Low Countries, French and Jews of Poland) have blond hair. The 'Slavic' peoples of Unkerlant, Forthweg and Grelz (Russia, Poland and Ukraine) have brown hair.

•: When Pekka and Fernao, both major characters from the beginning, finally meet at the series' halfway point, they slowly start to fall in love with each other; Pekka is married, but both she and her husband Leino are being kept in total isolation with their colleagues working on separate top secret projects. Tarzan Game Setup Free Download For Pc here. Meanwhile, Leino's shagging one of his coworkers (who aside from her looks really has nothing going for her) with far fewer reservations.

This could have created a very complicated and messy situation when everyone met, but instead Turtledove kills Leino and his lover at the beginning of the last book. Somewhat played with as news of Leino's death (but not his affair, no one ever finds out about that) initially makes Pekka feel enormously guilty and break off her relationship with Fernao, though eventually they get back together and get married. •: The Algarvians are able to conquer Sibiu in a surprise attack by using a fleet of 'primitive' sailships which aren't often used for military operations anymore; everyone assumes that an invasion fleet would be made up of magical leyline-using floating ships, which can be magically tracked. •: Dragons and other war creatures are painted in the colours of the countries' flags or military uniforms: for example, Algarve uses red, white and green, Kuusamo uses sky-blue and sea-green, and Unkerlant uses rock-grey. •: The Gyongyosians (Fantastic Japanese) have a taboo about eating goat meat. The Zuwayzans (Fantastic Finns) wear little to no clothing due to the heat of their country. Individual members of the Ice People (Fantastic North Africans) have particular fetish animals whose meat they will not eat.

Algarvians are all circumcised at the age of fourteen, which the other nations find to be a strange practice.

The Darkness Series -Harry Turtledove Into the Darkness (1999) Darkness Descending (2000) Through the Darkness (2001) Rulers of the Darkness (2002) Jaws of the Darkness (2003) Out of the Darkness (2004) The Darkness series can be summed up in one sentence; its World War Two fought out with magical weapons on a fantasy background. If you have any knowledge of World War Two, you will be able to predict the course of this book with complete accuracy. There are some minor changes, yet somehow none of them have effects that are different from World War Two.

Everything from the Holocaust to the Battle of Stalingrad has its equivalent within the Darkness tomes. It‘s probably easier to think of the Darkness world as being based around a radically different tech base to our own, rather than straight-up magic. People do not get turned into frogs, nor are there curses (although there are suggestions of curses), teleportation and other standard fantasy fare. That said, there are little spells that work like standard magic spells, including one that disguises a person. The universe is not always consistent. The Darkness world, in some respects, is quite like a fantasy world.

Instead of aircraft, there are dragons; instead of submarines, there are massive fish; instead of tanks, there are behemoths. (The front covers of the UK editions of the books have very classical images of them.) Ships sail on ley lines and use them for power, as do the Darkness counterpart of railways. Military tactics are slightly warped because of these requirements – the lines, unlike our railways, are not built by humanity.

Some of the places of power allow greater magical works to be performed. Magic sometimes works badly in isolated countries. The exact capabilities of the magic are never precisely determined. The politics of the Darkness world are our own of 1940-45, seen through a glass darkly.

There are some odd points – ‘Japan‘ is at war with ‘Russia,‘ ‘Britain‘ doesn‘t join the war until ‘Norway‘ is invaded – yet it is recognizably WW2. (One of the more annoying points is that most of the nations are fairly identical.) They are all aristocratic states – the hints of socialism never seem to take flight – and the rulers are all fairly typical standard fantasy types. There‘s the noble lord who carries on the fight after his nation is defeated and the spoilt brat of a princess who gets into bed – literally – with the invaders. As is fairly typical for Turtledove, the story follows a vast array of characters as they make their way through the war. I really cannot list all of them now, although I do admit that Turtledove does a good job of leaving them all separate, with different identities.

Their mere survival cannot be guaranteed either – quite a few of them die in the course the story, only to be replaced by their best friend as POV character. Don‘t get too attached to anyone. My main gripe with the series is that it is FAR too close to WW2. This results in considerable logic-bending. Turtledove would, I feel, have been wiser to take the country he devised, think through the implications more carefully, and allow events to run on their own path. Instead, the promising hints of interesting and eccentric magic are pushed aside to ensure that events follow a WW2 timeline that makes little sense in their world.

The past history of the Darkness world doesn't match up with OTL, yet we are expected to accept that it led to the same place. Turtledove shows plenty of imagination in this series, but so much of it is in the wrong place. The series does have its good and interesting moments, yet it offers little new for the discerning reader.