Tilting the Balance - Worldwar 2 - Harry Turtledove Book Review

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Review Summary

World War II is interrupted by an alien invasion. Americans, Soviets, Nazis, and, Japanese temporarily call a truce and unite to face a common foe. They agree to pool their resources, but work independently to develop nuclear weapons in secret. Jews in Warsaw who surrendered to the aliens cheer as Berlin disappears in a mushroom cloud, but become disillusioned when Washington, DC is vaporized because the invaders cannot tell one group of human enemies from another.

A brilliant nuclear physicist struggles to be reunited with his beautiful wife, but is hampered by security. His wife, giving him up for dead, marries an ex-baseball player turned soldier. And at the end of the book, the Soviet Union detonates humanity's first nuclear bomb with plutonium stolen from the aliens. This book is told from the point of view of several different characters, both alien and human, historical and fictitious

Wayne S. Urben, Resident Scholar

Detailed literary breakdown of Tilting the Balance - Worldwar 2

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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot

Composition of Book
Descript. of chases or violence - 40%
planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 20%
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 20%
Descript. of society, phenomena (tech), places - 20%

Tone of book - suspenseful (sophisticated fear)
FANTASY or SCIENCE FICTION? - alternate history
If an invasion, from Earth/human POV: - fighting overt invasion (attacking aliens)
War or Invasion Yes
Major kinds of combat: - guns - air battles
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Cultural problems, alien culture Yes
Culture clash- - one culture tries to impose its culture on another group
Intense exploration of society's culture? Yes

Main Character
Identity: - Male
Profession/status: - infantry soldier
Age: - 20's-30's
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events? Yes
How sensitive is this character? - middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - very athletic

Main Adversary
Identity: - an entire race
Profession/status: - infantry soldier
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - throughout most of the book.
How sensitive is this character? - mean, arrogant
Sense of humor - Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence - Very much smarter than other characters
Physique - healthy but a geeky weakling

Setting
Terrain - Jungle - Desert - Water - Mountains - Forests
Earth setting: - 20th century
Spaceship setting: - alien spaceship
Takes place on Earth? Yes
Takes place in spaceship? Yes

Style
Person? - mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death? - very explicit references to deaths and torture
scientific jargon? (SF only) - a significant amount of technical jargon
Sex in book? Yes
What kind of sex: - descript of kissing - descript of touching personal anatomy - impregnation/reproduction - actual description of sex - description of breasts - descript. of private male anat. - descript. of non-breast female anat.
How much dialogue? - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog

Most similar books to Tilting the Balance - Worldwar 2
Colonization: Down To Earth by Harry Turtledove
Colonization: Second Contact by Harry Turtledove
Roma Eterna by Robert Silverberg
In the Balance - Worldwar 1 by Harry Turtledove
Apacheria: An Epic of Alternate History by Jake Page

Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s).

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