From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed Apr 3 16:46:35 1996 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.books.reviews,soc.history.what-if,alt.history.what-if Path: news.ifm.liu.se!solace!paladin.american.edu!gatech!swrinde!sgigate.sgi.com!uhog.mit.edu!news!news From: "Evelyn C Leeper" Subject: Review: THE TWO GEORGES by Richard Dreyfuss & Harry Turtledove Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Keywords: author=Evelyn C Leeper Lines: 83 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu (Graystreak) Reply-To: ecl@mtcts1.mt.att.com Organization: Intelligent Agents Group X-Newsreader: (ding) Gnus v0.94 Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 22:17:53 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Lines: 83 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:915 rec.arts.books.reviews:1477 soc.history.what-if:7352 alt.history.what-if:23802 THE TWO GEORGES by Richard Dreyfuss and Harry Turtledove A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1996 Evelyn C. Leeper The cover describes Dreyfuss as an Oscar winner, and Turtledove as a Hugo winner. Of the two, the latter is perhaps more germane to the book -- Dreyfuss won as an actor, not a writer. But Turtledove has said that Dreyfuss contributed heavily to the dialogue, so perhaps this is a more equal partnership than last year's team of Gingrich and Forstchen. However, this book does have the (apparently) obligatory sex scene. Mercifully, this one is shorter. The premise of THE TWO GEORGES is that there was no American Revolution. The exact details of how this occurred (or perhaps more accurately, failed to occur) are not spelled out. This is actually a good touch, because too often the background is given as a sort of "lump," something like, "Fred mused how different the world would be if Queen Mary had died earlier and her bastard sister Elizabeth had become Queen of England." There's actually something refreshing about NOT getting all the details. Of course, Dreyfuss and Turtledove don't entirely avoid this sort of thing. There are a fair number of references to what Washington or King George (the two Georges of the title) did and how that affected the present. Given that we rarely find ourselves thinking how different our world would be if there were no American Revolution, at least in our daily routine, this does feel a bit artificial. And the main character at one point is reading THE UNITED COLONIES TRIUMPHANT, an alternate history book about OUR world. The book is alternate history but the plot is strictly mystery: the famous Gainsborough painting "The Two Georges" has been stolen while touring the North American colonies and just before King-Emperor Charles III was due to speak in front of it. The radical separatist group, the Sons of Liberty, has stolen it and is demanding a ransom for its return, and Colonel Thomas Bushnell and Samuel Stanley of the RAMP are assigned to recover the painting, which is a major cultural icon (sort of like the original Declaration of Independence). Turtledove is good at research, so it's hard to find errors per se. One of my complaints is more a stylistic one: I find it difficult to believe that two hundred years after the break point we would have any of the same people as we have in our world, and in very similar positions. In particular, I find it difficult to explain how Martin Luther King, Jr., would have been as involved in politics in a society with far fewer racial problems that our own as he was in ours. I also question whether the Irish would be as prominent, since a change in politics preventing the American Revolution might very well have prevented the Irish Potato Famine as well. Other references that served more as stumbling blocks than stepping stones were Beethoven writing his Third Symphony to celebrate Napoleon's uprising against Louis XVI, and the use of "To Anacreon in Heaven" as the North American anthem. Language-wise Dreyfuss and Turtledove sick fairly closely to British English (with references to serviettes rather than napkins, for example), but do occasionally slip, calling trousers pants, or vests undershirts. (I am reminded of the recent report of the British MP who was found dead in "pants and suspenders." To most Americans, this doesn't sound too shocking; however, the American translation is that he was found in "undershorts and a garter belt.") Unfortunately, the mystery part of this novel, which is the main plot, is not particularly well-constructed. Clues are telegraphed, and in general there is a lot of fairly standard stuff going on. There is also a fairly standard romance with Bushnell meeting a professional woman with whom he initially does not get along, and so on. I liked the background of THE TWO GEORGES, even with my reservations, and would recommend it for that reason to alternate history fans. But it is the alternate history aspect that makes this book worthwhile. If that aspect doesn't appeal to you, you can skip it as a mystery. %T The Two Georges %A Richard Dreyfuss %A Harry Turtledove %C New York %D March 1996 %I Tor %O hardback, US$23.95 %G ISBN 0-312-85969-4 %P 384pp Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | eleeper@lucent.com <==NOTE NEW ADDRESS "People are worried about online porn on the Internet. It's the endless `Who's better--Kirk or Picard?' threads that *should* scare them." -- Jim Mullen, _Entertainment Weekly_ From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Aug 29 15:30:04 1996 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!solace!news.stealth.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.kei.com!uhog.mit.edu!news!news From: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu (Graystreak) Subject: Review: The Two Georges, by Richard Dreyfuss and Harry Turtledove Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Keywords: author=Kevin Lauderdale Lines: 86 Sender: news@media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Intelligent Agents Group X-Newsreader: (ding) Gnus v0.94 Date: Mon, 19 Aug 1996 20:45:55 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Lines: 86 The Two Georges by Richard Dreyfuss and Harry Turtledove Review Copyright 1996 Kevin Lauderdale The joy in an alternate history novel is in the details, not the high concept. The high concept behind Richard Dreyfuss' (yes, the actor) and Harry Turtledove's (the SF writer, most notably of GUNS OF THE SOUTH, a brilliant almost-alternate history novel about the American Civil War) THE TWO GEORGES is that the American colonies never broke away from England. And now, in 1996, they remain part of the globe-circling British Empire. In order to better cement the bonds between the colonies and England, Gainsborough's painting, THE TWO GEORGES depicting George Washington meeting King George III is touring North America. The painting is stolen, and it's up to Thomas Bushell of the Los Angeles (here, "New Liverpool") police dept. to retrieve it. The atmosphere and dialog are decidedly British and occasionally antiquated. For British readers of this novel, it makes things merely quaint. For us colonials, it makes things nearly foreign. Along with "boot" for trunk and all that pre-1970s British currency -- "that'll be seven and six and a ha'penny" -- we get "jakes" for restroom, a reference at least as old as Shakespeare. It certainly evokes an atmosphere of an America dominated by Britain, but it's also so present that after a while it calls attention to itself. Thankfully, the book does contain maps of the world, but a glossary would have been helpful as well. This is a book that doesn't require you to know British English, American history, or Los Angeles landmarks, but it rewards you if you do. This makes THE TWO GEORGES an extremely entertaining read for UCLA liberal arts majors, and a slightly confusing one for everyone else. It's not that the plot hangs on some obscure element of British history, it's just that a lot of the texture of the book might be lost if you're not familiar with the likes of King Canute and Beethoven's Third Symphony. Fortunately, the names that we need to know are the ones that we will know. In the world of THE TWO GEORGES, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King are still alive, but playing much different roles. In a good alternate universe story, it's not just what changes, but who. Richard Nixon has become a hugely successful used-car dealer. The painting, we soon learn, has been stolen by The Sons of Liberty -- COMMON SENSE is their monthly magazine -- but they're not just anti-Crown, they're against anyone who isn't as white as they are. That makes for better villains than just having them be Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine 200 years later. Everyday life in the North American Union (NAU) in 1996 looks like life in the USA, circa 1936. Apparently the American Revolution only bought us about 60 years of progress. Women's skirts barely rise above their calves, and making a long-distance phone call takes forever as you get switched from operator to operator. You don't fly from one coast to the other in a plane, you take a dirigible. Irish laborers and "Nuevespanolans" do the dirty work, and when you come home from your trip, you drive a steam-powered car: "He turned the key. A battery-powered sparker lit the burner. A twist of thedashboard knob brought the flame up to high. Then he had nothing to do but wait and watch the pressure gauge." That's classic Turtledove. He gracefully slips in the details without being too obvious about it, and there's touch of humor. Bushell, for instance, is given two months to solve the case. This is a world that moves at a leisurely pace. One of the elements that stands out the most is the sense of what police work and crime are like in this all but non-gun world. "Gunplay twice now," says Bushell's assistant, Sam Stanley in amazement. Only twice in a crime novel? This is a far cry from the constant gun play and never-emptying bullet cartridges we see in many novels featuring the police. The USA in this 1996 is like the UK in 1936, where not only did the police not carry guns because the criminals didn't either, but all they had to do was shout, "Stop! Police!" and more often than not, the criminal would. The painting, of course, is merely a MacGuffin which allows the writers to take us across the North American continent, exploring the many facets of this alternate America. But with Turtledove and Dreyfuss, who must have learned something about story, pacing, and dialog during the 30 plus years he's been acting, the trip is a pleasure. The investigation takes us from California to the Nations' capital, with visits to embassy parties and a trip down a coal mine in between. The book is 384 pages of small print, but it's a fast read. If you're a casual reader of science fiction or a die- hard mystery fan, you can safely skip THE TWO GEORGES. You're not missing out on any brilliant new ideas, nor is the mystery all that mysterious. But if you're a lover of alternate worlds, history, or Turtledove, this is for you. P.S. I've written an annotated guide to THE TWO GEORGES, and it's available via the World Wide Web at: http://camis.Stanford.EDU/people/kxl/2Gannotations.html Kevin Lauderdale