Probably my best-known book is THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH. Yeah, the one with Robert E. Lee holding an AK-47. The Confederacy wins its independence. And, like the dog that caught the car, it has to work out what the devil to do next. www.amazon.com/Guns-South-N... - ThreadSky

hntdove.bsky.social • 160 days ago

Probably my best-known book is THE GUNS OF THE SOUTH. Yeah, the one with Robert E. Lee holding an AK-47. The Confederacy wins its independence. And, like the dog that caught the car, it has to work out what the devil to do next.
https://www.amazon.com/Guns-South-Novel-Harry-Turtledove/dp/0345384687/ref=sr_1_1?Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x=0&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=0&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.fiiBkpwh9kJEHsMN1ptu0phhf1Z1CnRwHtT0kQ0Ko7I.iAmk3FNihBItYkjqT7OzWIg01iphJMJGsjoqdN50QBg&dib_tag=se&qid=1730338463&refinements=p_27%3ATurtledove%2Cp_28%3AGuns+of+the+south&s=books&sr=1-1&unfiltered=1

Comments

mattgill.me•51 days ago

I dunno, the idea of modern white south africans trying to take over the US to create a white supremacist state just seems so unrealistic

tom2001.bsky.social•9 days ago

Hee! Sadly, it seems that we are now accepting the villains in that book as refugees to the United States. From the NYT newsletter: "The U.S. has banned most refugees, but Trump has made on exception: White South Africans."

bmcnett.bsky.social•51 days ago

It's just so out of the blue! How the heck do actual AWB get the kind of funding you NEED for time travel? Most off-the-wall premise in the novel, I think.

mattgill.me•51 days ago

I bet they could save some money by just using media or whatever to create a similar social and political environment to civil war times, rather than actually developing a time machine. just spitballing here

tom2001.bsky.social•9 days ago

They stole the time machine, they didn't develop it. That said, in our own timeline, Elon Musk certainly has the money to fund the research, and I suspect that he is likely sympathetic to AWB.

flahawkfan.bsky.social•138 days ago

I'm also in the camp of this being the first book of yours I read. It totally sucked me in and I thought about it a lot after I read it (I bought it in hardcover when it came out), well before it became current again. The South African link in particular is even more jolting now.

johnhudgens.bsky.social•146 days ago

I think this was the first book of yours I read, and I'm still amazed no one's adapted it for film or TV yet...

I'd love to take a crack at it myself someday, but I could (probably) never afford the option fee...

jb-717.bsky.social•145 days ago

One of your first books I read, and I got into the world war series after. It was definitely a ride. You did a great job throwing major times in US history into crazy scifi and "what if" scenarios.

tiogamatoaka.bsky.social•67 days ago

I'm in the middle of reading this for the first time!

rywig.bsky.social•138 days ago

A southern-sympathizing relative first recommended this one too me decades ago. We also read the 191 series together until that one got awkward for him 😂

hntdove.bsky.social•138 days ago

Heh!

coachdacc.bsky.social•137 days ago

Needs a sequel.

g-sharp-major.bsky.social•160 days ago

That was the first of yours I ever read.

I especially appreciated the notes at the end, describing how you came to imagine the results of the elections following the end of the war.

brunotkano.bsky.social•40 days ago

"... Turtledove wants to show his readers that slavery was not the main issue that led to the Civil War; it was state's rights."

Many such insightful reviews on amazon dot com.

hntdove.bsky.social•40 days ago

Writers aren't the only ones who put things in books. So do readers. I had a Southern gentleman--and he was--tell me he was glad I hadn't shown the South as a racist society in Guns of the South. I was a good boy--I stayed polite.

tom2001.bsky.social•9 days ago

Wow! I don't understand how anyone can actually read your book and come to that conclusion.

hntdove.bsky.social•9 days ago

Well, I was surprised. But people have their own notions. If you carry a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

brunotkano.bsky.social•40 days ago

Being polite is a reasonable response. You took your death honorably.

sailorbp.bsky.social•40 days ago

Hooo-whee, 🤦🏼‍♂️

scepticalmate.bsky.social•44 days ago

Hiya. I'm the guy who asked you years ago if the phrase "the guns of the south" in the book "How Few Remain" (pocket book edition) was a circular reference, especially considering it appears in the Pi page (314).

"The Guns of The South" has great potential for a TV series. Have you considered it?

skiskamp.bsky.social•106 days ago

Harry ... question for you ...

Do you think there might be a current-day South African billionaire, who dabbles in space flight, cars, and flame throwers... has crazy futuristic ideas and very dangerous pollical beliefs... might just be trying to invent time travel to make this story a reality? 🤔

carmelostar.bsky.social•138 days ago

This book got me hooked on alternate history. Thank you!

hntdove.bsky.social•138 days ago

Thank YOU!

mrsjmoon.bsky.social•6 days ago

Loved this book so much!

ultrapro89.bsky.social•145 days ago

Your books look interesting, might check it out for discount.

hntdove.bsky.social•145 days ago

That's why God made secondhand stores.

ultrapro89.bsky.social•144 days ago

True

edgarallandoh.bsky.social•141 days ago

I loved when it popped up in Ganz.

antonjpierce.bsky.social•147 days ago

I enjoyed that one

hntdove.bsky.social•147 days ago

Thanks!

antonjpierce.bsky.social•147 days ago

Don't mean to imply that I haven't enjoyed others! 😏

pshaw.bsky.social•124 days ago

truly loved this book! have read it several times!

mseraphimsl.bsky.social•6 days ago

I enjoyed this a lot but the 191 universe stuff is utterly superb. It turns out that you can have a much more detailed and comprehensive story when you have 11 books to work with!

hntdove.bsky.social•6 days ago

You understand, I didn't know it would 11 books when I started.

mseraphimsl.bsky.social•6 days ago

Certainly, but I'm glad they kept coming out. What was the plan initially? Just a single book or several books or ...

hntdove.bsky.social•6 days ago

I was doing WW1. It went forward and back from there.

mseraphimsl.bsky.social•6 days ago

I really enjoyed the socialogical and political stuff you explored. A United States without a solid Democratic South to block it is indeed likely to have a durable progressive/socialist movement and Lincoln seems like a very likely leader. Thank you for writing it.

mseraphimsl.bsky.social•6 days ago

And in an unrelated note, I literally screamed when the Commodore Perry showed up in another favorite book of yours. :)
I hope you keep writing as long as you still want to.

chukg.bsky.social•141 days ago

This was my first of your books too, great cover and the description drew me in (plus I've always loved alternate history). Definitely not the last though!

hntdove.bsky.social•141 days ago

Thanks! The cover was my idea. The publisher went with it, which--believe me!--doesn't always happen.

aberrant-eremite.bsky.social•59 days ago

I loved this book when it came out! I've been a little afraid to re-read it, because I was raised to revere Robert E. Lee (Deep South in the 1970s), and I've re-evaluated his legacy since then. But I may re-read it now because I would love to revisit a pissed-off Forrest taking down the Afrikaners.

oz-humanist.bsky.social•138 days ago

I loved this book

east-bay-teacher.bsky.social•40 days ago

Funny, when I was a teen I did in fact judge the book by its cover and assumed that it was a laudatory neo-Comfederate power fantasy.

Mea culpa, Harry!

jacaphene.bsky.social•138 days ago

Is it anything like this? (or am I the only one who saw this?)
https://youtu.be/gIqxBn1oLAY?feature=shared

hntdove.bsky.social•138 days ago

It's not intended as satire, the way that is, but it may provoke some thinks.

t0mf00lery.bsky.social•141 days ago

Really enjoyed this one sir!

wesinjapan.bsky.social•6 days ago

Found it on a bookshelf in a building at my college. Couldn't put it down.

michaelby.bsky.social•115 days ago

Read it. Recommend.

majael.bsky.social•160 days ago

I’ve found myself wondering recently what you think of that one in retrospect. Given, you know, everything.

hntdove.bsky.social•160 days ago

Have you looked at Timeline 191? I wrote an optimistic CSA wins story and a pessimistic one. I'm a writer. I do that shit.

majael.bsky.social•160 days ago

I did, yes. I didn’t intend any aspersions, but I certainly think differently about TGotS now than I did when I first read it.

fijisufi.bsky.social•160 days ago

The first one of yours that I read, I especially loved the cluelessness of the time traveler when Lee said, "I am an American."

onedimental.bsky.social•93 days ago

This is on a middlin' shortlist of "sure, why not" rereads, and it's been reread several times. I know what's going to happen, but it's still that good.

uncle-duke1959.bsky.social•115 days ago

I happily remember not so patiently waiting for the local library to get each installment. I used to make sure to get on the waiting list early.

dachipster.bsky.social•44 days ago

This was the first one (of MANY) of yours that I bought.

Lucky for us you were at the top of the same alphabetical bookshelf of Sci-Fi/Fantasy where Roger Zelazny was at the bottom. (I was reading thru Amber at the time.)

Later, Marching Through Peachtree is how you got introduced to my son.

irahall.bsky.social•124 days ago

My 1st introduction to your work. I discovered this book when Dick Estell read it on the Radio Reader on public radio.

chemborg.bsky.social•115 days ago

The one book I recommended to my son that he really loved!! ❤️

hntdove.bsky.social•115 days ago

Thank you! And please thank him for me.

chemborg.bsky.social•115 days ago

Will do!!

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