Kaleidoscope

by Harry Turtledove

A collection of thirteen short stories includes tales of an alternate world where the weather is time, a faeries' challenge to a young prince, and a possible explanation for Jack the Ripper

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Short Stories, Collections, Fiction, Anthologies

256 pages, Paperback

First published March 13, 1990

About the author

Dr Harry Norman Turtledove is an American novelist, who has produced a sizeable number of works in several genres including alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction.

Harry Turtledove attended UCLA, where he received a Ph.D. in Byzantine history in 1977.

Turtledove has been dubbed "The Master of Alternate History". Within this genre he is known both for creating original scenarios: such as survival of the Byzantine Empire; an alien invasion in the middle of the World War II; and for giving a fresh and original treatment to themes previously dealt with by other authors, such as the victory of the South in the American Civil War; and of Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

His novels have been credited with bringing alternate history into the mainstream. His style of alternate history has a strong military theme.

Reviews

[Akash Amat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had heard of Turtledove's 'The Road Not Taken' in Quora I think. Probably, here. That's what lead me to this anthology. I had kept it aside after reading TRNT and a couple others, then came back to read the rest.

Rating an anthology as a whole needs a complete read. Right? And going through a whole anthology can be a bit of a chore. Unlike the novel, which is usually centered around a particular theme and is likely to have a consistent tone and writing quality, the quality of the entries in an anthology can vary widely.

However, Kaleidoscope is one which is surprisingly consistent in the quality of its entries. The book is from 1990 and the author has a distinct fame for his alt history works.

An overview of the genres of the 13 stories (some fall under multiple genres):
Sci-fi: 5
Fantasy: 6 (many of them are of a shorter length)
Alt history: 2
Horror: 2
Drama: 1

I had also found Michael's review insightful when I started with the book: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


Reviews and ratings of the stories, sorted in reverse by read-date...


13. The Girl Who Took Lessons 3.5/5 'Marital Drama'

I'd borrow the description from Michael's review - 'a Redbook reject'. Frankly, it's a bit of a celebration of immorality IMO. (I'm sure there would be opinions to the polar opposite.) Though, the writing is competent, hence my rating.


12. The Castle of Sparrowhawk 3.5/5 Fantasy

The one thing I can compare this to, is the 2005 Beowulf movie. A decent read. The author mentions 'The Travels of Sir John Mandeville' as the inspiration.


11. The Summer Garden 4/5 Fantasy

A short tale of love, honor, magic, and happy endings, seemingly set in the medieval period. It feels similar to children fairy tales and Disney movies etc., but a good read. The author mentions the medieval work 'The Decameron' as his inspiration.


10. The Boring Beast 4/5 Fantasy

This belongs to, what I learnt is called, the sword and sorcery subgenre... well, not exactly, as it's a parody, which this page confirms as well - https://turtledove.fandom.com/wiki/Th...... and it's a hilarious and well-written one too. :D
I'm not a big follower of the genre like I have been of sci-fi, but I have to say that the genre of fantasy, and specifically sword and sorcery, is quite interesting in its literary tradition, despite literally being so far removed from reality.


9. Gentlemen of the Shade 4.5/5 Fantasy/Horror

The Jack the Ripper case meets a group of 'noble' Vampires. Simply great - the Victorian London, setting up the Vampire anthropology, the sleuthing, and a 'happy' ending.


8. Crybaby 2/5 Horror

The story tries to be drama, comedy, psychological thriller, and supernatural horror all at the same time while trying to maintain ambiguity. It doesn't succeed. And you know the kind of excuse given for some types of lazy writing? 'It is left to the reader to interpret it'. Well, actually that can be enjoyable when competently done, but the act of *maintaining* the ambiguity is a precarious one, and it wasn't done properly here.


7. Hindsight 3.5/5 Sci-fi

"Who is Mark Gordian?" This is very much like a Twilight Zone story, involving three Sci-Fi writers. In a good way, it's quite guessable WHAT Gordian is, before it is eventually revealed. The title is a good hint in itself.

I don't want to spoil it, but to give a taste, after revealing Gordian, the story deals with - a spark of romance, Vietnam, Alec Guinness, a mission for social upliftment, a Nazi escapee - not necessarily in that order.

Sci-Fi-wise, it's in the soft-SF territory. The time travel mechanism isn't even tangentially mentioned. But it's a good device to explore historical events - a technique Turtledove has used repeatedly.


6. A Difficult Undertaking 3.5/5 Fantasy

This is set in Turtledove's Videssos series, which is inspired by the Byzantine Empire and has the added element of magic.

The story is enjoyable and centers on a siege. The first few pages, with the exposition, aren't smoothly done. The very first three words are confusing. "Ulror Raska's son" should mean the son of Ulror Raska, right? Well, here it is the equivalent of Ulror Raskason.

The mention of the siege weapon 'cat' was slightly puzzling - dictionaries don't mention the relevant definition and the Google lookup is not brimming with the info either. Also, the trick Ulror played on his very competent opponent is only marginally believable.

Still, a decent read overall.


5. Bluff 4/5 Sci-fi

The story is of the first contact with a bronze-age alien civilization. And the author masterfully uses the story to explore the controversial hypothesis of bicameralism, of the domain of neuroscience and evolution. I have come across fiction with xenoarchaeology as the central theme. Here, it is xenoanthropology.

IMHO, bicameralism seems to be a wrong hypothesis, but this work of fiction is still fascinating, with dialogue and action exploring the difference between consciousness and thinking.


4. The Weather's Fine 4/5 Sci-fi/Fantasy

A silly premise with great execution - that's something I felt with a few of Turtledove's other stories too. And that's a praise actually.

In the story's world, it seems the 'time' changes like weather, and just like there's AC for room weather, they have a similar device for 'time'. What kind of changes does it entail? The rules aren't thoroughly described, but here are a few major effects:
* availability of technology of that 'time'
* a person's memories and emotions
* monetary inflation

The story deals with the personal and professional life of an office worker, and does it in an intriguing way.


3. And So To Bed 3/5 Alt history/Sci-fi

This is from Turtledove's A Different Flesh, and is a Pepys pastiche.
It depicts how the presence of a less evolved Homo species results in them being used as slaves and also inspires Pepys to propose a precursor to the theory of evolution. It's quite funny too. Though, being a Pepys pastiche, the writing style might be off putting to some readers.

I doubt whether H. erectus would have stayed less evolved. I think Turtledove's Down in the Bottomlands with the neanderthals might be a more interesting read.


2. The Last Article 4/5 Alt history

Wikipedia has an surprisingly insightful article about this story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Las...

More of a novelette than a short story, this work strikes a fine balance with respect to various viewpoints, avoids moralizing, and fulfills one key criteria of great speculative fiction - it makes you think, without shortcuts. Indeed, the Themes section of the wiki article reflects that.

Personally, I am ambivalent regarding the amount of effect Gandhi's activism had on India gaining freedom. Off the top of my head, two points: Human nature and Attlee's quote. If one thinks about it - a low intensity opposition might actually be favored by a colonizer in some situations - they might even want to induce it. Though, I don't fully know and won't comment on how the aforementioned observation might tie to India's freedom movement.

This all inspires me to delve more into the study of history - esp. regarding the effect of similar cases of activism in similar scenarios. Even though I doubt the effectiveness of non-violence against such belligerent opponents, I'm interested in its importance - especially for more nuanced situations. And then there's the mind of a victor through various points in history - what all affects it? There are a wide variety of other cases - Europeans invading and establishing home in America, Americans engaging with Japan post-WW2 etc. Too much praise for Gandhi's non-violence hides both the contributions of other freedom fighters who took the warrior's approach (and NOT the terrorist's, who have narrow ideals and kill innocents), and also ignores how India allowed itself to be conquered, hence underplaying the need of (sustainable) strength and development.

Also, for all the evilness of Nazis, the acts of the British in India wasn't benevolent either. Is there any prominent literature on this comparison? I'd be interested.

I was intrigued by Michael's review mentioning it as 'much anthologized'. It checks out - http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cg....


1. The Road Not Taken 3.5/5 Sci-fi

'The Road Not Taken' is a unique and thought-provoking first contact/alien invasion story. Though, it has its flaws too.


The main concept is that 'contragravity and hyperdrive' are FTL technologies which civilizations, reaching a similar technological level as of human Medievals, 'usually' discover. Humans 'somehow' missed that. Another effect of this is that the other civilizations (including Roxolani - the aggressors in this story) focussed their energies on contra gravity and space faring and were slow with other technologies like weaponry and electricity.

Thinking of parallels, space race (albeit a very loose parallel) comes to mind. If the US and Soviets had instead clashed for supremacy in, say, nuclear fusion power or genetics, the world might have been quite a different, maybe better, place.

However, I can't think of any real parallels in reality. A sufficiently developed civilization, just completely missing and remaining oblivious to a technology 'which was just there to be discovered' - I'm not sure about that. Sure there was been lots of discoveries triggered by luck, but strictly speaking, that's quite different from the premise of the story. I think due to the forces of evolution operating at various levels, the race to find useful tech doesn't let any tech of such nature getting missed, if it is 'just there to be found'. Though at a macro level, this might be a parallel - it is hypothesized by some that humans who moved out of Africa had to make do with less resources and henced developed greater inventiveness. I'm sure there would be many other interesting loose parallels I don't know of.

In case of this story, it is alluded that the Roxolani use the FTL tech without having knowledge of the fundamental physics, and humans who do have the knowledge never discovered the tech - and that perspective again highlights the oddity of the premise. The setup might have been more believable if Roxolani were the exception not humans. Maybe Roxolani could have some 'Unobtanium' which helped advanced their space travel without them knowing the deeper science. Coming to FTL tech, it would most probably never be of the nature described in the story, if it even can be done at all.

I felt the author should have fleshed out the concept a bit more. It is actually revealed just inside of a single paragraph and then the story jumps back to the characters. The neglect seems especially pronounced given that the characters get quite large attention, even if the lines aren't really consequential to the story-telling. Though, in one interesting quip, it is mentioned how humans were on track to annihilate themselves (nuclear M.A.D., I guess) in near future due to lack of real estate, but with Roxolani tech in their hands, they could become space faring.


This story is the prequel to Herbig-Haro, which seems interesting too. Will post my thoughts on that sometime later here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...


Also, this anthology is interesting in that the author himself adds notes for each of the story as a preface.

[Michael Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are some authors whose comparatively least successful work is still far above the average -- authors like Cherryh and Le Guin and Powers. But most writers go from superior to execrable, with the average being pretty, er, average. Turtledove, unfortunately, is one of those. This collection of thirteen of his short stories shows it isn’t just a matter of being better at longer or shorter length, either. A couple of the stories are among his best, like “And So to Bed,” a Pepys pastiche about the survival in the New World of australopithecines, and what their existence alongside homo sapiens might say to an intelligent man about natural selection. And there’s “The Road Not Taken,” in which most alien species discovered antigravity and hyperdrive early on, so that the invaders arrive in spaceships with cutlasses and flintlocks in hand. And the much-anthologized “The Last Article,” an alternate history story in which the victorious Nazis who conquered British India have their own way of dealing with Gandhi’s passive resistance. And there’s “Crybaby,” a well-written little piece of horror (which the author’s wife refuses to read, and no wonder). But most of the remaining stories are thoroughly mediocre, especially the two Dunsany-like fantasies. Even the “The Girl Who Took Lessons,” which isn’t SF at all, reads like a Redbook reject.

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my top 5 books of all time. You have to enjoy science fiction to even begin to agree with me. Harry Turtledove is known for his alternate military histories, i.e. what if Hitler won. I don't have authority for this, but I suspect this is one of his earlier works. It is a collection of short stories of which only a few dabble in the alternate military history genre. So, if you like Harry Turtledove as he is now, you'll probably be disappointed. However, if you just want to read some short stories that are thought-provoking and make you go hmm, then it will definitely do that.

[Jeff Greason · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this for just one story, "The Road Not Taken", an innovative twist on the first-contact story which I'd heard about word of mouth. I found it more than lived up to its excellent reputation. However, I was not so impressed with the others. Alternate history is a genre that I am only somewhat interested in, and while some of these, like "The Weather's Fine" were clever, I didn't find myself finishing most of them. That's more a case of personal taste than anything else, though -- someone else might well like them a lot.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

a series of short stories covering hard science fiction , fantasy, alternate history

Especially liked The Last Article - Gandhi facing down the Nazis after the Germans won WWII.

The Road not Taken was great - a slightly different version of his Worlds at War series.

I'm happy I found this book.

[Brentman99 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harry Turtledove covers a lot of ground in this book of short stories. Everything from early America, space travel, to his world of Videosis, which is loosely based on early Greece and Rome, Turtleove has great characters. I love his short stories because they flow so well. Those stories that either build or are preludes of novels make a good series even better.

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great anthology filled with excellent short stories from a variety of genres, including one of my all time favorite short stories.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very nice variety of stories and styles

[Anurag Sahay · Rating 3 out of 5]

The rating and review is mostly for The Last Article -- which is the reason I bought this collection.

The only other story in this collection I ended up reading was And So To Bed, for which I do not have much to say beyond that it was passable (though I discovered when researching the stories for this review that this is a single story in a serial which does sound independently interesting).

The Last Article is a story which can adequately be summed up as Nazis versus Gandhi, since it is set in an alternate history setting where the Axis powers win the second world war, and the British Raj in India is replaced by a regime under the Third Reich. While this story is definitely worth a read, it definitely smacks of a West-is-best type narrative: the thesis of Turtledove's argument appears to be that the United States and Britain are, at their core, run by people who have consciences and morals even if their actions do not align with their supposed belief. Turtledove posits that, on the other hand, the Nazis are wholly devoid of such and hence that the principles of satyagraha and non-violent civil disobedience as practiced by Gandhi (or MLK Jr) would be bound to fail against Nazi Germany since they fundamentally depend on an appeal to the oppressor's consciences.

The argument smacks to me of the kind of western apologia that glorifies the virtues of the erstwhile British Empire and the extant American Empire, while choosing to completely ignore the cruelties and excesses on which it is built upon -- a good example is the narrative dichotomy of remembering Winston Churchill as a war hero for the British while ignoring his role in making the lives of those living under the Raj worse.

Suffice it to say that I would be much more interested in seeing a different take on this alternate historical premise.