Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Kernel's Library: World At War: Into The Darkness

Into the Darkness by Harry Turtledove Book 00078: Into the Darkness by Harry Turtledove

Title:
- The Great Hunt


First Publication:
- 05 April 1999 by Simon & Schuster Ltd


Trivia:
- Turtledove has been dubbed "The Master of Alternate History."
- Into the darkness is the first book of the The Darkness Series, which is a series of six fantasy novels. The series combines history with fantasy. In this case, the general history, geography, and combatants of World War are re-created in a world where magic works.


Awards as an author:
- Homer Award for Short Story in 1990 for "Designated Hitter"
- John Esten Cooke Award for Southern Fiction in 1993 for The Guns of the South
- Hugo Award for Novella in 1994 for "Down in the Bottomlands"
- "Must and Shall", nominated for:
1996 Hugo Award for Best Novelette,
1996 Nebula Award for Best Novelette
honorable mention for the 1995 Sidewise Award for Alternate History
- The Two Georges: honorable mention for the 1995 Sidewise Award for Alternate History
- The Worldwar: Sidewise Award for Alternate History Honorable Mention in 1996
- How Few Remain won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History
- Sidewise Award in 2003 for Ruled Britannia.
- Named honorary Kentucky Colonel while Guest of Honor at Rivercon XXIII in Louisville, Kentucky
- The Gladiator: co-winner of the 2008 Prometheus Award.




Trained flocks of dragons rain fire upon cities in a world war where magic works. Rival powers harness sea leviathans to sabotage one another's ships. The lights are going out all across Derlavai, and will not come back on again in this lifetime.


The first book, Into the Darkness, covers the war from the equivalent of 1939 to mid-1941; the Algarvians split Forthweg with Unkerlant, and then overrun Valmiera, Jelgava, and Sibiu (as Germany did to Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France in 1940), while Unkerlant wrests away part of Zuwayza. Lagoas joins the war when Sibiu is taken. The book ends when the Algarvians "get the drop on" the Unkerlanters in Forthweg (who were plotting to attack them first), equivalent to the start of Operation Barbarossa in July 1941. Kuusamo, meanwhile, is trying to seize Obuda from Gyongyos but fails, but Yanina succeeds in gaining control of the Land of the Ice People.

When the Duke of Bari suddenly dies, the neighboring nation of Algarve, long seething over its defeat a generation ago in the Six Years' War, sees its chance to bring Bari into the fold...an action which the other countries surrounding Algarve cannot, by treaty, tolerate. As nation after nation declares war, a chain of treaties are invoked, ultimately bringing almost all the Powers of Derlavai into a war of unprecedented destructiveness.

For modern magic is deadlier than in ears past. Trained flocks of dragons rain explosive fire down on defenseless cities. Massed infantry race from place to place along a network of ley-lines. Rival powers harness sea leviathans to help sabotage one another's ships. The lights are going out all across Derlavai, and will not come back on in this lifetime.

Against this tapestry Harry Turtledove tells the story of an enormous cast of characters: soldiers and generals, washerwomen and scholars, peasants and diplomats. For all the world, highborn and low, is being plunged by world war...into the darkness.

Not finished yet

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