Earthlight, 2001, 596 p, plus 5 p Dramatis Personae and 2 p Map.

With Harry Turtledove you know what you’re going to get. No-nonsense utilitarian prose. An episodic narrative seen from many points of view. Actions telegraphed long before they happen. Reminders of information previously revealed (in that respect it’s as if Turtledove may himself have needed reminding.) Characters not acting for or as themselves but there simply to make a point or progress the plot. Not great literature certainly, perhaps not even literature at all.

And yet somehow it doesn’t seem to matter. His grand sweep carries you along. Even when his inspiration is ridiculously obvious – as it is here in an allegory of our Second World War, with the Kingdom of Algarve standing in for Germany as the baddies and its main opponent, the Kingdom of Unkerlant, a Soviet Union analogue; still baddies (or at least its ruthless ruler is,) as was true in our 1940s. There is no true counterpart to the US however, the other countries here (all political entities in this scenario are Kingdoms) are all too small – and none parallel the British Empire either.

The feature of this series, an exotic flourish, is the fantastic elements; ley lines, dragons, unicorns, behemoths, leviathans, magic; all pressed into military service. Apart from that the war follows a familiar pattern.

In this episode the hitherto always victorious Algarvians are held before the Unkerlant capital, Cottbus; the magical equivalent of the Manhattan Project trundles on slowly in this world’s southern regions; Kaunians are already suffering the early stages of a Holocaust, being herded into ghettos, transported to the front to be killed so that mages can use their deaths to unleash sorcerous energies on the enemy; and it seems as if one of the characters may be destined to become a counterpart of Anne Frank – though I admit her prior experiences have been fairly different.

Sourcing cinnabar, a mineral necessary for dragons to breathe fire, is being set up to be the main Algarvian military objective of the next book, precursorily promising a battle to emulate Stalingrad.

This society of Turtledove’s is, however, almost relentlessly sexist and misogynistic.

Pedant’s corner:- “Pantilo swept off his heat” (his hat,) “for Brivibas’ sake” (Brivibas’s. Most names and words ending in ‘s’ here are treated by Turtledove as if they were plural rather than singular,) Unkerlanter (used several times when Unkerlant was meant,) “the eastern back of the stream” (bank of the stream,) “he hadn’t know” (hadn’t known,) “because he obviously did not care about what happened to the Kaunians” (the character thought the opposite; ‘he obviously cared about what happened to the Kaunians’,) “hauled him to the feet” (to his feet,) “making certain she’d not a spy” (she’s not a spy.) “Hearing Kaunian spoke inside the Algarvian Ministry” (Hearing Kaunian spoken inside…) “Even the Forthweg would have been better off if King Penda hadn’t gone to war” (that sentence doesn’t make sense in the context,) “now they kept spring into his head all unbidden” (they kept springing,) “who know no more than he did” (who knew no more,) “had proclaimed him his cousin Raniero King of Grelz” (had proclaimed his cousin,) “a teamster might have envied” (these societies do not have teamsters,) “They know what happened to a village” (They knew what happened to.) “‘Nonsense, my dead,’ Siuntio said’” (‘Nonsense, my dear’.) “But no: Now his name was on the list” (a colon is not usually followed by a capital letter,) receiving more than a curtsy from some of the, but that” (from some of them, but that,) “a couple of more soldiers” (no need for that ‘of’,) “‘were farther from Trapani than we are from Cottbus’” (we’re farther from,) “might try to settle a score that had simmered, unavenged but forgotten, for half a dozen generations” (context demands ‘unavenged but unforgotten’,) “towards the other Algarvians” (there was only one other Algarvian.) “The soldiers would have known nothing” (again there was only one,) “seeing more or you” (more of you,) “it was narrow, twisting, altogether, unpaved” (ought not to have that comma between altogether and unpaved,) “even the women who yelled” (the woman.)