It is May 1942. War is raging around the world. Major Heinrich Jager is fighting for the Third Reich on the Eastern Front. George Bagnall is a flight engineer for the RAF. Ludmila Gorbunova is a pilot, but for the Soviet Air Force. Moishe Russie is a Jew in the Warsaw Ghetto. Liu Han is a Chinese peasant woman. Jens Larssen is an American physicist on the Manhattan Project. Sam Yeager us a minor league outfielder and science fiction fan from Nebraska. Atvar is the fleetlord of the invading spaceships of the Race.
Turtledove's grand tetralogy of an alternate WWII interrupted by an alien invasion draws to a satisfactory conclusion in this follow-up to Upsetting the Balance, and with a few surprises to boot. The Chinese woman Liu Han, for example, is seen climbing the hierarchy of the Chinese Communist Party as it comes under the control of Mao Zedong. Moishe Russie helps negotiate the final armed truce between the alien Lizards and the humans, with the Lizards withdrawing from most hum...
In the second installment (of four), Turtledove returns to the same characters, picking up the stories mere days after he left them in the first book (the first two books comprise just over a year's time). Without giving away too much, even after finishing this book it is difficult to say which way the balance is tilting. The Race is beginning to learn to cope with warfare on Earth (Tosev 3), and is waging victorious war against the Germans, Soviets, and Americans.
While the war seemed rather static in the second book, major events fill Worldwar: Upsetting the Balance from the first scene. Turtledove still follows all of his major characters, depicting the war from many perspectives. But now the personal struggles are more often entwined with higher concerns, giving this volume more depth as well as more suspense. Turtledove also returns to some humorous social commentary, something prevalent in the first book but strangely absent from the second.
The Custom-Fit Workplace: Choose When, Where, and How to Work and Boost Your Bottom Line
Change is afoot in businesses across America and throughout the world: Dual-earning households continue to grow in record numbers; men and women are taking time off from their careers to take care of children or aging parents and are struggling to find a way back in; and workers at the top and bottom of the pay scale are struggling to balance their jobs and personal lives while making ends meet.
