The Valley-Westside War is the sixth book in Harry Turtledove's young-adult Crosstime Traffic Series, and deals with future OTL researchers trying to uncover the cause of a 1967 nuclear war that devastated the United States and basically destroyed civilization. In short, the story basically reads as if a group of researchers from OTL were dropped into A Canticle for Leibowitz, trying to figure out what went wrong.
I'm going to call back to my recent review of The Yiddish Policemen's Union to give a frame of reference. In that review, I praised Turtledove's ability to create universes and story settings, but said he fell short in terms of telling the story. Chabon's book excelled in both, I said. The Valley-Westside War is a perfect example of what I was talking about -- it includes both Turtledove's strengths and weaknesses in detail.
The setting is well-drawn and the scenery descriptive. The setting is what used to be Los Angeles, approximately 100 years after a 1967 nuclear war that destroyed civilization. By the time of this book, civilizations based on small regions in the Los Angeles Basin have arisen and are in conflict. A group of Crosstime Traders is in one of these communities, which is located around the campus of UCLA. The traders in question are interested in researching the library to find out the source of the nuclear war, and are being funded through a research grant -- something I imagine Turtledove pulling from his own life.
It's a neat idea, and I can imagine Turtledove sitting in the same library, coming up with the idea. But as before, the old Turtledove bugaboos rear their ugly heads. Because this is a one-off book, we don't get the Turtledovian repetition, but characterization is still comparatively light. Most characters seem to simply be pulled from a book of stock figures, and Turtledove's two main characters are virtually identical to those who have starred in Turtledove's previous Crosstime Traffic books.
You've got the uptimer, grappling with a strange new world and making cultural stumblings in a last-summer trip before entering college. You've got the downtimer, living his or her life until coming across this strange new person who they develop a crush upon, finding out the crosstime secret in the process.
Basically, all of the Crosstime books have this premise. Only the scenery changes. In this sixth volume, Turtledove should be praised for not tying everything up into a nice, neat conclusion as he has done in previous volumes. But the standard plotline remains, and because I've complained in the past about Turtledove coming up with too-neat endings, I can't really complain about an untidy ending here. Despite its flaws, it's a quick read, and the series remains good for introducing a tween or young teen to AH. Even for me, well past my teenage years, it was worth getting from the library to try.
Overall ranking: 3/5
Recommendation: Turtlebots and younger AH fans should enjoy it, but purchase isn't recommended; get it from the library or a second-hand store.
I'm going to call back to my recent review of The Yiddish Policemen's Union to give a frame of reference. In that review, I praised Turtledove's ability to create universes and story settings, but said he fell short in terms of telling the story. Chabon's book excelled in both, I said. The Valley-Westside War is a perfect example of what I was talking about -- it includes both Turtledove's strengths and weaknesses in detail.
The setting is well-drawn and the scenery descriptive. The setting is what used to be Los Angeles, approximately 100 years after a 1967 nuclear war that destroyed civilization. By the time of this book, civilizations based on small regions in the Los Angeles Basin have arisen and are in conflict. A group of Crosstime Traders is in one of these communities, which is located around the campus of UCLA. The traders in question are interested in researching the library to find out the source of the nuclear war, and are being funded through a research grant -- something I imagine Turtledove pulling from his own life.
It's a neat idea, and I can imagine Turtledove sitting in the same library, coming up with the idea. But as before, the old Turtledove bugaboos rear their ugly heads. Because this is a one-off book, we don't get the Turtledovian repetition, but characterization is still comparatively light. Most characters seem to simply be pulled from a book of stock figures, and Turtledove's two main characters are virtually identical to those who have starred in Turtledove's previous Crosstime Traffic books.
You've got the uptimer, grappling with a strange new world and making cultural stumblings in a last-summer trip before entering college. You've got the downtimer, living his or her life until coming across this strange new person who they develop a crush upon, finding out the crosstime secret in the process.
Basically, all of the Crosstime books have this premise. Only the scenery changes. In this sixth volume, Turtledove should be praised for not tying everything up into a nice, neat conclusion as he has done in previous volumes. But the standard plotline remains, and because I've complained in the past about Turtledove coming up with too-neat endings, I can't really complain about an untidy ending here. Despite its flaws, it's a quick read, and the series remains good for introducing a tween or young teen to AH. Even for me, well past my teenage years, it was worth getting from the library to try.
Overall ranking: 3/5
Recommendation: Turtlebots and younger AH fans should enjoy it, but purchase isn't recommended; get it from the library or a second-hand store.