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The War That Came Early series tells an alternative story of the World War II. Written by Harry Turtledove, the series focuses on World War II but from a fresh point of view, detailing on how the war must have begun 11 months earlier than it’s purported, over Czechoslovakia and NOT Poland as thought.

Turtledove released the first book of the six-volume series in hardcover–in 2009. Though these copies didn’t have the series title, all the subsequent paperback releases were titled ‘The War That Came Early: Hitler’s War.’

In the series, the first departure point occurs in July, 1936 when a Spanish Nationalist named Jose Sanjurjo changes the condition of his flight on his way back home following his pilot’s advice, thus avoiding the crash that could have otherwise led him to his demise.

Though the next two years tells the same story as the historical Spanish Civil War, Turtledove narration has Sanjurjo making the same political and military decisions as Francisco Franco made in the conventionally accepted World War II story.

It’s only until 1939 that Sanjurjo goes on a limb by helping the Axis conquer Gibraltar. While in real history we have Franco maintaining a cordial relationship all through with the British.

In the first volume, The Hitler’s War, Turtledove uses various viewpoint characters, mostly junior officers and young soldiers to put forth his spin on the yarn. But basically, the entire novel focuses on the historically undocumented World War II events that occurred between September 1938 and the 1939 spring.

Turtledove takes us to 1938 in the first chapter of the book, where we are introduced to Neville Chamberlain, a British prime minister determined to do whatever is within his power to prevent war. This pushes him to sign the Munich Accord, thus ceding a hearty portion of Czechoslovakia to Hitler.

But this doesn’t stop the insatiable Hitler. The next spring, he wages war against the prime minister, snagging the rest of the country and even pushing further beyond its borders. That way, the World War II is born. And England, after every attempt to appease Hitler, is forced to engage in a war for which she is not ready.

What makes the story even more interesting is the manner at which Turtledove plays out some scenarios: What if the British prime minister hadn’t signed the accord? What if Hitler was forced to act in a rash; before his army was well prepped, would his impatience have given him a much greater success or drove him to his doom even faster?

The author, in this volume, cashes in on suspense while telling his enchanting, blow by blow version of a story based on what might have happened in case the ‘what-ifs’ worked out.

These are the questions that majority of those who have read about World War II ask themselves, but can’t suss out the answer: If Hitler acted too soon, too fast or reached too far, which direction could the World War II story taken?

What Turtledove appears to have had in plenty while telling his own version of the story are the twisted viewpoints: from a Jewish-German family with a fulfilling history of offering war services to their nation to the American marine serving in a Japanese-occupied China. From an American woman trying to desperately escape a Nazi-occupied turf only to end up witnessing the war at its boiling point to unpaid ragtag offering help to Spain’s Abraham Lincoln Battalion, the authors twisted point of views abound, making the story even more interesting and action-packed.

Quite simply, the novel unravels the world’s face of war, while riding on the numerous turns that altogether sets the stage for some of the historical great acts. It’s basically the beginning of a new, riveting history narration. Here’s a tale of influential leaders, put together with a regular group of spies, traitors, soldiers and shifting alliances to shape shift the world’s history.

The book is altogether authoritative, incredibly amusing, and brilliantly artistic with the way it captures the war scenes, thus marking the beginning of a new World War II story and a hugely different fate for our world today.

West and East is the second book in the series. Published in July, 2010 the book zones in on the Siberian campaign and the war in the west. Caught up in two-front-wars, neither the Soviet Union nor the Germans show significant progress in the war they wedge against their opponents in Eastern Europe.

In the second book of the series, Turtledove still focuses on the two men that shaped the world history; the first one being Adolf Hitler and the second one Neville Chamberlain, otherwise dubbed the great appeaser. But as we expected, Turtledove doesn’t just give the story a plain dive.

So instead telling a story we already know or one that we could effortlessly gain access by running a series of war terms on search engines, the author gives us something to think about: ‘What if Chamberlain had refused to sign the accord and stood up against the Germans, what move could Hitler have made next? And how could the war, which Hitler regretfully waited for a good 11 months, unfolded?

In this novel, Turtledove does nothing but take us through conflicting scenes fuelled by his ideologies and demagoguery. He has different nations pitted against each other, opposing nations forcing an alliance and average citizens being forced into odd death and life situations that they have to wiggle their way out.

For instance, somewhere in the Japanese controlled Singapore, the story zones in to an American marine and a Russian dancer who apparently are in love, and while they’re out getting all steamy and that, they happen to pick up explosions that appear to have been set by the Chinese guerrilla resistance.

In another chapter the story takes a whole different detour by focusing on the frontlines of a war-stricken France. We are introduced to a wearing soldier who, as it turns out, has a knack for using a huge anti-tank tool as a sniper’s gun. German is forced to hire a hit man to help them exterminate him.

Again, in North Atlantic, there’s a U-boat fitted with an untried device wreaking havoc on British shipping, thus making the ground even more favourable for the Nazis to invade Denmark.

Also mentioned is an American woman who happens to have been trapped in the Germans’ turf but receives safe passage under the protection of Hitler himself. Then there’s the Jewish family deeply sodden in Germany culture and being forced to soak up the German hatred from deep within. Oh, and did I mention the Japanese soldiers living in the upstate Siberia and the American volunteers fighting against tyrants such as Stalin, sanjuro and Hitler in Spain, East and West?

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