Emp_Palpatine 501 Posted June 17, 2008 (edited) I use to read in english. I do understand it very good when it's spoken (even able to understand Jerry Springer without subtitles ) or written, but my guess on my writting skills is that they are not very good, as I tend to write in a french-ized grammatical manner and style (you know, these endless sentences). The fact is I'm more and more thinking about coming to the US in order to work: In the area I'm becoming specialised, there are by far more jobs opportunities and better salaries than in France or Europe. And the mood in the old continent and especially in France isn't very friendly for young post-gradutates: the fact that most of the highly qualified are leaving France (it's sometime described as a "bleeding" ) is now an important political issue! But If I am to follow that path, I must improve my writting skills as it's what employers that might take me are often asking for. So I told myself: "hey, just start again to read a lot in english, it may impregnate me (just as reading US papers in my younger days helped me to be good at comprehension. If I had to count on the crappy french educationnal system, I might have been like most of my post-graduate counterparts: unable to read complex texts or to understand a movie without subs) and drive me, finally, on the road to grammatical correctness. Whatever... Having heard a lot of Turtledove's works, and being quite fond of Civil War stuffs and uchrony, I bought the book on the web. Hell, I had to wait almost a month to have it being shipped from the US, but it was worth the wait! Very good book! Awesome battle scenes. Is the rest of this timeline as good? And what about his other timelines? Edited June 17, 2008 by Emp_Palpatine Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
FastCargo 412 Posted June 17, 2008 Well, I'm a big fan of Turtledove's stuff...and I have just about (not all) of the books in that particular timeline. They're pretty good...though sometimes it can get overwhelming with all the characters. FastCargo Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Emp_Palpatine 501 Posted June 17, 2008 How few remain remains (lol) quite simple on that issue of characters. Less than a dozen. What I love is little jokes about what have really been, such as when Stonewall, before the war, told Longstreet "Had we lost the secession war, you might have become a republican politician". Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Wrench 9,876 Posted June 17, 2008 ALL of Turtledove's Alternate History works are good!!! It's always been such a fascinating subject the "What If..." of this or that place in time. For that series, I even have these laying around: Wrench kevin stein Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Emp_Palpatine 501 Posted June 19, 2008 !Spoilers! Those ba...rds! They killed Jeb! Why, ooooh why, did turtledove waited for this last chapter to do me such a grief?! AARRG! I love this book! @Wrench: I do like alternative history stuffs too a lot! Apart from sims I use to play, when I got the time, with Paradox interactive's games (the older ones, though...) such as EU2, HoI2 or Victoria, where you can write your own alternative history! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites