FREE: Darkness Descending by Harry Turtledove

The listing, Darkness Descending by Harry Turtledove has ended.

Harry Turtledove's sequel to "Into the Darkness" is an interesting and enjoyable book about an alternate universe where magic rules. In this universe, there are nations who serve as proxies for the nations which fought WWII, e.g. Algarve is Germany, Unkerlant is the Soviet Union, Zuwayza is Finland, Forthweg is Poland, Valmiera is France, etc. We see dragons instead of aircraft, behemoths instead of tanks, leviathans instead of submarines.
The period of time paralleling WWII in this book is roughly Summer 1941, to Spring 1942. As a result we get to see the equivalants of Operation Barbarossa, and the beginning of an alternate Holocaust.

Turtledove has not created a mirror of our own universe and thrown magic, dragons, mages, and behemoths into the equation. This is a seperate universe, which results in differences which can be significant. For example, the equivalant of the Jewish people, the Kaunians, are rounded up for execution not merely because of their race, (which is, of course, why they are chosen), but because their blood sacrifice results in powerful military magic.

However, the people of this world are well aware that a person's lifeforce can be sacrificed for magic. This results in strained credulity because the Kaunians' reaction parallels that of the Jews in our own world, which is unbelievable, given that the Kaunians have a greater knowledge than the unfortunate victims of the Holocaust in our world.

Turtledove does a masterful job of creating characters. The sheer number of characters is almost overwhelming, but less so than the first book of this series. To his credit, Turtledove always makes me think when I read his books. This book benefits from not being an absolute duplicate of our world, and is a worthwhile read.