Hitler's War

By: Harry Turtledove

Narrated by: John Allen Nelson

Length: 17 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

A stroke of the pen and history is changed. In 1938, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, determined to avoid war at any cost, signed the Munich Accord, ceding part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. But the following spring, Hitler snatched the rest of that country and pushed beyond its borders. World War II had begun, and England, after a fatal act of appeasement, was fighting a war for which it was not prepared.

Now, in this thrilling, provocative, and fascinating alternate history by Harry Turtledove, another scenario is played out: What if Chamberlain had not signed the accord? What if Hitler had acted rashly, before his army was ready - would such impatience have helped him or doomed him faster? Here is an action-packed, blow-by-blow chronicle of the war that might have been - and the repercussions that might have echoed through history - had Hitler reached too far, too soon, and too fast.

Turtledove uses dozens of points of view to tell this story: from American marines serving in Japanese-occupied China to members of a Jewish German family with a proud history of war service to their nation, from ragtag volunteers fighting in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in Spain to an American woman desperately trying to escape Nazi-occupied territory - and witnessing the war from within the belly of the beast.

A novel that reveals the human face of war while simultaneously riding the twists and turns that make up the great acts of history, Hitler's War is the beginning of an exciting new alternate history saga. Here is a tale of powerful leaders and ordinary people, of spies, soldiers, and traitors, of the shifting alliances that draw some together while tearing others apart. At once authoritative, brilliantly imaginative, and hugely entertaining, Hitler's War captures the beginning of a very different World War II - with a very different fate for our world today.

©2009 Harry Turtledove (P)2009 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Turtledove is always good, but this return to World War II, one of his favorite turfs, is genuinely brilliant." ( Booklist)

You've already heard every word

Clique filled from beginning to end. It reads like a WW2 Allies Propaganda report. High School quality writing.

for me - unlistenable

The narrator, as others have said, was not good. The dialogue seemed hokey and nothing drew me. I stopped very early on and I won't ever know what I missed, obviously. It didn't help that I had recently finished several outstanding books and this one was too much of a drop for me. The first scene made me think of Fantasy Island with that character shouting "Zee plane, zee plane!". Time to change the channel.

no go.

seems like a chapter in a larger tome without the lure to continue the next chapter.

it sucked

reader was terrible, it had less with the war than anything, not up to par for this author

Least Favorite

My least favorite Turtledove book. I loved all his others. This was stale and predictable