The Valley-Westside War

by Harry Turtledove

Book Overview

Usually Crosstime Traffic concerns itself with trade. Our world owns the secret of travel between parallel continuums, and we mean to use it to trade for much-needed resources with the worlds next... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0765353806
• ISBN13: 9780765353801
• Release Date: March 2009
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Length: 285 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.3" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

After Doomsday

The Valley-Westside War (2008) is the sixth SF novel in the Crosstime Traffic series, following The Gladiator. In the previous volume, Eduardo took Gianfranco back to the home timeline, where he received a mental treatment to protect him from spilling the secret. Then he was returned to The Gladiator subbasement and worked his way home. Annarita, her family, and the Mazzillis were very pleased at the return of Gianfranco, but the Security Police were not happy. They questioned Gianfranco and learned little about his disappearance. His father was very irritated at the Security Police, but Comrade Mazzilli's position within the Communist Party left the Security Police with nothing on which to vent their frustrations. In this novel, Liz Mendoza is the daughter of a historian and a doctor specializing in genetics diseases and the effects of radiation. When her parents get a grant to study a timeline where nuclear war had started in 1967, Liz went along to add protective coloration. After all, a couple looked more normal with an eighteen year old daughter. Dan is about the same age as Liz, but is a native on this timeline. He is a private -- a lowly archer -- in the Valley Army. In this story, Dan is part of the parley group that warns the Westside troops to remove the wall built across Sepulveda Pass. Colonel Morris refuses in the name of the Westside Council. Captain Kevin takes his troops back to the Valley to report to King Zev. When the Valley army returns, they have a surprise for the Westside forces. The heavy machine gun shatters their defenses and drives the troops back through Westwood Village. The Valley forces pursue the fleeing troops. Liz and her parents are surprised when Dan knocks on their door and demands entry. Liz's father opens the door and allows the the Valley troops to enter. He gives them his trading goods and the cash box. Then the invaders leave. However, Sergeant Chuck leaves one trooper behind to let other Valley troops know that the house has already been looted. Dan spends several hours talking to Liz. Soon he develops a crush on her. Liz knows that she shouldn't be too offensive toward the occupying troops, but Dan is really getting on her nerves. She spends quite a bit of time complaining about him to her father and mother. Naturally, they are rather amused by the situation. Then Dan sees Liz leaving the UCLA library and asks what she is doing there. She tells him that she is looking for the cause of the nuclear war. He finds her explanations a little weird. Who wants to know anything about history? Sergeant Chuck warns the troops about spies and Dan begins to wonder if Liz is searching for Old Time weapons in the library. He reports his conversations to Sergeant Chuck, but the noncom doesn't think that his interest in Liz is really about spying. The sergeant tells him to report anything suspicious in future talks. This tale turns more dangerous when the Valley troops break into the ho

It's Time, Harry

One of the things that I like about Crosstime Traffic is the grittiness of the stories. Turtledove has a good handle on the psychological makeup of Man, left to his own devices, really is. We are not a nice race. Humanity likes doing bad things to one another. The other reviews will give you an idea of the story. I liked it except that I think that the tech would be a bit higher after 130 years, but that is my opinion. The biggest weakness n the series is the parents tend to be too much alike. Turtledove has stated theh two biggest fears that Crosstime Traffic has; finding another alternate with Crosstime traffic and the home timeline branching. Imagine the groups out in the alternates dealing with the second problem. Turtledove shows the dread of both secenaria in the the series.It is time for one of those to happen. It will provide an opportunity to deal with a continuous drama for future novels. I hope there are at least five or six more of them.

It's Time, Harry

One of the things that I like about Crosstime Traffic is the grittiness of the stories. Turtledove has a good handle on the psychological makeup of Man left to his own devices really is. We are not a nice race. Humanity likes doing bad things to one another. The other reviews will give you an idea of the story. I liked it except that I think that the tech would be a bit higher after 130 years, but that is my opinion. The biggest weakness n the series is the parents tend to be too much alike. Turtledove has stated theh two biggest fears that Crosstime Traffic has; finding another alternate with Crosstime traffic and the home timeline branching. Imagine the groups out in the alternates dealing with the second problem. Turtledove shows the dread of both secenaria in the the series.It is time for one of those to happen. It will provide an opportunity to deal with a continuous drama for future novels. I hope there are at least five or six more of them.

A groovy book

As a longtime fan of Harry Turtledove, I've read many of his works, but his "Crosstime Traffic" series is among his best. The premise - a world in the late 21st century that has discovered the ability to travel between alternate timelines - is one that he has used to create some imaginative divergences and the civilizations they have spawned. The timeline in this book is typical of this creativeness; an atomic war in 1967 had left a Southern California at a pre-industrial level of technology, splintered into squabbling domains. His plot is just as engaging: the Mendozas, a family researching the origins of the war in the remnants of the UCLA library, find themselves in the middle of a war between the kingdom of the Valley and the Westside. Their neighborhood is quickly conquered, and teenaged Liz Mendoza draws the unwanted attentions of Dan, a young soldier in the Valley army. As the war drags on, the Mendozas come under suspicion, and they soon find themselves having to navigate both sides of the war while struggling to complete their project. Turtledove succeeds in creating an entertaining tale for readers. Though the characters are somewhat underdeveloped, his alternative Los Angeles is well-visualized, with people living in the ruins of 1960s America, using the leftover artifacts as best they can and adopting the slang of the era as their everyday language. Readers should not be put off by the "juvenile fiction" label; this is a novel that can be enjoyed by people of all ages.

an iPod ??

To those of you who live in Los Angeles, the backdrop may be grimly familiar. A place that reached its peak in the 1960s, only to stagger thru a limited nuclear war. Some places like the UCLA campus and its adjoining Westwood are depicted in telling detail. Like the Bunche Hall of humanities, called the Waffle because of its protruding window frames. The focus of the book is in a place known as the University Research Library (URL). UCLA's graduate library, now called the Young Research Library. Having spent many hours in it, reading this book with the scenes in a future decayed library was strange and piognant. Readers not from LA might miss out on this cogency. Like the earlier books, it is a somewhat breezy read, to accomodate a teenage audience. Technically, the book is solid. With accurate details about technology and slang and detritus from the 1960s, as well as descriptions of a fallen civilisation. Take the remarks about putting alcohol into your water. Not to get drunk but to purify it. Or what it means to put meat on the dinner table. On this subject, and by the way, you can get a live chicken killed in much the same manner as mentioned in the book, in today's Los Angeles! No bull. Go to Chinatown, and look for the places with live chooks. The butcher will prepare (kill etc) one you pick, right in front of you. There is a moment of pure pathos in the book when a character confronts the girl from our timeline, accusing her of going to URL to find information about superior weapons. Whereas to her, the library only knows of technology outdated by over a century. Perhaps evoking a similar scene in Harrison's Deathworld. When the space-travelling hero lands in a backward human inhabited world. A local girl shows him a primitive crystal and asks that he not take it from her. The hero considers that her ancestors went to the stars, while she is reduced to this forlorn state. There is one slightly discordant note in Turtledove's book. In a passage, the protagonist, who is from the late 21st century in our timeline, refers to an iPod. A bit suss. The iPod hails from the 1st decade of this century. Granted, we don't know how many years the iPod brand will persist, through future iterations of its technology. But is it really likely to be trendy and germane some 80 years hence? It would be like you running a Hollerith card tabulator every day. If you're not sure what that is, this is my point. A naive teenage reader might accept the iPod reference unthinkingly. But a more discerning reader could wonder.