Review: Turtledove's 'Peachtree' a bad joke

"Marching Through Peachtree"
By Harry Turtledove
Baen Books
Fantasy
416 pages

By L.D. Meagher
CNN

(CNN) -- The Civil War is a joke. At least, it is to Harry Turtledove. The author who has built a considerable reputation by playing around with historical events chooses simply to play in "Marching Through Peachtree". And his game seems to be stringing together ever more audacious puns.

The target of his wit is names -- of places and of people. He has taken the familiar (and not-so-familiar) names of Sherman's campaign in northern Georgia and given each a twist, beginning with the Union general himself. William Tecumseh Sherman becomes General Hesmucset. His second-in-command, Lt. Gen. Thomas, is transformed into Doubting George. He turns the landmark Kennesaw Mountain into Commissioner Mountain and the town of Allatoona into Whole Mackerel.

Get it?

"Marching Through Peachtree" is the second installment of Turtledove's "War Between the Provinces" series. The premise is simple -- the American Civil War happened in a different kind of world, one that has no gunpowder but does have sorcerers and flying carpets. He turns the United States upside down (and backwards) so that it's the north that secedes rather than the south.

Only small details changed

The Union is a kingdom, ruled by King Avram and the breakaway provinces follow his cousin, the self-proclaimed King Geoffrey. The burning issue of the time is the system of serfdom, which has oppressed a race of blond people for generations.

Turtledove has used this technique before (most recently in his "World at War" series). He takes familiar events and displaces them, changing the context. At his best, the author can provide the reader with a new way of looking at the way history unfolds.

"Marching Through Peachtree," alas, is not the author at his best. For all of the fiddling he does with names and places, Turtledove offers very little in the way of new insights about the War Between the States.

Indeed, the events of the book pretty much unfold as they did in actual history. Only the details -- like the repeating crossbows and unicorns -- have been changed.

Word games, little else

Instead of challenging the reader to reconsider what the history books teach us, Turtledove settles for challenging the reader to understand his jokes. Some of them are no-brainers (the Hoocheechoochee River, for example) while others are subtler (the provincial capital of Ramblerton).

After four hundred pages of puns, however, the joke wears very thin. Turtledove is a fine writer, though it would be hard to prove by this offering. The prose is functional at best, logy at worst. The author seems to have expended all his creative energy on playing word games.

There's nothing wrong with an established writer having some fun and recharging his creative batteries. Turtledove probably had a blast writing "Marching Through Peachtree." Too bad he didn't make it more fun to read.