EmperorTigerstar and I picked two Turtledove books to read. He picked 'The Two Georges'. His seemed like a far more entertaining book. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rX9DCOrD_Qk.html
I feel the most unrealistic part is the French setting up colonies in Atlantis. France's colonial motivations largely centered around Native Americans and the fur trade, something this Atlantis has none of. It'd be far more likely that Atlantis in this scenario would be divided almost completely between the British and Spanish. Meanwhile, the French would establish their colony on Terra Nova, following the major rivers like they did irl for their beaver pelts.
@@RealMothman98, but that is not to say there would at least be interest from the US to go to Terra Nova, since in our timeline that was one of the main reasons for the American Revolution.
This actually makes me morbidly curious on how he would adapt further history with a US that can't expand past the original thirteenth colonies. Like I want to see the badshit insane way he integrates a Wild West into this mess.😂
@@RealMothman98 the important French colonies in the new world were the Caribbean colonies -- not Quebec/Canada. The French made sure that they hung on to those income producing colonies (mainly sugar) when they gave up the colony in North America (calling it merely 'Quelques arpents de neige ' - a few acres of snow).
It’s actually so disappointing because the eastern seaboard being in the middle of the Atlantic could actually mean Europeans learn of the New World WAY earlier. Which would change so much and has the ability to actually be interesting. Which is of course why Turtledove did not do that lol
That would be interesting, but also geographical considerations would be MASSIVE here. Would this new atlantis correspond with IRL temperatures and the like? Very unlikely. The biggest impact I think here would be that much more of North America would be colonizable and livable with large scale societies. Putting the Mississippi closer to the sea in the east make them better connected to trade networks. Most importantly it means that the US Midwest would be colonized and developed much faster, making the the global breadbasket of the world far quicker than in our timeline, NA might end up being actually more densely populated and faster in this timeline. Obviously, the book ignores the fact of ocean currents being affected, because Europe would be drastically different getting far less warm water from the caribbean. Large parts of Europe would be like Scandinavia. The mediterranean would be the true center of the region, with no competition.
Remember that Europeans actually *did* colonize a big chunk of North America that was sitting in the middle of the Atlantic back in the 10th century. it's called Greenland.
@@jic1Greenland lacked the ability for true independence due to hostility with natives, the barreness of the land and unable to colonize North America. So the stories go
its So british tho i can so see them being like so what do we call this? there are no people to ask “what is this called” “how about honkers” “perfect.”
Emperor Tigerstar made the same Joke in their last video too lol Yeah the Radcliffe thing is so bizarre,it's like Turtledove couldn't be bothered to come up with another name for his protagonists.
@@mcash232 literally every turtledove book i've read sucked except for the two georges (which coincidentally tigerstar reviewed on his channel with cody if you want to see that). I think at this point the publisher pays him for every hundred pages he writes so he churns out these shitty books like no tomorrow. I heard his books involving Byzantium were cool though. One of the other books I read, which was probably about as bad as the Atlantean series, is about WWII starting slightly early, and some of the consequences that come from Nazi Germany fighting the war somewhat more unprepared (and also Spain is in the axis powers because the guy franco replaced never dies in a plane crash). This turns into a three book series if I recall correctly, but I gave up halfway through the first book because the characters were extremely stiff, had two or three personality traits that kept on getting repeated, and the book just seemed like various montages of stuff blowing up. I think he's good at fleshing out scenarios but Cody is right in saying that you'd get the same amount of enjoyment from reading the wikipedia articles about his books
@@redcoat4348 I think Cody reviewed that series at some point. It... got weird. Turtledove seems so intent on just revisiting World War 2. His Darkness series was just world war two, but with dragons and magic sticks and in the southern hemisphere. I didn't bother finishing it since it was just the same battles and campaigns of our timeline narrated with barely-passable prose. And then The Man with the Iron Heart. The same problem, except it's the Middle East terrorist problem but with Nazis after WW2 ends. I really wanted to like that book too
I think the most obvious "missed opportunity" with this idea is that Turtledove never told the story of Atlantean Vinland Saga (slash Emu War), where Leif Eriksson and his band of adventurers would found a colony in northern Atlantis and, presumably, fight a war with the Honkers, since there would be no native "skraelings"
@@altyrrell3088That does make sense since apparently according to the Vinland Sagas the Norse expedition found the ruins of an old Irish settlement in America
This series can be summoned up with two words: *Wasted Potential* The idea of the US East Coast breaking off millions of years ago and becoming it's own continent is so fascinating, but Turtledove just uses it to tell a very condensed version of early US history with some stupid emus thrown into it. Like if something like this actually happened i would imagine it to be less like New Zealand and more like Australia with it being a safe haven for creatures that became long extinct in North America in our Timeline. You could probably write a whole book just centred around someone exploring the continent and it's strange fauna, Lost World style.
Plus, if it exists where the legendary Atlantis was postulated to be located by Plato, why not just have it be the Atlantis of legend? Heck, if the King Arthur legends are historical, why not make that the Avalon his body was buried at?
@@geoffreyrichards6079 Yeah the fact that this thing stays completly uninhabited until the 1600s is really contrived. If places like Greenland got settled before by various explorers a land that can actually support a civilisation would be booming, especially as a stepping stone to the Americas proper.
Well thats kind of Turtledove's MO. All his books boil down to slightly altered version of actual events. I mean guns of the south eventually boils down to Trench warfare in Europe AND America while WW2 has American Hitler invade the north and fall to a Stalingrad scenario in Pittsburg while the later books in the in the balance series have teenagers start a counterculture movement where instead of Communism being the "counter culture" of the US its the alien culture. All turtledove books start off interesting but he ends up falling back on actual history to tell the story. Its like he just runs out of ideas halfway through writing his book and just uses history books to finish off the remainder
Imagine if the new continent had its own intelligent species living on it, and 15th century Europeans had to deal with the revelation of encountering what would be to all intents and purpose an alien civilisation. That would be a much more interesting story
@@shinyagumon7015i honestly expected a successful Leif Ericson colonisation that loses contact with Norway after the fall of greenland, Malian mutineers descendants who lost contact with the empire of Mali in florida and cities made by Portugal in the age of exploration. I it could become a set of states called things like Avalon, Vinland, Colombia, Atlantis. With the locals surviving diseases, maybe it wouldn't become part of the triangular trade, but a feudal country that remains behind Europe, where the local lords have all the power into the 1900s.
I really wish Turtledove had the chance to write the kinds of books he was actually passionate about today. Cos there’s obviously an online History community that is well read on the topics he’s familiar with in Byzantine history but at the time, the only people who knew about that were academics which was a very small audience to be writing for. So he was kinda forced by commercial forces to write about the civil war and the world wars, which are limited in what you can do when you’re not that familiar with them. I’d love to see what he would actually want to write about and how interesting he could have made it if he knew there was actually an audience for it, which I don’t think he was aware of when cramming these mid scenarios out in the 80s-00s.
@@Kubinda12345 I need more Basil Argyros and Mirrane tales in my life, as a sort of Mr and Mrs Smith, where the main intrigue is them covering up their relationship to each other's imperial offices and coworkers, rather than from each other.
As a Wyomingite who lives 45 mins away from Laramie (home of the University of Wyoming) your welcome.... Who better to ride herd on a bunch of buffalo then a cowboy named Josh Allen... GO POKES!!!!!!
Most Alternate History: "What are the ramifications of (X) not happening/happening? let's explore the crazy scenarios that could come from this change" Harry Turtledove: "What if I moved American History 3 feet to the right?"
@@danese1636 Or in the case of World War I: "Why don't we put tanks and trenches in America? And what if instead of calling them tanks, we call them barrels?"
And turns out, Tod's actually Tod Radcliff the Third, and he leads atlantis into the second world war after the United States of Terra Nova attacks Avalon
You and Tigerstar should do those kinds of videos more often. Not necessarily Turtledove but the collaboration where you share research like a school project you’re showing to the class, which is us. Like you each read up on an obscure faction in the Russian Civil War to compare, or lesser known African civilisations or Native American tribes or obscure political parties or unknown wars or whatever, go crazy. I just really liked the vibe of that off the cuff collaboration where you just tell the other one about it and I’d really like to see a lot more of those kinds of videos in the future.
Yes I've read the world war series, the war that came early series and the fans of the South. I'm wondering g what else if worth a read (although I didn't finish the war that came early as it started to get silly)
Turtledove is really the epitome of a writer who has a truly impressive imagination and is great at creating intriguing settings but then just doesn't know what to do with them. In nearly all of his works the story either goes completely off the rails into Alien Space Bats territory or on the rare occasion when he's mindful to keep his narrative halfway-plausible it just ends up kind of petering out and being boring. He's also not exactly the most gripping or engaging writer from a technical standpoint. And it pains me to say that because he has a genuine treasure trove of amazing ideas and he's clearly very passionate about his craft, it's just the end result always turns out kind of underwhelming.
He solved that problem in Worldwar by just starting out with the aliens and making them central. Don't go off the rails, just pick a genre where the rails go in the direction you want.
There’s so many missed opportunities and narrative fogbanks in his books, too. He writes so many books about war, and yet never references any of the weapons systems in anything but the most general terms. Why is the U.S. Army’s principle barrel in the Second Great War barely upgraded, when the Sherman was probably the most versatile and modular tank of the war IRL? No particular reason, apparently. Why don’t they have any other infantry weapons besides Grandpappy’s Springfield from the last war? Don’t know. How does the CSA have the industry to produce fancy submachine guns and automatic rifles for every soldier they have while on the tail end of a Great Depression? Just don’t think about it. It’s so infuriating because it takes me out of the story thinking about how little I can actually visualize and how little it all makes sense. He’s good enough that when things like that come up they’re genuinely distracting.
As an ecologist the geography presented in this series is *fascinating*. Firstly, you're going to completely change the currents of the Atlantic, which probably leads to a cooler, drier Europe. From there it just gets more and more interesting.
Any time you make such an extreme change to the physical geography step 1 is figuring out the ecological impacts. This would disrupt Atlantic ocean currents, possibly prevent any significant glaciation (New England wouldn't have rocky soil, and Long Island wouldn't exist), so much weather & climate deviation, ect. It might even be possible for someone in Europe to math out that their weather doesn't match what they expect from an assumed massive ocean to the west. (Also why do these birds migrate in from the west, and fly out to sea, to not be seen for half the year) This doesn't even get into the impacts of these climate differences. Big changes to Europe's history, and possible early colonization / conquest way earlier. Very interesting hypothetical, completely wasted by just copy pasting a 3rd grade US history textbook onto it.
The funny thing is, the way Atlantis is situated you'd get a more 'normal' set of oceanic currents than we have IRL because you don't have the closed-in 'bath' that is the Caribbean/Gulf of Mexico, so no Gulf Stream. This in and of itself is a massive change with global implications. I agree with you about the lack of glaciation, and the idea of birds migrating to and from 'Atlantis' is an interesting one as well.
Turtledove really should've written the Radcliffe family into being quite a bit goofier, a little bit bizarre, if you will. And maybe rename the series to something like, I dunno "Radcliffe's Bizarre Adventure" But for real, having the Radcliffes pop up everywhere could've been an awesome comedic setup.
Maybe they can have the same two letters in a part of their names... Like Raphael Radcliffe, Randy Radcliffe, and Rachel Radcliffe if they do a female lead
I remember the world war series. I had to write all the names and their nationalities on a piece of palate and use it as a bookmark bookmark. Waaaay too many characters.
My take on this alternate geography: - Peoples from the Orinoco river valley would land in Cuba in about 500 BC. From there, these peoples would spread to other islands and also along the coasts of Atlantis. - To heck with it, let’s really make this wild. There’s some (disputed) evidence of Carthaginian settlement in the Azores Archipelago. If we assume this evidence to be real, then the Azores would be a convenient stepping stone to Atlantis. Let’s say Carthage lands on Atlantis in ~400 BC, giving them the opportunity to spread down the coasts for mineral resources (especially in the New England area). - This wouldn’t change the outcome of the Punic Wars, but Carthaginian civilization would be able to survive. Rome would be unable to project naval power outside the Mediterranean. Carthage would make a new capitol, in the convenient port of Boston! Of course they wouldn’t call it Boston. I’m guessing they’d call it something like “gemstone port” for the available rhodonites and garnets nearby. Obviously it’d be in Punic instead of English, but I can’t find a translator, so we’re stuck with Gemport. - The new Gemport empire would be seen as an eternal enemy by Rome. Gemport would see Rome the same way. Rome would blockade the Pillars of Hercules, causing Gemport to expand trade routes along the Atlantic coast to make those juicy profits. I’d imagine them even setting up shop in the Copenhagen area for a convenient route to the amber-rich Baltic. - Gemport would also expand southward for resources, eventually making contact with the Arawakan-speaking peoples in southern Atlantis. They’d continue expanding trade routes along the Caribbean and South America. - Gemport would assist European tribes against Roman conquest. Not out of the goodness of their hearts, mind you. They’re trying to protect their profits by having buffer tribes between themselves and Rome. While also spiting Rome. - In general, there would be lots of proxy wars. Gemport would use their vast money, and Rome would use their vast military. - Due to trade routes, plague would sweep across the non-Punic Atlanteans and Americans. In this difficult time, Gemport would exploit the sadness of those who lose loved ones. They’d sell alcohol to the devastated non-Punic people of Atlantis, allowing them to drink away their sorrows… for a price. - North and South America would likely be able to recover from the plagues over the coming centuries. Non-Punic Atlantis would not recover. That’s as far as I can theorize right now. Feel free to use this. Probs not the most realistic scenario, but still fun!
The slaves taking charge of their own destiny rather than the Radcliffes is a cool thing in this series **Revolt leader is Frederik Radclif** SON OF A BITCH!!
2:44 I just realized looking at that map and hearing you say there were no humans there; That landmass is like riding Cuba and at least a dozen Caribbean islands, which were all populated and fairly heavily so before Columbus, and they tended to travel amongst each other. There's no way they'd all just happen to miss the giant subcontinent slightly north of them, they'd at least be aware of it if not have some camp sites on the southern end of it.
I wasn’t expecting the Podcast to actually become a episode… but man you got the short stick here. Tigerstar got a actual book, with actual characters (a rarity for Turtledove) AND a better scenario that changed the entire world. Meanwhile you got a Wikipedia page with the names crossed out… But seriously why is it called Atlantis (in universe)? The naming conventions shouldn’t be that different from our own timeline since this is still the age of discovery. Is that just never explained?
I would argue that Atlantis as a name makes a lot of sense. In the Age of Discovery and beyond, people were willing to scrap the bottom of the barrel to come up with names that were as cool and/or profitable as it gets, whether by satisfying the monarch (Jamestown), flattering the ego of the explorer (Colombia), express their religious zealotry (St. Louis), patriotism (New Amsterdam) and once the list ran out, they sought out the native counterparts, came up with neologisms or even consulted sources back home for inspiration (we know how California was the name of an island in a 16th century Spanish adventure novel). If there had been a hugeass island in the middle of the Atlantic, it's actually quite probable Atlantis would at the very least be considered by someone.
@@yarpen26, oh, please, tell us how YOU think all those places should have been named. I mean, you're bad-mouthing how it was done, so you MUST have a better way of doing it, right? Enlighten the rest of us how places should have been named.
I'd be interested in hearing the point of divergence - with Atlantis being THAT much closer to Europe, there's effectively no way it would intersect with the old world like America did. Heck, without any American Indians to drive them out, would Lief Erikson's original colony even have failed?
Seriously, if you ignore people entirely and just focus on the geography, oceanography and biology of what Atlantis existing would mean to itself and the wider world, it would be a massively juicy topic!
Fun fact: Ibai Llanos, the guy in the whiteboard-writing meme at 4:55, is Basque, from Bilbao. Kind of fitting to show him just after what it's said at 4:39.
This perfectly encapsulates Turtledove. The man has some great ideas for scenarios, but he's borderline inept at creating a narrative around them. Honestly, he'd be an amazing collaborator in some sort of studio.
Yeah…I really like Turtledove, but I remember reading the synopsis of this series and just thought “there is virtually no reason to read this. It’s just American history with names changed.”
10:10 I know this Radcliff slave revolt is stupid, but it kinda makes sense. The slave leader being a famous Radcliff which, from what I an tell is a famous bloodline, gives his cause and leadership extra legitimacy.
Can you imagine how bad of a pants-soiling terror it would be to hear the guy leading the uprising is part of the bloodline that singlehandedly kicked the rear end of every opponent they've faced since the 15th century? It would go from "this is bad" to "we are all going to die"
I actually like most of the characters in [good] Turtledove books, especially in the super volcano trilogy. World War and Southern victory also have memorable characters.
I liked the Supervolcano series... the 'aliens invade during WWII' was a pretty fun read, Guns of the South, World War, and the "What if WWII but in America!" were also fun reads... some of his others.... oy vey.
I'm pretty sure Cody could do better than Turtledove regarding this premise. Even if he doesn't go full Atlantropa on the concept, he'd at least make a more interesting setting out of an Amero-Atlantean continent. Hell, when he was shooting the shtick with Caelan of AtlasPro, he workshopped an intriguing premise for a full-on Mascarene Archipelago.
One thing which probably was not addressed in the book was how a major geographical change like that would also change water and wind current patterns, and therefore climates in many different places. But Turtledove is no Frank Herbert, to be sure.
See, this is what sets Turtledove apart from so many other writers, so very few will turn a previous book’s protagonist into a rapist in order to stick closely to the “one family tree does everything important” theme.
As long as he plays every Radcliffe. Not sure if it would be funnier for the gag to go unacknowledged or for other characters to catch on that all the radcliffs look that same and are everywhere.
@@jasonreed7522 you want to know what would be funnier? Both. Just have to be inconsistent with some characters catching on, but most failing too and those who catch on never being believed.
I haven't read this book, but I'm surprised that since Atlantis is created during the Pangea Breakup between the Late Triassic and Early Cretaceous, the most unrealistic part about this is it wasn't entirely volcanic since it's located within the mid Atlantic ridge, and the flora and fauna are supposed to be vastly different with dinosaurs and pterosaurs still roaming around the continent and even adapted to Hawaiian volanic eruptions that help replenish the soil for plants to grow, and while the dominant mammals evolved since the Late Triassic died off during the KT extinction event, the smaller scavengers that were dinosaurs and pterosaurs became larger and more diverse today.
@@AlternateHistoryHubyou should talk about this story where one time I went to this restaurant and there like this really hot waitress it was hooters and they totally fell me me and I like banged all of them at the same time and then Obama called me and said due your amazing
As someone who is working on my own story that involves an alt universe, hearing bad stories like this have made me rethink my own story. I think the small details go a long way with alt universes, how would language change, how would the wildlife be effected? These are the things that Atlantis didn’t really take into account.
Rewriting this could be fun. I would actually argue keeping Radcliffe as a lot of major characters last names is even a fantastic idea, but not have them actually be related. More so a mythos that surrounds the name, causing it to be a common last name to choose, sort of like “Washington” in our timeline, but more pronounced.
Nah, it's just that 99% of alternate history out there is utter crap that is first and foremost preposterously lazy in its worldbuilding. This genre is still awaiting the coming of its Tolkien, some writer of note who will finally treat it with the kind of respect it deserves.
I like Harry Turtledove books, but I do agree that he likes to make parallels with real history in all of his works than can take away from the scenario.
I absolutely love the fact that you’re slightly inspired by this dude on different historical topics and simultaneously rip on him a lot. You always do these the best, the rawness of what you say is gold
I'm imagining the continent of 'Being John Malkovich' where everyone is Radcliffe and can only say "Radcliffe Radcliffe? Radcliffe Radcliffe, Radcliffe Radcliffe!"
About the things constantly repeating themselves in Turtledove's books, i heard that in his first Southern Victory book (How Few Remain), people apparently complained that they lost track of who was which character when they spoke, so Turtledove apparently thought this would help in keeping the characters recognizable. And How Few Remain was the book where most of the POV characters were real historical people. go figure.
The fault is entirely on him then. If you can't tell which character is speaking based on their manner of talking and vocabulary, then it's a pretty weak character.
I honestly think there would be way more diverse and bizzare fauna. Something like in South America (prior to contact with North) but also different because not every group of animals is suitet for crossing waters. IRL Carribiean was home to several ground sloths (and not necesary closely related species)
I'm one hundred percent sure that the reasone why there are no humans in atlantis is that Turtledove didn't want the Radclifs to be responsible for genocide.
I'd love to see you and Tiger review the Stars and Stripes trilogy by Harry Harrison. While not quite as bad as Turtledove they do get pretty schlocky and ra-ra USA, but I still found them to be fun reads
You two have actually inspired me to order the southern victory set back when you did your videos on them. That Featherstone fella 😂 it's cheese but it's good cheese. I can tell your intention was to win him readers
I love Turtledove but his dialogue leaves a lot to be desired. "I wish I could say you're wrong but I can't because I think you're right" That phrase turns up a half dozen times in every single book.
I like Emperor Tigarstar's commentary on how in the modern day internet culture of Atlantis would have conspiracy videos how The Radcliff family rules the country.
Now that I think about he does ww2 but a lot. There was the one with the aliens and than the one were it came early and than there was the one were the Japanese take Hawaii which I tried to read. And if you want you can count the series that is part of if the south won the civil war that is world war 2 only the South are the Nazis. It makes you want to see him do another war than we get his Korean War but we drop nukes followed by everyone else.
@stephennootens916 I feel as he got older he and his publisher realized that WW2 just sold better than his other stories. So, he just started focusing on "WW2, but different." Some of them aren't bad, but how many different versions of ww2 can you do before it becomes tiresome?
@@SmilingGator96 I liked the one series with the aliens because I am a sucker for an Alien invasion story with a new spin but I got bored and I don't recall finishing it. The same thin happened with the Japanese take Hawaii and that was only two books and I don't think I made it through the first. I have read other authors who do one trilogy or series that falls into alt history and they often do a better job than he does in the genre he is viewed as a master of.
@stephennootens916 Because he doesn't do any character development. I never finished the World at War series with the aliens because it was boring. John Birmingham did a series where modern fleets get sent back to ww2, and it was far more interesting than most of Turtledoves series. He does have some good standalone books and series, but most of Turtledoves books get boring because the characters are boring and one dimensional. I like his Into the Darkness series (ww2 in a different world with magic), his alt world Byzantine empire series, and the one with the mammoth riding bad guys. Most of his others just aren't that great.
@@SmilingGator96 I really liked Birmingham's trilogy. It didn't have a billion characters and the once he had were largely interesting. The action also moved well and you didn't feel like story wasn't going anywhere. If I had any negatives about it is the last book feels opened ended and we only got slight hints at how the up timers effect America on a civilian level.
3:54 What would be cool if there was a Roman colony (of either Roman merchants and exiles that were just forgotten about before the age of exploration) there, that outlasted the fall of the Roman empire and either integrated with some of the Native Americans to form a hybrid of Roman-Indian culture, or they were able to form a big enough settlement to become a Caesardom or Republic. Which would make the scenario a bit more interesting, interaction wise between the New World and Old
One thing that isn't mentioned in this video and probably isn't touched on much in this scenario is the ramifications of some of the first settlers of this alternate eastern united states being basques and bretons (people from brittany, not the elder scrolls race). Would there be significant minorities of Basques and Bretons living in Atlantis by the time of the third book? Would Basque and Breton culture cause the alternate USA to be significantly culturally different than our USA? Considering that the British settlers don't seem to like the Basques that much, would this lead to skirmishes and tensions between the English and Basques, or Basques being treated like second class citizens by the English settlers? Would Basque and Breton settlers influence colonisation efforts by France and Spain considering that both provinces are currently part of either France or Spain? Would they claim that it gave them a claim to the continent, causing even more tension with English settlers and England or Great Britain? Would a Breton colony in atlantis influence its history and relationship with France (Brittany didn't become a part of France until the 1600s) and if it still became a part pf France at a similar time, would this impact later colonisation efforts?
Some historical events that I believe could become interesting alternate history scenarios; 1. The Utah War deteriorates from the Mormon Militias and the US Army just annoying each other into an actual war. 2. The Intermarium becomes an actual thing after World War I and unifies all countries from the Baltic Sea, Black Sea, and Adriatic Sea between Germany and the USSR. 3. What if the 2007 Estonian Cyberwar causes World War III between NATO and Russia (this was an actual, though unlikely, possibility)
I really wish you did your own scenario set in the premise of " there's a continent in the Atlantic". I feel like it could be an interesting scenario, if we kick Radcliffs from the equation, and add a pinch of realism
