Harry Turtledove
Book 6 of Crosstime Traffic
ISBN
Publisher: New York : Tor, 2008.
Published: Mar 31, 2009
The thought-provoking sixth Crosstime Traffic book (after The Gladiator), set in a time line where 130 years have passed since the devastating worldwide nuclear war of 1967, shifts the series focus from commerce to wartime ethical dilemmas. The people of Westside, one of the tiny fiefdoms around what was once Los Angeles, don't know that friendly trader Jeff Mendoza and his family are actually scholars visiting from the "home" time line, where the Soviets and Americans never launched their missiles. Jeff's teenage daughter, Liz, chafes under the local conditions, struggling to get along with the sexist, condescending locals. When troops from the nearby Valley invade Westside, Liz finds herself fending off a love-smitten Valley soldier who, much to her surprise, is not stupid, just ignorant. Turtledove subtly challenges Liz's assumptions about the superiority of her own culture, raising the question of the home time line's responsibility to help the people of other lines, but leaving it for presumed sequels to answer. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Adult/High School—Humankind has learned absolutely nothing about helping one's fellow man or woman. It's 130 years after the Fire destroyed Earth in 1967, and the Mendoza family, funded by a Crosstime Traffic grant and disguised as traders, return to postwar Earth to learn who initiated the hostilities. Liz Mendoza frequently visits the UCLA library to analyze the period books and magazines, searching for insight and reasons for the conflict. It is on her regular trips to the library that she meets Dan, a Westside soldier whom she initially considers dull and dumb. But Dan is not as unschooled and ignorant as Liz thinks, and, although he is attracted to her, he has his misgivings about the Mendozas. His suspicions are confirmed, and he blows their cover and causes them to return to their own time alternate, but not before he asks why someone from a different time, who has the knowledge and expertise to help Earth recover from its postwar havoc, does nothing. Readers may first think it's because the Mendozas don't want to change history, but the truth has everything to do with profit and gain and nothing to do with preserving the past. Fans of dystopic novels will delight in agreeing.—_Joanne Ligamari, Twin Rivers United School District, Sacramento, CA_ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Description:
From Publishers Weekly
The thought-provoking sixth Crosstime Traffic book (after The Gladiator), set in a time line where 130 years have passed since the devastating worldwide nuclear war of 1967, shifts the series focus from commerce to wartime ethical dilemmas. The people of Westside, one of the tiny fiefdoms around what was once Los Angeles, don't know that friendly trader Jeff Mendoza and his family are actually scholars visiting from the "home" time line, where the Soviets and Americans never launched their missiles. Jeff's teenage daughter, Liz, chafes under the local conditions, struggling to get along with the sexist, condescending locals. When troops from the nearby Valley invade Westside, Liz finds herself fending off a love-smitten Valley soldier who, much to her surprise, is not stupid, just ignorant. Turtledove subtly challenges Liz's assumptions about the superiority of her own culture, raising the question of the home time line's responsibility to help the people of other lines, but leaving it for presumed sequels to answer.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School—Humankind has learned absolutely nothing about helping one's fellow man or woman. It's 130 years after the Fire destroyed Earth in 1967, and the Mendoza family, funded by a Crosstime Traffic grant and disguised as traders, return to postwar Earth to learn who initiated the hostilities. Liz Mendoza frequently visits the UCLA library to analyze the period books and magazines, searching for insight and reasons for the conflict. It is on her regular trips to the library that she meets Dan, a Westside soldier whom she initially considers dull and dumb. But Dan is not as unschooled and ignorant as Liz thinks, and, although he is attracted to her, he has his misgivings about the Mendozas. His suspicions are confirmed, and he blows their cover and causes them to return to their own time alternate, but not before he asks why someone from a different time, who has the knowledge and expertise to help Earth recover from its postwar havoc, does nothing. Readers may first think it's because the Mendozas don't want to change history, but the truth has everything to do with profit and gain and nothing to do with preserving the past. Fans of dystopic novels will delight in agreeing.—_Joanne Ligamari, Twin Rivers United School District, Sacramento, CA_
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.