There is a large cast of characters whose story
spreads over the course of several books, the most
recent being Out of the Darkness(2004), which ap-
pears to have brought the series to an end. Sentry
Peak (2000) similarly transposes the American
Civil War to a fantasy world, this time with a black
majority holding white slaves and a war between
two halves of a nation to determine their fate. The
war continues in Marching through Peachtree(2001)
and Advance and Retreat(2002). Turtledove has
also added to the CONANseries based on a charac-
ter created by Robert E. HOWARDwith Conan of
Venarium(2004), set very early in the barbarian
warrior’s career.
Turtledove collaborated with Judith TARRfor
Household Gods (1999), a time travel story in
which a contemporary woman discovers that an-
cient Rome was not what she expected it to be.
The popularity of Turtledove’s alternate history
science fiction novels has resulted in his directing
most of his recent work in that direction. The ma-
jority of his short stories are also in that field, al-
though “The Gentleman of Shade” (1988) is an
interesting Jack the Ripper story in which we dis-
cover that the serial killer was actually a vampire.
Turtledove is a reliable source of fast-paced, ac-
tion-filled adventure stories but often fails to de-
velop his characters fully and switches viewpoints
so often that the reader might become lost.
Tuttle, Lisa(1952– )
From the beginning of her career, Lisa Tuttle estab-
lished herself as a writer who ignored what was
popular in a genre, preferring to write intelligent
and thoughtful stories that were not quite what
her readers expected. She has been primarily inter-
ested in the psychology of her characters rather
than the physical events happening around them,
examining serious themes against a supernatural or
even surreal backdrop. Much of her later fiction in
particular incorporates feminist themes, although
never dogmatically.
She first began selling regularly in the 1970s,
primarily science fiction, although one of the best
of her early short stories is “The Horse Lord”
(1978), a horror story. She largely abandoned sci-
ence fiction and moved to horror after 1980, and
her first full-length novel in that genre, Familiar
Spirit,appeared in 1983. Although it is structured
as a haunted house story—a woman moves into a
new home and is altered by the influence of a dis-
embodied spirit resident in the house—the story
unfolds primarily through the mind of the protag-
onist, with few overt signs of the spirit’s presence.
Gabriel(1987) also employs a traditional de-
vice, in this case an ambiguous reincarnation. The
central character is a woman whose great love died
while still young. When she encounters her lost
lover’s nine-year-old son, she sees in him many of
the traits of his father and begins to believe he may
share the same soul. Lost Futures(1992) is very dif-
ficult to categorize. The protagonist dreams vividly
of alternate realities based on different choices she
might have made. The experience is disturbing
enough when it is confined to her dreams but be-
comes terrifying when she finds herself cast adrift
while awake. Pillow Friend(1996) is lighter in tone
but still heavily character driven. A young girl
learns that she is heir to a magical power that can
give her anything she desires, but eventually she
learns that everything also has a price. Her most
recent novel is The Mysteries(2005), in which a
private detective investigating a missing person
discovers that ancient Celtic magic might be re-
sponsible for the disappearance.
Much of Tuttle’s most effective work can be
found among her short stories, which have been
collected as A Nest of Nightmares(1986), Memories
of the Body(1992), Panther in Argyll(1996), and
Ghosts and Other Lovers(2002). Many of her stories
mix supernatural and science fiction elements.
“Treading the Maze” (1981), “From Another Coun-
try” (1986), “The Spirit Cabinet” (1988), “The
Walled Garden” (1989), “Turning Thirty” (1993),
and “The Mezzotint” (2003) are all of outstanding
quality. Because of her low output of novels, Tut-
tle’s name is not as familiar with most readers as it
deserves to be, but she is known within the genre as
a skilled and reliable writer with a powerful talent
for looking inside the human mind.The Two TowersJ. R. R. Tolkien(1954)
The middle volumes of trilogies are usually per-
ceived to be the weakest portion of a story. Typically,The Two Towers 357