"In the Balance"

In the Balance: An Alternate History of the Second World War [Worldwar, Volume 1] (Harry Turtledove)

I think I'm being trolled with this book; it's a retelling of World War II where Earth is invaded by very slow lizard aliens, and as the author kept stopping to drive home how slow the lizards move and react, all I could think about was how slow this book moved, almost as if it was written by one of the lizards and published without going through an editor. The only reason that humans have any chance against the aliens and their advanced technology is due to this slowness, which the author repeats endlessly just in case you didn't get it the first time. This does not exactly make for a gripping read.
I forgave the other Turtledove book I read for being bloated because it had a strong narrative thread, but here Turtledove follows around way too many characters, half of whom have no reason for us to waste page after page watching them (here I'm looking askance at the minor league ballplayers and the frankly racist depiction of some captured Chinese peasants). I wonder if the problem is that this is the first volume of a four volume set; The author seems to feel no need to resolve any storylines he starts, nor give them much forward momentum, instead indulging in endless noodling and the repetition mentioned above. It's a shame - this is an idea with a lot of possibility, and  I feel like there's a decent book in here, maybe if all four volumes were trimmed down to a single 500 page novel. As it stands, I can't really recommend this one to anybody, unless you're having trouble going to sleep.

Grade: D-