Book review, "City in Chains" by Harry Turtledove"

An Alternate History novel of the occupation of Paris

"City in Chains" is Harry Turtledove's latest novel exploring the dilemmas of real history through the medium of alternative history. 

It opens in a city called "Lutesse" which very, very obviously represents Paris occupied by the Nazis at a time roughly analogous to the winter of 1943/44. It explores the dilemmas posed by foreign occupation to residents of the city through the eyes of two viewpoint characters. 

The first viewpoint character is a junk dealer called Malk Malkovici who is a follower of the "Old Gods" and had migrated to Lutesse before the war from "Nistria."

In other words, he is analogous to a Jew from Eastern Europe, probably from Romania (though Bulgaria or Finland would also work.) He faces all the horrible choices someone in that position would face in Nazi occupied Europe - he desperately wants the Nazi occupiers (sorry, Chleuh occupants) to lose the war, but has to make himself useful to them if he wants himself and his family to go on breathing.

The other viewpoint character is an actor and producer called Guisa Sachry who has also made accommodation with the occupiers, rather more enthusiastically at first, but is coming to the uneasy realisation that he may have made the wrong decision.

"City in Chains," published June 2025, is the latest in about 23 alternate history novels by Harry Turtledove depicting alternative versions of the Second World War. Turtledove had previously published the following alternative World War 2 novels:

•  The "Darkness" six book series which, like this one, presents a picture fairly true to the real historical sequence of events, but in a world where technology is mostly based on magic rather than scientific engineering; 
•  The "War that came early" six-book series in which the 1938 Munich peace conference failed in a different way, resulting in the war starting in 1938 rather than the betrayal of Czechoslovakia;
•  The "Worldwar" quartet (followed by four further books set after the war) in which World War II is interrupted in 1941 by extraterrestrial invaders from Tau Ceti II, forcing the opposing human factions to work together to prevent the conquest of Earth.
•  The "Days of infamy" series of two books exploring what might have happened if the Imperial  Japanese armed forces had stuck to their original plan to follow-up the air attack on Pearl Harbour with a land invasion of Hawaii
•  The "Southern Victory" series charting the eighty-year history of of a Confederate States of America after a Confederate victory in the American Civil War includes the "Settling Accounts" quartet which is essentially an alternative World War II.

It would be possible to make arguments for about another three of Turtledove's standalone alternative history novels to be added to that list.

"City in Chains" is similar in tone to some of Turtledove's fantasy work such as the Videssos cycle and even more so to the Darkness or Derlavi alternative World War II series, with dragon-riders in place of aircraft, magic crystals in place of radios, and so on. However, while the Darkness series consists of six massive doorstop books each representing a year of World War II with a large number of viewpoint characters and covering conflicts all over the world,  "City in chains" is a much more focussed affair covering a couple of years in the life of one city from the viewpoint of two characters.

Turtledove also makes you work less hard to work out which real world nations, groups and in several case real historical characters like Charles De Gaul or Marshall Petain, various people and groups in the book represent.

In the "Darkness" series Turtledove played various tricks with racial characteristics and geography such as making the "Kaunians" who represent Jews in that series into blue-eyed blondes, reversing East and West, and making the country which corresponds to Finland into a hot country popoulated by people who look and dress like Africans while the campaign which in real history took place in the North African desert takes place in the equivalent of Antarctica. There are no such tricks here.

"City in chains" is a very well written ad enjoyable book, but also one which will make those of us who have been fortunate enough never to live under tyranny think about how we might behave if we did. I can recommend it.

You can find a link to the book on Amazon at

City in Chains eBook : Turtledove, Harry: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store