Curious Notions by Harry Turtledove - SF - SFBookcase.com - Reference of Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels/Authors.

Series: Crosstime Traffic
Volume: 2
Genre: SF
ISBN: 0765306948
Pages: 272 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Price: 23.95
Reader Rating: Not rated

Curious Notions by Harry Turtledove

Description: In twenty-first-century San Francisco, Paul Gomes and his father, Lawrence, run a consumer electronics store. There's a catch, however, for theirs is an alternate San Francisco under the occupation of the kaiser's Germany. The Gomeses are from a time line that invented cross-time travel and are trading portable radios and record players for food. But the Germans are growing suspicious, and once the Woo family becomes involved, so do the Chinese tongs or triads, and they are anything but mythical. Since the book's main time line contains the technology to duplicate cross-time devices if their existence were to be learned, the German suspicions put Curious Notions (the name of the Gomeses' shop) in a position of exceptional awkwardness. Paul compounds the situation by getting sweet on Lucy Woo, which leads him to run more risks than he should before his home time line sends in the cavalry. A well-constructed world, superior characterization, and some serious analysis of the ethics of cross-time travel all make the yarn a winner.