Photo: 不明 / CC BY-SA 3.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
What grabs me about Harry Turtledove is how he turned a history doctorate from UCLA into a one-man alternate-history industry. Books like The Guns of the South and The Two Georges play out the great "what ifs," and the genre handed him real hardware: a 1994 Hugo for best novella plus a hat trick of Sidewise Awards stretching into 2017. I also find the pen names fascinating, Eric Iverson, H. N. Turteltaub and others, a writer comfortable wearing different masks. He's stayed rooted in Southern California the whole time, and to me that quiet consistency, decades of steady output, is the real story behind the trophies.
Overview
Harry Norman Turtledove (born June 14, 1949) is an American historian and author who is best known for his work in the genres of alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and mystery fiction. He lives in Southern California. In addition to his birth name, Turtledove writes under a number of pen names: Eric Iverson, H. N. Turteltaub, Dan Chernenko, and Mark Gordian.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Harry Turtledove
- Name (Japanese)
- ハリイ・タートルダヴ
- Reading
- はりい・たーとるだゔ
- Born
- June 14, 1949 (age 76)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Gemini / Ox
- Origin
- Los Angeles, California, United States
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- writer / novelist / historian / science fiction writer
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- University of California, Los Angeles
Awards & achievements
- 1994 Hugo Award for Best Novella
- 1997 Sidewise Award for Alternate History
- 2002 Sidewise Award for Alternate History
- 2017 Sidewise Award for Alternate History
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
5. Works & records
| Category | Title | Role | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notable work | The Guns of the South | — | |
| Notable work | The Two Georges | — |
6. Links
Writer — see all → · Novelist — see all → · More people from United States →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.