Hail! Hail!

This novella is a bit of an oddity. Turtledove got it into his head to take four of the Marx Brothers (Chico, Harpo, Groucho, and Zeppo) from 1934 and dump them in the village of Nacogdoches in east Texas in 1826, at the time of the first abortive attempt at Texan independence from Mexico; which was actually achieved ten years later.

The resulting story is not really a comedy: the situation is taken quite seriously by the characters and the author, although it comes with the sort of humorous dialogue you expect from the Marx Brothers. We find out what Texas and its inhabitants were actually like at that time, and the author tries to imagine how the Marx Brothers would react to Texas, and how Texas would react to them.

The mechanics of time travel are pretty simple: apparently you just go out in a thunderstorm and get struck by lightning. All four of you at the same time.

I'm not sure what the point of this story is, or whether it has one. Apparently the author just got this idea into his head and wanted to write it down to get it out of his system. It's quite well done and mildly entertaining, both as alternative history and as Marx Brothers fan fiction; although I don't know the Marx Brothers very well, so I can't comment as an expert.