The Guns of the South

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Summary: Entertaining Civil War Fantasy
Review: Guns of the South is an alternative history fantasy set in the American Civil War. Evil South Africans from the year 2014 time travel back to Robert E. Lee's winter camp in 1864 and supply the Army of Northern Virginia with AK-47 assault rifles. The Soviet and Yugoslav marked-rifles come complete with all the ammunition the Southerners can shoot. Absurd but entertaining. Lee puts the rifles to good use and overwhelms the Army of Potomac during the spring 1864 Wilderness Campaign. His forces overrun Washington and President Lincoln is forced to surrender on terms favorable to the Confederacy

The novel bogs down in the middle. After this victory there is a drawn out middle section describing the early peace in the first few years after war's end. Turtledove must have been paid by the word for this book; that's the only way I can explain two hundred fifty pages of padding. Turtledove details such things as Lee's thoughts about the future of the Confederate States of America, day to day life in rural North Carolina and a secession referendum in Kentucky.

The last part of the book is about the Confederacy's war against the South African after they try to assassinate newly elected President Lee. In Turtledove's book Lee has become a politically correct abolitionist who campaigns and wins the Confederate Presidency on a plan to quickly outlaw slavery in gradual stages. The South Africans apparently wish to colonize the past, holding slaves and living on grand plantations. A book stolen from the library of the one of the South Africans from the future is purportedly what compels most of the Confederate leaders to change their minds about slavery. They see that in the future (the book they look at is published in 1997) slavery has come to be seen as abhorrent and they are ashamed.

This is the part of the book that I had the greatest problem with. Even if you can accept the time travel paradox scenario, the fact that the opinions expressed in a book from the future will cause Confederates in the 1860's to change their worldview is simply wrong. I'm sure the Romans or the French under Napoleon wouldn't have changed core beliefs simply because of concern over the opinions of future generations. It is also curious that, on the one hand, Turtledove presents the slave-owning Confederate leaders as basically good men, on the other hand, he presents the South Africans from the future as racist caricatures. The White South Africans did after all give up power to the majority and dismantle their nuclear weapons even before Guns of the South was written. It would be difficult for a sane person to argue that apartheid was worse than slavery. It may be that this reviewer is giving too much thought to what is best regarded as a richly detailed but harmless fantasy story.

Rating:
Summary: Great story
Review: Once again Harry twist what is to what might have been. Clearly a very sick mind, a perfect man to write storys.

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Summary: My favorite fictional characterization of Robert E. Lee
Review: On one level Harry Turtledove's "The Guns of the South" reminds me of the Saturday Night Live skit which asked the question, "What if Napoleon had a B-52 at the Battle of Waterloo?" This alternative history novel about the Civil War asks "What if the South had AK-47s during the Civil War?" The answer is, of course, they would have won their independence. But ultimately "The Guns of the South" is more about what type of nation the Confederacy would have become. But for me the most ironic aspect of this novel is that this fictional work provides what I have come to consider the most realistic portrayal of Robert E. Lee; yes, more than "The Killer Angels." As a historical figure, Lee has always been distanced by the reverence with which he is held and his own reticence, which made him rather unique as a Civil War general who did not write his memoirs. Turtledove's Lee has clearly come down off the pedestal and there is something so compelling about the way Lee anguishes over political decisions. Of course, this is all imaginative speculation, but I happen to like imaginative speculation. I do not need anyone to work out the theoretical rationale for the time machine that allows the South African patriots to ship back weapons to the Confederacy. The strength of this novel does not rest on physics but on characterization and even though the idea that Lee's personal charisma would have been sufficient to get the Confederacy to abandon slavery, it is simply one of those idealized beliefs I would like to hold on to. "Guns of the South" is a good read, and whether you come to it as a Civil War buff or a fan of alternative histories, I think either way you will enjoy the novel.

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Summary: Southern Heritage
Review: This book is the best I've read. it's great for everyone with a Southern Heritage & even Northerners. Being a strong "Confederate States of America" supporter, this book made an exilent impresion in my life. Harry Turtledove knows his Civil war facts.

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Summary: An excellent read, provocative material
Review: Guns... is based on a very interesting proposition. What would have happened had the Confederacy won the civil war? The best thing about this book, in my opinion, is that it made me want to read about the Civil War's actual history, as well as what happened in this "alternate history." Guns... has a great storyline and interesting characters. Sometimes, the characters seem a bit one dimensional (General Lee, Andries Roodie, especially), but Turtledove more than makes up for it by keeping the story moving and the plot interesting. This is a true page turner and a great introduction for anyone who has never read a Turtledove novel.

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Summary: Implausible story, and awful portrayal of people
Review: This book has a very implausible development of the story. Furthermore, the character portrayal is very bad. Nathan Bedford Forrest is made into some monster, which he really wasn't. Also, Lee is not the Lee that we find in history. If you don't want anything to do with what really happened, then you might still be interested in it. But, then, why abuse actual people? Why not just make up your own whole world? I never liked time-machines anyway. Also, in the 1860s people had the technology to make AK-47s. They just didn't have the idea. Instead of making someone bring the machine-guns over with a time-machine, the author should have just made them make it at the Southern factories.

Rating:
Summary: Engagingly written but very contrived plot
Review: The good stuff in Guns of the South include a clearly well-researched setting, well-written, authentic-sounding dialog, and some fairly sympathetic characters (this is the Good Robert E. Lee from pre-Gettysburg, not the later, Less Sympathetic Robert E. Lee). Unlike most of the books in this genre, it's actually a surprisingly well-written book.

The problem for me was that the time travel drives essentially everything in the book. This is not a "minimal-impact" insertion; the Rivington Men not only come in and rearm the entire confederacy wit AK-47s, they also provide Robert E. Lee with a perfect retrospective on the Wilderness campaign, set up a large colony in the past (including computers, electric lights, and machine guns), get involved in political affairs (including an assassination attempt with Uzis on full auto that somehow misses its intended target but slaughters innocent bystanders in large numbers), transport huge quantities of documentation from the future, and generally treat the Confederacy like the Wild West.

All this means that the real people in the story, up to and including Robert E. Lee, are simply pawns to the time travellers. Nothing that happens is uninfluenced by their activities. This deprives the interesting ideas in the book of much of their impact. Turtletaub even manages to identify some crucial dividing points among a newly-established Confederacy (chiefly, what might happen if a pro-Slavery state were to choose to withdraw from a newly-independent Confederacy over Robert E. Lee's attempted gradual emancipation - something blatantly contrary to the Confederate constitution), but he bales even on these by simply having the characters decide to agree, without debate, when the "wrong-thinking" Confederates realize they have been manipulated by the Rivington men. It's as if one of the rules of the books is that real Confederates don't really disagree.

It's as if Turtletaub asked himself, "what do I need to do to give this book a happy ending of the Confederates?", and came up with an influx of AK-47s, hard currency (i.e., gold - the inevitable inflation is never mentioned), and a galvanizing (but beatable) set of really bad guys from the future. This is not a novel, or serious historical thought, it's just something Turtletaub came up with one day.

So, despite the authentic feel of the background characters, it all feels very contrived and unconvincing; this is more of an ego-massage for the Confederate sympathizer than an interesting book.

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Summary: theamazonking
Review: This man has one sick mind, all of his books twists the history in his on sick way. I love the way he thinks.

Rating:
Summary: Neat Book
Review: I read this book while in eighth grade. My one friend who is a Civil War freak told me about it. At first, the idea of R. E. Lee holding an Ak-47 seemed really retarded. I did get the book, though. After five pages into it, I couldn't put it down. I recomend it to any Civil War Buff. The only thing that I didn't like was the politics. I found them boring as Hell! Other than that, Harry Turtldove knows how to make something that sounds totally stupid into a really cool story.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting Premise
Review: The second half of the book is interesting, as it begins to dive into the consequences of a Confederate victory during the Civil War.

While I have not read much on the Civil War, this book served a dual purpose: that of a slight primer towards the motives and misconceptions towards the war, and an entertaining look at one more what-if in world history.

People say the story is not bad if you can get past the time machine theory. But then again, why should one have to get past that? It's almost like asking a Confederate soldier to get past the unachievable notion of an automatic rifle. What will we be capable of in the 21st century??

Good book, even for someone (like myself) that has not read much about the civil war.