American Empire: The Victorious Opposition

Rating:
Summary: Get ready to for war!!!!
Review: First off, I like how Harry killed off most of his dead weight (i.e. Nellie Jaccobs and Sylvia Enos Lucien Galtier but the way how he died I'm sure most men would have loved to depart the Earth). I liked Sylvia but she started going down hill after she shot Roger Kimball back in book 5 (American Empire: Blood & Iron) and began dating that violatile loser Ernie who popped her in the end. Nellie just became that annoying grandma you have to visit in the summer and have to be nice to her but she gets to say and do what she likes. . . Bitter old crone.
Good replacements for the Settling Account Trilogy (i.e. George Enos II and Armstrong Grimes and Leonard O'Doull). The plot mirrors slightly with real histroy but goes off on some points with the Munich Pact(Richmond Pact if Harry ever gives the talks between Freatherson and Smith a name), Austria(Kentucky and Houston), Mexican Civil War between the Confederate backed Imperialists and the Union backed Republicans(Spanish Civil War between the Facist backed Nationalists and the Soviet backed Loyalists). Nicely done.
Many of you agree with me....where was the alternate Jesse Owens for the 1936 Richmond Games? I would have laughed to read about a union black athlete showing up a confederate white from Featherson's point of view when he'd get up staged just like Hitler did.
I'm surprise Scipio/Xerxes doesn't get seen by Anne Colleton until near the end of the book. Perhaps something for the next one. He has been able to stay away from her for 23 some odd years with a bounty on his head is nothing short of a mircle.
Harry does have some problems with the repetitiveness about Cartsen being sun burned and Scipio getting laughed at but overall well liked and read.
North America is going to war and Harry is our news man.

Rating:
Summary: Great story, not so great execution
Review: "The Victorious Opposition" is actually the seventh volume in a multi-generational epic which began in "How Few Remain." Turtledove started with the premise of the South winning the Civil War, and has taken it through WWI; and in this novel, to the 1940's.

First, the negatives: The cast of characters is huge and it is here where Turtledove trips up. His cast is so large, he feels the need to literally reintroduce each one every twenty pages, and to reiterate their personality traits in the narrative. If you've read the previous installments of this alternate history saga, you'll quickly grow sick of being told that Nellie Jacobs hates men, that Sam Carsten sunburns easily, and that Abner Dowling is fat. It's as if he doesn't trust the reader to remember things on their own. Turtledove also utilizes the same phrases over and over again; for example, having a character ask "Isn't that the sad and sorry truth?" or "No one argued with him," etc. This is the case with every novel he's written, not just this series.

This is getting really nitpicky, but as a former soldier, it irritates me the way Turtledove has soldiers address each other by full rank, ie "Good morning Lieutenant Colonel Abell." "Good morning to you Brigadier General." In the actual US Army, lieutenant colonels are called "colonel" and generals are called generals, no matter how many stars they have.

The positives: Turtledove is still an excellent story teller, and this is definitely an awesome story. It closely parallels the "real" history: Jake Featherston is Hitler, Jefferson Pinkard is a concentration camp commander, and the Confederacy is Nazi Germany. The narrative moves at a swift pace, despite the repetition I mentioned earlier, and you get a grand panorama of the world hurtling towards a second global conflict as seen by characters from all walks of life. Chester Martin is an excellent portrait of a working class stiff in the Depression, and Jake Featherston makes a formidable politician despite his volatile temperament. Be on the lookout for a cameo appearance by a young Democrat congressman named Barry Goldwater.

"The Victorious Opposition" is a five star story, but I have to give it four stars because of several failings on the purely mechanical level.

Rating:
Summary: Setup for war
Review: "The Victorious Opposition" moves the final pieces on the board into place. War is ready to begin.

The United States, weakened by Socialism, is ill-prepared but beginning to catch up on its military. The Confederates, who have descended into fascism, are gearing up for a major push. Meanwhile, they are also beginning an extermination of the black population.

Turtledove is doing a little elimination of his characters as well. Older characters pass on, with new ones taking over. Man-hater Nellie dies from blood poisoning; her nephew Armstrong takes up her line, with his perspective.

Another interesting glimpse into the world is the appearance of more real-life people. There were various "guest appearances" by certain individuals, like Louie Armstrong, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan.

Of course, being Turtledove, he can't get away from the repeated character descriptions. Still, this is an outstanding look at what it to come.

Rating:
Summary: It Depends On How You Read It
Review: ...specifically, that means "it depends on the spirit in which you read this and other Turtledove books".

First, a caveat: this review is going to be as much a small arguementative essay toward one review as it will be a review of the book itself - because I think many reviews I've read inspired me to respond as such.

Having said that, I will go to the review. Yes, as many reviewers complained, Turtledove is a tedious writer. I myself simply skip over many parts of his novel series (esp. the Quebec farmer, Nellie & Co., and the US lawyer in Canada). I see these story lines adding little, if anything, to the series. Nevertheless, when I bought his books, I didn't expect to be interested in EVERY character in his books, and so don't scold Turtledove too badly for this. So while he definitely has too many characters whose story lines add nothing but lots of pages, and many of those characters were just plain uninteresting, I did not let it spoil my enjoyment of the book.

The basic series line: The Confederacy as Nazi Germany formula, while hardly of striking originalty, is intriguing nevertheless (perhaps because I'm a multigenerational Deep Southerner, it captivated me more than many other readers). On that offshoot, I especially find realistic Featherston's lack of interests in demonizing Jews (who were in real life tolerated surprisingly well in the Deep South, at least surprisingly so given The South's history of bigotry). In fact, Featherston's chief propagandist turned out to be a Jew, which certainly is a creative irony I give Turtledove credit for.

However, I find the idea of a USA that refused to rearm in the face of a Featherston-dominated Confederacy a bit unrealistic. Even more unrealistic is the notion that even an armed-to-the- teeth CSA could ever hope to defeat the USA. Unlike Germany taking on the USSR (in the real world), the USA was not comparatively impoverished vis-a-vis the CSA the way Russia was to Germany. In fact, this was a major reason Germany fought so successfully against the USSR until the final phase of the real WW2. Were I to write the war trends of the upcoming alternative WW2 novel, the CSA would probably be beaten off in no more than three years, and probably shorter. The CSA simply would not have the capacity to withstand this USA, even a Socialist / Peace Party dominated one.

Overall though, The Victorious Opposition does make an intriguing read and have given it 4 stars.

Now, to some of the reviewers. One reviewer complained that there was no depth to the Huey Long / Featherston episode in particular, specifically complaining that there was no dialogue between the two that might make each realize that they were just two opposite sides of the coin. This complaint would be valid if Turtledove intended this work to be a "classic" work aboout about philosophy / ethics, but not in a novel like those Turtledove writes. Turtledove essentially intends to write about what might have actually happened in the rough and tumble world of politics. Surely, in this scenario, it would be much more realistic for Featherston & Co. to send his forces into Louisiana than it would be for Featherston and Long to engage in deep philosophical speculation of ones actions. Such lofty conversations would simply be out of place in the genre.

Rating:
Summary: Fans of Turtledove's alternative history will enjoy this one
Review: Alternative history is a branch of modern literature which provides a distorted but tremendously enlightening reflection of the world we all live in today. This 3rd entry in Turtledove's series after the Great War seems his best work to date, with the promise of an even more engaging story to come. The current novel postulates that the terrible Fascist/Nazi experiments of the 20th Century would have inevitably been inflicted upon our world regardless of the outcome of WWI. His inclusion of well-known historical figures from our time who are thrust into completely different lives by the vagaries of historical events is quite refreshing. I particularly enjoyed reading about a certain skilled writer named Ernie who, seriously wounded in his privates while serving as an ambulance driver in the Great War, could never ultimately cope with his inability to live a life of full-blossomed manhood. I wonder who Harry had in mind there...

Hey, if you enjoy Turtledove's alternative history, this is a much more satisfying read than the last 2 entries in this series. This book has warts; it still suffers from the classic Turtledove defect of excessive repetition which unnecessarily slows the pace. Still, in the end, when one considers the frightening similarity Harry constructs between the events leading up to the historical "Fall Weiss" invasion of Poland in 1939 and Turtledove's "Blackbeard" in the Western Hemisphere, it leaves one eagerly waiting to find out just how WWII turns out in Turtledove's alternative universe.

Keep 'em coming, Harry!

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating alternate history--but could be trimmed
Review: Although they were defeated in the Great War (counterpart to WWI), the Confederate States haven't given up the idea of getting revenge. Now ruled by Jake Featherston (Hitler), the south has began a campaign of genocide against the African Americans, incited rebellion in the territories occupied by the Union, and violated all of their agreements to remain disarmed. THE VICTORIOUS OPPOSITION is the countdown to war with the Union doing everything it can to avoid it--even if it means appeasement.

Author Harry Turtledove has created a powerful alternate reality in the GREAT WAR/AMERICAN EMPIRE series of which this is fifth novel. Aided by Britain and France, the south won the civil war. When the United States allied with Germany during the Great War, France, Britain, and the Confederacy were defeated. Like the Germans in our own reality, the seeds of future violence were planted in that victory.

Turtledove tells his story from the point of view of a number of characters--a builder in Los Angeles, an officer on an aircraft carrier, a lawyer in occupied Canada, a farmer in free Quebec--including several senior officers and politicians. Some of these characters are more interesting than others (and some are dying, having played out their roles in earlier novels). Because Turtledove uses so many characters, he has developed strong character tags--which sometimes step over the barrier into repetition.

While a few of the point-of-view characters fail to move the story along, THE VICTORIOUS OPPOSITION still makes fascinating reading. It is interesting to think of a divided United States (and dramatically different voting patterns within the current U.S. make it even more interesting as readers contemplate a southern President who lies his nation into war) and how a different outcome in the American Civil War would have affected the entire course of history (would we have considered the Austrian reaction to the assassination of the Arch-Duke as justifiable in light of the terrorism that Serbia supported?).

The book could have stood a careful edit and some trimming, but Turtledove's story-telling overcomes these limitations.

Rating:
Summary: The Turtledove Consortium Writes Again
Review: Another book by the consortium who writes under the Turtledove name and again it has its highs and lows. (BTW: it must be a consortium given the production rate of new books appearing each year under the Turtledove label. Also the distinctly female POV of some scenes make it hard to believe that one man wrote it all. So I guess the master himself writes stand-alone novels and farms out series to his consortium)

The book itself is on one hand a gripping description of a country sliding deeper into tyranny and madness. On the other it tries to give its characters a personal life, meaning that its (mostly senior) heroes have sex. Or regret not having sex...

Those parts where fundamentally decent people get sucked into a system of evil are fascinating to read and let the reader understand how similar things happened in the Europe of the 1930s. Also the domestic side of appeasement, how hope against hope made bargains with the devil possible, comes to life in this book.

Stretching out the story to 30 years (50 if you count How Few Remain) and continuing means that a lot of characters change. The partner in charge of their storyline sometimes discards them and brings in someone new, a relative or descendant of the killed character.

F.e. Boston fisherman George Enos was killed and replaced by his wife. Now she is killed (because of bad sex) and replaced by their son, George jr. Such replacements do not always work out well because I suspect that the they do not always fit the writing style of the partner who is in charge of them.

I wonder if the names some of the characters bear are a programmatic regarding their fate in the story arc. Scipio, Cassius, Achilles ... the name partner of the consortium is supposed to know his classics. I am really looking forward to the next book(s) to see if their fate follows that of their ancient name-sakes.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent read,however...
Review: Another chapter of an ongoing saga of Americana of what-ifs and what-thens. If only Harry were to lay off on the gratuitous sex scenes,this would be an absolute 5-star novel.The action is well done and even in the lulls between,there is never a dull moment.Read all his Great War/American Empire novels and you will never regret doing so....

Rating:
Summary: I'm ready for the War
Review: Another one of those Turtledove books where mostly nothing happens with the notable exception that Colonel Porter turns cloak and joins the Freedom Party and the rest of the cast moves slowly but surely to the 2nd world war in this alternate universe. A signifigant improvment over the last volume but still not perfect and readers still don't get a good view of what is going on outside of America.

Overall-Didn't much care for it but didn't hate it either would be a solid book for a returning fan but not the place for a Turtledove newbie to start.


Rating:
Summary: The saga of the United & Confederate States continues!
Review: Another page turner by Harry Turtledove continuing the saga that started with How Few Remain, up through the Great War series and now the conclusion of the American Empire series.

All our favorites are back, but time marches on so some of these characters don't (hey, we're now going through the twenties, thirties and forties - life goes on, but not all people, or characters, go on). There are some great twists that readers familiar with characters won't see coming. The character development and story are tight, excellent, finely crafted. Prof. Turtledove does a great job planning these stories and character arcs out. I won't tell you the story - you have to read it yourself.

If you're going to read the book, don't read this review any further. Stop, right now. Ok, but a faithful reader will know where this book ends up. World War 2 is starting and, Harry, keep the books coming. I'm eagerly anticipating the next one especially what happens with the patriots in occupied Canada. I think the US may have a little trouble coming.