American Empire: The Victorious Opposition

Rating:
Summary: Time to move on.
Review: Being a big fan of Turtledove's Great War timeline, I can honestly say that I am glad the American Empire trilogy is over. This latest novel was about 300 pages too long. It really didn't get interesting until the last 5 chapters. Certainly the rise of Featherston, the plight of blacks in the CSA, and the perspective of the differnt world in this time line need some type of explanation, but not 1500 pages over 3 books.

Victorious Opposition does the fans of the series a favor by getting rid of three characters that outlived their purpose two books ago, but continues with the very annoying habit of reintroducing characters that have been part of the series since the first trilogy. (How many times do we need to be reminded that Sam Carstens sun burns easily, Scipio was trained to speak like a white professor while serving as Anne Colleton's butler, Marshlands was destroyed in the Red uprising during the Great War, Mary Pomeroy's (MacGregor)father was a one man resistance movement in Canada, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera?)

One new point of veiw character that, although not so interesting himself, sheds very interesting light on the upcoming generation, is young Armstrong Grimes. As a youth leaving high school and entering the US army about a year before the next Great War, his POV promises to bring some freshness to what will hopefully be the end of what has become a pretty stale series.

A good novel for Turtledove fans and history buffs, but probably not for anyone else.

Rating:
Summary: Prelude to war
Review: First off, I gave this book four stars but If you are a fan of Harry Turtledove and have been following this story it could potentially be higher. This is the seventh book in the series that began with "How few remain" in which the premise of a Confederate victory with the aid of Great Britian during the civil war led to the creation of two bitter and often hateful enemies on the american continent.

Turtledove uses this novel to expand on the roles of previous characters within the series as the CSA sinks deeper and deeper into the fascist vision of the Hitler-like Jake Featherston and his Freedom Party. Using a large cast of characters, some which you may love and some you may just want to stop their whinning, Turtledove continues to flesh out the reality of this world of an america divided.

One thing I would have liked to see more of would be interaction with Europe. Throughout the series, Turtledove seems to neglect that sphere, concentrating almost too completely on North America. Despite its flaws, this book is a good read for those who have enjoyed the series thus far. For those who have not read the rest of the series, I would recommend instead starting at the beginning with "How Few Remain" or reading one of Turtledoves stand alone novels like "Ruled Brittannia"

Rating:
Summary: Alternative History Masterpiece!
Review: Great book! The characters are fully developed and fascinating. The alternative timeline is plausible and Turtledove inserts enough imaginative fiction to make this book a must-read. My only complaint is that now I will have to wait probably far too long for the next book!

Rating:
Summary: One of the best since "How Few Remain"
Review: Harry Turtledove continues his sprawling saga of an alternative American history in this, the 7th volume, in an ongoing epic. "American Empire: The Victorious Opposition" shows the rise of a militaristic, fascist Confederate States of America under the leadership of the Freedom Party and its charismatic leader, President Jake Featherston. Turtledove continues a fascinating parallel between the Confederate States and Nazi Germany, describing how Featherston and the Freedom Party subvert the Confederate constitution and civil liberties. We also see the beginning of a holocaust against African-Americans. Meanwhile the United States opts for appeasement when Featherston demands the return of some captured Confederate terrority, claiming that he won't make any more territorial demands (Again, this is yet another strong echo of Adolf Hitler and his terrorital demands upon Europe which were settled "supposedly" at the infamous Munich conference of 1938.). As Turtledove slowly cranks up the action towards the outbreak of yet another war on the North American continent, he successfully weaves the saga of over a dozen people - both from the United States and Confederate States - into his narrative. I found this novel to be among the most interesting since "How Few Remain". I am looking forward to seeing how Turtledove tells the saga of an alternative World War II.

Rating:
Summary: The Opening Shot
Review: Harry Turtledove has been producing an alternative history of the twentieth century for a number of years now, and he is just reaching a major turning point, the outbreak of World War II. In Turtledove's world, the Confederacy won the Civil War and things have been going downhill ever since. Now the Confederacy is in the grips of the fascist dictatorship of Jake Featherston and allied with similar right wing regimes in France, Britain, and Tsarist Russia. The United States swings between laissez faire and social democracy, depending on which political party is in power. It has dominated North America since winning the Great War in 1917, but now its control over occupied Canada and the vanquished Confederates is under strain. With its main ally Imperial Germany dealing with the death of its long time leader Kaiser William II, this is not the best of times for the US.

This book brings this interwar trilogy to a close, and apparently is the starting point for yet another series dealing with World War II and the post-war world. These books are fascinating because they provide a mirror image view of our own world, with familiar characters like Ronald Reagan showing up in new but recognizable roles. They also help us to recognize that no matter how badly things seem to be going for us in our world, it could be much, much worse!!!

Rating:
Summary: Turtledove does it again
Review: Harry Turtledove has done it again. He has created a good, fascinating book. The book opens with the election of the Confederate Hitler and ends with the CSA launching the invasion of the North.
The best irony comes with Winston Churchill leading Britain into global conflict along with King Charles XI's France. There are the Richmond Olympics of 1936, death camps, and the clever rearmament of the CSA.
All in all a fascinating book.

Rating:
Summary: Stellar!
Review: Harry Turtledove has done it again. That's the only way to say it. This book is worth every penny. It is so gripping, and so full of story, that it puts the first two American Empire books to shame. I loved the Great War series so much, I gave Turtledove the benefit of the doubt that he was building up to something, and was he ever! Turtledove is the most imaginative author of our time, and the combination of story and characters once again proves to be amazing. Not since I read "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" have I been so amazed at how thought-provoking a book can be. There is a subtlety in this entire series that screams at you if you listen for it, and this book presents it better than any that came before.

Harry Turtledove is truly a brilliant man. He has captured the evil in this world, and put in a different one, and by doing so he shows us that this evil is not as far away from us as we would like to think. Jefferson Pinkard and Mary Pomeroy and Jonathan Moss burn with an intensity that is disturbing because it is so understandable. Alternate history is a wonderful genre because it allows us a bit of perspective to understand our own world. The understanding to be gained from this book is powerful and deep and definitely worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Harry is great, again!
Review: Harry Turtledove has not let me down yet, and I doubt he ever will, at least with this series. I have read every single book, and although I do enjoy the books that are set in times of all-out war more (unlike this one, which prestages the second world war), The Victorious Opposition is still a great read. A couple of important characters get murdered, but it does thin out the crowd, allowing Harry to get the younger generation into the book. That generation also will play a very important part in the next book, they will be the soldiers, sailors, and airmen that will fight on the battlefields of World War Two.

Rating:
Summary: Addictive but enfuriating
Review: Harry Turtledove must think his readers have the attention span of 5-year-olds. Why else would he repeat things over and over and over? It's OK to mention his continuing characters' traits, backgrounds, and motivations once for the sake of readers who are picking up this book without having read the previous books in the series. But to point out the same things virtually every time the character's story comes back up in the book (about a dozen times each, in some cases) is enfuriating. And of course these are the same traits, backgrounds, and motivations that were also repeated ad nauseam in previous books. Does Turtledove think we forget things he mentioned 40 pages previously?

So why to I keep buying these books in hardback and reading them with great interest? Because the alt history genre is so interesting, and this series takes such a macro chunk of familiar 20th century history to mix up and re-assemble. Most alt history is very confined in timespan and geography, but Turtledove's books take us all over the place and cover many years.

I keep hoping (for the most part in vain) that the scope could be even broader... that there will be more information about the happenings in the rest of the world. There are only the briefest of tidbits about England, France, South America, and Japan. He gives so little detail about a war between the U.S. and Japan that it would have been better off not to invent it in the first place. What's the situation with Turkey (the Ottoman Empire) and its presumably incredible oil wealth it controls in the regions of Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq? Who controls India? Who controls Africa? What's going on in the Confederate state of Cuba?

On the plus side, a couple of the least-interesting characters get killed off. But a few others who do little to advance the plot are still around. I suspect, however, that the new trilogy will bring a slew of new characters. I just hope we don't have to read the same facts about them a dozen time in each book.

Rating:
Summary: Best of the Series, After 'How Few Remain'
Review: Harry Turtledove's novel, 'American Empire: The Victorious Opposition,' is a real turning point in the expanded series that began with 'How Few Remain.' Jake Featherston, the Confederate Hitler, has come to power in the south and is preparing for his revenge on the USA, and doesn't care who he has to hang from a meathook to get it. Blacks are rounded up and sent to concentration camps along with Featherston's political opponents, holdouts are assassinated, and barbaric party stalwarts are given free reign to spread their message of hate. All of the major characters from the prevoius novels in this series are back, some of them for the last time, and a few new characters take stage as Turtledove's gripping tale of Alternate History continues. Unlike the two proceeding novels, this one is just the right length, not so long that by the end the reader has lost interest. Also, by making Featherston's actions so sweeping, it includes almost all of the characters much more directly. Fans of the series will love this addition, and the tense ending will leave readers howling for more. Another wonderful work of Alternate History by the master.