Rating: 
Summary: Superb, but SHORT!
Review: Harry, you knocked another one out of the park here, better than the Center Cannot Hold, but shorter, too! WE want more! The storyline moves at a faster clip here, as the CSA and USA march towards war, but the beginnings of it in the last pages don't give us enough details!!! Jake isn't so dumb as to just attack the USA, where's his Hitler-esque "justified attack"? Nice to see Col. Potter return to his major role, and his rebuilt relationship with Anne, and a few new faces get some time in preperation for the war, Armstrong Grimes, George Enos, Jr., Achilles Driver, etc, but far too many characters get killed off for no reason whatsoever, they can be put on the back burner you know!! Harry keeps up his dropping of future famous names into the books, as "Dutch" Reagan shows up, and surely JFK can't be too far behind, and John Wayne (sans name change) gets mentioned as well! My only complaint is that we only get dribs and drabs of what's going on in Europe, surely Erwin Rommel, Churchill, De Gaulle and a few others will have some part to play here, right? Please?
Rating: 
Summary: Milking A Cash Cow To Death
Review: I first discovered Dr. Turtledoves' work 6 years ago after reading The Guns Of The South. It was such great alternative history/sci fi that I launched into the world war series readily available in paperback and devoured them. Then came How Few Remain which left me hungering for more of this timeline. I bought each of the Great War series as soon as they were released and rejoiced at the end of the series when the Union finally won one. After finishing The Victorious Opposition I have mixed emotions, it is a great read don't get me wrong, But I see no happy endings. The USA with no friends in the world save imperial Germany is bound for a great fall in the soon to follow WWII series. I forsee a truly alternate history with a "what if Hitler had won the war" in the form of Featherston's confederate states and facsist England and France ruling the world. It sounds like great escapist reading, but Please Dr. Turtledove tell your story, get it done, move on to other stories and stop milking Me for thirty bucks every year on a theme that is based on your preferred timeline.
Rating: 
Summary: Good concept, tedious story
Review: I have been a huge fan of Harry Turtledove for around 6 years now. With the excpetion of How Few Remain, I have loved eveyone of his books. However, I am starting to get the feeling that Turtledove is getting bored with the HFR/Great War story line. I found myself skimming over large sections of the book where Turtledove repeated information that had been recounted numerous times already. For example: Sam Carsten's sun burn problems. Turtledove spent a large portion of the book simply catching readers up with information most of his readers already know about the characters. Still, I have high hopes for the Settling Accounts stories. Hopefully the start of the new series wil reenergize this rather tired story line. Turtledove's writing seems to flourish when he's writing about war. In peace, he tends to resort to repetion and melodrama.
Rating:
Summary: The same thing happens again
Review: I have gotten to the point that I don't often buy Turtledove's books any more. I read or skim them in the book store. I suppose it's interesting (and plausible) that the defeated South after a third War between the States could produce their own Hitler-analogue (such totalitarian leaders were not too uncommon throughout the world in the 1920s and '30s), but events follow real history so closely that it's more a re-telling of a known story with new characters. To me, alternate history would be more compelling if it were really alternate--if the CSA, after winning the War for Southern Independence, really did something different. Some form of WWI, and maybe even the depression and WWII would make sense, but things are too similar to be deeply intriguing. Turtledove takes some logical and interesting premises and draws them out too long.
It's good light reading, fun to follow if you're been reading the series (as I have been, despite losing my enthusiasm for it), but it's not up to Turtledove's earlier stand-alone books in most ways.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book, but slow
Review: I have loved the Turtledove books ever since I picked up the first one, How Few Remain, last year. I flew threw the Great War Saga and read the American Empire series. I was eagerly awaiting this book, but I was slightly disappointed. Some of the characters in the book, like Scipio, Sylvia Enos, Mary "McGregor" Pomeroy, and Sam Carsten seemed repetitive. Although, there is the occasional plot twist that changed the character, it was rather repeative. I greatly look forward to where some of the characters are going, such as Jefferson Pinkard, Jake Featherston, Flora Blackford, and Clarence Potter are going. I eagerly a wait where Mr. Turtledove will take all of our beloved characters next.
As someone who greatly enjoys history, I can't say enough for this book and all of the rest of Mr. Turtledove's books. I love looking at what happened just because one thing changed in one battle of the Civil War. I look at this book, and I see all the little things that really happened in say Germany after World War Two, and I see some of those things happen to the Confederate States of America. From the Olympics in Richmond, to rounding up Blacks and putting them in camps, to riots against blacks much like riots against Jews in Germany, I can't say enough about how some events run along side of events in Nazi Germany in our real life.
Rating:
Summary: Awfully repetitive!
Review: I have read all of the "Great War" and all of the "American Empire" AH novels by Harry Turtledove , and I have just about had enough! From the novel "Breakthroughs" until this book , we have only had awfully repetitive cameo glimpses into the mundane lives of many characters who seem to have no redeeming qualities whatever. In the present work , we finally wind up losing some non-essential personae: Nellie Semphroch(Jacobs) , Lucien Galtier , Laura Secord(Moss) , and Sylvia Enos. Some of these characters hung around waaay to long for my taste! We see Colonel Abner Dowling promoted to General officer rank and finally manages to get out of Utah. Jake Featherston tightens his grip on the Confederacy and emulates real world Germany by the construction of concentration camps, and sets the stage for the upcoming World War II in AH time. What I liked about the book:
(1) Gets rid of Nelly Jacobs.
(2) Starts to move towards some action in the next volume. What I disliked about the book:
(1) Many of the statements made by the more essential players were not-so-instant replays of other scenes in earlier books.
(2) The dreadfully slow pace getting there! Overall I liked this installment better than "The Center Cannot Hold". I suppose I will continue the series , since I am "hooked" on the essential thread. Unfortunatly Turtledove seems to have trouble finishing what he starts , as in the Worldwar/Colonization series. I rated this volume 3 stars , but doesn't come close to 4. Still , not a bad read. Certainly beats watching paint dry , anyhow.
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: I know many people criticize Turtledove as an alternate historyan for sticking to closely to real life timelines, but I have to say that I've read every book in this series and the Great War series eagerly. This book, was definately the best in the American Empire trilogy (dealing with the inter-war years). I loved reading how the US slept as the racial demegogue{spl}Jake Featherston (who i picture being played by Billy-Bob Thorton in any cinema version of the book) took power in the CSA and returned it to the military and industrial powerhouse it was before the Great War. The book did lag in places, such as when it spoke about Chester Martin and his efforts to organize construction workers in Los Angeles.Despite that, though, this is a great book, and I recomend it to anyone who may be reading this.
Rating:
Summary: Something is missing
Review: I read this book, like all of his books in this series with anticipation bordering on mania, however, this book falls far short. First of all, almost all of his characters are now past their prime and most seem way too shallow for me to even understand their overly slanted perspectives. For example, Mary Pomeroy is such a character. Her hate does not really resonate with the reader because it makes her so one-dimensional. Even her having a child does not alleviate this fact. Turtledove destroys many of the characters in the book as well. After all, when was Irving Morrell ever a bloodthirsty, ever angry soldier? All of the sudden, this intelligent, creative, strategic-minded soldier has become nothing short of a madman, happily punching civilians and excitedly gunning down arms runners. Does anyone remember some of his earlier characters from this timeline? One of my alltime favorites was the godfearing Irish
<?> US soldier that carried a flamethrower into battle. I loved his point of view and perspective on life that was radically different from any others in the books. Turtledove has almost done away with telling his stories as personal vignettes and has decided instead to just 'push' history along without bothering to 'push' his characters along and truly show us their triumphs and tragedies in any emotional detail. His book is an entertaining read; I hope that some of his characters from this series are 'retired' and new ones are brought in. After all, why bother with Canada if nothing is going to really happen in Canada. I can't imagine a full scale insurrection in a sparcely populated place as Canada when the US already has a firm foothold in the area, even if the populous US goes to war. I would love to see more of the happenings from overseas and in keeping with Turtledove's writings, ambassadors would be an excellent way of doing that. That being said, I'll end up buying the next books in the series because I am a history buff and I still figure Harry for a few surprises and interesting twists along the way. I hope that he doesn't follow the current transparent format of overlaying 1930's Germany onto 1930's CSA and start to deviate from that norm somewhat. Will we see a Kennedy rise to power in the next series to lead the USA on its grand charge to defeat the CSA?
Rating:
Summary: Easily the best of the 'American Empire' Trilogy
Review: I was very impressed with "The Victorious Opposition", though I didn't dislike "Blood and Iron" and "The Center Cannot Hold"; there was simply more action, more dramatic tension and foreshadowing, and more surprises in this volume than in the previous two. Again, Harry Turtledove proves he has a fantastic imagination and a good grasp of politics, history, and culture in the 20th century.
There were a few things I didn't like about the book, most of which are complaints I've seen from other reader reviews and apply to most of the books in the series: some repetitiveness in the character stories, public figures who are too similar to how they were in 'real' history given the 70-odd years of divergence this timeline has gone through. The manner of one of the characters' deaths seemed almost as if Turtledove had run out of ideas for them.
A slightly larger drawback for me too was an irritating vagueness about what is happening outside of North America, at least until the last third or so of the book. I realize the relationship between US and CS is the heart of the entire series, but knowing about events in Europe or even South America and Asia would help give a fuller picture of the beautifully thought-out world of an alternate 1930s which Turtledove has constructed; for example, Africa, and presumably the tons of European colonies there, is mentioned nowhere in this book or in any other in the series (to the best of my recollection), and such big-name players as Russia, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire receive only a few one-sentence mentions. The use of characters listening to radio news bulletins to appraise the reader of what is happening in other countries is a method that works, but having part of a character's story detailed from, say, Action Francaise's France, the Kaiser's Germany, or Latin America, would be even more effective at bringing to life the political struggles outside of North America; some characters do travel to these other nations, but their visits take place off-stage for the most part.
Another opportunity Turtledove missed, I thought, was the scene detailing the Richmond Olympic Games in 1936. Using the 'Parade of Nations' would have been an interesting means to explain to the reader some of the foreign politics at the time, and its omission disappointed me; and the appearance of a Jesse Owens-type character to the chagrin of Jake Featherston, I felt, should have gotten a more detailed treatment.
Despite the flaws, 'The Victorious Opposition' was a book I could not put down, and I've just purchased 'Return Engagement' for when I come back to the series. I've read dozens of books and stories by Harry Turtledove over the past 6-7 years, and he remains one of my favorite authors. The Great War/American Empire/Settling Accounts series is one of the best and most interesting alternate histories I've ever read. I look forward to more in the future - who knows how far this series could go? Alternate History, perhaps more than any other genre, is one of almost unlimited narrative possibilities.
Edit - if this book or the series were ever turned into a film, I'd love to see Peter Stormare as Jake Featherston.
Rating:
Summary: Focus and Fast Forward, please!
Review: I've been a big fan of Harry Turtledove and of this series for many years; too many in fact. I would like to see the conclusion to this series before I am an old age pensioner. The Victorious Opposition was a bit less drawn out than some previous installments but still too slow. Both the novel and the author suffer from scattering their efforts. The series would move faster with fewer characters and Turtledove would manage better than a book per year if he wasn't writing several other serieis at the same time. For the sake of seeing a conclusion before Haley's Comet returns, or possibly the Second Coming, we can only hope that Mr. Turtledove focuses a little and doesn't continue on with the saga of every spouse and offspring when he blessedly kills off some of the more boring characters. All that said, The Victorious Opposition is a good book and throws some intriguing curves. Readers of the series will devour it in a day or two. Unfortunately, this means that they will be sitting around bored for 363 days waiting for the next installment. Hit the gas pedal here, Harry!
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