Rating: 
Summary: Was Turtledove paid by the page?
Review: We are talking one truly bloated novel that goes nowhere very fast. Okay, if we accept the fact that Harry simply wants to lay the groundwork for a major new opus about the Great War, he still could have easily eliminated about 100 pages. This book slogs like the ill-fated siege of Louisville that serves as its centerpiece. I mean, how many times do we have to hear Custer and his colleagues curse the fact that his men didn't hang the newly socialist Lincoln when he was trapped in a rebellious Utah? I'm sure Turtledove will enjoy high sales down in Dixie, because this book must contain the highest degree of Northern twits you will ever meet in literary history. Granted it has its share of clever moments (especially a new alternative version of the Gunfight at OK Corral and a socialist version of the Gettsburg address), but don't read this book if you hope to tackle an exciting wartime drama. Mostly we hear a lot of talking and too much praying. Those who enjoy this book will already know the historical context of the Civil War and post war periods. Which is one reason why this book really aches for a longer postscript by Turtledove in which he outlines some of his thinking behind this alternate history. I do plan to give Turtledove another chance when his Great War series appears, but only for the first hundred or so pages.
Rating: 
Summary: Goes nowhere
Review: After reading "Guns of the South", my expectations were high. Sadly, I was enormously disappointed. The plot plodded and ultimately went nowhere. The characters were cardboard and poorly drawn. I could not believe this was a Harry Turtledove novel! The author proclaimed that it was not a sequel to "Guns of the South" but it was so different from that novel, yet on the same subject, the disconnect was very annoying. I felt like Harry was simply filling up pages to sell a book. This novel brings new meaning to the old adage "resting on your laurels!"
Rating:
Summary: Ok.....but he forgot to finish it
Review: First off let me tell you that in general I love alternate history stories and in particular I consider Harry Turtledove a master of the genre. Thus I was rather disappointed with this latest effort. I've often felt that Turtledove's real strength was not just creating an interesting alternative to our history but putting in real people and having them do entertaining things. Yet this book was far from entertaining. For instance, I was halfway through the book and it was already apparent which side would win, it was only a matter of by how much. The north was portrayed as bumbling and inept throughout, always falling into an easy and obvious trap by the wiley southerners. What few useful assests they had (gatling guns and TR) were hopelessly frittered away on the frontier were they did little good. In fact, I'm surprised that the Confederate states were able to stay awake during this war, so lackluster was the union effort. Only at the end are there hints that there is indeed light at the end of the union tunnel. Yet you have read through several hundred pages to be even teased with such thoughts. Now why write it this way? Why not hold the readers close and then finish them off at the very end? The answer is, he will. You see this is only half the book. The rest of it is slated to come out sometime this year. Perhaps then in this new book (or other half of How Few Remains, you choose), we will see a resurgence for the Union side and give the overall story a better, more balanced approach. Perhaps it will suck the reader in like a Turtledove book usually does and not let go until the last page. Positives? Sure. The alternative history is quite plausible. Gettysburg is often hailed as the turning point of the war, but Antietam was also highly crucial. In both cases Lee decided that the best defense was a good offense. Had he been able to score a major victory on Union soil at either place, a legitimate case could be made that the South would've won it's freedom. Turtledove does that here. His historical characters seem quite vivid and real and they are generally appealing. However, I can't help but think that he leans on them too much. In his worldwar series, historical and fictional characters are more balanced in how often they appear and are used and thus they are able to mesh nicely. In How Few Remain these personalities sometimes overshadow the story (not to mention that some of these guys were old DURING the Civil War and dead 20 years after) and one gets the feeling that they're there as fillers. To me no matter how well constructed the alternate reality is, there has to be an interesting event taking place. In an alternate reality, people would still do all the things people do here, but most of it is not noteworthy. This book is long on alternate history and personalities but short on holding power. Maybe the sequel will be better.
Rating: 
Summary: Thoughtful Alternate History
Review: This is a very interesting alternate history, but it is certainly not equal to Guns of the South. Thought provoking and well researched, yet it fails to involve the reader and leaves one with a sense of missed opportunities. Overall, the book is unsatisfying and at times quite ponderous. There was a chance here for something fascinating and even wondrous. Instead it's simply interesting and rather dry. For alternate history buffs and devoted fans of the author there is no avoiding it, however.
Rating: 
Summary: Turtledove on Prozac?
Review: Extremely disappointing...and this from a fan who has enjoyed most of Turtledove's other "alternative history" efforts. This one is sluggish, vapid, and baseless. I searched in vain for any unifying thread to connect the antics of Lincoln, Clemens, Jackson, Custer, et. al. And Orlando Willcox as a major character??? One almost feels that the luckier characters were the Mormon leaders hanged by Pope and Custer. At least THEY didn't have to muck through the rest of this overblown humbug of a novel! I certainly hope Mr. Turtledove returns to form with his Great War project.
Rating:
Summary: A disappointing alternate history novel from Turtledove
Review: If you've ever had a dish that you normally find delicious, but this time just isn't quite right (and you can't put your finger on exactly what's wrong), then you already know what it will feel like to read How Few Remain. Every other one of Turtledove's novels I've ever read has cost me a good deal of sleep because I just couldn't put it down - I had no problem at all putting this one down and going to bed early. I think I just dislike the US being the bad guy in this novel, and constantly going from bad to worse (there's a sickening feeling that strikes at our national pride when we read about an impotent, incompetant, and powerless US). Sort of the same feeling you get watching Kane go from being a hero and good guy and gradually slide down to become a despicable and corrupted man in Citizen Kane. How Few Remain is a depressing book to read, and is certainly Turtledove's worst, but his worst IS better than a lot of people's best.
Rating:
Summary: Provocative Reading for Civil War Enthusiasts
Review: The best part of Harry Turtledove's "How Few Remain" is the first six pages, in which he develops a completely believable alternate history which would have resulted in a Confederate victory in 1862. Turtledove could have built an entire novel around these six pages, but instead pushed forward to 1881, and a second Civil War, whose premises were far less believable. I did not find it credible that the U.S. would find a casus belli in the Confederate purchase of two Mexican provinces, yet would permit the Confederate Army to plant artillery on Arlington Heights and other strategic points overlooking Washington, D. C. without any protest or military action against such an obvious threat to national security. Turtledove also portrays the U.S. as the economic power it really was in the 1880's, which also makes a premise of the book--a nearly non-existent U.S. Navy, an essential for a nation engaged in such trade and commerce--also hard to believe. It is also inevitable that Great Britain would have had hundreds of millions of pounds invested in the U.S. by 1881, if this scenario were true. It would have thus been incredible for the British to wage war against the U.S. on behalf of the Confederacy, as is portrayed here, without risking the expropriation of all that capital by the U.S. as reparations. Finally, given the rise of such young Union army leaders in the armies in the western U.S. theatres during the Civil War, such as James McPherson, Philip Sheridan, and John Schofield (the latter two actually became generals-in-chief of the U.S. Army), it was really a stretch to believe that the best the U.S. could come up with to oppose Stonewall Jackson in Turtledove's book were Orlando Willcox and William Rosecrans. Surely, at least one of the former three would have risen to prominence in the Indian wars afterward, and to higher rank.
Even with these flaws, Turtledove does make you think about the alternatives to historical events, and that these were not foregone conclusions, as historians often portray them. The reader can imagine the subsequent historical changes which will result from these twists of history. The future which is foreshadowed here is actually quite ugly and foreboding, compared to actual history.
Turtledove certainly does not mask his prejudices toward such characters as Longstreet, Custer, and James G. Blaine, which is the author's privilege. Whether you agree with him or not on his portrayal of these men and the events that unfold, the book is worth reading to Civil War enthusiasts if only to provoke further debate among them.
Rating:
Summary: Turtledove sets the stage for a new series.
Review: There seems to have been a lot of confusion surrounding Harry Turtledove's novel, How Few Remain. Because it has an alternate Civil War as its background, many have speculated it is a sequel to his earlier Guns of the South. This speculation was fueled by an erroneous entry in Books-in-Print which listed the title of the book as Guns of the West. Similarly, How Few Remain has been linked to Turtledove's forthcoming "The Great War" series. Although it is set in the same universe as the upcoming series, it is a prelude to it and can be read, according to Turtledove, as a stand-alone novel, or in anticipation of the series. Set in a divided North America in 1881, the Confederate States have been a separate country since Lee's victory in 1862. Unlike our world in which Lee's Special Orders 191 were lost, these orders remained secret until put into effect permitting the Confederacy to claim their independance. Much of the opening of the novel is spent explaining the details of this new world. Unfortunately, Turtledove has his characters spending way too much time going over their recent history to make their conversations seem real. Although the War of Succession was a major turning point for both countries, all the characters seem fixated on the events of the war, as if a modern person would refer to the Viet Nam war in nearly every conversation. Fortunately, this sort of dialogue mostly disappears after Turtledove defines the situation in the first fifty pages. Although Turtledove attempts to portray the United States as a stronger country than the Confederate States, he consistently demonstrates that the Confederate States are in a stronger position. Although they may have a small population base, they have more and greater allies than the United States. The Confederate States' major weakness seems to be their continued reliance on slave labor, which may affect their relationship with allied nations England and France. Even as his characters are convinced that the United States are stronger than the Confederate States, the reader becomes convinced they are wrong. As is typical of Turtledove's alternate history novels, How Few Remain sports a large cast of historical characters. For his viewpoint characters, Turtledove makes use of Abe Lincoln, Sam Clemens, J.E.B. Stuart, Theodore Roosevelt, George A. Custer, Alfred von Schlieffen, Frederick Douglass and Stonewall Jackson. This broad cast of characters allows Turtledove to present several different viewpoints of the situation and add depth to the world he has created without seeming to give any single individual an unreasonably open or broad mind. This method also makes it easier for Turtledove to avoid portraying his world in simplistic black and white terms, as too much speculative fiction still does. For the most part, Turtledove handles his cast well. Samuel Clemens sounds very realistic and Mark Twain's voice keeps peeping through despite the fact that Turtledove wrote his entire part. Similarly, Turtledove's use of Abraham Lincoln's authentic speeches give the former president the sound of realism, although the politics he espouses may surprise many people. In fact, Turtledove's portrayal of the Republican party as an whole will seem odd to anyone without some knowledge of American political party history. The 1880's, Republican Party Lincoln is a member of is more akin to the modern Democratic party than the party of Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole. Similarly, Turtledove drops hints about the Democratic Party's agenda which are not in line with what that party has become in our own world. It has been said that generals begin each war by fighting the previous war. In How Few Remain, Turtledove allows the generals of the North and the South to fight the trench warfare of World War I, albeit in a Louisville, Kentucky (destroyed as thoroughly as Turtledove had destroyed Chicago in the "Worldwar" series) rather than on the fields of France and Belgium. By providing European observers, in the form of von Schlieffen and others, Turtledove is making sure that the Europeans have knowledge of the new warfare before enterring into their own conflict. Whether or not the Europeans (or Americans) learn from these experiences will have to wait until Turtledove's related "The Great War" series debuts in the Fall of 1998. Indications show that many military minds in Turtledove's world will remain slow to adapt to change even when they witness the benefits first-hand. In How Few Remain, Colonel George Armstrong Custer refuses to see the gatling gun as more than an interesting toy even though his regiment uses the weapons extremely effectively against Indians, Mormons and British. The changes in the relationship between the United States and the Confederate States throughout the course of the novel are subtle and serve to set the stage for the ongoing saga which Turtledove will write in "The Great War." He has stated that Roosevelt and Custer will both play roles in the later series showing the continued growth of their relationship which began on the Montana plains in 1881. Given their ages, it is most unlikely that very many other characters will play a return engagement when the next series begins thirty-three years later. Nevertheless, while How Few Remain can be read on its own, it leaves the reader with the feeling that there is more to come. Still, it is nice to see Turtledove tackle an alternate history in which no deus ex machina in the form of aliens or time travelers play a role. Based on the situations set forth in How Few Remain, "Return Engagement" should be a series to watch for.
Rating: 
Summary: How Few Remain is a Disappointment
Review: I loved "Guns of the South", a really excellent attempt to make history real. When the South marched into Washington, it was almost as if I could remember it from my High School History classes and the Movies. Unfortunately, "How Few Remain", in my opinion, shows an attempt to write something under time pressure to make a few bucks. Abe Lincoln is making speeches that ALMOST sound right, but there are too many lines quoted from Shakespeare that Lincoln would never have used ("I am not anxious to shuffle off this mortal coil."). The language of Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) is a terrible attempt to represent a truly funny man -- there is NOTHING funny about Mark Twain's lines in this book. Frederick Douglass, the articulate Black Man who was one of the best people of his time is proved unable to counter the sarcastic comments of a couple of cracker slave-owners, and then takes refuge in non-objective writing, muttering, "So what," when he recognizes it. The South wins the Civil War twice in this book, seemingly because the Southern Generals are superior to the North. Where was Harry Turtledove born, anyway? A Waste of money. I skimmed after I was halfway through to see what happened.
Rating:
Summary: As controversial as the very War that inspired it
Review: Harry Turtledove once again plunges into the troubled history of America in the last century, this time asking what would have happened had a Confederate courier _not_ mislaid an action despatch, only to have Federal soldiers recover it? Turtledove's answer: The South wins, and within twenty years North and South are having at it all over again, with Britain and France on the side of the South--while pressuring the South to give up slavery. The controversy here is that Turtledove has Abe Lincoln turning to socialism--indeed, it is _communism_ which Lincoln espouses. Whether you believe that Lincoln would have done this depends on whether you think that Lincoln's "public face" of concern for the less-fortunate was sincere or hypocritical. Also, since the campaign to abolish slavery in the Western world began with British evangelical Christians, some authorities maintain that Britain would never, _never,_ have recognized the South. Finally, Turtledove has General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson supporting slavery, when Clifford Dowdey and other historians and biographers state that Jackson, being a mountaineer, did not believe in this "peculiar institution" at all. Still, we're left with a very, very good read, and one that is at least consistent with the theories which Turtledove has set forth. I do find one other fault, however: Turtledove does not give a satisfactory conclusion to the brutal treatment of the Mormons at the hands of the U.S. Army. Instead, he leaves us hanging, like the six Mormon elders who go to the gallows in this version of history. One keeps waiting to hear what happen to them at the war's end, and gets no answer. At least Turtledove does not make that mistake in his treatment of the uneasy alliance, eventually broken, between Jeb Stuart and the Apache Chief Geronimo. In sum: a definite improvement over "The Guns of the South" (of which this is _not_ a sequel), and sure to provoke some rather heated debate between and among Civil War buffs and professors everywhere.
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