Rating: 
Summary: Pretty soild
Review: I liked "The Center Cannot Hold", a bit better than "Blood and Iron", actually. The book was much faster paced, and the lack of war did not take away from it. I personally think that Turtledove could have went into more detail about the conflict with Japan and especally the bombing of LA when President Blackford was there. I enjoyed the characters, especally Chester Martin, and liked the path that Turtledove took Flora and Hosea down. I have begun "The Victorious Opposition", and can't wait for the World War 2 series to begin!
Rating: 
Summary: Addictive and annoying
Review: I love 20th century history and the South winning the Civil War is my favorite what-if, so I devoured all three of Turtledove's Great War books and the two American Empire novels. There is a lot to recommend in the author's writing - he describes battles extremely well, and his historical twists are often very amusing (such as Hemingway having the same affliction as Jake in "The Sun Also Rises"). However, the dialogue and inner thoughts of the characters are extremely repetitive. For example, he uses the phrase "wishing for something doesn't make it so" constantly. I think every major character voices this sentiment or thinks it at one time or another in the series (hell, in this one book!). And OK, OK, we get it - Sam Carsten gets sunburned and Lucien Gaultier like to drink applejack. I also have to agree with other reviewers that "The Center Cannot Hold" could have used more action. The US and Japan are at war and it gets far less attention than the family life of Lucien (among others). I like seeing Turtledove's world from the common man's perspective, but not quite that much...
Rating:
Summary: Harry does it again!
Review: I won't rehash the novel, but I'll tell you that if you have ANY interest in alternate history, read Harry Turtledove's books. Dr. Turtledove has never disappointed me, and if you have reading tastes anything like mine, I am certain that he won't disappoint you, either. This novel is no different. Turtledove tells a fine story. Read the first books in the series, and then read "The Center Cannot Hold". You'll be glad you did.
Rating:
Summary: great
Review: i'm a big fan of Turtledove's Great war series and now I'm enjoying watching the rise of jake Featherson I can't wait to see what happens in this series
Rating:
Summary: great
Review: i'm a big fan of Turtledove's Great war series and now I'm enjoying watching the rise of jake Featherson I can't wait to see what happens in this series
Rating:
Summary: Could have been better...
Review: I've been following the Great War series since the first book, and I have to say, I wish now that I had waited and bought the paperbacks. The Center Cannot Hold seemed to be almost perfunctory, like Turtledove is filling in the interwar peace period so he can get back to writing about war, which he is much better at. I had hoped for some originality in this book, but I was dissapointed. I have serious issues with the plausibility of some of the events in the book, it seems like he is just taking history from our world and inserting an extra country (the CSA). I had also hoped to see more depth in the characters, but I was dissapointed in that as well. Being from Richmond, I found some of the scenes here interesting in a macabre sort of way, but I felt he could have used more detail.
Rating: 
Summary: The days crawl, the years fly
Review: I've got to admit that I'm hooked on this series, even if I find myself reading these books without as much pleasure as I'd hoped to get. What Turtledove does well is illluminate our history by playing with the alternate timelines and getting the reader to want to stop and think and maybe go out and buy a few history books to see what was changed. While the multiple characters are enjoyable and the plots usually engrossing, this book covers so much time (nine years) that it's hard to really "know" them as we did in the previous books. For example Mary, daughter of a Canadian terrorist or freedom fighter (depending on your politics), checks in with us every few years, at 11, 15, 17, and 20. A typical person changes quite a bit through these ages but Mary keeps her rage toward the US and the need to avenge her father and brother as the major component of her sense of self. Many episodes seem to need more detail, but Turtledove chose to cover so much ground that they seem too removed. Cincinnatus Driver's illegal imprisonment by the Kentucky Secret Police was harrowing, but his eventual rescue is not just anti-climactic, it's almost lost. I wanted to know more; what alerted Clarence Darrow to this case and how did he succeed? Why does Darrow immediately leave and we never hear about him again? Much of the book moves this way showing the birth and maturing of major character's children; in one scene a character's wife will be pregnant, in the next scene the child is five and a younger sibling has also arrived. This happens enough times to give the sense that Turtledove used the Hanna-Barbera method of backgrounds, namely a continuous loop instead of sketching the whole thing properly. But that said, I still couldn't put the book down because I wanted to know what was going to happen, even though the major thrust of the story, Jake Featherstone's political rise, seemed preordained, being cast to parallel, in our timeline, the failure and later success of Hitler. It's clear Turtledove has thought out the historical background carefully, and it's great fun to unearth some of the scaffolding. I know I'll be reading these as he continues to write them.
Rating:
Summary: Adolf Hitler
Review: I've read many of the reviews here, and to be honest I'm only about a third of the way through the book right now (got it for Christmas). The author Turtledove shows a great knowledge of how people from history MIGHT have been if things went differntly. For instance, I notice that no-one here noticed Adolf Hitler's entrance to the series. Did they???? It was a little hard to spot, though I was looking for it. Always thought Anne Colleton might have been paid a visit by a 'German artist', but since Adolf couldn;t make a name of himeslef doing that BEFORE the Great War, he wouldn't be doing that now. So. Where is old Adolf??? Here's a hint, look at page 170 in the novel.
Rating:
Summary: Storm is brewing
Review: If you've read the series so far, you have a pretty good idea of what's going on. So, I'll focus on the parts of the book which I found positive, and the negative aspects, which were few, but present nonetheless. The story follows the characters we've come to know and love, hate, despise, like, exhalt, and enjoy. Turtledove's portrayal of the daily drama is superb. He still seems to let his characters spend too much time at the table and at the bedroom, which is fine to a certain point. Beyond that, it gets a bit boring, and somewhat sleazy every now and then. His portrayal of the political situation is as good as ever. We even get to learn what's going on in Mexico, a place visited only briefly in one or two of the previous books, but vital to the life of all the other countries portrayed I believe. Even more so here. What's not to like? I found the similarities with our world uncanny and eerie, well drawn and imagined. But the world in the books is supposed to be a different one from our own, yet Turtledove insists on mirroring real life as much as he can, in a twisted way, for sure, but inequivocally so. Why? We all know Turtledove has a gifted imagination, so, why not let it work its magic, and let it create a world so different that the similarities are violently noteworthy (like in "How Few Remain"), instead of a world so similar that the differences are the most enjoyable parto of reading the book? Alas, Turtledove knows his game, and he is not called the master of Alternate History for nothing. The book is great, and I await the sequel anxiously. Its just that it could have been so much better.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book
Review: It is a great book, can't wait to finish it. I already am waiting for the next book in this series. This is the second book in the American empire series there first Blood and Iron, it is a continuation to the World War series, but the series really starts with the book How Few Remain. I love this series, you see a different world develop, I suggest you start reading it from the first book (How Few Remain) and go from there, though you could start reading from any book and Mr. Turtledove did a great job filling in the important details need to understand the important background.
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