Rating: 
Summary: My God! He isn't Turtledove...
Review: A biased and ludicrous tale written with the sophistication of a 10 year old. In this book it is shown clearly that the only battle plan that survives contact with the enemy is an American one. Nothing can go wrong for them, and nothing can go right for the darstadly British.The British are all incompetent and moronic, and make decisions totally devoid of logic. Especially grating was the way a British general who lands in the south decides to march inland to conquer everybody... North and South. His modest force assigned for a coastal assault is subsuequently destroyed. No kidding! The other ridiculous thing was the way in which North and South conveniently solve all their problems in one conversation. Harrison evidently believes that the participants just needed to have everything explained clearly to them, and they would of course see the light. This lacks any credibility, and shows a rather immature grasp of the emotions involved. Perhaps Harrison would like to try his method in Israel or Northern Ireland, and see how far he gets. Each chapter made me cringe anew, as I wondered what next could happen to bring glory to the saintly Americans and downfall to the wicked British. Alas, I kept hoping the British would get one lucky break, but it never happened. Canada is "liberated" though of course USA never considers actually keeping it! They are just helping a fellow state... yeah right. America was still in a thoroughly expansionist frame of mind, and would have happily added Canada to their list of possessions. If any reader wants a truly engrossing alternative version of the civil war, I'd suggest Turtledove's "Guns of the South". Despite a completely ridiculous timetravel element, it manages to convey an air of realism and truth that Harrison never comes close to matching.
Rating:
Summary: Fanciful garbage.
Review: In short - nothing can go wrong for the Americans, who are brilliant, brave, and good. Nothing can go right for the British, who are stupid, darstadly, and evil. Reading this book you get the impression that the North was so militarily advanced that they would have won the civil war in 6 months... which of course didn't happen. The British on other hand make some incredible blunders. With regards to the southern landing, I could almost believe the bit about mistakenly attacking Confederate positions, and even the rapes, but after that it turned into a farce. The British general decides that he is going to recover from the distaster by marching inland and conquering everyone. Come again??? I'm not sure where Harrison dreamed that one up from... The British are later made to wonder if perhaps that had something to do with the CSA's decision to join the North against the British... of course, they are so arrogant and stupid that they don't think it very likely. Just as ridiculous and childlike in its simplistic convenience was the way that Lincoln and Jackson conveniently patch up all the differences between North and South. Harrison writes as if he imagines that all he would have to do is travel back in time, explain everything to the two sides, and everyone would say "Oh of course! How stupid we are. Let's stop the war and become friends again." Frankly I think he should compare the way sentiments run in northern Ireland or Israel... does anyone think that a simple explanation would solve all that? Harrison claims that this is how it would really have happened? I was far more impressed by Turtledove's "Guns of the South"... even though it contained a ludicrous timetravel element, it succeeded in being far more convincing and realistic in its characterisations and new timeline. When USA invades Canada, of course they had no thought of expansion of their own territory, and wished only to aid this poor country to gain its independence. Given USA's expansionist mentality both before and after the Civil War, this is rather unlikely. I think in part 2 of this series (may it be long delayed) USA will conquer the world. Harrison already claims without doubt that USA & CSA would have defeated the combined armies of all the European states at the same time... I kept waiting and waiting for something to go wrong for the Americans. I foolishly thought that Harrison might remember the old saying: "no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy." Sadly, it was a vain hope. In this world, God is an American, and the dice are heavily loaded in their favour. Watch out you evil British!
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent read, highly enjoyed it!
Review: First, in praising Mr. Harrison's work, I see no reason to disparage Harry Turtledove's works, amongst which Guns of the South and his present Great War trilogy I very much enjoy. Mr. Harrison's work which I have trouble understanding why it was published across the pond first, is an excellent romp through what might have been had Secretary Sewards idea of a mutual enemy actually come to fruition. As to Mr. Harrison being a closet anglophobe, let's keep in mind that though an American author, he's lived the last twenty years on John Bull's Other Island. As is frequently the case in English History, it all turns on Ireland. Though we have a great deal to answer for on this side of the pond for the last 400-500 years in our treatment of the original inhabitants and the poor souls we stole from the coasts of Africa, we are but poor pikers in comparison to how Mother England has treated Eire for the last millenium or so. But enough, Winnie's halfbreed eloguence points the way to the next. As has been documented, Albert's gentle way with Vickie is one of the primary shining lights of the Victorian Age. I can easily imagine her going off the deep end. One of the really neat bits in this work is the chance for Mary Todd Lincoln to find a setting in which she can more easily keep her bearings and sanity. What I find more over-the-top is Palmerston and the other ministers who'd I'd expect to be a little more dispassionate than represented here. Seeing Jeff Davis as a more sympathetic rather than merely noble figure is a nice touch. Seeing how the battle hardened Confederate veterans deal with South Carolinian hotheads is especially gratifying to this Yankee now living and teaching in Jesse Stuart's Heart of America; Kentucky. All in all a most enjoyable read, I look forward to the next volume in the trilogy.
Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful, well-written book
Review: This book shows how the American Civil War could have evolved differently if Great Britain (at the time the world's superpower) would have become involved. It vividly describes scenes of war and politics. Once you read, it is hard to put it down. It might be - as I read in another review - a bit Anglophobe, but given the colonial record of Britain I think it is not 'over the top'.
Rating:
Summary: Harrison isn't Turtledove, thank God
Review: Harrison offers a fresh idea on what if the British had intervened in the American Civil War, in this case as a result of the Trent affair. What's new about his take is that due to one mistaken attack, the British end up at war with both the USA *and* CSA. This book is billed as the first of a trilogy, but happily for the read, Harrison has avoided the worst excess of Harry Turtledove, the "master of alternate history". In other words, Harrison figures out to give each series book an ending, rather than just stop in mid-story.
Rating: 
Summary: A fast paced wish-fulfilment fantasy
Review: I am a 36 year old reader from England, who has had an interest in the Civil War period for most of that time. More recently, particularly in the wake of Ken Burns' excellent series, I had become affected by the vast scale of this tragedy and, after a visit to Civil War sites, by the strong feelings which remain in the USA about this unprecedented war. The author is evidently an expert on the Civil War, and I'm sure he must have felt the same way and for much longer. I think this is why he came around to thinking how much better it would be to transfer all the grief of a civil strife onto a likely external aggressor: England! I have to say that I am not convinced that there really would have been such a war, and Harrison is absolutely wrong when he suggests that there would have been popular support for one here: feelings against slavery were running high and, as British author Paul Johnson recently pointed out in his 'History of the American People' President Licoln wa! ! s greatly moved by letter from impoverished Lancashire cotton workers, backing his cause against pro-southern voices in England. But that is real history, and Harrison prefers to have great fun with his 'what if' scenario: what if the 'Trent' incident had led to an immediate war? Actually he cannot resist the tempation to go much further and have England, the imperialist aggressor, act as a kind of lightening rod for all the true horrors of the Civil War: here, there are no prison 'death' camps, no massacres of black Union soldiers. Nor are any incompetent Union generals in charge (Sherman takes over immedeately: McClellan is indisposed). Better still, the British Navy make a frightfully useful strategic error of navigation which ends up uniting North and South against them: so now the 'good' generals like Lee and Grant are prevented from having to feed thousands of their countrymenmen into terrible 'meat grinder' battles against their own countrymen like Antietam, Gettysburg ! ! and Spotsylvania Court House. Instead, they revive their pr! e-war friendships and get stuck into their (irredeemably callous) foreign enemy, who is not averse to rape and pillage in order to gain the objective (and that is something which isn't really clear..). These British are uniformly terrible: they are lead by a permanently hysterical Queen Victoria, her callous cousin, HRH the Duke of Cambridge, and the gout-ridden war-hawk Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston. The British army has a particular hatred of foreigners including French Canadians (who rebel) and Irish American soldiers (whom they massacre). They also rape southern women, and joyfully conduct unprovoked attacks on civilians and their property. After their inevitable defeat, we hear that the better ones (and all the Irish ones) decide to stay on in America. If youre suffering a glut of all those plummy types in 'Masterpiece Theatre', this could be your antidote! Of course this is 2 dimensional twaddle, but Harrison is very god at driving his narrative forward. Sometimes his ! ! dialogue looks as if he has just inserted quotation marks around a book of Civil War facts (perhaps he has) but occasionally he does write racy prose and, particularly in the accounts of sea battles, both fictional and factual, he writes it excitingly and convincingly. For all his knowledge, Harrison has put in some terrible howlers. There were no Feninans in 1842: that movement wasn't formed until 1858 (in USA). Lord Palmerston's government in 1862 was not a Tory one. Queen Victoria had no 'castles' in London (however draughty). And as a resident and avid reader of the history of my country, I have never come across any accounts of an English annexation of Cornwall, our westernmost county ('Cornish nationalists', driven to extremes of rhetoric by the antics of summer holidaymakers in their balmy outreach may say otherwise...) At the end of the book, Harrson tells us that it is all true which, of course, it isn't. At this point I really began to wonder whether this might not j! ! ust be a bit of fun, and that he really is just a little bi! t, well, Anglophobe! Should we be getting worried on this side of the pond? Interestingly, Harrison keeps the Duke of Wellington alive into 1862 (he died in 1852): is the Iron Duke to be our instrument by which we will be able to avenge ourselves over you 'colonial' wretches? We will all have to await the second part of the trilogy to find out, although I for one will probaly be borrowing it from the library, prior to some idle hours on a beach -in Cornwall!
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Read
Review: I'm not an expert or even well read on the subject of the US civil war, but it was a damn fun read and it suggested some interesting possibilities if Britian had invaded, i'm looking forward to the subsequent sequals in the series.
Rating:
Summary: ludicrous wishfulfillment
Review: I will add my review to the others already listed here. I went seeking some light summer reading. What I found was more in the line of mindless reading - the plot might have had potential but obviously the authors desires to write a jinogistic story undermined that potential. It became very clear soon in the book that there was not going to be any question as to the movement of events in the book. The characterizations were so shallow as to not be worth mention. The most amazing thing was the author's apparent belief in this construct. He concludes at the end that the armies of the North and the South at the end of the Civil War could have beaten the combined armies of all the European nations! This is not alternate history, its fantasy pure and simple.
Rating:
Summary: Utter Rubbish
Review: I must have been very bored when I read this book as I actually managed to finish it and not throw it in the garbage where it belonged. Harrison must have been having a really off day when he wrote this claptrap. Having read a lot about the period that this book is set in I find the notion of the U.S. and the C.S.A. joing forces to fight the British even under the circumstances described to be way beyond even the most extreme A.H. At the time the book was set in it was the U.S. and not G.B. who were the bunglers. After all who was it that was killing each other off in huge numbers, certainly not the British. I suppose if you dislike the British this would be a good read, but if you enjoy believable A.H. then this is not the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: ludicrous wishfulfillment
Review: I will add my review to the others already listed here. I went seeking some light summer reading. What I found was more in the line of mindless reading - the plot might have had potential but obviously the authors desires to write a jinogistic story undermined that potential. It became very clear soon in the book that there was not going to be any question as to the movement of events in the book. The characterizations were so shallow as to not be worth mention. The most amazing thing was the author's apparent belief in this construct. He concludes at the end that the armies of the North and the South at the end of the Civil War could have beaten the combined armies of all the European nations! This is not alternate history, its fantasy pure and simple.
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