Rating: 
Summary: Get ready to for war!!!!
Review: First off, I like how Harry killed off most of his dead weight (i.e. Nellie Jaccobs and Sylvia Enos Lucien Galtier but the way how he died I'm sure most men would have loved to depart the Earth). I liked Sylvia but she started going down hill after she shot Roger Kimball back in book 5 (American Empire: Blood & Iron) and began dating that violatile loser Ernie who popped her in the end. Nellie just became that annoying grandma you have to visit in the summer and have to be nice to her but she gets to say and do what she likes. . . Bitter old crone.
Good replacements for the Settling Account Trilogy (i.e. George Enos II and Armstrong Grimes and Leonard O'Doull). The plot mirrors slightly with real histroy but goes off on some points with the Munich Pact(Richmond Pact if Harry ever gives the talks between Freatherson and Smith a name), Austria(Kentucky and Houston), Mexican Civil War between the Confederate backed Imperialists and the Union backed Republicans(Spanish Civil War between the Facist backed Nationalists and the Soviet backed Loyalists). Nicely done.
Many of you agree with me....where was the alternate Jesse Owens for the 1936 Richmond Games? I would have laughed to read about a union black athlete showing up a confederate white from Featherson's point of view when he'd get up staged just like Hitler did.
I'm surprise Scipio/Xerxes doesn't get seen by Anne Colleton until near the end of the book. Perhaps something for the next one. He has been able to stay away from her for 23 some odd years with a bounty on his head is nothing short of a mircle.
Harry does have some problems with the repetitiveness about Cartsen being sun burned and Scipio getting laughed at but overall well liked and read.
North America is going to war and Harry is our news man.
Rating: 
Summary: Setup for war
Review: "The Victorious Opposition" moves the final pieces on the board into place. War is ready to begin.
The United States, weakened by Socialism, is ill-prepared but beginning to catch up on its military. The Confederates, who have descended into fascism, are gearing up for a major push. Meanwhile, they are also beginning an extermination of the black population.
Turtledove is doing a little elimination of his characters as well. Older characters pass on, with new ones taking over. Man-hater Nellie dies from blood poisoning; her nephew Armstrong takes up her line, with his perspective.
Another interesting glimpse into the world is the appearance of more real-life people. There were various "guest appearances" by certain individuals, like Louie Armstrong, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan.
Of course, being Turtledove, he can't get away from the repeated character descriptions. Still, this is an outstanding look at what it to come.
Rating:
Summary: I'm ready for the War
Review: Another one of those Turtledove books where mostly nothing happens with the notable exception that Colonel Porter turns cloak and joins the Freedom Party and the rest of the cast moves slowly but surely to the 2nd world war in this alternate universe. A signifigant improvment over the last volume but still not perfect and readers still don't get a good view of what is going on outside of America.
Overall-Didn't much care for it but didn't hate it either would be a solid book for a returning fan but not the place for a Turtledove newbie to start.
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: 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: 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: 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: I couldn't even finish it - way too many characters
Review: In this book, Turtledove asks you to follow the stories of:
1) a revolt in Utah
2) a revolt in Texas
3) a revolt in Canada
4) some characters in Quebec
5) an increasingly powerful Confederate ruler and his cronies
6) a black family in Georgia
7) a black family in Iowa
8) a politician in New York
9) some characters in Mexico (now part of the Confederacy)
10) some US sailors in the Pacific
The sad part is, I probably missed some subplots (now that I think about it, there's a Confederate dissident who tried to assasinate the Confederate President).
Mr. Turtledove, it's OK to have multiple characters but this is ridiculous. This novel is all over the place (literally), and by page 200 (when I stopped reading), none of the stories were converging. Also, it's intellectually lazy to take what happened in Nazi Germany and simply apply it to the South. Why not use your imagination a little and apply a different set of circumstances rather than simply channeling Adolf Hitler through Jake Featherston?
Rating:
Summary: I couldn't even finish it - way too many characters
Review: In this book, Turtledove asks you to follow the stories of:
1) a revolt in Utah
2) a revolt in Texas
3) a revolt in Canada
4) some characters in Quebec
5) an increasingly powerful Confederate ruler and his cronies
6) a black family in Georgia
7) a black family in Iowa
8) a politician in New York
9) some characters in Mexico (now part of the Confederacy)
10) some US sailors in the Pacific The sad part is, I probably missed some subplots (now that I think about it, there's a Confederate dissident who tried to assasinate the Confederate President). Mr. Turtledove, it's OK to have multiple characters but this is ridiculous. This novel is all (literally) over the place, and by page 200 (when I stopped reading), none of the stories were converging. Also, it's intellectually lazy to take what happened in Nazi Germany and simply apply it to the South. Why not use your imagination a little and apply a different set of circumstances rather than simply channeling Adolf Hitler through Jake Featherston?
Rating:
Summary: Too fast, too shallow
Review: Let me preface this review with praises to Harry Turtledove: the man is an alternate history genuis. He writes books that change this event or that assumption, and fills in what could have happened instead, using research, intelligence, humor, and plenty of interesting characters. I still believe his best book was the very wellspring that brought us this one, the haunting "How Few Remain." HFR set the stage for a seperate Confederate States of America that defeats the USA and serves as both enemy and irritant to their defeated neighbor to the north. The book takes place in the 1880s where an attempt to recapture the CSA ultimately fails. The three books following HFR are the three "The Great War" series, describing a North American-based WWI between the CSA and its allies Britain and France, and the USA allied with Germany. This book is the third in the "American Empire" series. "Blood & Iron" follows the aftermath of the Great War complete with 1920s-style inflation and the rise of a demagogue. "The Center Cannot Hold" continues the tale, and "The Victorious Opposition" leads us to the brink of WWII, complete with a June 22, 1941 invasion. While the last date was a slavish following of our timeline, many other events varied. The Republican party died out after the USA's defeat in 1865, and the major US parties are the Democrats and... the Socialists. During the Great War series there is a failed Communist uprising... by CSA blacks (closer to 1905 than 1917). The backstory leading up to this book is so rich with detail that it would be foolish to start with Victorious; it's the third book in a series but really the seventh in the HFR timeline. And the question is what do you get if you read the previous six books and open up this one? I'm left with the same feeling from "The Center Cannot Hold," namely vertigo from how quickly this novel moves along. If I went back and dated each section of this book, I would expect that most of them are one to three months apart. Turtledove rotates through his major characters such that we might not hear from the same one more than once a "year" or even longer. Unlike "Center," Turtledove kills off three important people in this work, and moves their viewpoint to a descendent. Just as Arthur McGregor died and we began to follow daughter Mary, new viewpoints emerge with character deaths here. I'll not give away any surprises but I was disappointed that the new characters weren't more different from their predecessors. The biggest flaw with "Victorious" is one I alluded to in the first paragraph: the slavish devotion to our timeline. Not only is an invasion modeled after Hitler's invasion of Russia, but so are far too many other events. While the Socialists and Democrats move in and out of power (unlike Roosevelt's 4-term presidency), other events stick far too close to reality. CSA is Germany, President Jake Featherstone is Hitler, and the coming Holocaust will be against the blacks. In 1936, the CSA hosts the Olympics in Richmond, and Featherstone has his Freedom Party put their good manners on until the last foreigner leaves. The USA serves several roles, as Russia, as France, as England. It attempts to pacify Occupied Canada (terrority won from England and France during WWI) without complete success. The other lack is character growth. Lucien still drinks applejack and cracks dry one-liners, Cincinnatus still fears Covington, Kentucky but can't stay away, and Anne Colleton trusts and loves no one. Any change in the characters is due to plot development rather than personal growth or failure, with the exception of Jonathan Moss. He turns into the USA's answer to Arthur McGregor, and for much the same reason (and I suppose it's still due to plot development). If you've stuck with the series this long, see it through, but I found this one the equivalent of Welch's after drinking claret.
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