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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Trudging through alternate history, October 15, 2003
The echoes of war loom over a divided North American continent in Harry Turtledove's American Empire: The Victorious Opposition, the third book in the middle trilogy of books. Starting with The Great War saga, Turtledove has told a tale of alternate history, with the Confederacy having won the Civil War and still being around in the early 1900s. The American Empire trilogy has told the story of the inter-war years, and Turtledove's ideas are fascinating. Unfortunately, the writing doesn't keep up with it.
Harry Turtledove really confuses me sometimes. I love the concept of this series and I love what he's doing with it. The idea of a Confederacy taking part in World War I and the rise of a Hitler-like figure in the downtrodden South that sparks World War II is fascinating. However, the way he writes just annoys me. His constant repetition (he uses the same metaphors over and over) and his need to introduce his characters every time we see them in the book are just grating. We know that Abner Dowling served under Custer during the First World War and that Dowling didn't like him. Even if we hadn't read the previous books, we got that the first time Turtledove introduces Dowling in this book. We don't need to get it again the next time, and the time after that. It's like Turtledove thinks that his readers don't have the attention span to keep all of his characters straight. While that may be a valid point (previous books have had a lot of viewpoint characters), Turtledove has actually toned that down in this one, having only a few characters act as main ones. Others are introduced as some of the previous ones die off, keeping the cast to a manageable level.
This brings up another point as well. Turtledove is not afraid to kill off some of his characters, so it's nice that you don't quite know who's going to survive and who's going to live. However, some of the characters' fates are so obvious that it felt really boring, just waiting for the inevitable end to the storyline. Some of these characters we have been following for six books now, so it seemed a shame that their deaths were so telegraphed. Even when they weren't telegraphed, they seemed very perfunctory. Two of the characters just die off with no real ending to their ongoing story, which bristled. We've been waiting six books for the payoff to their story, expecting some sort of comeuppance or resolution, but nothing happens. The character just dies and that's it. End of story. I was not amused. Turtledove also spends time developing his next set of characters who will carry the next series, with the sons and daughters of our well-known characters finally getting their time on stage so we can get to know them.
Another fault with the book is one I had with the Blood & Iron as well. Too much of the history is a pale imitation of what really occurred in history. Some of it is unavoidable. The blacks in the Confederacy are the Jews from our real history (brought to life in a very chilling scene late in the book). The United States is Britain as it led up to the war (though at least Turtledove avoids having the President make a speech about "peace in our time"). However, Turtledove doesn't make it different enough to be as interesting. Kentucky, a state that the USA has controlled since the war, is the Rhineland, even down to the Confederacy moving in troops when they promised to keep it demilitarized for twenty-five years. While all the events in the book inevitably led to the conclusion we all know about (World War II), the events themselves should have been at least slightly different. That's what made The Center Cannot Hold more interesting. Different events occurred, surprising the reader even as we know where it will ultimately lead.
With all of this wrong with the book, how were the characters? Just like other Turtledove books, they were hit or miss. Some of them are interesting (Chester Martin and his attempt to unionize the construction industry in California really has me wondering where Turtledove is going with this one, which is a good thing), while others are bland and boring (Nellie Jacobs has to be one of the most worthless characters I've ever read about). Others are intriguing just because of who they represent in real history (Featherston, Clarence Potter). Overall, Turtledove does a passable job.
One good thing about the book, however, is the mood. As the book reaches its conclusion and war looms on the horizon, there's a palpable sense of fear and resignation that, because of Featherston, war is unavoidable. The United States has finally drawn a line that he can't cross, and when he does (just like in real life), the inevitable conflagration occurs, leading us into the next series. The tension is very well done, making the ending much better than the rest of the book.
The Victorious Opposition is a triumph of concept over prose, and I think that's why I can't read any other series by Turtledove. The concept of this entire series has kept me hooked for six books, when other, better-written books have turned me off and forced me to give them up. If you are a fan of alternate history and can get past the wretched prose and obvious characters, then give this book a try. If you are not in that select group of people, then give it a miss.
David Roy
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Prelude to war, January 3, 2004
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"
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
An improvement over the previous books, September 3, 2003
This book brings us to 1941, and the start of the Second Great War. Two themes dominate this book--the consolidation of power in the South by the Freedom Party, and the preparation for war by each side (and also by the individual characters). This book is an improvement over the previous two inter-war books--perhaps because the material is more interesting, appalling as the Freedom Party's actions are, they make better reading than the Great Depression. Turtledove has the sense not to stick too close to the historical script. While the 1936 Olympics in Richmond parallel the ones in Berlin, there is no Jesse Owens analogue (um, incidently, until after WWII, the IOC awarded BOTH Olympics in a given year to the same country routinely. Where were the Winter Olympics held? Miami?). There is no Munich Pact as such, and most of the aggressive moves by the historical Germans are combined into an effort to regain the U.S.'s Great War territorial gains (and not even all of them). There is no Kristallnacht, but no shortage of violence by the Freedom Party on blacks. Some of our frustration at what seem to be Turtledove's annoying, invulnerable characters is relieved as more than one bite the dust, including one of the most irritating. Their roles as point-of-view characters are inherited by near relatives, alas. Turtledove gets his characters set for conflict--two of the new characters will be our "typical GI" and "typical sailor" types. We see that we will have a fighter pilot, an intelligence officer, and others giving us viewpoint in war--including a concentration camp head. The author's introduction of charactes from our own timeline as characters in this is often amusing ("Dutch" Reagan as commentator of a football game causes a character to think of him as a "great communicator"), sometimes obscure (Jerry Voorhis as US Ambassador to the CSA? Will we meet Nixon in the next book?), and sometimes annoying (a philandering Joe Kennedy). Since most of these were born 20-50+ years after the point at which Turtledove's timeline departs from our own, it could be wondered if Turtledove is not undermining his own logic. There are other quibbles (if the entire black sharecropper class is being thrown off the land by Featherston's tractors, that is far more people than the token homeless we see), but on balance an improvement on previous books. One hopes Turtledove will let the story go its own way in the upcoming books, rather than a slavish retelling of World War II, but that already seems a false hope (with an aircraft carrier for the US getting radar, we seem to be headed rapidly towards a Battle of Midway). A good effort, and hoping for even better.
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