Customer Reviews

American Empire: The Victorious Opposition

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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

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"

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.

...specifically, that means "it depends on the spirit in which you read this and other Turtledove books".

First, a caveat: this review is going to be as much a small arguementative essay toward one review as it will be a review of the book itself - because I think many reviews I've read inspired me to respond as such.

Having said that, I will go to the review. Yes, as many reviewers complained, Turtledove is a tedious writer. I myself simply skip over many parts of his novel series (esp. the Quebec farmer, Nellie & Co., and the US lawyer in Canada). I see these story lines adding little, if anything, to the series. Nevertheless, when I bought his books, I didn't expect to be interested in EVERY character in his books, and so don't scold Turtledove too badly for this. So while he definitely has too many characters whose story lines add nothing but lots of pages, and many of those characters were just plain uninteresting, I did not let it spoil my enjoyment of the book.

The basic series line: The Confederacy as Nazi Germany formula, while hardly of striking originalty, is intriguing nevertheless (perhaps because I'm a multigenerational Deep Southerner, it captivated me more than many other readers). On that offshoot, I especially find realistic Featherston's lack of interests in demonizing Jews (who were in real life tolerated surprisingly well in the Deep South, at least surprisingly so given The South's history of bigotry). In fact, Featherston's chief propagandist turned out to be a Jew, which certainly is a creative irony I give Turtledove credit for.

However, I find the idea of a USA that refused to rearm in the face of a Featherston-dominated Confederacy a bit unrealistic. Even more unrealistic is the notion that even an armed-to-the- teeth CSA could ever hope to defeat the USA. Unlike Germany taking on the USSR (in the real world), the USA was not comparatively impoverished vis-a-vis the CSA the way Russia was to Germany. In fact, this was a major reason Germany fought so successfully against the USSR until the final phase of the real WW2. Were I to write the war trends of the upcoming alternative WW2 novel, the CSA would probably be beaten off in no more than three years, and probably shorter. The CSA simply would not have the capacity to withstand this USA, even a Socialist / Peace Party dominated one.

Overall though, The Victorious Opposition does make an intriguing read and have given it 4 stars.

Now, to some of the reviewers. One reviewer complained that there was no depth to the Huey Long / Featherston episode in particular, specifically complaining that there was no dialogue between the two that might make each realize that they were just two opposite sides of the coin. This complaint would be valid if Turtledove intended this work to be a "classic" work aboout about philosophy / ethics, but not in a novel like those Turtledove writes. Turtledove essentially intends to write about what might have actually happened in the rough and tumble world of politics. Surely, in this scenario, it would be much more realistic for Featherston & Co. to send his forces into Louisiana than it would be for Featherston and Long to engage in deep philosophical speculation of ones actions. Such lofty conversations would simply be out of place in the genre.

The Victorious Opposition is the seventh book in this series. I don't understand why Turtledove has to describe each character's background every time they appear in the book, because most readers will probably have already read all of the previous books like I have.

Harry Turtledove has done it again. That's the only way to say it. This book is worth every penny. It is so gripping, and so full of story, that it puts the first two American Empire books to shame. I loved the Great War series so much, I gave Turtledove the benefit of the doubt that he was building up to something, and was he ever! Turtledove is the most imaginative author of our time, and the combination of story and characters once again proves to be amazing. Not since I read "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" have I been so amazed at how thought-provoking a book can be. There is a subtlety in this entire series that screams at you if you listen for it, and this book presents it better than any that came before.

Harry Turtledove is truly a brilliant man. He has captured the evil in this world, and put in a different one, and by doing so he shows us that this evil is not as far away from us as we would like to think. Jefferson Pinkard and Mary Pomeroy and Jonathan Moss burn with an intensity that is disturbing because it is so understandable. Alternate history is a wonderful genre because it allows us a bit of perspective to understand our own world. The understanding to be gained from this book is powerful and deep and definitely worth it.

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.

I have gotten to the point that I don't often buy Turtledove's books any more. I read or skim them in the book store. I suppose it's interesting (and plausible) that the defeated South after a third War between the States could produce their own Hitler-analogue (such totalitarian leaders were not too uncommon throughout the world in the 1920s and '30s), but events follow real history so closely that it's more a re-telling of a known story with new characters. To me, alternate history would be more compelling if it were really alternate--if the CSA, after winning the War for Southern Independence, really did something different. Some form of WWI, and maybe even the depression and WWII would make sense, but things are too similar to be deeply intriguing. Turtledove takes some logical and interesting premises and draws them out too long.
It's good light reading, fun to follow if you're been reading the series (as I have been, despite losing my enthusiasm for it), but it's not up to Turtledove's earlier stand-alone books in most ways.

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.

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.