Customer Reviews

Stars and Stripes Triumphant

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

If you can imagine a Great Britain in 1865 where the Queen's petulant childlike behavior dominates day-to-day politics, where the British Navy and Army are totally unaware of massive troop and ship movements from North America east accross the Atlantic, where the Imperial administration and Military in London are taken completely unaware by gasoline powered (Carnot) engines moving very very heavy armored guns and vehicles and these machines are coming off of immensely heavy iron warships then you are probably ready for John Ericsson and William Parrott to invent all of the parts of the gasoline engine powered tank (engine, transmission, axles, wheels, and FUEL! while they are at the same time building staem powered warships carrying massive mortars protected by solid iron armor. I'll bet the USA ran quite a budget deficit building this invasion fleet and supplying the troops. Did I mention that there are green ELECTRIC lights on the American warships?

Add to this wooden characterizations of Sherman, Grant, Lincoln, Fox, Palmerston, Russell, and Disraeli and you have a novel that just fizzles out with America bringing "Democracy" to Great Britain.

The Irish in the story are brutally mistreated and the non-titled English are either crude or cowardly. All Americans of course are just great guys who only want to right the wrongs of the world.

I suppose that editors don't question the story telling ability of long established authors, but why was this one published?

I have read and enjoyed Mr Harrison's SF for nigh on thirty years. "Deathworld" took me through adolescence. The "Stainless Steel Rat" through youth, and the increasingly Carry-On style of the "Bill, the Galactic Hero" series even further.

But I just cannot stomach this triumvirate. The writing is wooden, but what irks me is the scenario and the politics. Please feel free to stop reading now if you are simply looking for a read.

As an Aussie, I consider myself neither Anglo-, not Amero, -phobic or -philliac.

Previous reviewers have mentioned the technological problems, and Mr Harrison's general presumption that all Americans are combinations of Rambo and Thomas Edison, whereas all Brits are like the guys from "Dumb and Dumber".

I am surprised that no one has mentioned Mr Harrison's presumptions that:

* Forty years (I'm no American scholar.. correct me if I'm wrong) of the deepest tensions and social schisms in the USA concerning slavery suddenly vaporise instantly when a few Brits get off course;

* An American invasion of Ireland suddenly reconciles 800 years of Protestant-Catholic discord and hatred;

* Americans bring democracy to the UK. In the late 1860s, American senators were no more elected than the House of Lords and the aristocracy Mr Harrison professes to despise: senators where chosen by state legislatures.

Some of the previous reviews have pointed out some serious problems with Stars & Stripes Triumphant. I just finished reading it, and I noted some more discrepancies.

Count Iggy could not have gone to the Royal Naval College Greenwich before the Crimean War, since it wasn't established until 1873. Moreover, it was not a place for training officer candidates (that was done at the Royal Naval College Dartmouth, started in 1863). The courses taught at Greenwich were for mid to upper-grade officers, lieutenant commanders and above.

The river running through Cork is not the River Lee but the River Lea.

Ulysses S. Grant was known to his contemporaries as "Sam."

In the 1860s there were two battalions of the Royal Fusiliers, not 25. Only during the massive expansion of the British Army during the First and Second World Wars did certain regiments grow anywhere near that large.

I enjoyed everything else I have read from Harry Harrison, and am fascinated by alternative history, so I expected to like the "Stars and Stripes" trilogy. I didn't.

The three books in the series are:

Stars and Stripes Forever
Stars and Stripes in Peril
Stars and Stripes Triumphant.

The starting premise of the first book - Britain blundering into war with the North in the American civil war - is horrifying plausible, which is not surprising as this very nearly happened. However, the author then abandoned any attempt at either a realistic attempt to work through what might have happened, or to look sympathically at how the situation might have developed from the viewpoint of all sides. Instead, looking for a way to turn both the USA and CSA into heroes, he cast the Brits as incompetent and evil cretins who both sides could unite against.

The second book was round two, with Britain invading the US again and getting beaten again, and the US deciding to "liberate" Ireland. The third book is round three. Given what has previously happened, most of the second and third books are not as ludicrous as the first one - although there are still some pretty silly things - but the basic premise still takes the course of the story too far away from anything which could realistically have happened in our world to work as alternative history.

Like the first two novels in the series, this book is basically written for people like the idea of presenting Americans as idealistic wonderful heroes, including those who in real history fought to preserve slavery, and British people as caricatures of evil idiots.

Harry Harrison is almost the last writer on earth I would have expected to prostitute his considerable talents with such chauvinistic rubbish as the Stars and Stripes trilogy. One-sided nationalism is not usually his style, and he has written another book about a set of events which might have changed the course of the US Civil War/War between the States - "Rebel in Time" - which is far superior to this.

For anyone who is looking for a good account of how the American Civil war might have gone wrong, try Harry Turtledove's "The Guns of the South," or "How Few Remain" and the "Great War" and "American Empire" trilogies which follow it. Or indeed Harry Harrison's "Rebel in Time".

Stars and Stripes Triumphant was a weak, brief, and very predictable conclusion to an otherwise great series. Harry Harrison may have bitten off more than he could chew, technologically, for the military innovations were fairly limited. I know I was waiting for the submarine that never surfaced. While it was satisfying to see the histrionic and arrogant British aristocracy get their decidedly un-Ambersonlike comeuppance, it was oh-so-expected.
The book suffered from failure to further develop (or even use) most of the main characters from the previous two books. New characters also could have used a quick personality and body-building session, especially Gladstone and Disraeli.
The book was disappointingly short; there was plenty of room for all that was lacking.
Fans of the series will need to read the book, just for closure's sake. But wait for the paperback.

The uneasy peace between the United States, reunited after England foolishly attacked both parties during the American Civil War, seems destined to be shortlived and Undersecretary Fox and General Sherman take advantage of a Russian aristocrat's offer to spy on the British. Sherman comes up with a plan for invasion--a plan made possible by several wonderful inventions by John Ericsson (inventor of the Monitor in our own history). When the British push too hard on America, trying to forbid cotton exports to France and Germany, and refuse to stop raiding the newly independent Irish, Abraham Lincoln unleashes the U.S. army under Generals Sherman, Lee, and Grant.

The best alternate history takes a single decision and reverses it. In the STARS & STRIPES series, author Harry Harrison reverses the British decision not to intervene in the American Civil War, together with the monsterous mistake of attacking both sides. That the two sides could have come together if attacked by a common foe is not beyond conception and makes for an interesting historical alternative.

The first half of this novel consists of Sherman's spying venture. Harrison's writing is tight and he throws in enough danger to keep the reader fascinated. The largely militaristic second half is somewhat less interesting depending as it does on Ericsson's invention of the internal combustion engine, the decision to use this engine to drive tanks through England, and on completely ineffectual resistance on the part of the British. Sadly, the British use of concentration camps to hold their possibly disloyal Irish workers sounds possible given the historic contempt that the English held for their Irish cousins.

Am I the only one who finds disturbing parallels with current (2003) political discussions and decisions on going to war. Intentional or not, I think that STARS & STRIPES holds some interesting lessons and thoughts for today's world.

The aged, entrenched mentality of the 19th-century British Empire could certainly have overlooked some of the innovative weapons and tactics employed by the upstart United States after America successfully invaded Ireland. In conservative Britain, enemies might be seen everywhere, especially among the ex-pat Irish living among them. It wouldn't be an unnatural response to round them all up and "concentrate" them in camps where they could be watched more closely. The result would be a repressive society that had not yet come to terms with its military over-extension; a society that now felt safe at home; a society willing to use its powerful navy to interdict American ships, seize American cargos, and impress American sailors into service.

It is 1812 all over again, but this time America is mobilized and strong.

General William Tecumseh Sherman sees the writing on the wall and begins to lay plans for what he realizes is inevitable. When the time comes, he launches his invasion of England, which falls like a house of cards--like the Berlin Wall. American ironclads sail up the Thames. Scotland sees its chance, finally, and pulls away from England. It is all over very quickly. This is the way empires fall.

"Stars and Stripes Triumphant" is the one book in this series in which I wished that Harrison would have gone into a bit more detail regarding the political aftermath of the conquest of England. There are so many parallels throughout history, and universal lessons that are also playing themselves out in the world today. Would that the modern-day lessons of this series had been required reading at the Defense Department. Still, this final installment is entertaining and plausible.

This was an entertaining book. I have a degree in History and enjoyed the obvious research that the author did in preparation for this work. Also, the style was very easy to get into. A solid book in its genre.

Stars & Stripes Triumphant is the third novel in a trilogy about a Civil War that didn't quite happen, following Stars & Stripes in Peril. In the previous volume, the US Navy has established local naval superiority in Irish waters and the US Army has defeated the British troops ashore. Ireland is now free and the Americans help her set up a democratic republican government. This really torques Queen Victoria.

In this story, the British have started conducting raids against Ireland and they have gathered up all Irish nationals within English borders and placed them in camps. They have also resumed the practice of impressing American sailors from ships on the high seas. Moreover, they are searching ships at sea for so-called contraband -- American cotton -- destined for Europe, confiscating the ships and imprisoning their crews. The British really cannot believe that they have lost the war.

At a European peace conference in Brussels, the President, Abraham Lincoln, is shot at by an angry southern sympathizer, the actor John Wilkes Booth, and General Grant is wounded in the arm. General Sherman meets an interesting Polish count serving in the Russian navy while in Brussels and takes a sea voyage to England on the count's steam yacht, with himself, Gus Fox, and a US Naval officer disguised as Russians. Although they have a couple of close calls, Sherman and Fox return to Washington with some interesting strategic observations.

With the help of Ericcson, the shipwright and inventor, and others in the defense industries, General Sherman upgrades the tools of war and devises an innovative plan for the invasion of England. There will be no holding back this time.

Another reviewer has mentioned that the author postulated a series of occurrences that did not happen in this timeline rather than a single discrete event. I am not really sure why this is a problem, since any single event MUST significantly effect subsequent events in order to cause any noticeable change in the timeline. Otherwise, the changed event would be buried in the clutter of everyday life and forgotten by posterity.

Other reviewers find it hard to believe that the Americans could develop so much new equipment is such a brief time. All right, I acknowledge that the light bulb is unlikely, but the ships are just about dead on. It is little advertised, but the US claimed reparations from England after the Civil War because of the support that country supplied to the Confederacy. England demurred, the US Navy send a squadron of iron ships, with turrets, to English waters as a gentle hint, the English had nothing that could stand against them, and England paid the US claims. If I remember the date correctly, that was in 1879, but it could have been even earlier if the US was forced to fight a naval war with England. All the pieces were there, but nobody had a need for them in 1865.

Recommended for Harrison fans and anyone who enjoys well-crafted tales of alternate wars.

-Arthur W. Jordin

The reason this book gets four stars is because Harry Harrison did such a good job of building the foundation of the story. He deals not just with the USA and England, but on how the European nations were dealing with the events, past and present. A shot is not fired in anger till about page 128. And even after the war there are chapters and chapters of post-war events to tie it all up. Now if only the events and characters of the conflict were as realistic as the logic he used to set it up. But if you've stayed with the series up to this third and last book you are already use to the grand and sweeping scenes that keep the plot moving. Now I know the reason for the trilogy - Mr. Harrison wanted to find a way to free Ireland and Scotland!
The plot drives the book, like the last two, and logic be damned.
Fun, but that's all.