From Publishers Weekly
The compelling third volume (after Drive to the East) in Turtledove's third alternate history of WWII series opens with the Confederacy reeling after the loss of their forces in the cauldron around Pittsburgh. The United States is trying to suppress the Mormon rebellion in Utah, while Canadian patriots fight the occupying Yanks to a stalemate. Negro guerrillas who escaped being swept up into death camps authorized by C.S.A. President Jake Featherstone disrupt the rural economy. Meanwhile, both sides work feverishly to win the race to build an atomic bomb. One may question the appropriateness of using the Holocaust as a springboard for an entertainment, but Turtledove convincingly depicts how an American holocaust could well have happened. Some Confederates begin to feel pangs of conscience, just as the U.S. troops who execute hostages among the Mormon, Canadian and Confederate civilians feel nothing but repulsion. While somewhat repetitious and a bit preachy in spots, Turtledove's latest proves that third time is the charm. (July)
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From
The latest volume of Settling Accounts, Turtledove's magisterial saga of an alternate America--and world----ratchets up the levels of violence and tension. Through Franklin Roosevelt, Flora Blackford is keeping apprised of everybody's nuclear weapons programs as well as Confederate efforts to develop a ballistic missile. In the West, people of all races, colors, and genders die in gruesome numbers as the U.S. Army advances on the Confederate extermination camp, Camp Determination. Jonathan Moss roams Georgia with a band of African American guerrillas, trying to get back into the war. And George Enos now serves aboard Sam Carsten's Josephus Daniels and confronts a British Swordfish torpedo bomber that seems one entire war out-of-date. Responding with this-world prejudices, purists will complain that the alternative-world British would have built something better, or that the Confederates never could have built a V-2. Readers of broader vision will realize that Turtledove is hanging the notion of American exceptionalism out to dry and underlining how much luck the U.S. has needed to accomplish even as much as it has in preserving democracy, making peace among races, and not having its soldiers slaughtered by the millions and its cities wrecked by the score. A profoundly thoughtful masterpiece of alternate history. Roland Green
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