Author | Harry Turtledove |
---|---|
Cover artist | Big Dot Design |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Series | American Empire |
Genre | Alternate history novel |
Publisher | Del Rey Books |
Publication date | July 29, 2003 |
Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
Pages | 512 |
ISBN | 0-345-44423-X |
OCLC | 51817182 |
813/.54 21 | |
LC Class | PS3570.U76 A84 2003 |
Preceded by | American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold |
Followed by | Settling Accounts: Return Engagement |
American Empire: The Victorious Opposition is the third and final book in the American Empire alternate history series by Harry Turtledove, [1] and the seventh in the Southern Victory series of books.
The book covers the period March 5, 1934 (the day after Jake Featherston's inauguration as President of the Confederate States) to June 22, 1941 (the commencement of Operation Blackbeard).
The United States are able to end a war with Japan, but are beginning to prepare for a fourth war against its southern neighbor—but slowly and reluctantly, as the memories of Great War carnage make the population skeptical of calls for increased military spending. In the Confederacy, Featherston and his fascist Freedom Party enact sweeping changes to all aspects of life, including purging and expanding the Army, abolishing the Supreme Court, and using concentration camps to kill off Whig and Radical Liberal politicians before using them to eliminate the black population of the Confederate States. To solidify popular support, Featherston makes good on his campaign promises to mechanize Confederate agriculture and bring electricity to communities across the CSA, including an equivalent of the TVA. These measures also have the effect of war preparations, ensuring that the C.S. will fight their next conflict as a full-fledged, advanced industrial nation. The old-style, somewhat complacent Confederate elites—the planter class—are eclipsed in political life by the mass-based, militaristic Freedom Party, driven by Featherston's burning vision of national greatness and revenge.
As these changes are taking place, representatives of the former Confederate states of Kentucky and Houston along with Sequoyah begin calling for a return to the Confederacy, with Confederate partisans in Houston launching an armed uprising against the U.S. Army. Union President Al Smith (who defeated Herbert Hoover and his running mate William Borah in the 1936 Presidential Election) allows himself to be swayed by the peace factions in the U.S. and gives in to the Confederate territorial demands. Smith is also able to win reelection in 1940 over Democratic candidate Robert A. Taft by a narrow margin. Republican Party candidate Wendell Willkie comes in third place in the election, carrying the electoral votes from his home state of Indiana. On January 7, 1941, plebiscites are held and Kentucky and Houston vote to return to the Confederacy with Houston also rejoining Texas. Featherston promises not to remilitarize them, or to ask for Sequoyah (which due to a massive number of white settlers, voted pro-U.S.) or other former C.S. territory such as the annexed areas of northern Virginia north of the Rappahannock River, northeastern Arkansas, and northwestern Sonora. Within weeks, Featherston breaks his promise and plants his modernized and expanded Confederate Army on the Ohio River, convincing Smith that the time to face Featherston down has finally come.
Tensions rise in Europe when Germany's longtime ruler Wilhelm II dies on June 4, 1941. The new Kaiser Wilhelm III refuses to return the former French territory of Alsace-Lorraine that France's ruling party Action Française had demanded. The United Kingdom, France and the Confederacy soon declare war on Germany, with Russia joining in days later.
With war breaking out in Europe, Jake Featherston feels it is time to have his revenge against his greatest enemy: the United States of America. On the first day of summer in 1941, he orders Operation Blackbeard to begin. The next day — June 22, 1941 — the Confederate States of America bring the war to North America with a surprise attack on Philadelphia and invasion of southern Ohio.
(The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union — in our timeline — occurred on the same day. The name of the German invasion plan was Operation Barbarossa, named after Frederick Barbarossa, a well-known Holy Roman Emperor in the Middle Ages who had according to legend, 'a great red beard', thus the C.S. operation's name.)
Jackie Cassada in her review for Library Journal called it a "solid choice". [2] Peter Canon of Publishers Weekly said that this volume of Turtledove's saga "may be the strongest and most compelling since the opener". [3] Roland Green reviewing for Booklist agreed that this was the most powerful volume in the series describing the novel as "busy, to be sure, but almost impossible to praise too highly". [4]
How Few Remain is a 1997 alternate history novel by Harry Turtledove. It is the first part of the Southern Victory saga, which depicts a world in which the Confederate States of America won the American Civil War. It is similar to his earlier novel The Guns of the South, but unlike the latter, it is a purely historical novel with no fantastical or science fiction elements. The book received the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 1997, and was also nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1998. It covers the Southern Victory Series period of history from 1862 and from 1881 to 1882.
Nathan Bedford Forrest III was a brigadier general of the United States Army Air Forces, and a great-grandson of Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. He was killed in action in Germany during World War II. Forrest was the first American general to be killed in action during the war in Europe.
The Guns of the South is an alternate history novel set during the American Civil War by Harry Turtledove. It was released in the United States on September 22, 1992.
Drive to the East is the second book in Harry Turtledove's Settling Accounts series of alternate history novels.
Settling Accounts: Return Engagement is the first book of Harry Turtledove's Settling Accounts series of alternate history novels.
The Southern Victory series or Timeline-191 is a series of eleven alternate history novels by author Harry Turtledove, beginning with How Few Remain (1997) and published over a decade. The period addressed in the series begins during the Civil War and spans nine decades, up to the mid-1940s. In the series, the Confederate States defeats the United States of America in 1862, therefore making good its attempt at secession and becoming an independent nation. Subsequent books are built on imagining events based on this alternate timeline.
Bring the Jubilee is a 1953 novel of alternate history by American writer Ward Moore.
The Great War: American Front is the first alternate history novel in the Great War trilogy by Harry Turtledove. It is the second part of Turtledove's Southern Victory series of novels. It takes the Southern Victory Series from 1914 to 1915.
American Empire: Blood and Iron is the first book of the American Empire trilogy of alternate history fiction novels by Harry Turtledove. It is a sequel to the novel How Few Remain and the Great War trilogy, and is part of the Southern Victory series.
American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold is the second book in the American Empire alternate history series by Harry Turtledove. It takes place during the period of the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression. During this era in Turtledove's Southern Victory world, the Confederate States of America, stretching from Sonora to Virginia, is led by Whigs while the United States of America is controlled by Socialists.
Settling Accounts: The Grapple by Harry Turtledove is the third book in the Settling Accounts tetralogy, an alternate history setting of World War II known as the Second Great War in North America. It is part of the Southern Victory, which supposes that the Confederate States of America won the American Civil War. It takes place in the Southern Victory Series Earth in 1943.
The Great War: Breakthroughs is the third and final installment of the Great War trilogy in the Southern Victory series of alternate history novels by Harry Turtledove. It takes the Southern Victory Series to 1917.
Settling Accounts: In at the Death is the last novel of the Settling Accounts tetralogy that presents an alternate history of World War II known as the Second Great War that was released July 27, 2007. It brings to a conclusion the multi-series compilation by author Harry Turtledove, a series sometimes referred to as Southern Victory. It covers the time period from 1943 to 1945.
The Great War: Walk in Hell is the second book in the Great War series of alternate history books by Harry Turtledove. It is also the third part of the Southern Victory. It takes the Southern Victory Series from 1915 to 1916.
Counting Up, Counting Down is a collection of short stories by Harry Turtledove, most of which were first published in various fiction magazines in the 1990s. It is named after two of the stories appearing in the book, one called "Forty, Counting Down" and the other named "Twenty-One, Counting Up", which are united by the character of Justin Kloster. The story genres represented include alternate history, time travel, fantasy, straight historical fiction, and more. Two stories, "The Decoy Duck" and "The Seventh Chapter," are set in the Videssos Universe, with the former story being set before any of the other stories and books in that universe. The book was originally published by Del Rey as a trade paperback in January 2002. In the same month, it was brought out as a leatherbound limited edition by Easton Press.
American Civil War alternate histories are alternate history fiction that focuses on the Civil War ending differently or not occurring. The American Civil War is a popular point of divergence in English-language alternate history fiction. The most common variants detail the victory and survival of the Confederate States. Less common variants include a Union victory under different circumstances from actual history, resulting in a different postwar situation; black American slaves freeing themselves by revolt without waiting for Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation; a direct British and/or French intervention in the war; the survival of Lincoln during John Wilkes Booth's assassination attempt; a retelling of historical events with fantasy elements inserted; the Civil War never breaking out and a peaceful compromise being reached; and secret history tales. The point of divergence in such a story can be a "natural, realistic" event, such as one general making a different decision, or one sentry detecting an enemy invasion unlike in reality. It can also be an "unnatural" fantasy/science fiction plot device such as time travel, which usually takes the form of someone bringing modern weapons or hindsight knowledge into the past. Still another related variant is a scenario of a Civil War that breaks out at a different time from 1861 and under different circumstances.
Conan of Venarium is a fantasy novel by American writer Harry Turtledove, edited by Teresa Nielsen Hayden, featuring Robert E. Howard's sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. It was first published in hardcover by Tor Books in July 2003; a regular paperback edition followed from the same publisher in July 2004.
If the South Had Won the Civil War is a 1961 alternate history book by MacKinlay Kantor, a writer who also wrote several novels about the American Civil War. It was originally published in the November 22, 1960, issue of Look magazine. It generated such a response that it was published in 1961 as a book.
The Confederate States of America (1861–1865) only had one president, who was Jefferson Davis. In various American Civil War alternate histories where the Confederacy won the American Civil War and continued its existence, various people have served in the office of the presidency of the Confederacy.
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