 First edition | |
| Author | Harry Turtledove |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Carol Heyer |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | War Between the Provinces |
| Genre | Fantasy |
| Publisher | Baen Books |
Publication date | September 1, 2000 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Followed by | Marching Through Peachtree |
Sentry Peak is a 2000 fantasy novel written by Harry Turtledove. It is the first novel in the War Between the Provinces series, a fantasy version retelling of the American Civil War. [1]
When Avram (= Abraham Lincoln) becomes King of Detina (Detinu is "United" spelled backwards - a parody of the USA) after the death of his father King Buchan (= James Buchanan), he declares he intends to liberate the blond serfs from their ties to the land. The northern provinces (= Southern United States), where most of the serfs live, do not accept his lordship. The hot north is a land of broad estates, whose noble overlords take the serfs' labor and give back next to nothing. Those provinces secede from Detina, choosing Avram's cousin, Grand Duke Geoffrey (= Jefferson Davis), as their king in his place.
Avram refuses to let Geoffrey rule the north without a challenge. The southern provinces (= the Union), full of merchants and smallholders stand solidly behind him. So he sends armies clad in gray against the north. Geoffrey raises his own army, and arrays his men in blue made from the indigo much raised on northern estates to distinguish them from the southrons. This begins the Detinan Civil War.
In Sentry Peak, the story begins with Detina General Guildenstern (= Union General William Rosecrans; Shakespeare's Hamlet has minor characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) going on his war unicorn to meet Thraxton the Braggart (= Confederate General Braxton Bragg) of the northern provinces, for a clash at Sentry Peak (= Lookout Mountain) near Rising Rock (= Chattanooga, Tennessee, whose name supposedly means "rock rising to a point" in the Creek language). Guildenstern is accompanied by Lieutenant General George, nicknamed "Doubting George" (= George Henry Thomas, commander of the Union XIV Corps). Everything else in the story is a parody in a vein similar to these examples.
Kirkus Reviews dismissed the novel as "fairly typical Turtledove [content], with lots of talk and maneuvering, and very little actual fighting", and concluded by saying "shrug, so what?" [2] Publishers Weekly was more positive, noting that in addition to "a treasure trove of japes and wordplays", the novel also has "some serious and cogent thinking on the position of minorities, the art of command (as practiced both well and badly) and the Civil War", as well as "some exacting tests of (...) cultural literacy" — if one can "resist the temptation to fling the book down." [3]
Steven H Silver found the puns on the names of historical figures and locations to be "clever" but also "distract[ing]", and emphasized that the characterization was done in "broad strokes (...) relying on the reader's knowledge of [the characters'] historical models to supply the rest", with the result that readers who are not already "Civil War aficionados" will find these characters "flat"; Silver also faulted the novel's focus on battle scenes to the exclusion of "civilian culture". [4]
Harry Norman Turtledove is an American author who is best known for his work in the genres of alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and mystery fiction. He is a student of history and completed his PhD in Byzantine history. His dissertation was on the period AD 565–582. He lives in Southern California.
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Chicks in Chainmail is an anthology of fantasy stories, edited by Esther Friesner, with a cover by Larry Elmore. It consists of works featuring female protagonists mostly written by female authors. It was first published in paperback by Baen Books in September 1995, with a hardcover edition following from Baen in conjunction with the Science Fiction Book Club in January 1996. It was the first of a number of similarly themed anthologies edited by Friesner.
"The Wheels of If" is an alternate history science fiction story by American writer L. Sprague de Camp. It was first published in the magazine Unknown Fantasy Fiction for October, 1940, and first appeared in book form in de Camp's collection The Wheels of If and Other Science Fiction. It later appeared in the paperback edition of the collection published by Berkley Books in 1970, in de Camp's subsequent collections The Virgin & the Wheels and Years in the Making: the Time-Travel Stories of L. Sprague de Camp, and in the anthology Unknown Worlds: Tales from Beyond. It also appeared, together with a sequel by Harry Turtledove, in The Pugnacious Peacemaker/The Wheels of If and Down in the Bottomlands and Other Places. The story has also been translated into German.
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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.
The War Between the Provinces is a series of fantasy novels by Harry Turtledove.
This is the complete list of works by American science fiction author S. M. Stirling.
Marching Through Peachtree is the second novel in The War Between the Provinces series, a fantasy version of the American Civil War by Harry Turtledove.
Advance and Retreat is the third and final novel in The War Between the Provinces series, a fantasy version of the American Civil War by Harry Turtledove.
Bibliography of science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction and nonfiction writer Harry Turtledove:
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