Author | Harry Turtledove |
---|---|
Cover artist | Big Dot Design |
Language | English |
Series | Settling Accounts series |
Genre | Alternate History |
Publisher | Del Rey Books |
Publication date | August 2004 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (Paperback & Hardback) |
ISBN | 0-345-45723-4 |
OCLC | 56762349 |
LC Class | PS3570.U76 S48 2004 |
Preceded by | American Empire: The Victorious Opposition |
Followed by | Settling Accounts: Drive to the East |
Settling Accounts: Return Engagement is the first book of Harry Turtledove's Settling Accounts series of alternate history novels. [1]
An analog of World War II known as the Second Great War is being waged on American soil between the United States and the Confederate States. [2] [3] This series is part of a larger series of novels. For convenience's sake, many Turtledove fans refer to this as the Southern Victory series. It takes the Southern Victory Series Earth from 1941 to 1942.
Following the plebiscites for the United States to return the occupied states of Kentucky and Houston to the Confederacy in early 1941, Confederate President Jake Featherston breaks his solemn vow and re-militarizes them, essentially declaring war against the United States in act if not in word. US President Alfred Emanuel Smith hurries to prepare for war, but his country is sent reeling by Operation Blackbeard, the Confederate attack into Ohio at 3:30 am on June 22, 1941. Soon afterward, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the rest of the Entente powers announce hostilities against the U.S.
The U.S. under General Abner Dowling and Colonel Irving Morrell fight desperately, but the 1930s-era unwillingness of the U.S. to adequately meet the danger posed by Featherston's remilitarization of the C.S. tells, in the form of armed forces which are woefully unprepared to meet the intense Confederate combined arms attack. By 1942 the Confederate army has reached the shores of Lake Erie and cut the U.S. in two. Meanwhile, the Mormons in Utah are once again rebelling, prompting a swift response from the U.S. Army, but compounding the difficulties for the U.S. just as in the last war. A U.S. counterattack in Virginia bogs down, and the Confederates are preparing a second offensive for the summer of 1942 when Al Smith is killed in a bombing raid on the capital city of Philadelphia when the bunker underneath the Powel House is destroyed and the building itself is severely damaged. A shaken Charles W. La Follette is sworn in as President of a nation fighting for its survival.
Meanwhile, in the Confederacy, the murderous persecution of blacks is escalating towards a full-scale genocide, similar to our timeline's Holocaust. Another hint of things to come is provided when Featherston makes a strategic blunder in rejecting the offer of a physics professor to start research towards producing nuclear weapons, believing that the professor just wants government money to finance an abstruse scientific project – while it is hinted that the U.S. has started a version of the Manhattan Project, located in the state of Washington and overseen by Assistant Secretary of War Franklin D. Roosevelt, who in this world harbors no presidential ambitions.
Publishers Weekly praised the book in their review, saying that "The insights into racial politics elevate this novel to a status above mere entertainment". [4] SF Site's review was more mixed, saying that the book has "too many major characters, and no wow factor". [5]
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.
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.
American Empire: The Victorious Opposition is the third and final book in the American Empire alternate history series by Harry Turtledove, and the seventh in the Southern Victory series of books.
The Disunited States of America is an alternate history novel by Harry Turtledove. It is a part of the Crosstime Traffic series, and takes place in an alternate world where the U.S. was never able to agree on a constitution and continued to govern under the Articles of Confederation. By the early 1800s, the nation dissolved with each state as a separate country. The states trade with each other, engage in diplomacy, and even go to war with each other. Other states exist which do not in our world, such as Boone.
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.
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, 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.