A big dip in quality from previous books
Written: Apr 11 '02 (Updated Oct 13 '07)
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Pros: The overall story is quite interesting
Cons: Many boring characters, too much like the real world plot, very bad writing
The Bottom Line: I can't recommend this book unless you're already involved in the series. If you are, check it out, don't buy it. You'll feel like you wasted your money.
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| hist's Full Review: American Empire: Blood and Iron Books |
I have to qualify my non-recommendation here. If you are a fan of alternate history, you may like this book. Turtledove is the master of alternate history, and this entire series is a very interesting one. If you don’t mind Turtledove’s writing, then you may enjoy it as well. It can take great effort to get past his writing sometimes, but usually the plot makes up for it. This time, it doesn’t, not unless you’ve already invested some time in the series. If this is your first Turtledove, stay away. It’s not hard to understand what’s going on without reading the previous books, but this book could very well turn you away from his books if you begin with it.
American Empire: Blood & Iron, is yet another chapter in the ongoing alternate history saga by Harry Turtledove. In this series, the Confederates won the Civil War, they faced off again with the United States in the 1880s, and they fought again during World War I. The United States was allied with Germany, while the Confederates were allied with Britain, France, and Canada.
Blood & Iron is the first book after the war, detailing what’s happening in both countries in the post-war era. The Confederacy is going through a situation similar to what Germany went through in the real world: massive inflation, unemployment, great poverty, reparations payments. A Hitler-like figure, Jake Featherston, is gaining popularity with his anti-black and anti-government party. He speaks out about how the Confederacy was stabbed in the back by its politicians and that’s how they lost the war. Meanwhile, in the North, the Socialist party has come to power, very much like post-war Britain. The North has suffered a bit of war-weariness, and that enabled the Socialists to take over.
This brings to mind the first of this books many missteps. Unlike the previous books in the series, this one is a little too much like what really happened. It’s alternate history by numbers, and Turtledove is better than that. Replace black people with Jews and you all of a sudden have the real-world Germany. Replace United States with Britain and you’ve got what really happened as well. The subject matter of Jake’s speeches is slightly different, but the parallel to the rise of Hitler is just too on the nose. There’s too few differences. During the previous books, when he was detailing the war itself, this wasn’t so much of a problem. The idea of a war on North American soil was so different, that Turtledove couldn’t help but be unique. Unfortunately, he’s falling away from that with this book. Perhaps where all of this leads will ultimately be different, but not when you take this book on its own.
The second problem is the characters. During the war, everybody was involved with the war effort in one way or another, so they were able to do interesting things, even if the character itself wasn’t that interesting. Unfortunately, Turtledove doesn’t have that luxury this time, and the characters suffer for it. Some of them are just completely useless, and their story isn’t interesting enough to compensate. Nellie Semproch, to name one example, is just plain dull. During the war, she spied on the Confederates at her café in an occupied Washington DC. Now, she’s newly married, still dealing with a headstrong daughter and her issues with men in general, but she’s dull. Again, plot wins over character, and when the plot is unimportant, the character becomes lifeless. There are many other examples of this, too many to mention here.
There are also too many main characters. The book is written so that each character gets a chapter, so we end up seeing vignettes in their lives. There’s no real flow, as the narrative jumps from one character to another. I’ve never seen a book where you can skip so much of it if you want to and not lose any of the main story. Occasionally, the main characters interact with each other, but not often. This vignette method of telling the story also makes the book very disjointed. The previous three books carried the story of the war from 1914 to 1917. This book alone goes from 1917 to 1924. It’s almost like you’re reading a bunch of short stories collected in a book, with some of the stories having the same characters.
Finally, Turtledove’s writing is horrible in this book. I think that, in the past, it’s been covered by the interesting ideas and plot. This time, though, it’s very noticeable. He’s constantly repeating himself, emphasizing things. Yes, Harry, we get that inflation is going up and up, so that $1 billion dollars will now buy you lunch, we get the fact that Nellie Semproch really dislikes men, etc. You don’t need to introduce the characters every time we see them. Introducing them the first time we see them is good enough. Also, Turtledove can not write a sex scene to save his life. Please, Harry, please do the “fade to black” method.
Ultimately, this book is only for people who want to continue the series. Even then, I’d suggest you check it out from the library instead of buying it, unless you’re a die-hard completist.
Other books in this series by Harry Turtledove
American Empire: Blood and Iron
American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold
American Empire: The Victorious Opposition
Settling Accounts: Return Engagement
Settling Accounts: Drive to the East
Settling Accounts: The Grapple
Settling Accounts: In at the Death
Days of Infamy
End of the Beginning
In the Presence of Mine Enemies
Every Inch a King
Recommended:
No
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hist
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Member: David Roy
Location: Vancouver, BC
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