From Cornfields to the Cosmos

Settling Accounts: The Grapple

Harry Turtledove

Ballantine (Del Rey)

August 2006, hardcover, 616 p.

ISBN 0-345-45725-0

$26.95

Imagine a world in which the Confederate States of America won its independence during the American Civil War.  Imagine the United States losing another War Between the States in the late 1800’s.  Imagine trench warfare in North America during The Great War, followed by a grinding worldwide depression. Imagine the rise to power of Jake Featherston, a fanatical Confederate President who harbors nothing but hatred towards the United States and the entire Negro race.  Now, journey with author Harry Turtledove back to 1943 for a firsthand account of the Second Great War, a World War II that never was — but might have been.

In Turtledove’s previous “Settling Accounts” novels, the armies of the Confederacy hammered a wedge through the heart of Ohio to bisect the U.S., and then drove eastward to Pittsburgh.  The Union’s valiant and bloody stand at the critical steel town signaled a shift in the momentum of the war.  In The Grapple, the third of four “Settling Accounts” novels and tenth in the extended series fans have dubbed “Timeline-191”, the author focuses on the campaign to push the C.S.A. off U.S. soil and drive onward.  The U.S. advantage in manpower and industry become deciding factors as the Union army embarks on a mechanized march to the sea vaguely reminiscent of General Sherman’s highly effective 1864 Savannah Campaign.  Of course, Turtledove is careful to make no direct mention of Sherman’s March in this book — in this fictional timeline, Union troops never saw Atlanta in the Civil War!

Perhaps the most striking feature of the author’s alternate history is the increasing frequency of parallels to the perils of our own modern era.  The use of “people bombs” and car bombs by several factions point to the changing face of warfare, a shift from the concentrated might of ponderous armies to mutable tactical arenas where smaller, highly mobile forces clash and one cannot easily identify the enemy.  President Jake Featherston, a thinly veiled Hitler clone with a “master race” mentality, steps up his genocidal program to purify the CSA and end the threat of another black uprising.  Meanwhile, scientists in secret arms programs strive for the breakthroughs that have the potential to usher in an age of wholesale destruction.   Both nations rush to claim the technological high ground by developing long range unmanned delivery systems and atomic weapons. 

Turtledove defends his title as “The Master of Alternate History,” but those who are sensitive to coarse language may find some terms and dialogue mildly offensive in its realism.   Nonetheless, I heartily recommend The Grapple to those who detested studying history in school, to avid history buffs, and to anyone between those extremes.  If you’re searching for something different to cap off your summer reading, don’t hesitate to delve into Turtledove’s fascinating world of “what-if”.

Settling Accounts: Drive to the East
Harry Turtledove
Ballantine (Del Rey)
August 2005, hardcover, 594 p.
ISBN 0-345-45724-2
$26.95

Turtledove began rewriting American history using the premise that the Confederacy won its independence during the American Civil War of the mid-1860’s.  Beginning with his book, How Few Remain, he has chronicled this alternate timeline.  He continued through three books of his “The Great War” series and three more in the “American Empire” series.  Drive to the East is the second book in Turtledove’s “Settling Accounts” series, and is as thoroughly entertaining as those familiar with his writing would expect.  Turtledove again presents a story from multiple points of view.  Through the eyes of numerous characters, with widely disparate backgrounds, social standings, and geographical locations, the reader observes the historical events as they unfold

In this latest book, the year is 1942, and the United States is again at war with the Confederate States of America.  The C.S.A. has driven a wedge northward through Ohio to the Great Lakes, splitting the U.S. in half.  Determined to end the war, Confederate President Jake Featherston orders his forces eastward to capture Pittsburgh, intending to advance further to the U.S. capital in Philadelphia.  Featherston sees other obstacles in his way, also.  The black population in the C.S.A., although no longer slaves by definition, cannot be considered free men, either.  Partly due to an uprising during the Great War, Featherston sees them as a threat, and has begun a campaign of genocide comparable to the Jewish Holocaust of our own WW2 history.

Manpower and industrial might are on the side of the U.S., but it has its own set of problems that keep it from applying its full strength to the defense of Ohio and Pennsylvania.  The ever-present danger of another Mormon uprising in Utah, the peril of a Japanese attack on the Sandwich Islands, and unrest in occupied Canada all combine to draw U.S. men and machines away from the Confederate threat.

This book’s dust jacket touts Harry Turtledove as “The Master of Alternate History.”  It’s no idle boast.  Turtledove delivers a detailed “what if” account teeming with the harsh political and social evils that, under different circumstances, might have shaped history.

Harry Turtledove maintains a presence on the worldwide web at http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/turtledove.html.

Timeline-191
For basic information regarding Harry Turtledove's Timeline-191, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline-191