What do You think about Blood & Iron (2002)?
This is the first book of a trilogy that's actually the middle trilogy of a 9 book Series. Think of it as "The New Hope: Ep 4".The series is the "Timeline 191", in which the South wins the Civil War, and battles the North in WW1 and WW2.This book takes place after the Great War. The US beats the Confederacy, and imposes sanctions and reparations, similar to what happened to Germany after WW1.It sets the stage for a tyrannical ruler in the South, and a nationalistic fever which leads to the WW2.Turtledove is repetitive, and doesn't evoke deep images, but he does know how to tell a story, and has a great imagination.
—Michael
I realized only in the middle of this that, while it's part 1 of a trilogy, it's also really book 7 of a 9 book set. So I was a little lost for a bit, but was eventually after to figure out exactly what was going on.What Turtledove's done with this series is set up an alternate history of the United States; one in which the Confederate States of America won the US Civil War, and were able to establish themselves as a significant political and economic force.This series, specifically, starts a little over 50 years after the end of the Civil War; The USA and the German Empire have just been victorious in World War I, winning a decisive victory over Quadruple Alliance of Russia, England, France, and the CSA. As a result of the war, the USA is occupying Canada, and is demanding reparations from the CSA.If you're a student of history, you can kind of guess where this is going: hyperinflation, chronic unemployment, and bitterness about the outcome of the war result in a large group of people in the country becoming increasingly angry and leaning towards violence, which certain political forces manipulate by placing the blame on aristocrats in government and minority groups present in the country. Turtledove has the CSA parallel fate of the Weimar Republic in our reality, and seeing those parallels is one of the main sources of tension in the book.The main problem I had with the book was that it relies too heavily on that knowledge of history to drive your interest in the story. The main dramatic tension comes from knowing your history between the two world wars, rather than from the characters; at times they seem almost like set-pieces being moved around in order to move the historical story from A to B. Still, the idea is interesting enough that I'll make sure to read the next two books in the trilogy.
—Ryan
Without a World War going on, the narrative turns much more political, which I find much more interesting. Bloody battle scenes tend to get repetitive, so there was nothing to tune out in this installment. Also, as the narrative develops, many of the different characters from among the two sides and from different parts of the country are beginning to cross paths with one another, sometimes by chance, sometimes in a calculated way. In doing so, Turtledove masterfully marries the epic and the personal.
—Kb
