Hints of Return Engagement plotline

[Michael E Johnson]

Return Engagement
Book One of the Settling Accounts Trilogy
Written by Harry Turtledove
Fiction - Science Fiction; Fiction - Historical; Fiction - War | Hardcover, 640 pages | August 2004 | $26.95 | 0-345-45723-4





ABOUT THIS BOOK
Harry Turtledove’s remarkable alternative history novels brilliantly remind us of how fragile the thread of time can be, and offer us a world of “what if.” Drawing on a magnificent cast of characters that includes soldiers, generals, lovers, spies, and demagogues, Turtledove returns to an epic tale that only he could tell–the story of a North American continent, separated into two bitterly opposed nations, that stands on the verge of exploding once again.

In 1914 they called it The Great War, and few could imagine anything worse. For nearly three decades a peace forged in blood and fatigue has held sway in North America. Now, Japan dominates the Pacific, the Russian Tsar rules Alaska, and England, under Winston Churchill, chafes for a return to its former glory. But behind the façade of world order, America is a bomb waiting to go off. Jake Featherston, the megalomaniacal leader of the Confederate States of America, is just the man to light the fuse.

In the White House in Philadelphia, Socialist President Al Smith is a living symbol of hope for a nation that has been through the fires of war and the flood tides of depression. In the South, Featherston and his ruling Freedom Party have put down a Negro rebellion with a bloody fist and have interned them in concentration camps. Now they are determined to crush their Northern neighbor at any cost.

Featherston’s planes attack Philadelphia without warning. The U.S.A. lashes back blindly at Charleston. And a terrible second coming is at hand. When the CSA blitzkrieg is launched, the U.S.A. is caught flat-footed. Before long, the gray Army reaches Lake Erie. But in its wake the war machine is spinning a vortex of destruction, betrayal, and fury that no one, not even Jake Featherston himself, can control.

Now, President Smith faces a Herculean task, while an obscure assistant secretary of war named Roosevelt rises in his ranks. For the U.S.A., the darkest days still lay ahead. Across the globe, a new era of war has just begun. And in the hands of the incomparable Harry Turtledove, readers are treated to a masterful vision of what might have been. An enduring portrait of history, nations, and human nature in its many manifestations, Return Engagement is a monumental journey into the second half of the twentieth century.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Harry Turtledove was born in Los Angeles in 1949. He has taught ancient and medieval history at UCLA, Cal State Fullerton, and Cal State L.A., and has published a translation of a ninth-century Byzantine chronicle, as well as several scholarly articles. He is also an award-winning full-time writer of science fiction and fantasy. His alternate history works have included several short stories and novels, including The Guns of the South; How Few Remain (winner of the Sidewise Award for Best Novel); the Great War epics: American Front, Walk in Hell, and Breakthroughs; the Colonization books: Second Contact, Down to Earth, and Aftershocks; American Empire novels: Blood and Iron, The Center Cannot Hold, and Victorious Opposition; and Ruled Britannia. He is married to fellow novelist Laura Frankos. They have three daughters: Alison, Rachel, and Rebecca.

QUOTES
“Turtledove [is] the standard-bearer for alternate history.”
–USA Today

RELATED LINKS
Visit Harry Turtledove's official website

[Coriolanus]

Interesting....all the way to Lake Erie, though?

I'm not too surprised Roosevelt shows up here.....

[Faeelin]

That's just stupid.

[Grimm Reaper]

In all honesty, the entire premise is becoming stupid. When Herbert Hoover was elected president, Turtledove's credibility bombed. After almost fifty years of larger government and foreign alliances, we elected Hoover? About as reasonable as electing Ronald Reagan to fight the Cold War, in 2032.

And Turtledove's vision of resistance movements is even more absurd. Let's not go into minor details, like the Poles resisting, even though victory means the Russians return. Or the holders of massive colonial empires giving such ideas to their enemies. (As it was, the war in northwest Africa in OTL in the 1920s took 300,000 French and Spaniards to put down). Or the idea of the US or Germany(under PRUSSIANS!?!) allowing their militaries to sink that low. Even in OTL, the US had possibly the strongest navy in the world in 1939, and a 'miniscule' air force rivalling what the British had in 1939. That was with no enemy within thousands of miles, no history of losing wars, and enormous economic and scientific strength.

It would appear that Turtledove's alternate history is now slipping from 'plausible' to 'as he would have liked to see it for literary purposes'.

Very disappointing. :(

[Psychomeltdown]

Yeah, I totally agree. Turtledove's slipping from trying to build an ATL to just relying heavily on OTL, just with different names and different places. He's starting to churn out crap, but it doesn't mean that i won't buy the damn book when it comes out. He's still a decent nattator and alright writer, but he tries to stick to OTL too much.

Still like World War though...

[The Gunslinger]

I don't know. I've slowly been losing faith in Turtledove. He's a good writer, but he makes a lot of little mistakes and the like. But, in Gunpowder Empire, the main character is playing that game about World War, when he's fighting the aliens and losing I think... And he mentions the race riots in the CSA in some other TL they've visited. So I think that means that the Confederacy lives on.

[Diamond]

In all honesty, the entire premise is becoming stupid. When Herbert Hoover was elected president, Turtledove's credibility bombed. After almost fifty years of larger government and foreign alliances, we elected Hoover? About as reasonable as electing Ronald Reagan to fight the Cold War, in 2032.


I agree and disagree.

I agree in that it gets a little ridiculous in seeing people that in OTL became prominent through happenstance and events IN OTL become prominent in this TL as well, especially considering that, realistically, half of 'em never should have been born!

I disagree because, assuming said people could still exist, perhaps they are different enough to take different actions, while still retaining a recognizable character... which Turtledove then blows out of the water by having them react in the exact same way they would've in OTL.

This whole series is getting to be not Alternate History, but Real History with different names slapped over the originals.

[Dave Howery]

all the way to Lake Eerie?! the US cut in half?! No frickin' way....
Just out of curiousity, with all the info from the past books, just how far do you think the CSA would get? The CSA has short term advantages in having better equipment and an army full up and ready to go, while the US, although caught off guard, vastly outnumbers them... once they ramp up military production in their huge industry base, the CSA is going down hard. But how far could they get? Des Moines? Chicago? Squashed on the border (that wouldn't make much of a book though)?

[Michael E Johnson]

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http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/settling.htm


SETTLING ACCOUNTS: RETURN ENGAGEMENT
by Harry Turtledove
Del Rey
0-345-45723-4
623pp/$26.95/August 2004

Reviewed by Steven H Silver


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At the end of the novel American Empire: The Victorious Opposition, Harry Turtledove had Jake Featherston, the President of the Confederate States of America, order a surprise air attack on the United States, setting the stage for another round of the incessant warfare between the two countries which dated back to the War of Secession, the Mexican War (chronicled in How Few Remain), and the Great War (chronicled in the “Great War” Trilogy). Once again, Turtledove turns his attention to the battlefield in Return Engagement, the first book of the “Settling Accounts” Trilogy which will provide a World War II analog to Turtledove’s alternative world.

In many ways, the book is exactly what readers of the series would expect. Switching between numerous points of view, Turtledove focuses his attention on different aspects of the war, although he also spends quite a bit of time away from the front lines. Because of the breadth of his characters and the situations he has set up, he is able to show union activity in Los Angeles, the spread of modern conveniences in Sonora, and civilians in cities being bombarded as well as the front line action seen by Colonel Morrell and General Dowling as they work to stem the Confederate Blitzkrieg on its push to split the United States.

It is interesting that even as Turtledove shows that wars don’t change anything and the same pieces of real estate are being fought over again and again, he has also set up a situation in which an aggressor (in this case the CSA under the Hitler-esque Jake Featherston) will only respond to violence. However, despite numerous similarities between Turtledove’s scenario and some of his characters to World War II, the book is not simply a rehash of that way, bringing into play a variety of changes and personal points of view which highlight differences between World War II and the fictional campaign.

In his use of multiple viewpoint characters, Turtledove tries to show the forces driving their different agendas as well as different parts of the conflict and the war. In many cases he is successful, although occasionally he fails. Canadian terrorist Mary MacGregor Pomeroy comes across as particularly unsympathetic despite seeing her resistance through her own eyes. Chester Martin’s response to a new recruitment drive in Los Angeles, where he has been working as a union organizer seems more a matter of plot than character. Other instances work much better. With his life in shatters behind him, Jonathan Moss’s entry into the war is a logical response.

While many of the plotlines are well under way by the end of Return Engagement (and some are over as Turtledove once again demonstrates his willingness to kill off characters), other plot lines seem to be just beginnings. Cincinnatus Driver is hobbling around Covington again and appears to be getting sucked into the mechanizations of Lucullus and Luthor Bliss. A crackdown on the Terry is beginning to effect Scipio/Xerxes which seems to point to a ghetto uprising. In a variety of cases, the next generation of characters appears ready to take over from previous viewpoint characters, and at least one character who appears dead demonstrates a firm grip on life.

The biggest weakness inherent in Return Engagement is that it is a book without a beginning and without an end. While Turtledove reminds his readers of the characters’ backgrounds, the reader really needs to be familiar with the American Empire series before diving into Return Engagement, for the war really starts in the final pages of The Victorious Opposition. Similarly, Return Engagement ends with a cliff hanger that will only be resolved when the next volume in the series is published in 2005.

[MerryPrankster]

So it's out already? I'll have to hit the library then.

[Norman]

all the way to Lake Eerie?! the US cut in half?! No frickin' way....
Just out of curiousity, with all the info from the past books, just how far do you think the CSA would get? The CSA has short term advantages in having better equipment and an army full up and ready to go, while the US, although caught off guard, vastly outnumbers them... once they ramp up military production in their huge industry base, the CSA is going down hard. But how far could they get? Des Moines? Chicago? Squashed on the border (that wouldn't make much of a book though)?

I have to agree with David on this one, there is no way an invasion from the south could make it all the way to Lake Erie. In my mind it displays a woeful lack of understanding of the terrain, how would they get there?

Let's see, they boat up the Mississippi, up the Ohio, Up the Allegheny and Portage to Erie. No that won't work.

Well then, let's think of a land route. Up from Virginia, capture, what Pittsburgh, then up to the Lake? Well there are a few mountain chains standing in their way. Having driven that country many times, the whole thing is going in the wrong direction, forcing them toward New York and away from the Lake.

How about coming up through Ohio from Kentucky? Well there are these mountains and rivers between Ohio and Kentucky, where do the make the crossing, Cincinnatti? Has Harry Turtledove been to Cincinatti? I would not want to be the general tasked with crossing that river and taking that town.

Still, I suppose it is possible, but still unlikely, particularly given that the US in this scenario would have to be crazy to let all of its guard down.

[edvader]

Thanks for spoiling the book, Michael. You could have put a SPOILER WARNING! I am now NOT going to read it.

[Michael E Johnson]

Thanks for spoiling the book, Michael. You could have put a SPOILER WARNING! I am now NOT going to read it.


Sorry I would have thought in this case the tilte of the thread would have been enough to warn you away-but I dont think that review gives everything away -like how the book ends for instance.Below is a link to an excerpt from the book so if you dont want to read it be warned.




http://www.randomhouse.com/delrey/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=0345457234&view=excerpt
.

[Beck Reilly]

Any guesses on what will happen in the first book in the new series and who the character's OTL analogies will be?

[Dave Howery]

As for what will happen in the first book, see the first post of this thread. As for personalities:
NB Forrest III = Rommel, Morrell = Patton (without all his idiosyncracies), Dowling = ....Abrams maybe?. I suppose Smith has to equal FDR, although he doesn't seem as inspiring.

[Beck Reilly]

Smith = Chamberlain
Hopefully not Roosevelt = Churchill

Others...
Jeff Pinkard = Hoess
Clarence Potter = Canaris
Willy Knight = Adenauer? Hess? Who?

Plot...
Will the CSA turn on Mexico? That'd be a blunder almost as bad as Hitler's in OTL and allow for a two-front war.

[MFOM]

Well i don't know,Irving Morrel sounds alot like Irwin Rommel to me?

[Dave Howery]

Except Morrel is in the 'good guy' US, so I'd give NB Forrest III the Rommel role. Maybe Morrel is going to be Zhukov instead.
WHile HT is obviously going for a sorta parallel to Russia/Germany, there are going to be some differences. I doubt the CSA is going to take on anyone except the US (with the population differences, that's about all he can take on). I regard Mexico as more like Italy, the junior partner in the alliance... I doubt Featherstone is going to declare war on one of his few real allies...

[zoomar]

Since Morrel is a "good guy", maybe he's the US version of Charles deGaulle - a visionary military tactician who may have political greatness thrust upon him by how he responds to WW2.

[zoomar]

Also, I see the Nazis/Soviets parallel as perhaps less likely than a Nazis/western allies in 1940 one. Actually, it will probably be a mish-mash of WW2 similies.

[Dave Howery]

well, the fact that the war started on June 22 and that Featherston has a maniacal hatred of the USA (comparable to Hitler's hatred of communist Russia) makes it pretty obvious what the comparison is going to be.... other than that the CSA doesn't have a second front to fight on...

[wkwillis]

Turtledove does not have to worry about plausibility. He can have the Confederacy conquer the Union if he wants. Then the German army can liberate the oppressed Union nation and destroy the death camps.
You assume that Turtledove is writing about the Eastern Front instead of the Western Front.

[Peter Cowan]

Why does everyone think Morrell is a 'good guy' ? He supports the harsh repressive measures the USA has taken in Canada and the Occupied CSA to the extent of using tank main guns and machine guns on rioting mobs - surely that breaches some bit of the Constitution, Houston being a fully fledged State after all.

In fact, it highlights something that often appears to be overlooked. This USA is not the USA of OTL. It is nastier. Prior to WW1 it had this huge resentful chip on its shoulder. After, it displayed an arrogance in victory worthy of its ally, the Kaiser's Germany (as in post 1870 or after Brest-Litovsk).

To be honest, this is a wholly unpleasant world. The country names might be the same (excepting the obvious CSA), but the countries themselves display characteristics alien to our own development.

Still, pre-ordered the next book and waiting to see what happens next. For what it's worth I don't see a CSA victory as improbable as some imply - simply because this isn't our world. In a long war, maybe greater US industry might prevail but I see the situation more analagous to Germany-France than Germany-USSR. Still, the next three volumes will reveal what happens.

[Rahul]

You know Peter, you hit on one of Turtledove's best qualities in his writing in my opinion. The fact that there never are any characters who are absolutely good and absolutely bad, there are simply characters who just "are", with bad qualities and good qualities (or what we view as bad and good) based upon their experiences throughout his stories.

[Dave Howery]

true, the US is a lot darker in this ATL (so, it's probably a good thing the US won the ACW, if the world had any chance of turning out like these books), but with Featherston in the CSA, Fascists in France and England, a repressive Kaiser in Germany, and the Tzar in RUssia, the US is the best of a bad lot. So, Morrell has to be considered one of the good guys, such as they are in this world....
I still think that HT is going for a Germany/RUssia scenario, and that he won't have the US lose (Americans are by far his biggest fan base). Rather, it might be Germany that's in trouble, with France and England both gunning for her....

[faubert]

Were forgetting on thing when we discuss the CSA reaching Lake Erie. Kentucky is part of the CSA. So to reach Lake Erie they just have to go though Ohio. And with a sudden Nazi like attack I can see them reaching it pretty quickly.

And Hoover was never elected President. He was Coolidge's Vice President. Coolidge died before being sworn in and Hoove became President

[zoomar]

Dave: you are right about a Featherston/Hitler similarity in how the CSA leader rabidly hates the USA. However, the weak and appeasement approach of the USA is much more like Britain/France in 1935-39 than Stalin's Soviet Union.

Peter: You are right, Canadians and Houstonians would certainly not see Morrell or any American as a "good guy" and I agree with you and Dave that the much "darker" world in this TL is a critical element of the books. In fact it is one of the few things I find really refreshing in the Great War/American Empire series. Now excuse me while I go wax my Kasier Bill moustache.

[Michael E Johnson]

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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In this well-thought-out alternate history, the first in a new trilogy, Turtledove (American Empire) combines elements of the Civil War and WWII with disturbing results. Confederate President Jake Featherstone has launched an undeclared war of revenge on the U.S.A., with Rebel "barrels" (tanks) cutting the nation in half. U.S. President Al Smith doesn't sue for peace as expected, causing unreconstructed Canadians to sabotage the now-vital Northern rail system holding the nation together. Mormon separatists have once more revolted against the federal government, and Louis Armstrong, who has defected to the North, brings with him chilling evidence of the Confederate "population reductions" (genocide) of African-Americans. Turtledove's depiction of how easily the C.S.A. could carry out genocide—and do so with less cost to the conscience than the Germans experienced in the real Holocaust—coupled with the "so what?" reaction of Northerners when this is publicized makes a disturbing commentary on the state of race relations in both parts of our country. While some of the character descriptions are repetitious, the author handles his huge cast with admirable skill. The insights into racial politics elevate this novel to a status above mere entertainment, although it provides that aplenty.
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