Mowque Reads TL-191

mowque

Banned
Featherston:

Jake is retreating. The CS Army dove deep into PA but is slowly being thrown back. In a sense it is a much larger version of what happened to Germany on the Western Front, although the CSA will get pushed alot further...

In any case, Jake doesn't do well being part of a retreat. Worse, fears and paranoia about blacks are swirling around him. The CSA War Department is even getting invovled as it appears that Red cells of blacks are popping up everywhere. The CSA is ill-equipped to handle it due to a weird combonation of fear and contempt towards blacks.

Scene ends with a brief action sequence to fade us out of such philospoical ponderings.

Not a bad scene, good standard fare. Jake,as I've said, it a good character. And he thrives best here, when he is angry and paranoid.
 

mowque

Banned
Flora:

This is another good scene (probably one of the best in the book). When I think of TL-191 first I think of gas and tanks in Virgina, then I think of Socialists in New York. Turtledove pounds this home in a scene where vaugely state sponsered thugs rough up a Jewish butcher and Flora stops them. While anti-semitism certianly isn't ahistorical, having it even shadowly backed by the goverment is. This is more KKK territory then veteran territory. Turtledove pulls it off well and the rest of the section is more homefront, which is also low-key enough to work.

When he gives himself the time and space Turtledove really can do nice little scenes.
 

mowque

Banned
Barlett:

War is hell and Turtledove does his best to show without extra gore. he does a good job here. This scene of 'another day at the front' also serves another purpose. Reggie, a standard CSA solider, is fighting in the trench laden battlefields around Big Lick Virgina. After our last battle sequence, this time we get the POV of being attacked by gas. By this time however, just like in OTL, all the powers have gas masks very quickly which turns gas from a war winner into just another pointless but widely used horror.

Not a bad sequence but making trenches look bad is fairly easy.

The war grinds on.
 
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