Return Engagement

Review
'Turtledove plays heady games with actual history, scattering object lessons and bitter ironies along the way. Strong, complex characters against a sweeping alt-historical background.' Kirkus Reviews on Return Engagements 20040701 'This political and racial background makes for much of the best writing in the book, peopled as it is with Turtledove's usual mass of characters and actions ... Turtledove's books are always great entertainment but in all these novels about an alternate North America the possible route of democracy, demagoguery and repression ring all too true ... the power of the book is in its ordinary people and their struggles.' SFX Magazine on Return Engagements 20041201 'An impressively detailed and consistently believable alternative history ... disturbing, convincing.' Vector 239 on RETURN ENGAGEMENTS 20050129 'With shocking vividness, Turtledove demonstrates the extreme fragility of our modern world ... This is state-of-the-art alternate history, nothing less' - Publishers Weekly (starred review for HOW FEW REMAIN) 20050129 'Good fun. It has an authentic speculative quality, energy and dash.' - TIME OUT on A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE 20050129 'Engrossing ... definitely the work of one of alternate history's authentic modern masters ... totally fascinating.' - BOOKLIST on THE GREAT WAR series 20050129 'The latest volume in Turtledove's colossal and brialliant saga of an alternate (and disunited) United States may be the strongest and most compelling since the opener, How Few Remain.' - Publishers Weekly on AMERICAN EMPIRE series 20050129 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
“Turtledove [is] the standard-bearer for alternate history.”
–USA TodayProduct Description
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.


From the Hardcover edition.

About the Author
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.