Settling Accounts Return Engagement: Book One of the Settling Accounts Trilogy

Rest Content

Settling Accounts Return Engagement: Book One of the Settling Accounts Trilogy

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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
The latest volume of Turtledove's epic variation on American history, which opens the trilogy Settling Accounts, takes us to the opening battles of World War II. The Confederacy is better prepared for war than the U.S., and the conflict's initial stages develop in favor of the Confederacy; in tandem, Tom Colleton loses his sister but meets a formidable armored commander named Patton. The Quebecois occupy the rest of Canada; in reaction, Mary Pomeroy grimly determines to keep the resistance going, even though the risks of doing so steadily increase. Although Clarence Potter loves Jake Featherston no more than he ever did, he remains just as loyal a head of Confederate intelligence. Meanwhile, this alternate history's variation on the Holocaust marches forward, with Jefferson Pinkard simultaneously inventing new ways of executing African Americans and courting the widow of one of his guards. Scipio is trying to stay alive despite resistance fighters setting off car bombs too close for comfort, and Cincinnatus Driver is, willy-nilly, joining a resistance movement that promises to give this Holocaust a number of twists away from its model. Turtledove produces yet another absorbing installment of his character-centered alternate-history saga. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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.

Settling Accounts In at the Death

ditorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Alternate history master Turtledove brings his 10-book saga of a Confederate Civil War victory to a satisfying if predictable conclusion. Outfought by the United States and their German allies (as anticipated in 2006's Settling Accounts: The Grapple), the Confederates finally surrender, ending WWII. Now the Southern states must be brought back into the Union after four wars and 80 years of independence. The victorious Northern forces wage a brutal occupation, ruthlessly retaliating against the local population for ambushes and car bombs. While the Union joyously punishes the persecutors of those Negro residents of the Confederacy who survived the Freedom Party's genocide campaign, it fails to remedy its treatment of its own black citizens. With Canada and the secessionist Mormon territories remaining under martial law, some readers may wish that Turtledove follows this time line into uncharted territory in yet another sequel. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
Here ends (probably) alternate history's closest rival—10 volumes and a prequel—to Robert Jordan's plethoric fantasy, the 11-volume Wheel of Time. The Confederacy crumbles in ruins, as Jake Featherstone meets the end he richly deserves. Generals Dowling and Morrell end with the high rank and position their efforts deserve, while Michael Pound recovers from burns received in a well-drawn tank battle, and Chester Martin ends his second war successfully, having kept his platoon commander from killing the whole platoon. On the other hand, the saga's four-contestant nuclear race leaves four nuclear powers still standing at war's end, and both soldiers and civilians contemplating the spectacle with crossed fingers. Moreover, race relations in the defunct Confederacy are horrible, entailing the murder of at least six million "colored," a genocide that dwarfs this-world Bosnia and Rwanda combined. Meanwhile, Clarence Potter, Cincinnatus Driver, and Flora Blackford will be working to heal the malignant scars in Turtledove's parallel continuum, so who can say how the U.S. might emerge? Perhaps into a three-cornered cold war (U.S., Germany, Japan)—if and when Turtledove obliges reader curiosity A conclusion worthy of a nonpareil saga. Green, Roland --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
PRAISE FOR HARRY TURTLEDOVE

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

Settling Accounts: The Grapple

“[A] magisterial saga of an alternate America . . . a profoundly thoughtful masterpiece of alternate history.”
–Booklist

Settling Accounts: Drive to the East

“First-time readers can jump in and enjoy Turtledove’s richly rearranged cultural and political landscape.”
–The Kansas City Star

Settling Accounts: Return Engagement

“Strong, complex characters against a sweeping alt-historical background.”
–Kirkus Reviews


From the Hardcover edition. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Review
PRAISE FOR HARRY TURTLEDOVE

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

Settling Accounts: The Grapple

“[A] magisterial saga of an alternate America . . . a profoundly thoughtful masterpiece of alternate history.”
–Booklist

Settling Accounts: Drive to the East

“First-time readers can jump in and enjoy Turtledove’s richly rearranged cultural and political landscape.”
–The Kansas City Star

Settling Accounts: Return Engagement

“Strong, complex characters against a sweeping alt-historical background.”
–Kirkus Reviews


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Description
Franklin Roosevelt is the assistant secretary of defense. Thomas Dewey is running for president with a blunt-speaking Missourian named Harry Truman at his side. Britain holds onto its desperate alliance with the USA’s worst enemy, while a holocaust unfolds in Texas. In Harry Turtledove’s compelling, disturbing, and extraordinarily vivid reshaping of American history, a war of secession has triggered a generation of madness. The tipping point has come at last.

The third war in sixty years, this one yet unnamed: a grinding, horrifying series of hostilities and atrocities between two nations sharing the same continent and both calling themselves Americans. At the dawn of 1944, the United States has beaten back a daredevil blitzkrieg from the Confederate States–and a terrible new genie is out of history’s bottle: a bomb that may destroy on a scale never imagined before. In Europe, the new weapon has shattered a stalemate between Germany, England, and Russia. When the trigger is pulled in America, nothing will be the same again.

With visionary brilliance, Harry Turtledove brings to a climactic conclusion his monumental, acclaimed drama of a nation’s tragedy and the men and women who play their roles–with valor, fear, and folly–on history’s greatest stage.


From the Hardcover edition.

Settling Accounts Return Engagement: Book One of the Settling Accounts Trilogy

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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
The latest volume of Turtledove's epic variation on American history, which opens the trilogy Settling Accounts, takes us to the opening battles of World War II. The Confederacy is better prepared for war than the U.S., and the conflict's initial stages develop in favor of the Confederacy; in tandem, Tom Colleton loses his sister but meets a formidable armored commander named Patton. The Quebecois occupy the rest of Canada; in reaction, Mary Pomeroy grimly determines to keep the resistance going, even though the risks of doing so steadily increase. Although Clarence Potter loves Jake Featherston no more than he ever did, he remains just as loyal a head of Confederate intelligence. Meanwhile, this alternate history's variation on the Holocaust marches forward, with Jefferson Pinkard simultaneously inventing new ways of executing African Americans and courting the widow of one of his guards. Scipio is trying to stay alive despite resistance fighters setting off car bombs too close for comfort, and Cincinnatus Driver is, willy-nilly, joining a resistance movement that promises to give this Holocaust a number of twists away from its model. Turtledove produces yet another absorbing installment of his character-centered alternate-history saga. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved