This is the second Harry Turtledove book I've ever read and, while I haven't read the Southern Victory series from its very beginning, this book is quite good. Maybe I should read the saga in order, but alternate American history is as popular in Australia as real Australian history, and, therefore, hard to come by! But, I'm getting there.



Despite the first couple of hundred pages, where the reader is bombarded with all these different characters, the historian can see the analogous yarn that Mr. Turtledove is spinning. It is very audacious, creative and -- certainly -- brave to transpose the Nazi philosophy onto the Confederate States of America. I cringed at some of the things that were said in the book and wondered how Mr. Turtledove had not been sanctioned for lynching by modern white supremecists! I'm sure Texans aren't happy that an Auschwitz-style deathcamp had been placed in their state!



These points, however, are the charm of his writing. Mr. Turtledove blends reality and the human psyche with fiction and is one of the few skilled authors that can logically pull off the "what if" train of thought.



Now I definitely need to get my hands on the rest of the series.