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    The Great War: American Front
    The Great War: American Front
    The Great War: American Front
    Audiobook24 hours

    The Great War: American Front

    Written by Harry Turtledove

    Narrated by George Guidall

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Hugo Award winner Harry Turtledove is the master of alternate history. In American Front he envisions World War I as it may have been if fought on American soil. The United States and Germany clash with the Confederacy, France, and Britain as the machines of modern warfare litter the landscape with carnage. Meanwhile, oppressed southern blacks head toward a fateful confrontation.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateAug 6, 2010
    ISBN9781449832124
    The Great War: American Front
    Author

    Harry Turtledove

    Harry Turtledove is an American novelist of science fiction, historical fiction, and fantasy. Publishers Weekly has called him the “master of alternate history,” and he is best known for his work in that genre. Some of his most popular titles include The Guns of the South, the novels of the Worldwar series, and the books in the Great War trilogy. In addition to many other honors and nominations, Turtledove has received the Hugo Award, the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, and the Prometheus Award. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles, earning a PhD in Byzantine history. Turtledove is married to mystery writer Laura Frankos, and together they have three daughters. The family lives in Southern California.

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    Reviews for The Great War

    4/5

    28 ratings10 reviews

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    • 2/5
      The Charchters aren't as memorable as in some of Harry Turtledovs books but still a decent read
    • 2/5
      I read "Guns of the South" and "How Few Remain", and was interested in continuing the story. I've only started this book, but it's hard to continue. It's focusing more on the war itself and less on the storied behind it. Turtledove's alternative history is grim--the Union loses the Civil War, and is stuck fighting multiple wars afterward.
    • 2/5
      How many characters can you put in a book. It drove me crazy as it took so long for anything to happen. es there might be many different themes you could explore, but don't do all of them! The shift of the great war into America nd a new civial war was an interesting theme. The portrayal of battle and historical attitudes was done well, but it went everywhere and was very frustrating.
    • 1/5
      A tedious re-do of the first two books...updated by technology. Use of a 75 year old Gen Custer was unbelievable; I would have enjoyed author's take on early 20th century heroes. Teddy Roosevelt as President of the USA and Woodrow Wilson as President of the CSA. What's up with that? Wilson from New Jersey! So, the characters were not credible, except for the common people...real, as far as I know. A boring rehash, I've had enough of this author.
    • 5/5
      There are plenty alternate history tales based on the South winning the Civil War. The ones I have read usually deal with thus and such battle or focus on the war itself. This book, however, looks at what might have happened fifty years later. The year is 1914. Archduke Ferdinand has been assassinated in Sarajevo, and the nations of Europe are busy declaring war on each other. The Confederate States of America honors it's alliance with England and France and declares war on the Central Powers. Unfortunately, its northern neighbor has an allaince with Germany, making it one of those Central Powers. So World War I comes to North America and the book follows its progress, if you could call it that. Mr. Turtledove tells the tale through vignettes of ordinary people--soldiers and civilians, Northerners and Southerners. It's a great panorama, as disparate people are slowly drawn together and the book reaches its climax. Unfortunately, the climax, while it wraps up some of the stories, doesn't bring the end of the war itself. That's good for Mr. Turtledove, since I now have an interest in reading the book's sequel. Ah, well. Until then, I'll just have to keep this one on my shelf.--J.
    • 4/5
      My reaction to reading this novel in 1999. Spoilers follow.Turtledove uses his usual technique of a multitude of characters to provide a variety of views in this novel about the American front of an alternate WWI. This technique, with its rapid alternation between viewpoint characters, makes this thick book read fast, but I had a few quibbles. First, with the exception of Woodrow Wilson, George Armstrong Custer, Theodore Roosevelt (Wilson and Roosevelt are presidents of the Confederacy and USA, respectively), and Leonard Wood – all briefly glimpsed and none viewpoint characters – we see no historical characters, just fictional ones. Some of the internal dialogue of characters verges close, but doesn't cross the line, of excessive folksiness. Also, we get few scenes of combat and then those scenes are not that detailed. Also, we get no viewpoint characters who are combatants from European powers. Still, Turtledove uses his characters well to show most aspects of the war (including the scenes of Cherokees, solid members of the CSA, fighting with Confederate officers) and not just naval and land and air combat but the various ways civilians react including sabotage, espionage, and collaboration when conquered. But the most powerful and disturbing bits are the visions of a USA, under the influence of its German ally (it’s amusing to hear Roosevelt’s support of German culture given our history), become, since the Second War Between the States, a bureaucratic, paper-laden tyranny. Second is the influence of Marxism in both the US and CSA. In How Few Remain, Lincoln spread the word of Marx and, it’s revealed here, his actions ultimately lead to the socialists splitting off from the Republicans. They have to decide, in typical Marxist fashion, that Britain and France ae more reactionary than the Kaiser. In the CSA, slaves and Southern factory workers in the aristocratic South (the most dislikeable character is a rich Southern belle named Anne Colleton) understandably embrace Marxism, and the novel ends with the beginning of an armed black uprising.
    • 4/5
      Alternate history novels based on a Confederate victory in the Civil War are not new, in fact Harry Turtledove has stated that his inspiration this Great War series came from a magazine article written by MacKinlay Kantor. What sets The Great War: American Front apart is its scope. Half the fun of alternate history fiction is the intellectual exercise of wondering how life would be different if something in the past has changed. Here, in light of the CSA victory related in the previous novel, "How Few Remain", the CSA is a stalwart ally of France and England while the twice humiliated and isolated USA is surrounded by hostile nations to the north and south and has turned to Imperial Germany for support. Naturally, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated North America is immediately thrown into conflict, Presidents Teddy Roosevelt of the US and Woodrow Wilson of the CS quickly declare war. There is no long period of isolationism that protected the intact United States in our history. Turtledove is very erudite in theorizing how the cultures of the two Americas has changed and adapted based on their two diverging roads, from the dashing French flair of the Rebel cavalry officers to the German inspired General Staff, mandatory conscription, and industrial might of the Yankee war machine.But this story has drama as well. Turtledove brings us dozens of narratives from nearly every faction involved in the North American conflict. Some readers may have trouble keeping track of the broad panorama. Fortunately there is a Turtledove Wiki out there that can help. I admire the way he refuses to choose sides in this conflict; this is not wish fulfillment fiction. He makes an effort to make both sides of the conflict ugly and brutal; this is NOT an alternate reality you want to live in. For example, he makes it clear that many of the Yankees are just as racist as the Southerners, perhaps more so because so few blacks live in this USA, and because of resentments over loosing the War of Secession. I doubt that it would really be as bad as he makes it out to be; the abolitionist movements was going strong back in the 1860’s and was of such religious fervor that I doubt it would just dry up after loosing the war.Yet at the same time you find sympathetic characters on all sides. I found myself worrying about the young married couple down in Birmingham just as I felt for the Boston fisherman and his family. The two groups that are perhaps the most sympathetic are the Canadian families (one group in Manitoba and another in Quebec) who must find ways to survive under a brutal occupation by the US Army. The characters are of many backgrounds, races, and political persuasions. Being that I am fascinated by this time period of our history, I found this to be very gripping and immersive. The ending will certainly leave you hanging, mostly because this is just the first book in a three-novel story arc that is part of an overall eleven novel series. If you have the patience and perseverance you will be rewarded by a richly plotted and imagined story an America ripped apart by war.
    • 3/5
      This book begins with the Assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914. Then we have the sharing out of the Forces in WWI, so that the USA and CSA would end up on opposite sides of the conflict. HT and I would part company about his allocation that the German Empire allies with the USA , while the UK and CSA would get on just fine. Not the world I've researched, but we are here to sell some books, and that's what happened with this continuation of the fine beginning of the series with "How Few Remain". We also see the start of the rise of the CSA's Hitler figure, setting up yet more mayhem to come.
    • 1/5
      I will admit to having this book and its successor on my shelves at one point in time. I will not concede to finding anything of value in this book, other than an interesting premise and set-up that includes the idea of "the South won a particular battle in the American Civil War and as a result there are three nations on the Northern American continent: Canada, the United States, and the Confederate States."I question the pages of continual racial slurs Turtledove writes and his need to continuously mention that African Americans were not seen as fully human at the time of the Great War. Neither were poor white men, or women, or Native peoples, and yet their stories are told with "women get dinner on the table for their menfolk" with no sexist dialogue, inner turmoil, or similar verbal assaults. Page after page of racial slurs unbalanced by any other group's similar slurs is less historical fiction and more racially-charged opinion.
    • 2/5
      I read "Guns of the South" first and was intrigued, so I read "How Few Remain". The concept is fascinating. The South wins the Civil War and the former United States remains permanently divided into 2 nations: the CSA and the USA. Following the War of Rebellion, a constant state of hostility exists between the CSA and the USA. In "American Front", the CSA and USA are on opposite sides of the Great War and North America sees the same horrors of trench warfare as Europe. My main complaint is that the author introduces too many characters and jumps frequently from one set of characters to another and from one venue to another. There's no opportunity to know the characters very well and care about them, and they seem cartoonish and one-dimensional. "Guns of the South" is a much better read.