- Paperback: 704 pages
- Publisher: New English Library; New Ed edition (20 April 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0340715480
- ISBN-13: 978-0340715482
- Product Dimensions: 17.2 x 11 x 4.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 221,764 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Harry Turtledove marches on through history with The Great War: Walk in Hell. In his alternate timeline, the Confederate States of America won the Civil War, aided by Britain and France. In the 1880s (How Few Remain), Americans fought again after the CSA acquired parts of Mexico--and the CSA won again. When World War One begins with Archduke Ferdinand's assassination in 1914 (The Great War: American Front), the 34-state USA under Teddy Roosevelt allies with Imperial Germany and Austria against Britain, France, Russia, Japan, Canada and Woodrow Wilson's CSA. Trenches divide Canada, fierce fighting rages from Tennessee and Kentucky into Pennsylvania, a Mormon uprising against the USA consumes Utah, and a black socialist rebellion distracts the CSA, where slavery has ended but blacks still await full citizenship.
Walk in Hell takes us from autumn, 1915, through 1916. Soldiers, sailors and airmen continue the fight, but much happens behind the lines too. Turtledove's characters include Jewish immigrants who are socialist and antiwar, a widow running a coffee house in CSA-occupied Washington, DC, who passes information to the USA, and two Canadian farmers living under US occupation in Quebec and Manitoba. He vividly conveys the human side of war. When Joe Hammerschmitt gets a shoulder wound in the Virginia trenches:
...pain warred with exultation on his long, thin face. Exultation won. "Got me a hometowner, looks like," he said happily. Half the men up there with him made sympathetic noises; the other half looked frankly jealous. Hammerschmitt was going to be out of the firing line for weeks, maybe months, to come, and they still risked not just death but horrible mutilation every day.Some find Turtledove's cast too large, the story's action too slow. Others complain that Walk in Hell is too similar to his Worldwar series. Alternate history buffs, however, will marvel at his mastery of detail, enjoy following his logic as he pursues military and social developments onward in time, and find it hard to wait for the next in the series. --Nona Vero
Review
'[A] masterpiece ... This is state-of-the-art alternate history, nothing less ... With shocking vividness, Turtledove demonstrates the extreme fragility of our modern world, and how much of it depends on a United States of America' (Publishers Weekly ( for The Great War: American Fr )
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George Enos looked across the Mississippi toward Illinois. Read the first page
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George Enos looked across the Mississippi toward Illinois. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Very fascinating and very annoying,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Great War: Walk in Hell (Paperback)
OK, I found this book both fascinating and annoying. Fascinating because I've always been interested in the great "What ifs" in History and they don't come much greater than the Great War. Annoying for a number of reasons I'll detail soon. Assuming you've read the first book but are yet to read this one I'll attempt to review this without spoiling the story. The action goes on into late 1916 so we're through nearly half the war by the end of the volume. The storytelling is fascinating, showing the action develop largely from the viewpoint of those who are fighting the war. In keeping with both Turtledove's writing style and the nature of the War, a number of pivotal characters die in this volume and I'm expecting some more to go in the next two. Don't take anyone for granted here. Extra characters are introduced and there are a few cameo appearances from people who fought in the First World War but didn't become famous till WWII. The rebellions in both the USA and CSA are drawn to a close and here it is that I have my first problem. For the CSA deal with their rebellion entirely too sensibly for my tastes. In the USA the Mormons are dealt with the way you'd expect a nation to deal with a rebellion during wartime - viciously and stupidly, the same way we dealt with the Irish Rebellion in 1916. But the CSA seems to come over all sensible and this doesn't really make sense. Why are the CSA behaving better than all the other powers? This is the first problem I have. The second is with the introduction of Tanks. Having seen Hollywood's latest rewriting of History where an American submarine crew do what the British actually did, having heard that the Americans are about to escape from Colditz in a new Hollywood film, something they never did 60 years ago (but, again, the British did), I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to see the USA inventing Tanks. But I find it unforgivable. Tanks were a British invention, a very secret British invention and the idea that both the USA and Britain could simultaneously develop Tanks... well it's ridiculous. It would have been far better to have had the CSA deploy Tanks in America first, having got them from their British Ally. That's the main reason I downgraded my review to 3 instead of 4. Also annoying, though acceptable, are the tantalising hints of what is happening in Europe. Italy stays neutral, the Irish Rebellion continues past Easter as the rebels are armed by the USA and the French lose Verdun. The last is the first major indication of how a Western front lacking the Canadians and some British would go different to how it went. On the other hand, the Blockade of Germany still continues and that was crucial in winning the war. Though I complain about this, I find it fascinating and really do want to see what will happen. I will by the next book.
3.0 out of 5 stars
USA vs Confederacy: Round 3, part 2,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Great War: Walk in Hell v. 2 (Hardcover)
1915. The USA and Confederate States of America are finding out that wars in the early 20th Century are long and grinding businesses, as this second book in the "Great War" tetralogy unfolds. This book can't be read in isolation, you'll have to get the first one (Great War: American Front) to get any enjoyment from it. Very much the middle book in an engrossing series.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Better thatn the first.,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Great War: Walk in Hell v. 2 (Hardcover)
Turtledove has made the second installment of his Great War series much better than the first. Before the author had the attention mostly focusing on the war in the trenches and the sea, this time he focuses on the different troubles the two American states are having. The CSA has a coloureed uprising and the USA has a Mormon uprising. He also changes the course of the war with the USA no longer winning near enough hands down against the CSA and Canada but having to azctually fight for the territory they hold. He does spoil it by talking of the old general, the woman who owns the coffeeshop and the woman whose husband has gone to war as they are rather boring and merely slow the novel down. I persoanlly am rooting for the CSA as I would like to discover what would happen if they did win the war because they no longer exist and it will be a test for Turtledoves skills to make it convincing enough to be believed.
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