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 WWI 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 fall, 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, D.C., who passes information to the USA, and two Canadian farmers living under U.S. 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


From Publishers Weekly
The Hugo Award-winning master of alternate world histories presents the second volume in the WWI series he began last year with The Great War: American Front. In Turtledove's version of the War to End All Wars, conflict rages on the American continent between the USA (with 34 states) and the Confederate States of America, which won secession during the Civil War. Allied with Germany and France, the USA in 1915 hopes to take advantage of a weakened CSA, which is plagued by a socialist revolution engineered by its former slaves. Setting his tale on a suitably large canvas, Turtledove introduces a variety of characters who exemplify the diverse political and economic circumstances of the period: Anne Colleton, a former Confederate landowner, must learn to cooperate with her activist fieldhands; Flora Hamburger, a New York intellectual, fights against class injustice and runs for a seat as a socialist congresswoman; Confederate sub commander Roger Kimball plans a risky attack on New York Harbor. Turtledove judiciously blends famous historical characters into the plot, so readers learn of General Custer's frustration at being unable to conquer Tennessee and see Woodrow Wilson as a Confederate president. Although there are numerous battle scenes, the gore is restrained. Instead, the author emphasizes character, and his thorough knowledge of the period's history will, as usual, captivate his readers, Foreign rights sold in the U.K. (Aug.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
World War I enters its second year, and on the American continent the opposed forces of the United States and the Confederacy (CSA) continue to battle each other, determined once and for all to settle the conflict that has divided them since the Civil War. Continuing the epic saga begun in The Great War: The American Front, Turtledove chronicles the growing turmoil as second-class blacks lead a Communist uprising in the CSA while U.S. Socialists protest American involvement in the war and Canadian civilians rise up against American occupation forces. The author's consummate knowledge of military history lends immediacy to his battle scenes while his understanding of human nature brings a personal touch to the harsh and unforgiving reality of war. A good choice for most libraries. [Science Fiction Book Club main selection.] Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
The second volume of Turtledove's Great War tetralogy is as enthralling as The American Front. It covers about a year, beginning in 1915, that includes the Negro rebellion in the Confederacy, the continued U.S. advance into Canada, the introduction of tanks (here called barrels) on both sides, and the relentless horrors of trench warfare. The focus remains on North America, although it is implied that the Germans are doing better in this version of the war than they did in the real one, and most of the surviving characters, real and imaginary, return. The Negro Cassius finds new opportunities as a truck driver with an unbigoted white boss; in the Confederacy, Scipio survives the rebellion and sees the government respond to the manpower shortage by enlisting black troops! Socialist Flora Hamburger runs for Congress and wins. George Armstrong Custer continues to lead Union armies (to the great advantage of the Confederacy), despite his wife Libbie's best efforts. The shifts in viewpoint definitely require attentive reading but are essential to the panoramic view of a vast nightmare that Turtledove strives to present. This is not alternate history intended to give readers the warm fuzzies; it is a remorseless working out of the consequences of greater follies producing even worse results than the ones we may read about in actual history. It makes one grateful to live in history as we know it rather than in Turtledove's vivid imaginary version. Roland Green


From Kirkus Reviews
Sequel to The Great War: American Front (1998), an alternate world yarn where WWI has developed into a struggle on American soil. The United States, led by Teddy Roosevelt, have allied themselves with Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany. Woodrow Wilson's Confederate States, though backed by Britain and France, face internal troubles in the shape of a Marxist-inspired rebellion of the South's oppressed blacks. Contortions aside, then, what we end up with is Turtledove's restaging of the American Civil War within a 20th-century milieu. For readers less than totally committed, the question is: when does maybe topple over into no way? -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"The leading author of alternate history."
--USA Today


Review
"The leading author of alternate history."
--USA Today

FROM THE PUBLISHER