In At The Death
Aug. 4th, 2007 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gridloreWell, I finished it.
Wow. Honestly, there was no ending that could have completely satisfied me, since history doesn't simply end. But Turtledove did a good enough job tying up most of the plot lines.
Jake Featherston's death was perfect. And having Cassius be the one to get him? Excellent revenge for the death of my favorite character in the book. Scipio, you are avenged!
I was surprised to see the CSA get the bomb first. But the US had more of them. That made the difference. Dropping an atomic bomb to get Featherston was a questionable point, in my opinion. My first bomb is going to hit a vital military target.
He blindsided me with the Republic of Texas bit. Makes sense, but I didn't see it coming.
The trial of Brigade Leader Jefferson Pinkard managed to make a genocidal goon a sympathetic figure. He really was one of the more interesting figures of the Freedom Party. Not overly smart, but good at getting things done. Despite having been friendly with black workers at a steel foundry before his service in the Great War, he had no trouble killing millions of them. His final thoughts on the gallows - "they have no right!" - was telling.
While I enjoyed the book, it lacked something. I wanted a glimpse twenty or thirty years ahead, to see the world after the fall of the CSA. Lacking that, some sort of epilogue that gave us a hint of what the final resolution of things was going to be. We end with the former CSA states still simmering with rebellion. Additionally, we get no resolution of the Mormon plot line or the Canadian revolt. Hell, a map of North America c. 1970 would have answered many questions.
One last complaint: I would have liked the final scene to be George Enos, Jr. on a fishing boat. That's where the series started (if your don't count How Few Remain - but it would be hard to go back to that book for a character) and it would be a nice ending to have the Enos family open and close the story of the divided 20th Century.
Since Turtledove didn't do it, I will. A few ideas on where our favorite characters end up.
Cassius Madison goes to college, gets into politics, and becomes a long-serving Senator from Georgia.
Armstrong Grimes does remain in the Army, and retires as a fat Sergeant Major.
Jonathon Moss becomes a Federal Judge. He is well-known for his strong position on civil rights and individual liberty.
Irving Morrell retires from the Army after overseeing the reintegration of the former CSA territories. He runs for, and wins the Presidency in 1952. Under his administration, the government moves back to Washington, D.C.
Clarence Potter writes the definitive history of the Freedom Party, The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy and becomes a professor of history at Clemson. In 1968, he is shot and killed by a black student.
Michael Pound opens a garage. He becomes one of the first people in the nation to "chop" motorcycles and cars.
Flora Blackford remains in Congress, becoming Speaker in 1948. She retires shortly thereafter, learning that her exposure to the Philadelphia bomb has resulted in cancer.
Cincinnatus Driver lives long enough to see his eldest grandchild graduate from college.
Wow. Honestly, there was no ending that could have completely satisfied me, since history doesn't simply end. But Turtledove did a good enough job tying up most of the plot lines.
Jake Featherston's death was perfect. And having Cassius be the one to get him? Excellent revenge for the death of my favorite character in the book. Scipio, you are avenged!
I was surprised to see the CSA get the bomb first. But the US had more of them. That made the difference. Dropping an atomic bomb to get Featherston was a questionable point, in my opinion. My first bomb is going to hit a vital military target.
He blindsided me with the Republic of Texas bit. Makes sense, but I didn't see it coming.
The trial of Brigade Leader Jefferson Pinkard managed to make a genocidal goon a sympathetic figure. He really was one of the more interesting figures of the Freedom Party. Not overly smart, but good at getting things done. Despite having been friendly with black workers at a steel foundry before his service in the Great War, he had no trouble killing millions of them. His final thoughts on the gallows - "they have no right!" - was telling.
While I enjoyed the book, it lacked something. I wanted a glimpse twenty or thirty years ahead, to see the world after the fall of the CSA. Lacking that, some sort of epilogue that gave us a hint of what the final resolution of things was going to be. We end with the former CSA states still simmering with rebellion. Additionally, we get no resolution of the Mormon plot line or the Canadian revolt. Hell, a map of North America c. 1970 would have answered many questions.
One last complaint: I would have liked the final scene to be George Enos, Jr. on a fishing boat. That's where the series started (if your don't count How Few Remain - but it would be hard to go back to that book for a character) and it would be a nice ending to have the Enos family open and close the story of the divided 20th Century.
Since Turtledove didn't do it, I will. A few ideas on where our favorite characters end up.
Cassius Madison goes to college, gets into politics, and becomes a long-serving Senator from Georgia.
Armstrong Grimes does remain in the Army, and retires as a fat Sergeant Major.
Jonathon Moss becomes a Federal Judge. He is well-known for his strong position on civil rights and individual liberty.
Irving Morrell retires from the Army after overseeing the reintegration of the former CSA territories. He runs for, and wins the Presidency in 1952. Under his administration, the government moves back to Washington, D.C.
Clarence Potter writes the definitive history of the Freedom Party, The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy and becomes a professor of history at Clemson. In 1968, he is shot and killed by a black student.
Michael Pound opens a garage. He becomes one of the first people in the nation to "chop" motorcycles and cars.
Flora Blackford remains in Congress, becoming Speaker in 1948. She retires shortly thereafter, learning that her exposure to the Philadelphia bomb has resulted in cancer.
Cincinnatus Driver lives long enough to see his eldest grandchild graduate from college.
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no subject
Date: 4 Aug 2007 16:56 (UTC)Agreed that he did a good job with Pinkard. Can't say that I found him sympathetic, but he was a great example of a strong man whose principles come adrift and whose worldview ultimate fails to map to reality.
Sam Carsten, sadly, dies of skin cancer. That one hurt.
It's really hard to say where the world goes now. Since the Soviet Union never happened, the Cold War likely won't be an issue.
Canada is full of Brits, Irish, and Scots, and we have a reputation for being polite only because nobody's given us cause to get rude yet. Barring genocide, I can't see the Canadian rebellion lasting any less long than the troubles in Northern Ireland. Ditto for the Mormons.
The CSA? Well, I doubt it'll rise again, but it won't be pretty. Executing one hundred hostages for every US soldier killed just wouldn't be sustainable long-term. It'd be population reduction all over again, and that'd not go over well with the US electorate. The smart thing to do would be to treat the CSA as the Allies did Germany after WWII. Crush the Freedom Party, make sure that the Confederates know they lost, then make nice, help them rebuild, and integrate economically, relying on traumatic memory of defeat, shame over the camps, and economic self-interest to prevent another war.
Europe might go the way of peaceful non-violent co-existence. That many nukes on its territory might be some inducement to reasonable compromise. We don't know enough about the Kaiser's character (I'm not even sure if it's still Kaiser Wilhelm) to know whether he'd be reasonable and magnanimous in victory.
no subject
Date: 4 Aug 2007 23:28 (UTC)Sam Carsten, ironically, freezes to death after finally being assigned to a climate worthy of his skin, Antarctica.
no subject
Date: 5 Aug 2007 13:48 (UTC)Once their respective reconstructions out of the way, things could easily change. As two out of the three likely candidates for global hegemony, they could easily clash over resources, foreign possessions, and the like. Japan's behaviour would probably be the deciding factor. They came out of both wars relatively unscathed, unlike Russia; I could see things getting really wild and woolly in the Far East with nobody to check the Japanese, especially if the Japanese get the superbomb. Give a still-militaristic Japan a big chunk of China and Russia's far eastern possessions and a couple of decades to exploit them and things could get quite... interesting.
What would really be interesting would be for someone in the US to propose something along the lines of the European Union, in North America. After all, the EU was the eventual result of a couple of devastating wars and a genocide on European soil; a liberated CSA, Deseret, and Canada plus the US forming a trade bloc with the stated aim of avoiding the warfare and insurgency that's been plaguing the continent might be an awfully attractive idea; the occupied territories get their independence, the US doesn't have to shoulder the burden of occupation, each party can focus on rebuilding, with the eventual goal of getting to a point where further wars would be pointless...
no subject
Date: 5 Aug 2007 13:49 (UTC)no subject
Date: 5 Aug 2007 04:11 (UTC)That appears to be common in his work - I would have appreciated the same sort of epilogue in the Derlavai series. Maybe that's his way of acknowledging that history doesn't just stop.