
1992
Alternative History
Harry Turtledove is my favorite author, and Guns of the South is probably his most famous novel, but I put off reading it for awhile. Well I finally got around to reading it the other day. Harry Turtledove is most famous for his alternative history writing. Which basically means taking a true historic event and adding in stuff that didn't really happen and then continuing the story. Guns of the South is an example of alternative history fiction.
The plot of the novel is this. Towards the end of the Civil War the South is almost defeated. Then a group of strange men show up with a new repeating rifle they call "an AK-47" and supply the Confederate Army with them. The AK-47 changes the course of the war and the South wins. But where did these strange men get such an incredible gun? Well it turns out they are actually South African white supremacists from 150 years in the future who used a time machine to travel back in time to help the South win so that there will be a country in the world where whites still rule over blacks.
Sure it is a ridiculous concept, but it presents a lot of interesting scenarios. Like even if the South won, how long would they keep slavery going? Or how would people react when they found out that people from the future had come to alter their lives. One of the main characters of the book is Robert E. Lee. I am not sure how accurate portrayal is, but his character in the book is quite a thought provoking individual who I grew to like a great deal.
Overall this was another great work by Harry Turtledove. He presents a crazy scenario, but uses that to tell an interesting story with fully realized characters. I don't think the stuff he writes is for everyone, but if you wanted to read a Harry Turtledove book because you want to know who the hell I am talking about, I would probably recommend Guns of the South first because it is not part of a longer series (like many of his other books), and isn't that long of a book.
3.5 out 5 Stars
.
The plot of the novel is this. Towards the end of the Civil War the South is almost defeated. Then a group of strange men show up with a new repeating rifle they call "an AK-47" and supply the Confederate Army with them. The AK-47 changes the course of the war and the South wins. But where did these strange men get such an incredible gun? Well it turns out they are actually South African white supremacists from 150 years in the future who used a time machine to travel back in time to help the South win so that there will be a country in the world where whites still rule over blacks.
Sure it is a ridiculous concept, but it presents a lot of interesting scenarios. Like even if the South won, how long would they keep slavery going? Or how would people react when they found out that people from the future had come to alter their lives. One of the main characters of the book is Robert E. Lee. I am not sure how accurate portrayal is, but his character in the book is quite a thought provoking individual who I grew to like a great deal.
Overall this was another great work by Harry Turtledove. He presents a crazy scenario, but uses that to tell an interesting story with fully realized characters. I don't think the stuff he writes is for everyone, but if you wanted to read a Harry Turtledove book because you want to know who the hell I am talking about, I would probably recommend Guns of the South first because it is not part of a longer series (like many of his other books), and isn't that long of a book.
3.5 out 5 Stars
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