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Blood & Iron (2002)

Blood & Iron (2002)

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Genre
Rating
3.83 of 5 Votes: 5
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ISBN
0345405668 (ISBN13: 9780345405661)
Language
English
Publisher
del rey

About book Blood & Iron (2002)

This series continues to be as captivating as ever. I would say this volume of the series was even better than the previous, which kind of felt like it was dragging on a bit there at the end of the war. It was pretty mesmerizing in a horrifying way to see the watch the Freedom parties shooting star. It was also amazing to see how easily that star was knocked back down to earth. If not for the fact that once before I had read the next few books in this series (they weren't all released when I read them through the first time) I'd be left wondering if the Freedom party was done for at the end of this book. Know whats coming to a certain extent, and knowing the Freedom party is to a certain extent supposed to parallel the Nazi party it was incredibly chilling to see Featherson's fascination with the radio during the last chapter of the book.I'd also like to point out that the first time I read through this part of the series was during the middle of the Bush years. It is now near the middle of the Obama years. Both time periods have seen the far right of American politics showing their extremes (although in very different ways), and there are moments in this book where the mentality of people in the Freedom party are too close for comfort to the mentality of people I know who describe them self as Tea Party members. I'm definitely not saying I think the Tea party movement is trying to become a Nazi like political force, but the parallels of fascist thoughts are there. I know this is just fiction, but it comes of as pretty convincingly realistic. There are countless ways human thought can go wrong, countless ways our logic can trip up and lead us to do horrible cruel things to other people. Nationalism, fascism, fascism and class warfare are just some of those ways... In a lot of ways these books make me realize how lucky we as American's have been, having so much peace at our borders for so long.

I'll start off by saying that this is actually the second time I have tried to read this book.When I was in high school and early college I completed Turtledove's Great War series. Naturally reading Blood and Iron and the rest of the American Empire series would be a given. However, I hit a bit of stumbling block. When I started ready B&I, the authors structure for his chapters threw me off (even though the GW novels were similar). The long chapters became and issue and I tabled the book.Flash forward 10+ years, and I have finally come back around Blood & Iron. After I put my issues with chapter length aside, I dove in and found a very enjoyable read. While not as action packed as the GW series, B&I makes up for it with tons of political intrigue and character conflicts. Overall an excellent read, even though its a little wordy.

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This is the first book of a trilogy that's actually the middle trilogy of a 9 book Series. Think of it as "The New Hope: Ep 4".The series is the "Timeline 191", in which the South wins the Civil War, and battles the North in WW1 and WW2.This book takes place after the Great War. The US beats the Confederacy, and imposes sanctions and reparations, similar to what happened to Germany after WW1.It sets the stage for a tyrannical ruler in the South, and a nationalistic fever which leads to the WW2.Turtledove is repetitive, and doesn't evoke deep images, but he does know how to tell a story, and has a great imagination.
—Michael

I realized only in the middle of this that, while it's part 1 of a trilogy, it's also really book 7 of a 9 book set. So I was a little lost for a bit, but was eventually after to figure out exactly what was going on.What Turtledove's done with this series is set up an alternate history of the United States; one in which the Confederate States of America won the US Civil War, and were able to establish themselves as a significant political and economic force.This series, specifically, starts a little over 50 years after the end of the Civil War; The USA and the German Empire have just been victorious in World War I, winning a decisive victory over Quadruple Alliance of Russia, England, France, and the CSA. As a result of the war, the USA is occupying Canada, and is demanding reparations from the CSA.If you're a student of history, you can kind of guess where this is going: hyperinflation, chronic unemployment, and bitterness about the outcome of the war result in a large group of people in the country becoming increasingly angry and leaning towards violence, which certain political forces manipulate by placing the blame on aristocrats in government and minority groups present in the country. Turtledove has the CSA parallel fate of the Weimar Republic in our reality, and seeing those parallels is one of the main sources of tension in the book.The main problem I had with the book was that it relies too heavily on that knowledge of history to drive your interest in the story. The main dramatic tension comes from knowing your history between the two world wars, rather than from the characters; at times they seem almost like set-pieces being moved around in order to move the historical story from A to B. Still, the idea is interesting enough that I'll make sure to read the next two books in the trilogy.
—Ryan

Without a World War going on, the narrative turns much more political, which I find much more interesting. Bloody battle scenes tend to get repetitive, so there was nothing to tune out in this installment. Also, as the narrative develops, many of the different characters from among the two sides and from different parts of the country are beginning to cross paths with one another, sometimes by chance, sometimes in a calculated way. In doing so, Turtledove masterfully marries the epic and the personal.
—Kb

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