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Avg. Rating: 2.5
History Continues To Adjust
From a single small change in history came a British invasion of the United States and the reunification of Union and Confederacy. The British were driven out, Canada declared its independence from the United Kingdom, and then things settled down for a little while. But Harry Harrison knows his history (unfortunately, he knows his history better than our current gaggle of politicians), he knows that an enemy unconquered is an enemy undefeated. Britain has a new plan: to invade the United States through a politically divided and tumultuous Mexico. How successful have we been at securing our border with Mexico today? Would it have been possible to secure that border in the 1860s? No. A bold counter-invasion is necessary. Considering how many Irish have emigrated to America, considering America's easy access, then, to military intelligence of the Emerald Isle as well as soldiers who are highly motivated to return home in triumph, an American invasion of Ireland is a plausible counter-move to the British presence in Mexico.
Harrison's "Stars and Stripes" series continues to entertain, with stories not too spare in detail, but not bogged down in detail either. Innovative machines of war, which began to appear in reality during the Civil War, are further accelerated by the new threat from Britain, as innovation is always driven by the pressures of war and security. These weapons launch General William Tecumseh Sherman well ahead of his Continental counterparts, and catch them wholly unprepared. He discovers "Lightening War"--Blitzkrieg--quite by accident when he realizes that he can move his troops quickly by train and overwhelm traditional defenses with his modern weapons. Warfare has inadvertently leapt into the 20th century in an eerie precursor of what we all know was to come.
I know the Brits are none-too-fond of this series, and I don't blame them, but these books are fun reading on this side of the pond. Just the alternate-idea of General Robert E. Lee's invasion of northern Ireland is enough to thrill.
How did this get published?
Okay.... It started out with a harmless, poorly researched novel that was okay for the non-historian. Now it is just silly. Really, it is too ridiculous to even give credence to. Britons are dumb, the Union is all-powerful, and 1942 clearly wasn't that far from 1862, as the USA seems to have mastered every technological advancement short of air power. I will not even bother with his last book, and I recommend you not bother with this one.
Second in a truly dreadful trilogy
I enjoyed everything else I have read from Harry Harrison, and am fascinated by alternative history, so I expected to like the "Stars and Stripes" trilogy. I didn't.
The three books in the series are:
Stars and Stripes Forever
Stars and Stripes in Peril
Stars and Stripes Triumphant.
The starting premise of the first book - Britain blundering into war with the North in the American civil war - is horrifying plausible, which is not surprising as this very nearly happened. However, the author then abandoned any attempt at either a realistic attempt to work through what might have happened, or to look sympathically at how the situation might have developed from the viewpoint of all sides. Instead, looking for a way to turn both the USA and CSA into heroes, he cast the Brits as incompetent and evil cretins who both sides could unite against.
In this second book the principle that the USA and CSA had united against the Brits is already established and Harrison just takes it from there. Given what has previously happened, most of the book is not as ludicrous as the first one - although there are still some pretty silly things - but the basic premise still takes the course of the story too far away from anything which could realistically have happened in our world to work as alternative history.
Harry Harrison is almost the last writer on earth I would have expected to prostitute his enormous talents with such chauvinistic rubbish as the Stars and Stripes trilogy. One-sided nationalism is not usually his style at all, and he has written another book about a set of events which might have changed the course of the US Civil War/War between the States - "Rebel in Time" - which is far superior to this.
For anyone who is looking for a good account of how the American Civil war might have gone wrong, try Harry Turtledove's "The Guns of the South," or "How Few Remain" and the "Great War" and "American Empire" trilogies which follow it. Or indeed Harry Harrison's "Rebel in Time".
Better than the first book...
Yeah, that kind of surprised me too, till I figured out why - it is no longer based on our REAL history. It has gone so far off track that Harry Harrison can write it anyway he wants and as long as he keeps to the logic and reality he set up in the first book it works. I also loved the scene between John Ericsson and William P. Parrott as well as the scene between Mr. Ericsson and Captain Raphael Semmes.
But most of the book feels rushed and the characters are bland, cut out paper dolls, set up to do certain actions and say certain things for the plot to go in THAT direction.
Anyway, the plot is England and allied European nations invade Mexico. The invasion of the US is just around the corner and Lincoln decides he has to do something about it. So they decide the best way to open a second front and force Britain to withdraw its troops is to invade Ireland.
It sounds simple, but even Mr. Harrison shows that the United States Army and Navy would have a few problems they couldn't foresee.
But after 334 pages you know there is going to be a third book.
Decent Alternate History
Like some of the readers here I found this to be an enjoyable but ultimately forgettable read. I have not read the first novel but it was easy to get into this one without having done so. What is strange about the book is that it is not lacking in pages (it's long for a sci fi novel) yet there isn't much detail. Probably because there's so much ground to cover. Yet one comes away with the impression that invading and liberating Ireland would have been extremely simple. Whole battles are resolved in the space of a few sentences. Even the Protestant problem Harrison brings up is dealt with in a matter of a few pages. There are also a couple of situations where Harrison sets up problems just to lengthen the story. So he offers a ridiculous setup and an even more ridiculous solution. A good example of this is when the secret service agent is following the spy into the tavern, watches him for hours, and then suddenly leaves at the perfect time to "get a bite to eat". Just silly. Unlike another reviewer I wasn't exactly put off by the dropping of the Jefferson Davis as night rider storyline - it was rather embarassingly foolish. So the ex-president of the Confederacy spends months recovering from a nearly fatal wound to ... put on a hood and ride around with a white trash movement like the KKK? Give me a break. Not to mention that Jefferson lived on the coast in his palacial home (which is still a monument in Biloxi). And he just happens to be the only one shot in the raid? It was all very poorly constructed, and I would have preferred that Harrison make his points about the Freedmans' Bureau and the slowness of the South to change in a more elegant fashion. Harrison's general attitude towards the South is rather tiresome throughout the novel. Most people come away from Civil War study with the naive opinion that the North was a land full of idealists who wanted to free the slaves, and the South was just a bunch of racist jerks. Not the case. The North was just as complicit in the construction of slave-based economy as the South was, and their plan for the dismantling of that economy was as nonexistent as our exit plan for Iraq. Certainly the system should have gone, but to expect it just to vanish because we suddenly deemed it not right was ignorant. But that's a whole matter in and of itself. It's just tiresome to see the place I grew up continuously misrepresented. I expected more from a Civil War buff like Harrison. So in the end the book is a sometimes fun ride, but also at times irritating and trite. This edition of the book is also full of some strangely placed punctuation and a number of typographical errors, which only mar the story. But it's definitely better than Harrison's last two "Stainless Steel Rat" entries.
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