Walk in Hell (Great War, #2) by Harry Turtledove

Walk in Hell (Great War, #2) Reviews

• 
  ⚧️ Nadienne Greysorrow ⚧️

  I absolutely love the "Southern Victory" / Timeline-191 timeline of Mr. Turtledove here. If this portrayal is in any way, shape, or form accurate, then the United States which emerges from this event is a better nation, with actual Socialists in office.
  
  I will have to expand on this more later.
• 
  David

  This is the third book in Harry Turtledove's TIMELINE-191 series and it was just as enjoyable as the first two. A "Walk in Hell" is placed in the middle years of the TIMELINE-191 World War and continues to follow a number of interesting characters. I'm looking forward to starting the next book in this series.
• 
  David

  Second of the Great War trilogy, and third overall of the eleven-book Southern Victory series - I have so many mixed emotions about the series at this point and just am not sure if I have the patience to continue.
  
  There are many things I like here. Harry Turtledove, first of all, knows his history. He also does a great job on so many counts of anticipating how changing one event would change so many others, such as Custer not dying in Little Big Horn because he was too busy doing other things like invading the CSA. He also shows how a South winning the war and fighting globally and against the US creates opportunities for socialism to gain more of a foothold and for the Black Revolution to come with violence and about five decades early.
  
  My problem is with Turtledove's lack of restraint on how he frames his narrative. After failing to keep up with who was who in the previous Great War book, I made a decision to write down a list of characters as I went, and even put them in neat columns of confederate, union, English Canadian, French Canadian, Negro Uprisers, Socialists, etc. It worked for a very short while because, while in chapter 3 of 20 and surpassing the 60th character and he kept adding more and more and more...I gave up on the list, and once again got confused with who was who, only maybe slightly less than the previous book.
  
  Turtledove obviously plans his structure carefully. Each book has 20 chapters. Each scene seems to be within a few sentences of being 2000 words long, all throughout the book. There are about 8 scenes in each chapter. The problem is that this is confining and predictable.
  
  I wish the author would take an approach similar to Jeff Shaara, and choose three or four major characters at most as anchors with long sections and a means of introducing the minor characters, instead of having at least a dozen groups with about three pages of reading before it goes somewhere else.
  
  As concepts, I think these books are incredible. They would be the basis for great essays. But Turtledove's style of long fiction is grating on me. I may end up continuing, but can't dart from one book to another as I'd originally planned.
• 
  Nancy

  "Walk in Hell" opens with a poem from noted WWI poet Wilfred Owen, who died on the French front 11/4/1918. The poem quoted is from "Mental Case" and sets the mood for the book. One of the horrors of the First World War was so bad that using gas in warfare is considered heinous today. Another is that no one uses trench warfare either.
  
  Just like in any war, WWI brought innovation. Harry Turtledove incorporated them into the story naturally. I especially like how he has shown the development of aircraft.
  airplanes in war (balloons were used in the civil war)
  aerial photography
  interrupter gear
  aircraft carriers
  u-boats were a proven part of the navy (also first used in the civil war)
  hydrophone (for locating subs)
  depth charges, tanks
  flamethrowers
  tracer bullets
  gas
  trench warfare
  wristwatches
  
  A reoccurring theme is Country and race count for more than class. During the previous era, class counted, now there is a sea-change to race counting for more. As more black and brown people have money or even the right to vote, white people still want to be higher than them. Black and brown people are set on vengeance for wrongs they have suffered or thought to have suffered for years.
  
  It is a long book with many characters, not all of which get a lot of ink. Just like the war it depicts, the book drags on. I hope that the next in the series spends some more time on all the characters.
• 
  Bill

  Still fun to read the third time through.
  
  You can tell that the publisher was spending more on cover art back when this was written, with a painting of an exhausted American soldier, with helmet, rifle and gas mask; sitting by a roadpost marking the distance to Montreal. By the time we get to the final book of the series, we're just getting stock World War II images photoshopped to fit the Confederacy.
  
  Being a father now, I have a lot more sympathy for the plight of Arthur MacGregor, and I expect I'd have made the same decisions. Turtledove is also always good with the little changes in his alternate timelines, "wireless" instead of "radio", "barrel" instead of "tank", "Sandwich Islands" for Hawaii, etc.
  
  
• 
  Carol Storm

  Absolute dreck! Not one likable character, not one interesting situation, and some of the "alternate" history of racism in the Deep South is downright offensive. I keep wondering why Harry Turtledove's books keep turning up in the junk pile outside the library where I work -- and I keep finding out!
• 
  Bryce

  The next in the USA/CSA time line. The concept is fascinating, but the story gets bogged down by endless descriptions of battles. Many times, I get confused as to who is who. I'll stick with the series, though.
• 
  Patti

  If there’s one definite sentiment in this book, no matter who’s side you’re looking at it from, it’s that war is hell.
  
  This is the second novel in Harry Turtledove’s alternate history series about the first world war. The series itself was set up in his novel How Few Remain where he gives us his version of what would have happened had the Confederacy won the Civil War. Turtledove’s The Great War series sets up the sides for the first World War somewhat differently than what history has actually given us.
  
  The Confederacy is aligned with France, Great Britain, Canada, Russia, and the Japanese against the United States, Austria, and Germany. We hear a great deal about Teddy Roosevelt, who is now the President of the United States, but quite a bit less about his counterpart in the Confederacy.
  
  To read my full review, please visit:
  https://thoughtsfromthemountaintop.co...
• 
  Christopher Lutz

  The War to End All Wars continues to grind on across North America, as the US’s larger population and greater access to war material starts to make a difference in the struggle against the CSA and Canada. In the south things are not faring well for the Confederates as a socialist revolution occurs and a manpower shortage begins to reverse any early gains they made. As new wartime technologies are employed and the death toll climbs ever higher, both sides are desperate for a decisive victory.
  
  The Southern Victory series continues and book two slightly edges out part one of the Great War trilogy as we explore character threads in more depth while adding new stories and new fronts to the conflict. It’s good to finally be seeing the US actually winning a war for a change in this alternate timeline, being 0-2 so far.
• 
  Charles

  This novel probably deserves 3 stars, but despite Harry T's amazing vision and detailed development of the facets of the Great War (alt version), I still often felt (as I did with the previous novel) that some of these details could have been shortened or eliminated altogether. For example, the two fronts in Canada, west and Quebec, as important know about, just bored me more and more. However, at least some extraordinary progress occurred in the different fronts, and the finale is a great set-up for the third volume of this particular series which, despite my criticism, I am eager to read.
• 
  Scott Gardner

  The war moves on , the confederate states start to feel the pressure building.
  
  My only problem with this book was how the tanks got introduced. now I know it';s alternative , but it was the British who first used the tank , so it stands to reason it should be the confederate's who got them first , but turtledove gave the usa them first , didn't make sense
• 
  eric quinn

  Continuing with the How few remain timeline.....great...interesting twists.
• 
  George Flannary

  Need more about Europe
  
  Still no mention of the Ottomans. There needs to be more about the European eastern and western fronts. Otherwise great book
• 
  Tony

  I’ve been a big fan of Turtledove’s alternate reality books for a long time. He never disappoints.
• 
  Ellen Broadhurst

  Read because my son was reading the series. Not really my preferred genre, but overall an interesting work of fiction.
• 
  Kasey Kapler

  Epic Games
• 
  Alex

  Another solid entry in Turtledove's alternate-history series.
• 
  Gary Mcfarlane

  Fiction but does show how war might be "biased" against some people and give privilege to others.
• 
  Philip Chaston

  Turtledove cleaves to the familiar: a parallel set of events that mirrors the real enough to keep the reader comfortable. A parallel alternate history.
• 
  Jonathan Lee

  Another great addition to Turtledove's Southern Victory Series, "Walk in Hell" built upon lore established in "How Few Remain", had an exciting continuation of characters from the previous book, and introduced a few new characters as well. There are several surprises in this novel, which makes the reader contemplate the wide-reaching consequences of a character's actions. The historical accuracy of how things MIGHT have been is a neat way to learn about a history that never happened. An exciting page-turner, I am looking forward to the conclusion of the Great War trilogy!
• 
  Chen-song Qin

  This is the second book in Harry Turtledove's Great War series, following "American Front", telling the story of an alternate World War I, where in North America the United States is entangled in total war against the Confederate States and Canada.
  
  The book follows the same characters from the previous one, but now as the war has dragged on longer than expected, with far more brutality and destruction than originally imagined, many of them are experiencing increasingly greater hardship, and some characters die.
  
  The face of the war has changed with the use of new weapons such as the airplane and the barrel (the original ridiculous British name of "tank" never becomes popular in North America). The new weapons are used only imperfectly at this point in the war, but there are plenty of hints that they will be significant in the future. This is especially true of barrels, as the normally hide-bound General Custer has taken a liking to them and wishes to use them aggressively, against existing US doctrine.
  
  The Confederacy is reeling under continued US pressure and at the same time facing a Marxist uprising by oppressed black labourers, which started at the end of the previous book. Large sections of Canada are occupied by US troops, although their advance has been stopped by trench warfare. In general, the second book is a sort of turning point, where the Entente powers are slowly getting ground down, and the US is more and more likely to be victorious.
  
  Both the strengths and weaknesses of the previous book continue in this one. The typical Turtledove attention to detail brings the myriad of characters, technologies, and politics to life. At the same time, too slavish a devotion to real history creates many situations that are implausible in North America - e.g. the population density of Manitoba (in 1915!) is not going to support trench warfare of the sort that happened in real WWI Europe.
  
  This book is a strong continuation of a good series, but at the same time, I can't help but think a great opportunity has been missed.