 |
Blood and Iron | Rating | |
| A | |||
| Harry Turtledove | |||
| Series | Related Books | ||
| American Empire | How Few Remain, American Front, Walk in Hell, Breakthroughs, Blood and Iron, The Center Cannot Hold, The Victorious Opposition | ||
The Confederate States of America has lost the Great War, and they're in bad shape thanks to it. Jobs are scarce, inflation is rampant, and nobody is quite sure how to fix things. Except Jake Featherston. He is gaining popularity as a speaker against blacks, the army's command staff, and Congress. And as the CSA slowly sinks into a mire of hatred, the victorious USA is undergoing convulsions of its own. Labor issues are coming to the forefront, driven by greedy bossses and a glut of labor, and it is quickly becoming evident that the United States just doesn't know how to deal with winning a war.
Politics was always an important part of earlier books in this setting, though not quite as big as the war itself. But like the war, it influenced how people thought and acted to such a degree it could not be entirely ignored. Yet it was never such a big part of the story as it is here. In fact, politics now take the role previously held by the Great War. It touches absolutely everyone. If you find it difficult to tolerate any political speech, philosophy, or stories, then you will probably like this book a good deal less - though I daresay even antipolitical readers will not actively hate it.
This is because the philosophies and laws put forth are so broad and basic. They are also not current bones of contention, not for most people. Gender and racial discrimination, sexual harrassment, workers' rights to strike, and fair wages are all put forth. These are unlikely to offend all but the staunchest conservative readers who dislike the results of the real-life implementation of some of the proposals. Or so I feel.
Indeed, I feel the book excells, thanks to the political views it shows. And the left's views are not the only ones displayed, either; Turtledove spends at least as much time showing the birth and growth of the CSA's Freedom Party, analogous in many ways to that of the Nazis. I applaud how well he showed the social evolution that took place in real life after WWI. Even as the book shows why labor legislation was passed early in the century, it also shows how an entire nation can essentially go pathologically insane - something that I always found inexplicable before reading this. History teachers with courses including events from the first half of the twentieth century would not go far wrong by making this required, or at least recommended, reading.
Time moves fast in this novel. Individual plotlines move slowly, thanks to there being so many of them, but whereas in previous books a cut from one scene to the next might span a few weeks or, at most, a month, now skipping months is common. Two years pass before page two hundred does. It can make a reader a little confused, as some things that should take years proceed over just a few score pages - and still take years.
Unlike previous books, it actually isn't - quite - necessary to read the previous ones in the setting. Turtledove included an introduction that was nothing more than a quick rundown of the status of each viewpoint character as of the start of the book, devoting a paragraph to each. This makes a sort of sense, as Blood and Iron marks the start of a new, if related, trilogy. On the other hand, it seemed clumsy to me, and as a reader who actually had read all the previous works it was a bit annoying. More, it seemed unnecessary, as the information became obvious as the story progressed. Often it was said outright in the narration.
These problems, however, are minor. None of them affects the actual story at all, they're just minor details in how it is told. The good aspects of this book far, far outweigh the bad ones.
| By Title | By Author | By Rank |