Return Engagement (Settling Accounts, Book One)

" Harry Turtledove] handles his huge cast with admirable skill. The insights into racial politics elevate this novel to a status above mere entertainment, although it provides that aplenty."--Publishers Weekly

It's 1941, and an alliance of peace holds in check the most powerful nations of the world--but it is an uneasy peace. Japan dominates the Pacific, the Russian tsar rules Alaska, and England, under Winston Churchill, chafes for a return to its former glory.

Behind this fa ade of world order, America is a bomb waiting to explode. Jake Featherston, the megalomaniacal leader of the Confederate States of America, is just the man to light the fuse. Opposite him is Al Smith, a Socialist U.S. president in the Philadelphia White House. Smith is a living symbol of hope for a nation that has been through the hell of war and depression.

Featherston and his Freedom Party are determined to conquer their Northern neighbor at any cost. After crushing a Negro rebellion in his own nation, Featherston sends Confederate army planes to attack Philadelphia. In the aftermath of the CSA blitzkrieg, the war machine spins a vortex of destruction, betrayal, and fury that no one--not even Jake Featherston himself--can control.

"Turtledove plays heady games with actual history, scattering object lessons and bitter ironies along the way. Return Engagement features] strong, complex characters against a sweeping alt-historical background."--Kirkus Reviews

"Another absorbing installment of Turtledove's] character-centered alternate-history saga."--Booklist

Author: Harry Turtledove
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Published: 06/28/2005
Pages: 656
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.80lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.10w x 1.60d
ISBN13: 9780345464057
ISBN10: 0345464052
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Alternative History
- Fiction | War & Military
- Fiction | Science Fiction | Military

About the Author
Harry Turtledove is the award-winning author of the alternate-history works The Man with the Iron Heart, The Guns of the South, and How Few Remain (winner of the Sidewise Award for Best Novel); the Hot War books: Bombs Away, Fallout, and Armistice; the War That Came Early novels: Hitler's War, West and East, The Big Switch, Coup d'Etat, Two Fronts, and Last Orders; the Worldwar saga: In the Balance, Tilting the Balance, Upsetting the Balance, and Striking the Balance; the Colonization books: Second Contact, Down to Earth, and Aftershocks; the Great War epics: American Front, Walk in Hell, and Breakthroughs; the American Empire novels: Blood and Iron, The Center Cannot Hold, and Victorious Opposition; and the Settling Accounts series: Return Engagement, Drive to the East, The Grapple, and In at the Death. Turtledove is married to fellow novelist Laura Frankos. They have three daughters--Alison, Rachel, and Rebecca--and two granddaughters, Cordelia Turtledove Katayanagi and Phoebe Quinn Turtledove Katayanagi.