Humpph: American Empire: The Victorious Opposition is the seventh novel in a sequence of ten books through which Harry Turtledove explores what might have happened if General Lee’s Special Orders 191 reached him in 1862 and the Confederacy went on to win the Civil War. Since it’s somewhere in the middle of a long story (this volume alone has more than 500 pages), a review is difficult, though it is the conclusion of the American Empire trilogy and therefore ties up some of the threads; it covers the years 1934-1941.
Turtledove has adopted an interesting approach in the series, almost like that used by TV soap operas, creating many characters, devoting a few pages to each, and constantly cycling through their stories. These characters are all over the map geographically and demographically, though few–quite unlike a soap opera–ever meet. Opposition essentially focuses on a character named Jake Featherston, now president of the Confederate States of America, and the effect his actions have on his own country and the USA (which now occupies English-speaking Canada).
If you’ve followed the story this far, keep reading; if you haven’t, start at the beginning and not here.
recommended
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