Settling Accounts: Drive to the East
LC Class PS3570.U76 S473 2005 | | |
Preceded by | Settling Accounts: Return Engagement | |
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Followed by | Settling Accounts: The Grapple |
Drive to the East is the second book in
It is set in an analog of
Plot summary
As the title suggests, the novel contains analogues of historical 1942 battles, such as the
By the summer of 1942, the U.S. push under
Meanwhile, Jefferson Davis Pinkard enjoys rapid advancement through the Freedom Party hierarchy as he begins to develop the machinery required to implement Jake Featherston's
At sea, Lt. Sam Carsten's ship,
In this history, the Pacific War against Japan is treated as essentially a sideshow, getting only a trickle of resources - since the US are facing a dangerous invasion of their industrial heartland. Strategic aims in the Pacific are confined to recapturing Midway to remove the threat to the Sandwich Islands, and characters consider the idea of conducting an island-hopping war all the way to the Japanese home islands (as the US did in World War II) as an unrealistic fantasy. Also, in this history, the Philippines and Guam are long-standing and recognized possessions of the Japanese, which they had wrested from Spain during the Hispano-Japanese War between the late 1800s and early 1900s and to which the US laid no claim.
The CSA have pressured their weak ally, Emperor Francisco José II of Mexico, into reluctantly providing troops to reinforce the Coalscuttle attack. Under cover of an early November storm, General Morrell leads an armored breakthrough against the poorly equipped Mexicans protecting Patton's flank. Joining up with another salient coming out of West Virginia, he traps the bulk of Patton's army, and drives deep into Ohio. Featherston, beginning an apparent descent into madness, gives the trapped army maniacal orders to hold its ground rather than attempt a breakout. When the promised resupply by air fails, Patton is ordered to escape by air and CSA resistance near Pittsburgh collapses. The sequence of events is similar to that which led to the destruction of the German Sixth Army in Battle of Stalingrad during our timeline's World War II.
Jonathan Moss spends most of the book as a frustrated POW held at
General Abner Dowling is transferred from the Virginia front to take up command of the 11th Army and open a new front by invading Texas, in order to prevent the Confederates from moving forces from there to reinforce the main front around Pittsburgh. By February 1943, his forces are approaching Lubbock, Texas, and - still unknown to him, but highly alarming for Pinkard and the Freedom Party High Command - threatening to capture Camp Determination and expose its litany of horrors. Both sides are working desperately to develop a nuclear weapon, although the US is slightly in the lead. Featherston's increasingly irrational conduct of the war raises suspicions and leads Generals Clarence Potter and Nathan Bedford Forrest III to consider a plot to overthrow him.
Reception
Publishers Weekly gave the book a moderately good review, stating that "As in the previous volume, Turtledove comes up with convincing analogues to events during WWII, such as the Confederate army's Stalingrad-like defeat around Pittsburgh. On the other hand, his portrait of the führer-like Featherstone is less persuasive". SF Site also gave the book praise mixed with some criticism, saying that "Unfortunately, Drive to the East is very much a middle book in a series" but also that the book was "a worthy sequel".[4]
References
- ^ "Uchronia: Great War Multi-Series (Southern Victory)". www.uchronia.net.
- ^ "Settling Accounts: Drive to the East". Publishers Weekly. 6 June 2005. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
- ^ Silver, Steven H. "SETTLING ACCOUNTS: DRIVE TO THE EAST". SF Site. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
- ^ Silver, Steven. "SETTLING ACCOUNTS: DRIVE TO THE EAST". SF Site. Retrieved 20 May 2020.