Settling Accounts: The Grapple

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Settling Accounts: The Grapple
LC Class
PS3570.U76 S475 2006
Preceded bySettling Accounts: Drive to the East 
Followed bySettling Accounts: In at the Death 

Settling Accounts: The Grapple by

alternate history setting of World War II known as the Second Great War in North America.[1] It is part of the Southern Victory, which supposes that the Confederate States of America won the American Civil War. It takes place in the Southern Victory Series Earth in 1943.[2][3]

Plot summary

George Patton
, does less well on the defense than he did in the attack on Ohio two years before, his pugnacious instincts making him squander irreplaceable resources on futile attempts at counter-attack.

The murder of

Eastern Texas. Among the innumerable victims is Scipio. Despite this setback, Confederate blacks continue to find ways to resist. In Richmond
, the Confederate capital, blacks rebel, seeking not to save their lives but to die with weapons in hand and exact a price from their murderers. Meanwhile, fighting continues among black guerrilla bands in the Georgia countryside.

As the war rages, the race between American and Confederate physicists to build a "

Washington University at Lexington, Virginia, the center of Confederate nuclear research. Meanwhile, Germany seems ahead of both the North American
powers in the construction of a uranium bomb.

On the

oil wells there. A general advance seems to be made in Arkansas, and U.S. forces are pressing the offensive in the C.S. states of Sonora and Chihuahua
.

Allegiances at the top of the Confederate government are beginning to show strain as losses to the Confederacy increase. There is pronounced tension between Brigadier General Clarence Potter and President Jake Featherston, Camp Determination administrator Jefferson Pinkard and Confederate Attorney General Ferdinand Koenig, and between Koenig and Featherston. Featherston engages in shouting matches with his commanding officers over their tactics. Angered with his generals, Featherston puts all his faith in "wonder weapons" to win the war. Most ominously, despite the increasingly desperate military situation, Featherston continues to divert considerable resources to the extermination program as being justified and necessary, since "The War Against the Negroes" is a most important goal which must be "fought" and "won" by total extermination and making the Confederate territories "Negro-free".

At sea, the

South Atlantic, to cut off food shipments from Argentina to the United Kingdom. U.S. President Charles W. La Follette asks the Confederate States for unconditional surrender. Featherston replies with a defiant speech, and launches two long-range rockets from bases in Virginia onto Philadelphia
. Damage from the rocket-bombs is light, but the psychological damage is much heavier.

Publication history

The Grapple is the third book in the tetralogy, following 2005's Settling Accounts: Drive to the East and 2004's Settling Accounts: Return Engagement, and preceding Settling Accounts: In at the Death, released in 2007. It was released in the United States on July 25, 2006. The book was released in the United Kingdom on October 5, 2006.

Reception

Publishers Weekly gave the book a mixed review, saying that "One may question the appropriateness of using the Holocaust as a springboard for an entertainment" but that "While somewhat repetitious and a bit preachy in spots, Turtledove's latest proves that third time is the charm".[4] Stranger Horizons also gave the book a mixed review stating that the book was "extremely formulaic" and that characters "often repeat familiar exposition and stock phrases as if to make sure that they reach their five-page quota", but that " what appeals most about Turtledove's writing is the strength of his concepts, which more than survive his inconsistent handling of them".[5]

References

  1. ^ "Uchronia: Great War Multi-Series (Southern Victory)". www.uchronia.net.
  2. ^ ELHEFNAWY, NADER (5 February 2007). "SETTLING ACCOUNTS: THE GRAPPLE BY HARRY TURTLEDOVE". Strange Horizons. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  3. ^ "Settling Accounts: The Grapple". Publishers Weekly. 8 May 2005. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  4. ^ "Settling Accounts: The Grapple". Publishers Weekly. 8 May 2006. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
  5. ^ ELHEFNAWY, Nader (5 February 2007). "SETTLING ACCOUNTS: THE GRAPPLE BY HARRY TURTLEDOVE". Stranger Horizons. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
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