In at the Death

Settling Accounts #4

by Harry Turtledove

Franklin Roosevelt is the assistant secretary of defense. Thomas Dewey is running for president with a blunt-speaking Missourian named Harry Truman at his side. Britain holds onto its desperate alliance with the USA’s worst enemy, while a holocaust unfolds in Texas. In Harry Turtledove’s compelling, disturbing, and extraordinarily vivid reshaping of American history, a war of secession has triggered a generation of madness. The tipping point has come at last.

The third war in sixty years, yet unnamed, is a grinding, horrifying series of hostilities and atrocities between two nations sharing a continent and both calling themselves America. At the dawn of 1944, the United States has beaten back a daredevil blitzkrieg from the Confederate States—and a terrible new genie is out of history’s bottle: a bomb that may destroy on a scale never imagined before. In Europe, the new weapon has shattered a stalemate between Germany, England, and Russia. When the trigger is pulled in America, nothing will be the same again.

With visionary brilliance, Harry Turtledove brings to a climactic conclusion his monumental, acclaimed drama of a nation’s tragedy and the men and women who play their roles—with valor, fear, and folly—on history’s greatest stage.

Genres: Alternate History, Fiction, Science Fiction, Historical Fiction, War, Military Fiction, Speculative Fiction

609 pages, Hardcover

First published July 31, 2007

About the author

Dr Harry Norman Turtledove is an American novelist, who has produced a sizeable number of works in several genres including alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction.

Harry Turtledove attended UCLA, where he received a Ph.D. in Byzantine history in 1977.

Turtledove has been dubbed "The Master of Alternate History". Within this genre he is known both for creating original scenarios: such as survival of the Byzantine Empire; an alien invasion in the middle of the World War II; and for giving a fresh and original treatment to themes previously dealt with by other authors, such as the victory of the South in the American Civil War; and of Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

His novels have been credited with bringing alternate history into the mainstream. His style of alternate history has a strong military theme.

Reviews

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

The end of a series (a series of series, really) that covers nearly a century of an alternate history of America and the world that sprang from a change in one event during the Civil War. I found it a satisfying resolution, but I wish the author had continued it into the current era and the future. Maybe he'll decide to do that one day. As it is, this whole saga from the battle of Antietam through World War II is one I'll be reading again and again every few years.

[Tomislav · Rating 3 out of 5]

6 June 2009 - These comments are for In At The Death, Settling Accounts #4, Southern Victory #11.

But first, here is a taxonomy of Harry Turtledove’s 11-volume alternate history sequence, known as Southern Victory or Timeline-191. Book #1 is a singleton, titled How Few Remain. Books #2-4 are The Great War trilogy (American Front, Walk in Hell, Breakthroughs). Books #5-7 are The American Empire trilogy (Blood and Iron, The Center Cannot Hold, The Victorious Opposition). Books #8-11 are The Settling Accounts tetralogy (Return Engagement, Drive to the East, The Grapple, In at the Death. All 11 should be read in strict order; there is historical and character continuity across the entire sequence. I read them in clusters by trilogy/tetralogy.

I started this nearly 7000-page, alternate history sequence a little over eight years ago, and finished it today. The original point of departure from our timeline occurred back in the American Civil War of the 1860s, and resulted in a southern victory with lasting independence for the Confederacy. Historical trends of our own timeline are then translated into events in this alternate timeline over the next 80 years, leading up to a North American war parallel to our real World War II in the 1940s. The weakness of this writing is the repeating of each character's backstory, and in the repetitive descriptions of the violent events of warfare. The strength is in the way it describes major events through the ongoing stories of about 20 or 30 ordinary people, across generations. The whole thing could have been re-organized as 25 novels of about 250 pages each, but then the overall arc of history would have been lost. With so many storylines to play out, the war itself actually ends about halfway through this last book. It's a fascinating and large body of work; hardly ever did I think to myself that some aspect of it was unrealistic. Finally, I have to say that in this most recent sub-series, I think Turtledove dealt with issues of race in a powerful and personal way. It definitely gives cause to think of what might have been.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

After years of reading Turtledove, the time has come for me to reevaluate how I feel about his books.

I have always enjoyed Turtledove's ability to plot the movements and histories of worlds that never were. Few can do so as well as he can. Unfortunately, the rest of his books (with the exception of his single novels) follow a very repetitive and fairly predictable formula, and I for one am tired of it.

You can expect: two or three major narrative characters to die, inane dialogue (in fact the same phrases over and over), very obvious parallels to actual history, and at least once per book someone will mention what year it is - in case you forgot.

At the beginning of this series (How Few Remain, which was originally not part of a series) the patterns were far less obvious and somewhat forgivable. I suppose I've grown out of these books and as such I plan on changing my ratings for most of them. They're still enjoyable, and I can read them for the sake of finding out what happens, but they are total popcorn. Bags. and bags. and bags of popcorn.

[Dave · Rating 1 out of 5]

OMFG… I did it. I finally completed this hideously dreadful final chapter of the Settling Accounts saga. I suppose I suffered through In at the Death out sheer mule-headed stubbornness. Canned dialogue, flat, graceless characters whom engendered a depressing lack of empathy on the part of the reader, a woefully unimaginative plot that borrowed far too heavily from real-life history with a thin veneer of cosmetic changes and of course there was the problem that persisted throughout the 4-volumes of Harry’s “new” WW2; his complete lack of understanding of the economic impacts of war.

How many adjectives can I cram into a single sentence? Dull, listless, droll, insipid, infuriating, frustrating…? What was going through Harry’s mind as he sat each day trying to hammer out this 4-book set? “Why did I sign that bloody contract?” Perhaps I should go back and re-read How Few Remain so I can recall the days when I actually enjoyed Harry Turtledove.

[Reza Amiri Praramadhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally I had read all eleven books of the series! Which makes me both happy and sad at the same time. Happy, because it was a very interesting journey, following the wars between the states for 80 years, from the times of Roosevelt and Custer to LaFolette and Featherston. At last, the CSA was gone for good, although its fate under US military occupation left much to be wondered. And sad, because with heavy heart, I have to disengage the point of views characters, especially in last few chapters. If only this great, wonderful, meticulously thought series be continued to the alternative Cold War time, I would appreciate it greatly.

[William D · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book makes you glad that the North won the civil war. It describes the end of a war that is the most terrible thing one could imagine. It takes a worms-eye view of the war (same for the whole series), going into the daily details of each character, thus painting a terrible picture of a war that (thank God) never happened. It really took me a long while to warm up to Turtledove's style of writing, but once I finally did, I drew my in like a moth to a flame. Approach this book at your own risk, lol.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

And we finally come to the end of Turtledove's long saga of the C.S.A. In this alternate history, he has posited a world in which the Confederate States of America wins their independence from the U.S.A., setting the stage for three additional wars in North America over the next eighty years, each more devastating than the previous. This final book in the long series describes the end of the final war (analogous to WWII in our actual history), and with it, the final demise of the C.S.A.

As I read the books in this series, I thought that Turtledove was using his alternate history to explore the causes and effects in our actual history, trying to show that certain events and patterns are inevitable, regardless of the path history takes. Jake Featherstone and his Freedom party arise in the C.S.A. and perpetrate a genocide every bit as ugly as that of Hitler and his Nazis in Germany, for example. And that certainly would appear to be a lesson that could be taken from this series.

But now that I'm done, I wonder if Turtledove's real message is slightly different. Perhaps he's showing that, in spite of the problems that linger because of the Civil War (the lingering racism and the heroic mythology of the southern defeat, for example), the alternative to the defeat of the C.S.A. in 1865 likely would have been much, much worse. Counterfactual scenarios are impossible to prove, and Turtledove's extrapolation has traveled so far from its original premise that it really is the longest of stretches, but it still is a thought worth considering.

As for this book itself, it is pretty much what readers of this series have come to expect. It continues the story from the multiple viewpoints of a wide range of characters on both sides of the conflict. These are characters the readers have come to know over the course of the series, characters they have come to love or hate. And these characters show us the impacts of the war, both large and small, through their experiences. And even though the cast of characters is smaller by the end, it still provides a thorough look at what such a conflict might look like.

[Wayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

The finale (so far) of Turtledove's Timeline 191 series. I think this was book 11. This book finishes the end of WWII with the defeat of the Confederate States and dealing with the aftermath of the war. Turtledove brings up lots of questions about how the world will work with an occupied CSA and multiple nations having a "superbomb". He does little to nothing to answer his own questions. He even drops little hints about what might happen a character or two and then does nothing with that information. This either means he is planning another series to continue the timeline, or he's gotten so used to writing in little chunks about each character that he doesn't know how to wrap them up give a coherent conclusion to the story.

Turtledove doesn't really delve into details of the characters' lives. This is a mainly a byproduct of how he arranges the story through lots of characters that don't interact. It gives the reader a much broader perspective of the storyline, but since they don't really interact much you lose all that character development that you get from a more traditional structure. The story is the main character here though.

Overall, I love the story and am fascinated by the alternate world view. I just find so much fault with the writing style and organization of the books that it detracts from my enjoyment. Hence 3 stars.

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not bad...not the best in the series. I spent the second half of the book wondering what Turtledove was waiting for to end the book. As it turns out, not much...it just kind of ends.

Maybe someone else can confirm, but I'm pretty sure that this is the end of the rather massive Timeline 191series. From "How Few Remain" we've had eleven volumes?

The whole series was rather good I thought, but things become more and more forced once Turtledove had committed himself to a Second World War. The parrallels became too forced, a common problem with the alt-history genre in general. Sometimes I get the feeling the author just wanted this series to go away.

[Nadienne Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

A most exciting conclusion!

The war is at an end (and much sooner in the novel that I was expecting) and now the United States must keep the peace in the occupied Confederacy.

I can't even begin to imagine how the measures which are used to quell unrest will effect the world in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, etc...

[John Brothers · Rating 1 out of 5]

The early books in this series were so promising. This last one was just dreadful - ponderous and predictable and crushingly dull. I started skimming by the 1/2way point, because it was just too tiring to try to maintain any interest in the story

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Third American Civil War ends. On to Reconstruction and War Crimes Tribunals!

The final volume in HT's Settling Accounts series really highlights how far removed from an alt-history of WWII it has become and really is just a Civil War III and an excuse/opportunity to write about the Confederates as Nazis. This is not a BAD plot device, but HT has to draw in too many disparate elements from WWII to make it work and as such, it starts to bear so little resemblance to WWII that it becomes somewhat distracting. For example, the CSA use one nuke on the USA who retaliates with two of its own. It kind of works, but not really.

As with the previous novels, there's no real Pacific theater to speak of and what's going on in Europe is talked about (including the use of nuclear weapons) but never has a real bearing on the plot. Characterizations are fairly cut-and-paste and as with most HT novels, serve merely as ciphers. And just in case you forget what a character's defining characteristic is, don't worry, HT reminds you of it EVERY. SINGLE. TIME that you see that character again. If he was a former enlisted now officer? Damn it, you're going to KNOW THAT! If a Confederate POV character thinks they could have done more against the blacks in the CSA, YOU WILL ALSO KNOW THAT. Repeat ad nauseum.

The novel ends with the death of Hitler stand-in CSA president Jake Featherstone at the hands of a black rebel which is poetic but heavy-handed (I'll allow it). But this happens only about 3/4 through the novel and the remainder is a odd denouement featuring a new US election, attempts at "Reconstruction" of the CSA and abbreviated version of the Nuremburg war crimes trials for the novels' main extermination camp commandant.

On the one hand, I kind of like how HT kept going in the sense that history never truly stops so it'd feel arbitrary to just end the novel with the end of the war. That being said, more interesting things could have been done with any or all of these elements, but they mostly just filled the remaining pages. All in all, this is still his best long running series but I'm Turtledove'd out for now.

[Tim Basuino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Early in 2013 I was looking at Google Maps at a town called Tyler, Texas (don’t ask how I wound up there), and found myself looking up information on Wikipedia (yes, I should know better, but that site often serves as a more than adequate gateway towards other information). One detail that caught my eye was that this location served as a prominent scene in an alternate history series (albeit a rather negative one). The idea of what would’ve happened had a few things gone differently in the Civil War, while not exactly new, is one I’d yet to see fully executed (Spike Lee did a mockumentary, “C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America” which posited that not only had the South won the war, they actually took over the rest of the US, which I do think to be more than a bit of a stretch).

Shortly thereafter I read the first of Turtledove’s Southern Victory series, “How Few Remain”, and two years later I’ve reached the conclusion of its eleven books. Without giving too much away, the series includes a second Mexican war where the South acquires a couple of provinces from Mexico (they’d also acquire Cuba, but somewhat regrettably that is in the far back seat in terms of plot development), and what one might call hybrid versions of World Wars I and II.

Overall I’d give the series four stars – certainly the idea is worth 4+ stars, while the execution might be considered 4- stars – there are 15-20 basic plotlines which get developed, some better than others. As far as “In At The Death” goes, it is somewhat predictable (a general problem when a book is advertised as ‘last of a series’) in its ending, but does leave the reader wanting more. To the best of my knowledge, Turtledove does not plan on continuing this series.

[Jesse Field · Rating 1 out of 5]

A rare DNF, only read the first 20 percent, flipped to the end and discovered the most obvious ending was the one that happened. At first, I was enthralled by the exploration of a world that had faced much more war than the current world. But too many historical implications of war are ignored -- surely the standard of living experienced in our 1930s wouldn't have been as high if Europe and the USA were divided and at war. Also, there don't appear to be any characters that we can really latch into. Instead, there are only paper-thin players in the game, all with roughly the same level of anxiety (low), grim determination (high), and abilities (they are sort of good at some skill, like medicine or politics. But everyone worries about great-game war strategy).

So, it just didn't hold my attention, and the fact that I am interested in history only seemed to hurt the reading experience. Sad!

[Sebastien · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is set in an alternate universe where the Confederacy won the Civil war. The USA and the CSA continue fighting wars. It is World War 2, and the CSA is at the end of the line. This book is excellent, but you must like reading about this kind of stuff to appreciate it.

[Cannonhistory Potter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The last of an 11-book series. Wish it could have been more. It seemed that Turtledove rushed through the last book in order to get it over. The characters we've come to know deserved better. Still, as a piece of alternate history, it captures the possible as well as any "what if" series could.

[Joe Tauzer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolute garbage.

[Julian White · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last in a sequence of 11 books - while war is going on in Europe and the East the US forces are moving south into the Condecerate States. Both sides (and also European powers) are working on the uranium 'superbomb' which will possibly change the face of warfare.

A remarkable achievement to produce this alternate history based on the premise that in the American Civil War the Confederate States won - and the fall-out of that over the next 80 years. While the emphasis is on North America some references to Europe are made - the powers there are variously allied with the two sides in America. Scattered in among the fictional characters are historical figures - Patton and FD Roosevelt to name but two - as in previous volumes. A more than satisfying conclusion to the series (I'm still unsure if I've read all of them!) even if there is a small cop-out wiggle (in my opinion) about the fate of an important character.

I was amused to note some smallish jokes - there's mention of a CS O'Brien who writes novels about the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars and right at the end a brief appearance of a 'fortyish lawyer named Clark Butler. He would have been handsome if his ears hadn't stuck out.' He is the town commissioner for Atlanta, and has a thin moustache - and someone with whom he is talking says to him,'Frankly, Butler, I don't give a damn.' That made me chuckle...

There's a 20 page excerpt from another, mercifully standalone novel closer to our own history: The Man With the Iron Heart diverges from our timeline when Reinhard Heinrich survives an assassination attempt in 1942 and goes on to lead the Werwolf resistance/insurgency after Germany loses the war.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

The awesome part of this is the alternative history idea. The author's interpretation of what the WWII era would have been like if the Confederacy was able to secede back in the 1860s... I think it's spot on, and gives a lot of food for thought about the current, real historical echoes of that conflict. Though I'm not a history buff, so I could be wrong... Otherwise, I'm ambivalent about the book--the characters are mostly mooks going about their mookish business and engaging each other in mookish dialogue. But then, this is pretty spot on, too. It's what tends to happen to people's self-expression when they're in the middle of a deadly, dehumanizing war. It's very believable characterization, but unfortunately this doesn't make it any more fun to read.

Caveat: this is the only book in the series that I've read. I found this final novel to be perfectly self-explanatory and sufficient, and I can't imagine what the author possibly had to add to the theme in the previous (10? 11?) novels. So I guess I'm ambivalent about the series as a whole, as well. Obviously I don't know for a fact, but I suspect that reading 10 of these in a row would get very repetitive very fast.

[Patti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ten books.

So far, alternate history author Harry Turtledove has written ten books in a series based on the concept of what would happen if the Confederacy had managed to win the Civil War.

Settling Accounts: In At The Death is the eleventh in this series. It’s also the longest, coming in at just shy of 600 pages in hardcover. The alternate history of the North American continent has wound through a war twenty years after the Confederacy broke away. Mexico allies itself with the Confederacy and sells parts of its own country. A worldwide war is waged bringing in the alliances of the Confederacy, France, and England versus the U.S, Germany, and Ireland. Canada is occupied by the U.S. The collapse of the stock market and subsequent depression. Finally, there was the rise of a madman as a leader inside the Confederacy who figured out a final solution to the problem of former slaves rebelling and causing hate and discontent…

To read my full review, please go to: https://thoughtsfromthemountaintop.co...

[Harrison Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harry Turtledove does an amazing work and the timeline 191 (series southern victory series) is possibly the pinnacle of his over all works. Turtledove does his best in trying to stretch-out reality in making the Confederate States of America a viable country(one that wouldn't fall apart in a few decades), and see how a natural progress would ensue on north America. Probably the most ingenious aspect of this series is is the rises of freedom party and shows what actual southern Confederate Nazi style fascist would look like as they target the former slave population for extermination. While not the most realistic of alternate history scenarios (As unlikely as it is that the Confederates could have won the civil war) the series over all is an amazing read and I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes wacky alternative history. I will not be reviewing each individual book in written form as of this time.

[Jeanette Greaves · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up from a charity bookstall. It's the final volume of a multi book series set in an alternate universe where the confederate states won the American civil war. This part of the series is set in the early 1940s. The world is at war, but the alliances have changed and the United States are once more at war with the Confederate States, which have built and used death camps to murder their black population. The frequent use of the n word was a shocker, but given the context its use is understandable.
The cast of characters is enormous, and looking at Wiki fandom explanations of some of the back story, it seems like it might be nice to start at the beginning of the series and find out more about the characters and their ancestors.
Don't be fooled by my two day read of this book, it was an amazingly hot weekend when I picked the book up and I didn't have the energy to do anything but read. This book is a hell of a long read.

[Conor Brandt · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a pretty good ending. It isn’t the greatest book in the world, Harry doesn’t really do things we might consider “character arcs” and he also doesn’t really do “characters” period. The people you read about are supposed to represent ideas and types of a person, which can get frustrating.

Despite that this ending novel is spellbinding. Watching the Confederacy get BTFOd is suitably fun.

That said the author VERY VERY clearly despises Socialism and Communism but has no idea what they actually are beyond Red Scare fear, leading to odd instances when “Socialists” in the US government talk about dialectical materialism but never once discuss basic Socialist policies.

All in all pretty good

[Valerio Pastore · Rating 4 out of 5]

The grappling conclusion to the 4-part alternate WWII series, AND the conclusion to the looong saga that started with a novel in which the CSA won the Secession War.
This book proves more than ever that Turtledove makes the best with the beginning and the end. I'd raher have seen a trilogy instead -when he must push on the accelerator, he really gives is best in terms of action and characterization.
Too bad that there weren't other books to follow, even in a shared universe context, because "In at the Death" also deals with the aftermath, with the settling of the world that will follow. Someone else should grab the reins and expand this universe.

[Starving zombie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this series. I think that I ended up giving every book a 4 out of 5, but if I could give one for the whole series as a whole a rating it would be 5 of 5. That probably doesn't make any sense, but whatever. The part of me that really liked social history classes in college is the same part of me that liked all these books about people who are just a small part of a major world event.

[Mattias Sandström · Rating 4 out of 5]

An epic story (+100 hours of audiobooks, just this final part of the entire Timeline-191 universe) coming to a great end. Specially enjoyed the final parts of the post-peace troubles that must have been very apparent after the real WWII. The character development throughout the books has been OK, but since this is a war-time story it's stereotypes galore.

I'm likely to pick up another of Turtledove's universes, looking at Worldwar, but for now I'll need a break from this alt-hist genre.

[Ben Harding · Rating 3 out of 5]

Incredibly well done historical analysis and historical fiction that is morbidly detailed, realistic, and possible in another world BUT the writing is incredible repetitive with often no real purpose other than to update the reader on where a character is.

Great for history lovers and people who want another way to understand world events but that doesn’t make it a good book. Same can be said for the entire series

[David Potocnik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sad to wrap a series that has kept my attention for as long as it has, but what a great ending. Anyone that has any interest in history, or suspense, action has to pick up this series. I am so happy that Mr. Turtledove has devoted so much to this craft. I thoroughly enjoyed this and may pick up another series in the future.

[Ankit Dey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first few books of the series before the second world wars are absolutely thrilling and fantastic.They're unpredictable and show us how easily things could've ended up being bloody on the American continent.However things become very predictable in the last books namely the In at the Death series of books and it feels that the author just copied stuff from real life.A fun read nonetheless.

[George Flannary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book but not an ending

Great book and great series. However, it feels like there’s more story. I’d love to some more. Maybe a single book, set in the 2000s to really finish it off