Harry
Turtledove continues to chronicle the post-war history of the United
States and the Confederate States in American Empire: The Center
Cannot Hold. As with the earlier books in the series, this one
follows the stories of numerous viewpoint characters ranging from the
Canadian guerilla wannabe Mary McGregor to the Confederate President
wannabe Jake Featherston. While earlier books have examined periods
of months, The Center Cannot Hold begins in 1924 and runs through
the beginning of 1933.
One
of the things which sets The Victorious Opposition apart from the
earlier books is the study of how even honest men opposed to an evil régime
can be co-opted by it. While the fate of men like Jefferson Pinkard
may be foreseen, the actions of Hipolito Rodriguez, Clarence Potter, or
Willie King may come as a surprise. Turtledove has needed to build
their characters over the preceding novels in order to make their actions
most understandable.
In addition to the
question of evil in the Confederacy, Turtledove also spends quite a bit of
time with his characters in the United States Quebec and Occupied Canada.
Using a variety of characters, Turtledove skillfully demonstrates
the differences between society in our 1930s and the world of the American
Empire. Chester Martin, now
working as a contractor in Los Angeles, has again begun to see the class
differences between himself as a worker and the owners, represented in
this case by Mordechai Brown.
Several
of Turtledove’s characters, who have been familiar since The Great
War: American Front, are
getting older and some of them die, of either natural or manmade causes.
However, just as Turtledove replaced the characters who died during
the war, he is set to replace these deceased characters with others,
whether their children or their comrades.
Being
the third book in the “American Empire” trilogy, it is understandable
that The Victorious Opposition doesn’t have a real beginning,
growing out of The Center Cannot Hold.
However, it also fails to have an ending, setting the stage for
Turtledove’s forthcoming trilogy which will document this time line as
it descends into another Great War.
Not only has Turtledove left the macroplots unfinished, but several
of the individual stories are only showing signs of problems to come,
notably the fates of Cincinnatus Driver and Xerxes/Scipio.
Turtledove
continues to parallel the rise of the Third Reich with Jake
Featherston’s Confederacy, although there are some aspects which differ.
Turtledove’s United States do not mirror directly to any of the
European nations, and, of course, there are vastly different alliances in
his world and ours. Turtledove
handles both the differences and the similarities masterfully, and
introduces enough changes to the similarities to keep the reader on his
toes.
In
many ways, the lengthy series (seven books and counting) has finally come
into its own in The Victorious Opposition, with long festering
plotlines moving into a period of payoff and characters beginning to react
to new stimuli based on their backgrounds.
Because of this, the reader finds himself looking forward to these
characters futures more than at the end of previous books in the series.
