The War That Came Early: West and East-Harry Turtledove

The War That Came Early: West and East
Harry Turtledove
Del Rey, Jul 27 2010, $27.00
ISBN 9780345491848

Following Chamberlain’s rejection of appeasement, Hitler's War continues on three fronts. He attacks France planning to take Paris soonest. His troops head east towards Soviet Russia and the oil fields. Finally his military machine heads north to Scandinavia starting with Denmark.

However, the three German fronts don’t go as well as planned. In Czechoslovakia, the tank blitzkrieg runs into some opposition from freedom fighter using antitank rifles. In France, his forces are behind schedule in his demand that Paris is burning. Finally only in the northern front are things going somewhat smoothly. In the Pacific, the Japanese are rolling all over Asia uncontested.

The second entry in the alternate history of The War That Came Early series continues to extrapolate events based on Chamberlain taking a stand in 1938. The story line is exciting and fast-paced but is at its best when Harry Turtledove takes his audience to the real fronts where those who will never make it into the history texts star. When the plot seeks the big picture of a world at war it loses some of its in depth and the personal horrors of what happens in war even at the home front away from the battlefield. Fans will root for the everyday person on both sides of the conflict as Mr. Turtledove takes his readers to the Atlantic and Pacific, to Singapore, Japan, Siberia and all over Europe as even the maniac Hitler shows some soul when he enables an American to escape Germany.

Harriet Klausner