The War That Came Early: The Big Switch-Harry Turtledove

The War That Came Early: The Big Switch
Harry Turtledove
Del Rey, Jul 12 2011, $27.00
ISBN 9780345491862

In 1938 Great Britain Prime Minster Neville Chamberlain rejects Fuhrer Adolf Hitler’s claim to annexing more land. Irate, the raging Hitler sends his troops west vowing Paris will burn before the year ends. By 1941 Germany and their ally Poland pound the Soviet Union from the west and Japan from the east. On the western front trench warfare reminiscent of WWI but nastier is devastating the French countryside. Spain is engulfed in a nasty civil war with the American Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the fight against the Fascists.

Americans are divided over entering the war though support they the allies. However, people like Peggy Druce try to get her country to fight the Nazis over there as she insists they will one day cross the Atlantic to fight us here. At the same time as Hitler works on his Final Solution and survives a coup, pacifists in France and Britain make their voices heard. Japan and the Soviet Union sign an armistice while the former attacks American Pacific territories following up on their brutal success in China. Winston Churchill suddenly dies bringing despair to his side and euphoria to the Nazis.

The latest in The War That Came Early WWII alternate history (see Hitler’s War and West and East) has another pivotal event occur with the death of the rallying cry for Britain. The death of the face of the allies has devastated the morale more so than Hitler’s war machine as France and Great Britain wonder if the cost is worth the fight while the Axis has issues too. Although with so much to cover around the globe, the deep story line at times slows down; Harry Turtledove continues his path of altering key events in his insightful revision of the Great War.

Harriet Klausner