Blood And Iron American Empire Book One

“Blood and Iron is a masterpiece.”—Sci Fi Weekly World War I—The Great War—has ended, and an uneasy peace reigns around the world. Nowhere is it more fragile than on the continent of North America, where bitter enemies share a single landmass and two long, bloody borders. In the North, proud Canadian nationalists try to resist the colonial power of the United States. In the South, the once-mighty Confederate States have been pounded into poverty and merciless inflation. The time is right for madmen, demagogues, and terrorists. With Socialists rising to power in the U.S., and a dangerous fanatic in the Confederacy preaching a doctrine of hate, more than enough people are eager to return the world to war. “A master storyteller as well as a trained historian with an imagination . . . [Turtledove] has succeeded in taking title as the premier writer in [alternate history], relentlessly asking what if one or two key events in our reality happened differently. The result is fascinating.”—Houston Chronicle “Turtledove is a master at weaving details of ordinary life into a much bigger canvas to produce a world that so easily could have been our own. [It] is what keeps readers coming back for more.”—Tulsa World

“Blood and Iron is a masterpiece.”—Sci Fi Weekly World War I—The Great War—has ended, and an uneasy peace reigns around the world. Nowhere is it more fragile than on the continent of North America, where bitter enemies share a single landmass and two long, bloody borders. In the North, proud Canadian nationalists try to resist the colonial power of the United States. In the South, the once-mighty Confederate States have been pounded into poverty and merciless inflation. The time is right for madmen, demagogues, and terrorists. With Socialists rising to power in the U.S., and a dangerous fanatic in the Confederacy preaching a doctrine of hate, more than enough people are eager to return the world to war. “A master storyteller as well as a trained historian with an imagination . . . [Turtledove] has succeeded in taking title as the premier writer in [alternate history], relentlessly asking what if one or two key events in our reality happened differently. The result is fascinating.”—Houston Chronicle “Turtledove is a master at weaving details of ordinary life into a much bigger canvas to produce a world that so easily could have been our own. [It] is what keeps readers coming back for more.”—Tulsa World

The first volume of the American Empire trilogy from Harry Turtledove, "The Wizard of If". As Turtledove's brilliant series The Great War came to its end, the United States of America, in alliance with Germany, had defeated Great Britain, France and the Confederate States of America in a bloody conflict known as the First World War. Now as the 1920s begin, though, the seeds of a new conflict have already been sown. The United States, led by Theodore Roosevelt, swings wildly towards socialism. In Canada - now a US colony - nationalist terrorists strike against the new American oppressors. But it is in the Confederacy, trapped in a ruinous economic depression, where fascism begins to spread, and the fires are fanned by a charismatic leader who may again plunge the world into war.

In this vivid fifty-year history of Germany from 1871-1918—which inspired events that forever changed the European continent—here is the story of the Second Reich from its violent beginnings and rise to power to its calamitous defeat in the First World War. Before 1871, Germany was not yet nation but simply an idea. Its founder, Otto von Bismarck, had a formidable task at hand. How would he bring thirty-nine individual states under the yoke of a single Kaiser? How would he convince proud Prussians, Bavarians, and Rhinelanders to become Germans? Once united, could the young European nation wield enough power to rival the empires of Britain and France—all without destroying itself in the process? In this unique study of five decades that changed the course of modern history, Katja Hoyer tells the story of the German Empire from its violent beginnings to its calamitous defeat in the First World War. This often startling narrative is a dramatic tale of national self-discovery, social upheaval, and realpolitik that ended, as it started, in blood and iron.

This action-heavy EPIC FANTASY SERIES OPENER is like a sword-and-sorcery Spartacus set in a richly-imagined world. It starts with a shipwreck following a magical storm at sea. Horace, a soldier from the west, had joined the Great Crusade against the heathens of Akeshia after the deaths of his wife and son from plague. When he washes ashore, he finds himself at the mercy of the very people he was sent to kill, who speak a language and have a culture and customs he doesn't even begin to understand. Not long after, Horace is pressed into service as a house slave. But this doesn't last. The Akeshians discover that Horace was a latent sorcerer, and he is catapulted from the chains of a slave to the halls of power in the queen's court. Together with Jirom, an ex-mercenary and gladiator, and Alyra, a spy in the court, he will seek a path to free himself and the empire's caste of slaves from a system where every man and woman must pay the price of blood or iron. Before the end, Horace will have paid dearly in both. From the Trade Paperback edition.

AMERICAN EMPIRE: BOOK TWO In this spectacular, thought-provoking epic of alternate history, Harry Turtledove has created an unparalleled vision of social upheaval, war, and cutthroat politics in a world very much like our own--but with dramatic differences. It is 1924--a time of rebuilding, from the slow reconstruction of Washington's most honored monuments to the reclamation of devastated cities in Europe and Canada. In the United States, the Socialist Party, led by Hosea Blackford, battles Calvin Coolidge to hold on to the Powell House in Philadelphia. And it seems as if the Socialists can do no wrong, for the stock market soars and America enjoys prosperity unknown in a half century. But as old names like Custer and Roosevelt fade into history, a new generation faces new uncertainties. The Confederate States, victorious in the War of Secession and in the Second Mexican War but at last tasting defeat in the Great War, suffer poverty and natural calamity. The Freedom Party promises new strength and pride. But if its chief seizes the reins of power, he may prove a dangerous enemy for the hated U.S.A. Yet the United States take little note. Sharing world domination with Germany, they consider events in the Confederacy of little consequence. As the 1920s end, calamity casts a pall across the continent. With civil war raging in Mexico, terrorist uprisings threatening U.S. control in Canada, and an explosion of violence in Utah, the United States are rocked by uncertainty. In a world of occupiers and the occupied, of simmering hatreds, shattered lives, and pent-up violence, the center can no longer hold. And for a powerful nation, the ultimate shock will come when afleet of foreign aircraft rain death and destruction upon one of the great cities of the United States. . . .

“[A] colossal and brilliant saga . . . [This novel] may be the strongest and most compelling since the opener, How Few Remain.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) Seventy years have passed since the first War Between the States. Jake Featherston, leader of the ruling Freedom Party, has won power in the South—and is taking his country and the world to the edge of an abyss. Charismatic and shrewd, he is whipping the Confederate States into a frenzy of hatred. Blacks are being rounded up and sent to prison camps, and the persecution has just begun. As the North stumbles through a succession of leaders, Featherston is feeling his might. With the U.S.A. locked in a bitter, bloody occupation of Canada, facing an intractable rebellion in Utah, and fatigued from a war in the Pacific against Japan, Featherston may pursue one dangerous proposition above all: that he can defeat the U.S.A. in an all-out war. Praise for The Victorious Opposition “Turtledove’s Great War/American Empire series is an epic achievement, a meticulously worked-out alternate history of the twentieth century’s great two-act tragedy. . . . Bravo! A fine performance by a master-craftsman.”—S. M. Stirling, author of Island in the Sea of Time “Anyone who loves history will love what Harry Turtledove can do with it.”—Larry Bond, New York Times bestselling author of Red Phoenix