In at the Death

By: Harry Turtledove

Narrated by: Paul Costanzo

Length: 25 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's Summary

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 on to its desperate alliance with the United States' 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 60 years, this one yet unnamed: a grinding, horrifying series of hostilities and atrocities between two nations sharing the same continent and both calling themselves Americans.

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.

©2007 Harry Turtledove (P)2016 Tantor

A good finish

Fairly good, though I will say I wish we got to see more of the aftermath. Perhaps somewhere down the line, but as it stands I found the cutoff a little abrupt

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

The end of an era.

If you could sum up In at the Death in three words, what would they be?

Very well done for the most part.

What did you like best about this story?

The storyline, the narration, not so much.

What didn’t you like about Paul Costanzo’s performance?

He didn't seem to get accents quite right, and, I was used to the narration George Guidall did of the other books in the series before Paul took over.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I couldn't do that.

Any additional comments?

A must-have for fans of alternate history.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

This Is All Too Real

This series shows us how humans are capable of the most base and awful acts. A good comparison to what happened during WWII. Regardless, it’s a classic story of the light vs the dark right smack dab in the middle of the USA before the boomers.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Great story, needs a sequel

Great story, all 10 books. Wishing for more. What will the US vs Germany cold war look like, will the former confederates be a fifth column?

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

A great conclusion to the series

I loved this book. I loved how realistic its conclusion of the 2nd world war was, and how it showed that the losers were people too and the winners can be less than good people. i loved the way it set up for the possibility of a series in the Cold War era. I eagerly hope for more books in this series. Harry Turtledove is the master of alt-history.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

End of one of the Best

This book (& series) isn't for everyone, but I think it's one of the best. Can't say enough... it really brings things to life. It makes you glad it's only fictional, and not real.

A Fantastic End

An incredible end to an incredible series. While it feels a bit cliched at times, it wraps up all the character’s stories nicely. I only wish there were more books to the “Southern Victory/Timeline 191” series, as this book sets up an alternate world that I *really* want to delve into deeper.

The narrator isn’t as good as the gentleman from the first two books, but his performance has grown on me.

Lost potential to an outstanding series,

I have committed to the southern victory series and have enjoyed it most of the way through. Seeing it at the end now gives perspective for its end.

I don’t want anyone to mistake that I enjoyed this series, but its ending is good and disappointing at the same time.

Certain characters suffer their ends, that has been true of this entire series and what was kind of nice about it. I suppose Harry was trying to mirror real life, few have a glorious end. But coming in to the home stretch of the series and killing certain characters unceremoniously starts to feel irritating. Two examples are Scipio and the Calotans.

These happened in earlier books but I had so much hope for Scipio, I thought he would see the death camps for what they were and, even if he knew they were done for, embrace his legacy as a revolutionary leader against the CSA (as he is still infamously at large as the books like to remind us) reveal himself to the crowd of guard and doomed black people and inspire them to make one last stand against the CSA or to get out of the death camp if they were already in one and reveal them to the world. But no! He dies, his wife and daughter are probably dead as the book doesn’t really go back to them once Rodriguez ALSO unceremoniously dies, his son had no idea who Scipio really was and went on to get lucky with killing a guy. That must have been what the whole story ark was about.

The Calotans go out like chumps and I won’t really get into it.

Like I said I like the series. But the it is marred by lost potential, like seeing if the USA or Germany could come to each other’s aid in a big way, like sending over troops and getting a European side of the story. But that is over with and you must take the series for what it is.

All in all the story is worth the time if you invest in it.

Alt-history series ruined by awful writing.

Could have been great. Ambitious and interesting series dragged down by redundancy, cliches, stereotypes and just plain poor writing. Can't say it's without merit but could have so much better if Turtledove had literary skills.