Turtledove's best series beginning | How Few Remain

Great Alternate History Novel | How Few Remain | Harry Turtledove

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	• How Few Remain Harry Turtledove Del Rey, 1998 - 608 pages average customer review:based on 121 reviews view larger image
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A stunning start to a lengthy series

Good ol' Turtledove. Love him or hate him, in many ways he's responsible for the recent surge in alternate history stories. At his best he puts out books like Guns of the South, Ruled Britannia and In the Presence of Mine Enemies. At his worst... well, even at his worst he's still pretty darn readable.

Thankfully this book, which starts the mammoth so-called "Timeline 191" series, is one of the better books. Taking place in a world where the CSA survived the Civil War, and is now about to go to war against the USA again in 1881, the book is an excellent vision of what might have been.

Most fascinating in the novel are the uses of historical characters. Fredrick Douglass, frustrated at the continuation of slavery in the South. Abraham Lincoln, voted out of office in 1864 and now hated by the nation. Sammuel Clemmens, newspaper editor and all around smart-ass. Stonewall Jackson, the great Terror. And my personal favorite, Teddy Roosevelt, assembling Roosevelts Unauthorized Regiment to fight those dirty Canuks!

This book sets up many events that will come into play later. The Mormon uprising starts here. The Socialist Party begins to come into its own. Roosevelt and Custer make their first appearances. And we start to see the slow transformation of the United States into the sort of country that would, a few decades down the line, consider it entirely acceptable to, when a soldier is attacked, round up civilians and murder them as punishment.

This book holds up well as a stand-alone novel, but much better if you then go from this to the Great War books. It's probably the best of the series, which isn't saying THAT much because the other ones are pretty good, too. While the reader might not always agree with the tracks Turtledove takes the world onto in this book it is at least always an entertaining voyage, and there's far worse things to be.

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Turtledove's best series beginning

If i must choose a favorite Turtledove series beginning novel, I will all ways choose How Few Remain. This novel is a great look at a post-Confederate victory. The amazing thing about this novel is that this particular scenario could have very,and I meen VERY, easily have historically happened. A great read for the "What If" buff and history fans.

Great Alternate History Novel

How Few Remain is about a fictional second American Civil War (the Confederates having one the first in 1863), set in 1881. The war kicks off, as the Confederacy tries to purchase two large provinces off the Empire of Mexico, in a bid to expand westwards to the Pacific. The U.S. wants to stop this from happening.

There is a wide range of characters in the book, mostly real people, e.g General Custer, Theodore Roosevelt, General 'Stonewall' Jackson etc, and a few fictional ones thrown in as well.

The book is fairly well paced, and there is quite a lot of action going on, in many parts of the continent, to go along with the diplomacy in both Washington and Richmond. I found the book an enjoyable read, and I would highly recommend it.

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The Master of Alternate History strikes again!

I have a habit of collecting all the books in a series and then reading them back-to-back. Since IN AT THE DEATH, the eleventh title in this USA vs. Confederacy series was released in paperback in June of '08; I finally got to read my copy of HOW FEW REMAIN purchased in June of '98.

Mr. Turtledove has an effective way of taking an actual historical event and throwing a huge "what if?" curveball into the mix. In our country's actual history, a copy of Robert E. Lee's Special Order 191 detailing his plans for the division and movements of the Army of Northern Virginia during the early days of its invasion of Maryland in September, 1862, fell into Union hands. Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, the commander of the Army of the Potomac, used this intelligence gold mine to stop Lee's invasion at the battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862 - or Sharpsburg as it was referred to in the South. (If you've ever wondered why the Union and Confederate armies gave battles different names, here's the reason - the North named battles and armies after bodies of water. For example, the Army of the Potomac and the battle of Antietam; while the Confederacy named battles after towns and armies after land areas, such as the Army of Northern Virginia and the battle of Sharpsburg. Antietam creek is near the town of Sharpsburg, Maryland.)

In HOW FEW REMAIN, Turtledove reverses the results of that one copy of Robert E. Lee's Special Order 191 being lost - instead it's found by a couple of Confederate infantrymen and returned to the courier. This enables Lee's Army of Northern Virginia to succeed in Maryland, which brings about nation-status recognition from both Great Britain and France; thus forcing the United States to end the War of Secession and grant the South its "divorce" from the Union. Far fetched? Definitely. But is it entertaining? Again - definitely. Since Turtledove's alternate history version of the War Between the States ends in 1862, Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson survives instead of being shot at Chancellorsville on May 2, 1863 and dying eight days later from complications of pneumonia. In HOW FEW REMAIN, Old Jack is the General of the Confederate Army when the second American Civil War breaks out in 1881.

Other reviewers have mentioned the dialogue between historical characters as being too rehearsed or artificial. But really - who knows what these folks would have been like nearly twenty years after some of them actually died in battle? (Such as Stonewall Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart, both of whom are pivotal characters in this book.) If you want to read some difficult, period-style dialogue, I recommend David Poyer's Civil War at Sea trilogy. Fire on the Waters : A Novel of the Civil War at Sea A Country of Our Own: A Novel of the Confederate Raiders That Anvil of Our Souls: A Novel of the Monitor and the Merrimack "Unto, sir, unto!" Great books, but very difficult to read with the stilted, dramatic speeches.

After HOW FEW REMAIN, here are the remaining ten titles in this series:

The Great War Trilogy:
AMERICAN FRONT
WALK IN HELL
BREAKTHROUGHS

Those three are set in what we called WWI, and the South is still aligned with France and Britain while the USA is allied with Germany.

American Empire Trilogy:
BLOOD AND IRON
THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD
THE VICTORIOUS OPPOSITION

The previous three take place in the 20's and 30's as massive political and social upheaval is ripping into both the CSA and USA.

Settling Accounts Series:
RETURN ENGAGEMENT
DRIVE TO THE EAST
THE GRAPPLE
IN AT THE DEATH

Those four wind it up, and all take place in the time frame of what we know as WWII.

If you enjoy good fiction with some history thrown in for good measure, don't pass on HOW FEW REMAIN. It's a thought-provoking read.

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New Convert to Alternative History Fiction

I have been reluctant to read Fiction, regularly opting for admittedly dry non-fiction. Given my love of Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Gold Edition, I wanted the thought-provoking literary equivalent of "What If?"

Before I read How Few Remain, I thoroughly enjoyed Guns of the South which is another fictional take on the Civil War. In that case, the Confederates defeat the Union by exploiting time travel and an unlimited supply of AK-47s. Yeah, seriously.

It's very important to mention that, for better or worse, How Few Remain is not a sequel to Guns of the South. In fact, HFR is the more likely scenario for a Confederate win in 1862.

This time around, you have to picture this: Custer kicks off the second Civil War in 1881 with the introductory use of the gatling gun. Stonewall Jackson is still alive, and the South won the War of Secession. Frederick Douglas is reporting from the front lines of the Louisville siege. Samuel Clemens is a fiery editor for a San Francisco newspaper. And Lincoln's alive to travel the west, inciting Marxist rallies. To say the least, it's an entertaining alternative history.

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From the master of alternate history comes an epic of the second Civil War. It was an epoch of glory and success, of disaster and despair. . . .

1881: A generation after the South won the Civil War, America writhed once more in the bloody throes of battle. Furious over the annexation of key Mexican territory, the United States declared total war against the Confederate States of America in 1881.

But this was a new kind of war, fought on a lawless frontier where the blue and gray battled not only each other but the Apache, the outlaw, the French, and the English. As Confederate General Stonewall Jackson again demonstrated his military expertise, the North struggled to find a leader who could prove his equal. In the Second War Between the States, the times, the stakes, and the battle lines had changed--and so would history. . .

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