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Walk In Hell (The Great War, Book 2) | 
| Author: Harry Turtledove
Publisher: Del Rey
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  77 reviews
Sales Rank: 25092
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 640
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0345405625
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780345405623
ASIN: 0345405625
Publication Date: July 5, 2000
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Amazon.com
Harry Turtledove marches on through history with The Great War: Walk in Hell. In his alternate timeline, the Confederate States of America won the Civil War, aided by Britain and France. In the 1880s (How Few Remain), Americans fought again after the CSA acquired parts of Mexico--and the CSA won again. When WWI begins with Archduke Ferdinand's assassination in 1914 (The Great War: American Front), the 34-state USA under Teddy Roosevelt allies with Imperial Germany and Austria against Britain, France, Russia, Japan, Canada, and Woodrow Wilson's CSA. Trenches divide Canada, fierce fighting rages from Tennessee and Kentucky into Pennsylvania, a Mormon uprising against the USA consumes Utah, and a black socialist rebellion distracts the CSA, where slavery has ended but blacks still await full citizenship. Walk in Hell takes us from fall, 1915, through 1916. Soldiers, sailors, and airmen continue the fight, but much happens behind the lines too. Turtledove's characters include Jewish immigrants who are socialist and antiwar, a widow running a coffee house in CSA-occupied Washington, D.C., who passes information to the USA, and two Canadian farmers living under U.S. occupation in Quebec and Manitoba. He vividly conveys the human side of war. When Joe Hammerschmitt gets a shoulder wound in the Virginia trenches: ... pain warred with exultation on his long, thin face. Exultation won. 'Got me a hometowner, looks like,' he said happily. Half the men up there with him made sympathetic noises; the other half looked frankly jealous. Hammerschmitt was going to be out of the firing line for weeks, maybe months, to come, and they still risked not just death but horrible mutilation every day. Some find Turtledove's cast too large, the story's action too slow. Others complain that Walk in Hell is too similar to his Worldwar series. Alternate history buffs, however, will marvel at his mastery of detail, enjoy following his logic as he pursues military and social developments onward in time, and find it hard to wait for the next in the series. --Nona Vero
Product Description
The year is 1915, and the world is convulsing. Though the Confederacy has defeated its northern enemy twice, this time the United States has allied with the Kaiser. In the South, the freed slaves, fueled by Marxist rhetoric and the bitterness of a racist nation, take up the weapons of the Red rebellion. Despite these advantages, the United States remains pinned between Canada and the Confederate States of America, so the bloody conflict continues and grows. Both presidents--Theodore Roosevelt of the Union and staunch Confederate Woodrow Wilson--are stubbornly determined to lead their nations to victory, at any cost. . .
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| Customer Reviews: Read 72 more reviews...
 Succeeds at What it Attempts. September 8, 2005
The scope is large: the entire theater of World War I on North American soil. This scale is typical Turtledove. The story here is more vast than a few carefully crafted characters could contain. As a novel reader, one is tempted to wish for a tighter focus. One may want to delve deeper into the tender psyches of several of the more interesting characters, such as Jonathan Moss the flying Ace, or Jake Featherston the artillery Sergeant, or Anne Colleton the Mistress of pillaged Mosslands Plantation, but the theater of WWI in America requires a broad cross-section of humanity; and as such, necessarily, we must be content with the briefest snippets of each character's adventure as part of the grander scheme of the entire drama. So, going beyond the perceived missing characterization, this novel succeeds at what it attempts. It purports to be an alternate history novel of WWI fought right here in America. Reading A Walk in Hell gives one a great feel for the war that never was. The mindsets of the principles are ably represented. The people may be shallow but they are realistic portrayals of early twentieth century people. We get to experience the war from the point of view of people on, and behind, many lines of battle, and on both sides of the conflict. The theme here is that people, though from many a varied background, are very much alike. The reader can empathize with most of the characters.
The entire affair has an air of plausibility due largely to the fact that Turtledove never deviates far from actual historical events. The war in Europe continues as before, and the technological advancements of the weapons of war progress at a pace coinciding with those of the real war. We see the first use of tanks to breakthrough the stalemate of trench warfare, and airplane advances promise to alter the war's outcome as planes become more than just aerial reconnaissance devices.
The characters, while necessarily stereotypes, are consistent with the period, with there racial biases, and vengeful tendencies toward the enemy. Our personal contemporary experiences, with the persistent prevailing animosity between the North and the South, lend credibility to the feelings the characters express toward such political antagonists as depicted in this book, the U.S. and the C.S.A., who have fought not just one civil war, but now are engaged in their third period of hot aggression.
A consistent theme throughout all of Turtledove's Great War books, and The Guns of the South for that matter, is unjustified racial discrimination. More often are whites depicted as people of dubious substance than are blacks. Turtledove does a commendable job of giving reasons for this discrimination in the minds of the white characters, both North and South, and some characters are seen to grow in their empathy for the plight of the Black man.
The experienced Turtledove reader will be immediately engaged in the scope of this novel, enjoying the shifting perspective between the various character vignettes that comprise the structure of the book. Turtledove unfolds his story chronologically even thought told through the eyes of many diverse characters. This chronological structure helps the reader keep track of the grand progress of the war throughout the novel despite following the action through many characters on many different fronts. This diffusion of focus can be unsettling unless one grasps the broader panorama of the world Turtledove is trying to convey. Once that broad panorama is understood the experience of letting it unveil before you is quite enjoyable.
This is a very plot driven novel despite the diffuse focus on many different characters, the plot being the slow plodding of a war. This book is recommended to those who can hold a complicated story firm in their heads while gaining only glimpses of the lives of characters.
The NEVER Ending Story or Deja Vu all over again!- Part 2 July 3, 2005
"Walk in Hell" is the second book of Harry Turtledove's "The Great War" trilogy. To recap where we are in this series: the trilogy is an outgrowth of a single book: "How Few Remain". And, the only character that "remained" from that book to move into the trilogy was General Custer. This book wrought the Great War trilogy: 1) American Front, 2) Walk in Hell, and 3) Breakthroughs. This second book solidifies what has become a truly never ending story of nasty Southerners, displaced Mexicans, incompetent Northern officers and feisty Canadians reappear who NEVER die! As with the first book, by the end of this one you will wish that the carnage had been more complete - you pray for the invention of the atomic bomb to end all of civilization but there are no more volumes to go.
It you are like me and want to make sure that you start at the beginning of an author's work and read through to the end, no matter how many volumes, this second volume is almost guaranteed to stifle your reading desires. I have read the entire trilogy and will review the last volume also, but I'll give you my bottom line here so you don't have to drive through all three of my reviews. Take this trilogy to the beach, mountains or lake and if you have a vacation of rain where you have to be indoors, this trilogy will fill those hours. If you don't finish the trilogy during your vacation, PLEASE leave them for the next humans to inhabit that vacation space.
This volume begins with George Enos and after 484 pages there is no resolution of this minor character's Confederate prison camp experience. Don't get me wrong, all the character story lines - and there are dozens to keep straight - are interesting. They just NEVER end. War is a study of death, destruction and tragedy. By the end of this second of the trilogy you are hoping for a few of these characters - especially the saccharine ones -been an untimely demise. I was drawn to the third volume because I really wanted them to meet their ends.
Good installment in alternative WWI series August 2, 2004
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
In The Great War: Walk in Hell, Harry Turtledove continues his tale of an alternate world in which the United States and Confederate States fight the "war to end all wars." From the vantage point of the characters he introduced in the previous volume, American Front, the reader follows events from the fall of 1915 - with the sides deadlocked in a bloody stalemate and facing rebellions at home - to the end of 1916. His command of the period is excellent and, while some characters are better defined than others, the overall depictions are strong enough to sustain a reader's interest throughout the novel. Together their experiences convey the grinding misery of war, with the deaths of a couple of his main characters helping to underline the tragedy of the conflict. As a result, while suffering from some of the drag inherent in any middle novel of a series that seeks to sustain action without reaching conclusion, "Walk in Hell" is an entertaining read and a good addition to his developing tetralogy.
 Amazing January 21, 2004
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I started this series expecting to be entertained, but only mildly. I was sept off my feet by all three of the books in this series. It is a great read for anyone into military, historical, or alternate history fiction novels
The Great War gets bogged down January 10, 2004
Walk In Hell is the continuation of Turtledove's alternative history of WWI as fought on American soil. Walk In Hell continues the story exactly where American Front leaves off and focuses largely on the inability for either side to escape the horror of trench warfare. In the Confederacy the blacks rise up in communist insurrection taking advantage of the South's distraction with the war. With the fight stalled on most fronts Walk in Hell works to further develop the 12 or so characters Turtledove is following through the war.
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