Russian Amerika (Russian Amerika Series Book 1) by Stoney Compton

Russian Amerika is an alternate history with the premise that the American Civil War was lost by the Northern army, and the United States was divided into ten different countries. The story takes place in 1987, where the Russians under the Czar run a police state in Alaska.

The main character is a disgraced Russian officer Grigorievich forced to resign his commission due disobeying an order that saved his men. He leads the revolt with Native peoples in attempt throw of the yoke of the Russian Empire.

The book written with a nice easy to read style, or was it that I was just trying to get through the book at the quick step?. I find the premise of this alternate history  problematic. The characters are a bit one dimensional, and very predictable. The story is filled with a lot of action for fans of military based alternate histories. However, like the characters the action is predictable with predictable outcomes.

It isn't exactly clear with the point of divergence happened in the historical outline. The story hints at a Civil War won by the Confederacy at some point prior to 1860 causing the United States to lose vast areas of land west of the Mississippi. It hints at possible pod before the Civil War. Technology appears to stand still in the book from 1930's-1980's.

I wanted to like this book, but struggled to finish it with all the story line holes. There is a liberal leaning to the book with Mario Cuomo hinted to be the President of the United States, Jimmy Carter as a senior officer in the Confederacy with the First Nations (nation) being on good terms with the United States, but not with British Columbia. What happened to manifest destiny? Or go west young man? Ignoring the fact that native tribes weren't on good terms among themselves.

The book has some entertainment value. I would give it 2.5 stars on the five star scale.

The Guns of the South, by Harry Turtledove

Harry Turtledove's The Guns of the  South was one of the fastest most entertaining books I ever read. Well . . . at least for the first part of the book. I particulary enjoyed the blend of alternate history, and science fiction with the time travel aspect. Andries Rhoodie travels in time to the Civil War to offer the AK-47 to the Confederates for only $50 in C.S.A. dollars. A deal Robert E. Lee can't refuse. The new weaponary leads to a route of the Union forces, and Abraham Lincoln suing for peace. I was interested in the view through as portrayed through  the eyes of Nate Caudell of the 47th North Carolina, as my own family served in the 22nd North Carolina infantry. I enjoyed the book, but thought it tried to compact too much into one volume. The views of Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest after the war lacked more detailed information. The 100 or so pages of the politics after the war tend to drag the book down a bit. What was the motivation of the Afrikaners? Besides just being racistist according to the book? I thought we should have had a better glimpse of their fears, and motivations. The book could have offered more detail in the post war Union and South. The political intrigues that a lost war with a border country could bring about.  A question from the Union perspective would be steal or buy weapons from southerns to see if you could make something similar.  I liked the book, and would recommend it to others, but it leaves a lot of unanswered questions, but maybe that is why I still discuss the book.

The Shiloh Project, by David Poyer

The two most popular POD's (points of departure) in alternate history fiction are the Axis winning WWII, and the South winning the Civil War. This is one of the latter, and it's an interesting twist on it. I couldn't detect exactly what the difference was that caused the Southern victory (those of you better acquainted with that period of history might find it), but it ended up with an independent Confederacy, which extended itself to the Pacific to include Arizona, evidently including New Mexico, and Southern California, in another war with the Union twenty years later.

The book is tantalizingly sparse in historical facts otherwise. All we know about the presidents of the two countries is that Lee seems to have followed Davis in the CSA, and McClelland, Lincoln, in the USA.  And there was a WWI, but the USA seems to have fought Japan without other countries becoming involved in the 1970's. Oh, and the CSA includes Cuba.

And the plot is a good one. It seems at first to be a condemnation of White treatment of Blacks in the CSA, and it is that, but it's a lot more nuanced than you'd think at first look. It involves the theft of a nuclear device from the USA by the CSA, and that should be enough to get you interested. You can get it from Amazon HERE.  And be careful not to buy another book of the same title by another author, also at Amazon. It might be a great book, but it's not this one.

And failing that, the book seems to pop up at used book stores a lot. I recommend it. Enjoy.