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The Grapple (Settling Accounts, Book 3) | 
 enlarge | Author: Harry Turtledove
Publisher: Del Rey
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy New: $8.91
You Save: $7.04 (44%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  60 reviews
Sales Rank: 64277
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 640
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 1.5
ISBN: 0345464079
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780345464071
ASIN: 0345464079
Publication Date: June 26, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20081202223058T
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Product Description
“A profoundly thoughtful masterpiece of alternate history.”
–Booklist
It is 1943, the third summer of the new war between the Confederate States of America and the United States, a war that will turn on the deeds of ordinary soldiers, extraordinary heroes, and a colorful cast of spies, politicians, rebels, and everyday citizens. The CSA president, Jake Featherston, seems to have greatly miscalculated the North’s resilience. But as new demonic tools of killing are unleashed, secret wars are unfolding. The U.S. government in Philadelphia has proof that the tyrannical Featherston is murdering African Americans by the tens of thousands in a Texas gulag called Determination. And the leaders of both sides know full well that the world’s next great power will not be the one with the biggest army but the nation that wins the race against nature and science–and smashes open the power of the atom.
“Turtledove never tires of exploring the paths not taken, bringing to his storytelling a prodigious knowledge of his subject and a profound understanding of human sensibilities and motivations.”
–Library Journal
“One of the strongest books in the extended series.”
–sfsite.com
“Compelling.”
–Publishers Weekly
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| Customer Reviews: Read 55 more reviews...
 One of the Better Books in the Series October 28, 2008
While not an entry point, this is actually one of the better novels in this series. Rather than a static - and sometimes unconvincing - recreation of European WWI trench warfare on America soil, a Fuehrer rearming the Confederate States of America in the interwar years, and the Battle of Stalingrad retold as the Battle of Pittsburgh, this novel has a lot of mobile warfare as the USA drives into the heart of the Confederacy. Turtledove continues, from earlier novels in the series, bringing in tactical innovations not seen in our version of WWII. There is also more attention to the other theatres of war outside of North America. And, in this harsher alternate to our world, a lot of thought is expended on what to do with various rebels be they Canadian, Mormon, or the soon to be vanquished Confederates.
Genocide is irrefutably exposed in Camp Determination where one characters meets an unexpected end and another One meets an all too expected end.
In short, this novel feels more like an alternate history - and not just a retelling of history with changed names and places - than any other book in this series apart from its stellar start, How Few Remain.
 A slight improvement to the series September 11, 2008
This book continues the long-running Timeline-191 series in which the Confederate States gained independence in the Civil War and have had numerous wars with the United States ever since. The Settling Accounts series recounts an alternate version of World War II with the USA and CSA on opposite sides. In this third volume, the US has repelled the Confederate invasion and is now beginning an offensive into Confederate territory, which ends up looking a lot like Sherman's plan in our actual Civil War. Meanwhile, Confederate leader Jake Featherston's plan to eliminate all the blacks in the south continues with the expansion of the concentration camps.
This book is unlikely to be of interest to anyone who has not read the previous books in at least the Settling Accounts series, as it has nothing that distinguishes it individually. It continues most of the flaws of the earlier books, especially repetitiveness, although thankfully some of the more common repeated phrases have been mostly eliminated. We still get to hear many times about how bad US cigarettes are though. The biggest issue with the book is just general bloat. Most viewpoint character segments have one little nugget of information to provide that moves the overall story forward, but they spend five pages doing it by padding the segment out with some usually irrelevant conversations. There are whole segments such as the Leonard O'Doull ones which seem to serve no purpose at all. The book also continues to imitate WWII too closely. The Confederates develop new weapons such as rockets at this point in time because that is what the Nazis had at a similar point in WWII, not because it is logical that the Confederates would have a lot of skilled rocket scientists. Towards the end of the book, momentum is starting to build up in the story, and I hoped that some surprises would be coming, but instead the story stalled out and very little happens in the last couple of hundred pages. Despite the flaws, I did find this book somewhat more interesting than the first two books of Settling Accounts. Hopefully, the final volume will have some surprises, but I am not too confident that it will.
fantastic! August 18, 2008
Great book for those who are excited about alternative history. The cast is wonderful, too.
Much to flabble about November 25, 2007
Many others have said these books have gotten boring, and I won't argue with them, because they're right. It is just becoming so painful to get through these books. But if you've read this saga from the beginning, you have to do it just to find out where the thing eventually leads.
I'm not sure if this was the worst in the series, but it was close. I was mortified to see Turtledove kill off Scipio, one of the most interesting characters. This amazing individual, with his education and all that potential, was gassed with little fanfare. The same thing happened to Anne Colleton, another of the more interesting characters, one or two books ago. Other semi-interesting characters, like Dr. O'Doull and Flora Blackford are still alive but have become so dull that you just want to skip over their pages.
One would hope that Turtledove would find some interesting plot twists, but everything just grinds along pretty much the dullest possible way. The South strikes quickly, runs out of gas, and the North grinds them down with overwhelming resources.
Maybe Turtledove will do us a favor by letting the CSA be the first to get an A-bomb.
Anyhow, here's hoping the final book will be a little more readable.
grapple November 3, 2007
compelling page-turner; always makes you want to read more and to know more about actual history.
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