From Amazon.com
Harry Harrison has been publishing science fiction for half a century; this novel appears in 2000, the year of his 75th birthday. His 1998
Stars and Stripes Forever was a foray into alternative history at the time of the U.S. Civil War. An opportunistic British invasion is so badly bungled that it unites warring Union and Confederate forces against the common enemy, and the course of events is rousingly changed.
Now it's 1863 and perfidious Albion is making a comeback via the Pacific, establishing a Mexican beachhead and planning attacks on united America's "soft underbelly" in the Gulf of Mexico. Gurkha and Sepoy troops build roads while sweaty white officers express nostalgia for England: "I despair of ever seeing her blissfully cold and fog-shrouded shores again."
An early coup of misdirection makes the British advance seem unstoppable--but America forges ahead with new guns and naval armor, and General Robert E. Lee devises an audacious counterblow. What better way to disrupt Britain's wicked schemes than to strike at her own rebellious province of Ireland?
Harrison, an American, perhaps overdoes the lofty dignity of figures like Abraham Lincoln, while showing British politicians with their full complement of warts. But the breathless, headlong action sweeps you away as the battle is planned and at last joined. Even hardened English patriots will feel a sense of wish-fulfillment at the possibility that America may solve the "Irish Question" for them. This is a rapid-paced, slightly slapdash, and unfailingly energetic adventure in alternate history--all great fun. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk
--This text refers to an alternate
Hardcover
edition.
Product Description
"HARRY HARRISON IS ONE OF SCIENCE FICTION’S MOST PROLIFIC AND ACCOMPLISHED CRAFTSMEN."
—The New York Times Book Review
In the midst of Civil War, a stunned North and South join forces to combat a sudden attack of British troops. Though the Americans are victorious, three years later a new threat emerges. Her Majesty’s Army is massing for a possible attack through Texas. Into the gauntlet Lincoln sends his chosen angel of death, General Ulysses S. Grant—while his top soldiers, including Robert E. Lee and William Tecumseh Sherman, plan the most daring naval invasion ever launched: an assault on British soil itself.
Stars and Stripes in Peril is the new masterwork from one of the world’s most provocative authors. Venturing beyond a fascinating question of what if? Harry Harrison brilliantly examines the people and passions that make up nations both great and small—and shows how technology and politics had the power to shape history’s first great World War . . . half a century before it began . . .
"Lovers of novels of alternate history hold Harry Harrison in high regard and his latest book can only enhance that esteem."
—Abilene Reporter News
--This text refers to the
Mass Market Paperback
edition.
