 First edition (US) | |
| Author | Harry Turtledove |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Big Dot Design |
| Language | English |
| Series | Settling Accounts series |
| Genre | Alternate History |
| Publisher | Del Rey Books |
Publication date | August 2005 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Paperback &Hardback) |
| ISBN | 0-345-45724-2 |
| OCLC | 56955875 |
| 813/.6 22 | |
| LC Class | PS3570.U76 S473 2005 |
| Preceded by | Settling Accounts: Return Engagement |
| Followed by | Settling Accounts: The Grapple |
Drive to the East is the second book inHarry Turtledove'sSettling Accounts series ofalternate history novels.[1]
It is set in an analog ofWorld War II known as theSecond Great War in North America, fought between theUnited States andConfederate States. It was released in August 2005. It followsReturn Engagement and precedesThe Grapple in the tetralogy. It takes theSouthern VictoryEarth from 1942 to 1943.[2][3]
As the title suggests, the novel contains analogues of historical 1942 battles, such as theGerman drive to, and theBattle of Stalingrad. In the novel,Confederate armies in occupiedOhio drive intoPennsylvania withPittsburgh as their objective, codenamed Operation Coalscuttle. It also involves analogues of theBattle of Midway, theManhattan Project, and theHolocaust.
By the summer of 1942, the U.S. push underGeneral Daniel MacArthur into northernVirginia has stalled in the face of fierce opposition. This allowsGeneralGeorge Patton to concentrate his forces in Ohio for a renewed push into westernPennsylvania. Aided by improved armor and assault tactics, his troops quickly advance across eastern Ohio to Pittsburgh's outskirts. HoweverBrigadier General Irving Morrell, who now commands the U.S. defense of the Ohio Front, prevents the CSA from enveloping Pittsburgh as planned and forces them into a street to street fight.
Meanwhile, Jefferson Davis Pinkard enjoys rapid advancement through the Freedom Party hierarchy as he begins to develop the machinery required to implement Jake Featherston'sFinal Solution to the "Negro problem". HisCamp Determination is now so efficient that it is able to swallow and extinguish the entire Negro population ofJackson, Mississippi (including Richard Wright) as reprisals against local insurgents. InAugusta, Georgia's nowghettoized Negro district, Scipio, a former slave andMarxist rebel during theGreat War, manages for a time to skirt the ever increasing terror descending across the CSA's Negro population. Eventually, he too is swallowed up and finds himself in acattle car heading towards a bleak future. Elsewhere inGeorgia, captured U.S.fighter pilot Jonathan Moss escapes from aPOW camp and joins a small band ofNegro rebels.
At sea, Lt. Sam Carsten's ship,USS Remembrance, is sunk by anImperial Japanese carrier attack and theSandwich Islands (our universe'sHawaii) are threatened with capture. Nevertheless, he finds himself promoted and placed in charge of a destroyer escort, where he spends time patrollingAtlantic sea lanes and engaging in special operations. George Enos Jr.'s destroyer is nearly sunk in an engagement near Japanese-heldMidway due to lack of sea-borne air power. However, when two escort carriers manage to reachOahu, the tide begins to turn. In a climactic battle, George's fleet sinks a Japanese carrier guarding Midway.
In this history, thePacific War against Japan is treated as essentially a sideshow, getting only a trickle of resources - since the US are facing a dangerous invasion of their industrial heartland. Strategic aims in the Pacific are confined to recapturingMidway to remove the threat to the Sandwich Islands, and characters consider the idea of conducting an island-hopping war all the way to the Japanese home islands (as the US did in World War II) as an unrealistic fantasy. Also, in this history, thePhilippines andGuam are long-standing and recognized possessions of the Japanese, which they had wrested fromSpain during the Hispano-Japanese War between the late 1800s and early 1900s and to which the US laid no claim.
The CSA have pressured their weak ally, Emperor Francisco José II of Mexico, into reluctantly providing troops to reinforce the Coalscuttle attack. Under cover of an early November storm, General Morrell leads an armored breakthrough against the poorly equipped Mexicans protecting Patton's flank. Joining up with another salient coming out ofWest Virginia, he traps the bulk of Patton's army, and drives deep into Ohio. Featherston, beginning an apparent descent into madness, gives the trapped army maniacal orders to hold its ground rather than attempt a breakout. When the promised resupply by air fails, Patton is ordered to escape by air and CSA resistance near Pittsburgh collapses. The sequence of events is similar to that which led to the destruction of theGerman Sixth Army in Battle of Stalingrad during our timeline'sWorld War II.
Jonathan Moss spends most of the book as a frustrated POW held atAndersonville, Georgia, under conditions unpleasant but far more tolerable than of the infamousWar of Secession POW camp of the same location. He and others manage to escape after atornado blows down the camp's fences. He and another escaped POW join a blackguerrilla band whose capable leader took up thenom de guerreSpartacus. During a raid onPlains, Georgia, Moss killsJimmy Carter, a young Confederate naval officer on leave, in front ofhis mother as he tries to rally the townspeople against the raiding blacks.
General Abner Dowling is transferred from the Virginia front to take up command of the 11th Army and open a new front by invadingTexas, in order to prevent the Confederates from moving forces from there to reinforce the main front around Pittsburgh. By February 1943, his forces are approachingLubbock, Texas, and - still unknown to him, but highly alarming for Pinkard and the Freedom Party High Command - threatening to capture Camp Determination and expose its litany of horrors. Both sides are working desperately to develop anuclear weapon, although the US is slightly in the lead. Featherston's increasingly irrational conduct of the war raises suspicions and leads Generals Clarence Potter andNathan Bedford Forrest III to consider a plot to overthrow him.
Publishers Weekly gave the book a moderately good review, stating that "As in the previous volume, Turtledove comes up with convincing analogues to events during WWII, such as the Confederate army's Stalingrad-like defeat around Pittsburgh. On the other hand, his portrait of the führer-like Featherstone is less persuasive". SF Site also gave the book praise mixed with some criticism, saying that "Unfortunately, Drive to the East is very much a middle book in a series" but also that the book was "a worthy sequel".[4]