How few remain

This is not a book. This is a fanfiction of history. Turtledove does not develop his own characters, he pulls some ready made characters out of history and drops them in a plot of his own making. And that plot is wonderful. He clearly has put a lot of thought into his premise, making reasonable guesses about the course of history if the South maintained it's Independence. But that does not excuse the lack of character creation. This book includes Lincoln, Custer, Theodore Roosevelt, Stonewall Jackson, and many other famous characters as it's main cast, and they are all paper thin foils of their real selves; Lincoln's a revolutionary, Custer's a bloody leader, Roosevelt's a Jingoist, and Jackson's a loyal military commander. By far my favorite character was the German Military attache, Colonel Schlieffen (who would go on the be the architect of the Schlieffen Plan), just cause he wasn't shackled to a historical portrayal of his character. I could learn and explore who his character was, rather than knowing as soon as the word Custer was written on the page. He gave Lincoln an interesting spin by making him a Marxist, and if he had done that with every other character I would have shouted his praise from the rooftops. But he didn't, so I call this a fanfiction because Turtledove blatantly grabbed characters from another medium and used them for this own story.

Also, this book loses another star by having frayed fucking edges. I'll keep doing this until publishers stop.