That's it, I'm done!

[awp101]

With a series of books I've been devouring for about 10 years now that is...

It's the Harry Turtledove series dealing with an alternate history of America that starts with the CSA winning the Civil War and what takes place over the next 80 years. It's a fascinating series of books (10 or 11, I lost count) and if you're familiar with American, world and military history you'll find lots of familiar events that don't take place in the exact same place or manner as what we know happened but that's part of the fun. You find yourself thinking "OK, that's based on such and such event!" or "Ah, that campaign follows this real one two wars earlier!" (Or in some cases events taking place today).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline-191

Timeline-191 is a fan name given to a series of Harry Turtledove alternate history novels, including How Few Remain as well as the Great War, American Empire, and Settling Accounts series. The name is derived from Robert E. Lee's Special Order 191, which detailed the Army of Northern Virginia's invasion of the Union in September 1862 during the American Civil War. The divergence occurs when Union forces do not find a copy of Special Order 191. The novels detail the consequences of this up until 1945 in the alternate world.

I'd been working through the last book in the series for the past three weeks as free time allowed and just as it got to my bedtime last night I found myself 50 pages shy of the end. I knew good and well it was time to go to bed but I simply could not stop reading. It cost me an hour and a half or so of sleep but it sure was worth it!

If you have a hankering for "what if?" stuff and haven't checked this series out, do it. Be forewarned though, I wouldn't let kids get into it since the language is pretty un-PC (remember, the South won and "that" word abounds) and they probably won't be familiar with the real events the series is based on unless you've been home schooling them and hit History pretty good.

Now I have more time to hang out here!

[Killer Kanuck]

I've read the Great War series and some of American Empire, along with How Few Remain - really good reading. Guns of the South was pretty good too - little more sci-fi than alternate history, but interesting to read about their attempts to get black powder ammo to work in an AK.

[Old Ironsights]

Loved "Guns of the South". Probably the best description of REL's true politics than anywhere else.

The Eric Flint "Ring of Fire" series (1632, 1633, etc) where an entire West VA coal town is transported to 1632 Thungeria just in time for the 30 years war is a similarly good read...

Also Leo Frankowski's "Crosstime Engineer" series, set in Poland just before the Mongol Invasion...

[awp101]

Guns of the South was great as well!

A buddy sent it to me saying "I saw Robert E Lee with an AK on the cover. I figured it was right up your alley!"

[jeepnik]

Not that much of a Civil War buff. But, I recently read Newt Gringrich's (don't start) novel "Pearl Harbor, A novel of December 8th". The premis is that one fateful decision dealing with the attack would be done differently. It's a well written work of fiction based on historical fact up to the altered decision. A bit of revisonistic in the history, as I learned it, but still thought provoking. I won't spoil it in case someone wants to read it, but Halsey does have the final say, and they are words one could imagine coming from that great man.

[oldmax]

I prefer History, I read 3 hours each night ( No TV, And I don't miss it ).

2 book series on " Gen Grant " by Catton is a good read...

[JustaJeepGuy]

I read the ELEVEN books in Turtledove's "If the South won the war" series. One thing that surprised me was that Turtledove referred to Patton's voice, and said it was gravelly (or something like that). George C. Scott's voice was gravelly, but Patton's voice was high-pitched. I don't know why Turtledove put that in there.

[awp101]

That's right, it is eleven books. I forgot the WWII series is four books not three.

[JustaJeepGuy]

I forgot to un-bold the "ELEVEN". That was intended to be a comment on how Turtledove writes all those series books, not a comment on your count of the books. I lost a lot of sleep in the reading of those books, too.