The Guns of the South

The Guns of the South

Infobox Book
name = The Guns of the South


image_caption =
author = Harry Turtledove
country = United States
language = English
cover_artist =
series =
genre = Alternate history novel
publisher = Ballantine|
release_date = 22 September, 1992
media_type = Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
pages = 561 pp
isbn = ISBN 0-345-37675-7, ISBN 0-345-38468-7
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"The Guns of the South" (1992, ISBN 0-345-37675-7) is a novel by writer Harry Turtledove.

Plot summary

An alternate history story set during the American Civil War, the story deals with a group of time-travelling "Afrikanerweerstandsbeweging" members who supply Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia with AK-47s and small amounts of other supplies (including nitroglycerine tablets for treating Lee's heart condition), leading to a Southern victory in the war.

Analysis

The story is told alternately from the third-person perspectives of General Lee himself and of First Sergeant Nate Caudell, an actual life of the post-war Confederacy. The realities of the situation gradually reveal themselves as Lee learns more about his dubious allies, while Caudell also hears increasingly disturbing rumors about the situation at Rivington - with the concluding explosive confrontation with the AWB again seen alternately from the two distinct viewpoints.

Turtledove used historical records of an actual Confederate Army unit, the 47th North Carolina, to flesh out his list of characters. All the characters in the book are mentioned with the actual ranks they held in the 47th - including Mollie Bean, who as a woman masqueraded as a male Confederate soldier for most of the War before being wounded and captured by Union forces - as well as their civilian employment if it is known.

Awards

The book won the John Esten Cooke Award for Southern Fiction in 1993.

In other science fiction

* Dr. Turtledove has an entire (unrelated) book series, known among fans as Timeline-191, on an alternate history in which the Confederacy won the Civil War. In this series, however, the Confederacy does not win the war through intervention involving time travel. Rather, the famous 'lost orders' are found by other Confederates, meaning that the Union does not learn of Lee's plans. A battle equivalent to the Battle of Antietam results in a decisive Confederate victory.

* The idea of a time traveller bringing advanced weapons to Confederates is also the theme of Harry Harrison's book "A Rebel In Time". The two treatments are, however, very different.

* Several of the characters, or at least South African people with the same name, appeared in S. M. Stirling's 2003 novel "Conquistador", where they are killed. A copy of the Turtledove book is seen on a bookshelf in Stirling's novel.

External links

* [http://www.uta.fi/FAST/US1/P2/PF/ta-south.html Americanisms in Harry Turtledove's The Guns of the South, Tatu Ahponen, 2003 (including detailed summary)]
* [http://www.seangabb.co.uk/freelife/flhtm/fl20taha.htm review by Mark Taha]


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