Return Engagement (Settling Accounts Trilogy, Book 1) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)First of all, I really like the plot of this series of books by Harry Turtledove. He is very imaginative in fashioning the alternative history following a Confederate victory in the Civil War. I also like his plot device of showing all events through the eyes of a large and diverse cast of characters.
But... BUT... the author continues to annoy the heck out of me with his tendency to repeat, repeat, and repeat again the characteristics and motivations of each of the characters. Ditto factual elements, such as the streets and sidewalks in black neighborhoods being in bad shape. It's as if he thinks we have forgotten what we read 50 pages previously. His editor should have clued him in a long time ago that this was not only unnecessary, but also a turn-off for readers. I would guess that over 95% of the people reading this book have read at least some of the previous books as well. We already know (to pick one of the most obvious examples) that Sam Carsten gets sunburned easily. It's probably been mentioned 60 times since Carsten's character arrived in the series. Mention these things ONCE per book, please!
Another annoyance: a character will make a rather mundane and obvious observation about the war -- such as a comment about the enemy's strategy -- and other characters will act like he's a military genius for thinking of something so profound. I don't know why that bothers me, but it does.
I notice I'm not the only one bothered by Mr. Turtledove's stylistic quirts. I hope he will read the reviews here on Amazon and give them serious consideration as he writes the next two books (which I'll certainly devour in any case). He did, indeed, seem to respond to criticism that the sex scenes in an earlier book were an embarrassingly bad idea, since he hasn't repeated the mistake in recent books of the series.
A few requests for the author:
- I really am interested in learning what's happening in the rest of the world. Please provide more than just the smallest of crumbs.
- How about a Mormon character that we can follow?
- How about a Confederate enlisted man?
Despite the annoyances, I love the books. And this one was among the best of the series so far.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Return Engagement (Settling Accounts Trilogy, Book 1)

Click here for more information about Return Engagement (Settling Accounts Trilogy, Book 1)