| Welcome to Alternate History Lounge. We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
| Gingrich and Fortschen's "Days of Infamy"; This is some inept marketing....... | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 25 2007, 10:57 AM (693 Views) | |
| SladeJack | May 1 2008, 01:51 PM Post #16 |
|
The Grand SladeJack
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Mr Nelg, the Gettysburg trilogy is very good. Well books one and two are; book three drags a bit and ends on a disappointingly twee note, but not enough to make the whole thing not worthwhile. It hinges on Lee disengaging on July 1 after smashing up I and XI Corps, then going off to wreak havoc elsewhere, eventually, ironically, seizing Meade's beloved Pipe Creek Line for himself. The Union needs to chase him down, and offer battle under conditions not advantageous to them, and in the end the Army of the Potomac gets smashed up for good; it's described as dying. But it comes back in Book 2 as a three-corps force under Dan Sickles, who used old contacts among the suddenly-strong doughface Democrat crowd he'd used to run with to get himself the gig as the price for not becoming openly anti-war. He goes off half-cocked and gets the AoP smashed up for good; it's described as dying. But it comes back in Book 3 as a one-corps force under George Sykes, and shows up in the nick of time--I'm getting ahead of myself. Lee spends the rest of the summer north of the border. He tries to break into Washington, more of a probe really, a feeling that he has to because not even McClellan would not even bother trying to take an enemy capital which had no field army to protect it. The undermanned fortifications hold and he falls back into Maryland. He takes and holds Baltimore with help from a copperheaded underground that his boys' presence encouraged but finds that his army is designed as a light, fast-moving field army and has a hell of a time occupying a city. With the loss of Baltimore not ruining the Federals, Sickles's remnants of the Army of the Potomac well up in the Middle Atlantic, and no other worthwhile targets available, he has no choice but to wait as the Union shifts its lines to allow a new army made up of detachments from the western armies to enter the Eastern Theater, which it does in about six weeks thanks to superhuman efforts by the boys in the Military Railroad Department--one of the less likely elements of this AH. Lincoln appoints Grant General-in-Chief and promises him a nearly-free hand despite his relatively weak political position, but says they're both stuck with Sickles or the Democrats will start opposing the war. As Grant consolidates, he arranges a strategy that calls for his main force to move on Lee from the northwest while Sickles moves on him from the northeast, forcing him either to offer battle at a dramtic numerical disadvantage or fall back--and the latter would eventually drive him up against the fortifications around Washington, which are made available to leave the city and come up to help the two field armies if the situation calls for it and there are no Rebel forces which could threaten the city in their absence. But before he can start Sickles goes off half-cocked and gets his army torn up on a detachment from the ANV. Thankfully, the commander of that detachment is George Pickett, who also gets roughed up by holding a worthless line at great cost when his orders were to make a series of tactical withdrawals till Sickles overextended himself. The encirclement threat is now over, but Confederate joy is short lived as Grant suddenly starts marching south. Lee has to scramble to catch up. They end up fighting a helluva battle somewhere in the southernmost edges of Union territory--I forget where. Lee's logistics are thrown into chaos by the inadequacy of his support troops for such operations. Very few engineers, none of them railroad men; no one who knows how to build a pontoon bridge; quartermasters unused to this sort of operation, et cetera. A huge battle is joined. It's partly a house-to-house fight. Both sides suffer jaw-dropping casualties. The major actions involve moves by large units cancelling each other out and using up the units involved. Grant had four large corps, Lee had done some reorganizing, sacking Ewell and Hill, going back to two infantry corps with Hood in command of the second, detaching brigades and divisions to hold various points of interest, including putting Pickett in charge of Baltimore (he eventually loses confidence in the man and gives the job to Armistead instead) and consolidating the divisions with him. Thousands of black men volunteer to be provisional military engineers who raise defenses ex nihilo some miles east of the major battle, and these defenses are then manned by an auxiliary army under Hancock made up of the Washington garrisons and recovering wounded soldiers who had been on light duty (their commander included). The Union Navy retakes Baltimore and bags Armistead's division, the last of the large Confederate units not engaged against Grant is taken off the board. Lee manages a tactical win-on-points and starts heading east, hoping to win a race to the afore-mentioned under-construction defensive line between him and Washington. He doesn't quite manage. Grant and Sheridan each lead a column of survivors from the west, Hancock's men get into the defenses facing Lee to the south and east, and the Army of the Potomac, which now consists of the V Corps (survivors from other corps having been reassigned to it, bringing it up to full strength) under Sykes shows up out of nowhere. Lee realizes all is lost and surrenders his army, then goes to Richmond to advocate capitulation. Davis says no but the Congress overrides him and that's the ball game. A lot of lucky coincidence and deus ex machina is the most common criticism I've seen. Both sides benefit, but the Rebs get all their lucky breaks in the beginning, when the Union can't buy one, and then it changes over to the other way around toward the end. I think we need to remember though that AH writers whose medium is mass-marketed entertainment need to be sure they can get a story sufficiently exciting to be worth telling, even if the most likely fallouts of scenarios don't lend themselves thereto. |
| When you wipe your ass, make sure you wipe it really well. | |
![]() |
|
| TR1 | May 1 2008, 03:17 PM Post #17 |
![]()
Heir Presumptive
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
When I first read that paragraph, I though perhaps SJ had committed a glaring typo. The I realized he was making a point. |
| "Nobody's gay for Moleman." - Hans Moleman | |
![]() |
|
| SladeJack | May 2 2008, 01:53 AM Post #18 |
|
The Grand SladeJack
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
I wish. I didn't like the way it kept getting destroyed as a meaningful force, but no wait, it's got enough left for one more action--TWICE! Especially since at the end of Book 1 its destruction was very much a schwerpunct of the action. They mae much out of how it changed everything |
| When you wipe your ass, make sure you wipe it really well. | |
![]() |
|
| Makkabee | May 3 2008, 09:41 AM Post #19 |
|
Count
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
I really liked Forstchen's historically themed SF, but have yet to find an AH story he's written or co-written that really did it for me. |
![]() |
|
| SladeJack | May 3 2008, 10:38 AM Post #20 |
|
The Grand SladeJack
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
By the way, I searched for "Days of Infamy" on Amazon. G&F's book comes up in the #1 spot, HT's in #2. |
| When you wipe your ass, make sure you wipe it really well. | |
![]() |
|
| « Previous Topic · Alternate History Media · Next Topic » |
- Pages:
- 1
- 2





![]](http://z4.ifrm.com/static/1/pip_r.png)




9:15 AM Jul 11