Settling Accounts
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The Settling Accounts tetralogy is an alternate history setting of World War II by Harry Turtledove in North America, presupposing that the Confederate States of America won the U.S. Civil War. It is part of the Timeline-191 series.
[edit] Novels
- Settling Accounts: Return Engagement (2004) ; first book in the series and eighth in the overall timeline
- Settling Accounts: Drive to the East (2005) ; second book in the series and ninth in the overall timeline
- Settling Accounts: The Grapple (2006) ; third book in the series and tenth in the overall timeline
- Settling Accounts: In at the Death (2007) ; fourth book in the series and eleventh in the overall timeline
[edit] Settling Accounts
As of the beginning of Return Engagement, North America is a continent divided. Canada, minus the independent Republic of Quebec, is under U.S. occupation — which, as the Confederacy re-arms and the United States redeploy forces south to meet them, has come to mean occupation by U.S.-allied Québécois soldiers. To the south, Kentucky and northwestern Texas have recently been returned to the Confederacy by popular vote (Sequoyah — Oklahoma — having been flooded by US citizens, and its original Native American inhabitants outnumbered, has voted to stay in the United States), but other formerly Confederate territories occupied by the United States after the Great War remain unredeemed. In total, Virginia north of Fredericksburg has been annexed to West Virginia, a sliver of northeastern Arkansas is attached to Missouri, and a U.S. salient into the state of Sonora (purchased by the Confederacy along with Chihuahua in 1881) is part of an outsized New Mexico that also contains the real-life state of Arizona. The United States also control the formerly British island territories of the Sandwich Islands (including Hawaii), Bermuda and the Bahamas; Cuba, purchased by the Confederacy in the 1870s, remains Confederate.
On the international scale Britain has reformed itself around conservative Winston Churchill and fascistic "silver shirts" led by Oswald Mosley. In the wake of another defeat from the hated Germans, the French Third Republic has collapsed under popular support for the hard-line Catholic and monarchistic Action Français. Both countries are politically allied with the Confederacy, as are Japan (though it openly threatens Pacific European possessions) and Tsarist Russia (Russia remains Tsarist; as mentioned in the American Empire series, the "Great Man" and the "Man of Steel" are defeated by the Tsar's forces around Tsaritsyn, a.k.a. Volgograd (Stalingrad)). The United States are allied with the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, while Quebec stays officially neutral but continues to supply occupation soldiers to the United States for now-exclusively-English Canada. Ireland, with some material support from the United States, won its independence from Britain at the end of the Great War, has been invaded by British forces and there now exists a state of guerrilla war.
On June 22, 1941, Confederate dictator Jake Featherston launches the war with a bombing attack on all major U.S. cities within reach of the border, quickly followed by an invasion of Ohio from Kentucky. At home, he continues his campaign of genocide on the Confederacy's black population. Under Socialist President Al Smith, the United States must quickly gear up and attempt to prevent the CSA salient from reaching Lake Erie and dividing the country, though some (risky) lake shipping and the Canadian rail network north of Lake Superior would remain available in that event. Both Confederate and U.S. scientists are aware of the potential for atomic weapons, though one side appears to have an operational edge. In the United States, Smith must put down yet another Mormon rebellion in Utah, which is surreptitiously aided by the Confederacy just as the United States aid black retaliation in the Confederacy.
[edit] Timeline-191
It follows Turtledove's book How Few Remain (set in the early 1880s) and trilogies Great War (World War I) and American Empire (interwar period).
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Videssos books | Videssos Cycle | The Misplaced Legion | An Emperor for the Legion | The Legion of Videssos | The Swords of the Legion |
The Tale of Krispos | Krispos Rising | Krispos of Videssos | Krispos the Emperor | |
Time of Troubles | The Stolen Throne | Hammer and Anvil | The Thousand Cities | Videssos Besieged | |
The Bridge of the Separator | ||
The Race or Tosev timeline series |
Worldwar Tetralogy | In the Balance | Tilting the Balance | Upsetting the Balance | Striking the Balance |
Colonization | Second Contact | Down to Earth | Aftershocks | |
Homeward Bound | ||
Southern Victory or Timeline-191 |
How Few Remain | |
Great War Trilogy | American Front | Walk in Hell | Breakthroughs | |
American Empire Trilogy | Blood and Iron | The Center Cannot Hold | The Victorious Opposition | |
Settling Accounts Tetralogy | Return Engagement | Drive to the East | The Grapple | In at the Death | |
Darkness | Into the Darkness | Darkness Descending | Through the Darkness | Rulers of the Darkness | Jaws of the Darkness | Out of the Darkness | |
War Between the Provinces | Sentry Peak | Marching Through Peachtree | Advance and Retreat | |
Hellenic Traders | Over the Wine Dark Sea | The Gryphon's Skull | The Sacred Land | Owls to Athens | |
Crosstime Traffic | Gunpowder Empire | Curious Notions | In High Places | The Disunited States of America | The Gladiator | The Valley-Westside War | |
Pacific War Series | Days of Infamy | End of the Beginning | |
Scepter of Mercy | The Chernagor Pirates | The Bastard King | The Scepter's Return | |
Other, non-series books | ||
Agent of Byzantium | A Different Flesh | Noninterference | Kaleidoscope | A World Of Difference | Earthgrip | The Guns of the South | The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump | Departures | Down in the Bottomlands | The Two Georges | Thessalonica | Between the Rivers | Justinian | Household Gods | Counting Up, Counting Down | Ruled Britannia | In the Presence of Mine Enemies | Conan of Venarium | Every Inch a King | Fort Pillow | Beyond the Gap | Opening Atlantis | The Battle of Teutoberg Forest |