War Between the Provinces
War Between the Provinces is one of the many Fantasy/Alternate History stories of Harry Turtledove. However, he turns history on its head. In a Fantasy version of the American Civil War, he turns the war upside down, left to right, and every which way. To summarize, the Kingdom of Detina is engaged in a civil war. The recent ascension of King Avram to the throne has split the North from the South after the king announces he intends to free the blonde serfs from their bondage to the land. His cousin Geoffery splits apart the Kingdom and leads the North to keep the serfs and preserve how they live. The Southron armies in gray march to reunify the Kingdom, while the Northron Armies in blue prepare to defend their new country. The three books in the series focus mainly on an altered version of the Western Theater of the real American Civil War, only with his twisted version of events and characters.
Titles in the Series
- Sentry Peak
- Marching Through Peachtree
- Advance And Retreat
- Automatic Crossbow: The Southrons develop repeating crossbows that are the Fantasy equivalant of the repeating rifles used towards the end of the American Civil War. Most of the footsoldiers are regular crossbowmen before being equipped with this.
- A Worldwide Punomenon: Several.
- Blonde Guys Are Evil: Averted. The main blonde character Rollant is fighting for his freedom and freeing the other blonde serfs, and thus his fighting for the South and King Avram is the opposite. The only blonde who does anything wrong is angry that his wife decided to sleep with a Southron officer, and got killed anyway for his troubles.
- Cool Horse: Unicorns are the cavalry mounts for the main armies. Those horns on the end aren't just for decoration..
- Department of Redundancy Department: Some claim that the it could have been told equally well as a straight retelling of the Western campaign, as with his historical fiction Fort Pillow.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Detina is a monarchical version of the United States, only backward ("Detina" is almost "United" spelled backwards). The South is the industrial center, the North is the agricultural heartland, and serfs replace slaves. Also, the colors are backwards, as the South is grey, but is for a united Detina, while the North is blue, but for a split kingdom. Also, the action takes place in the Eastern Theater for them. Also railways are glideways, for low-level flying carpets on set paths, and finally, crystal balls are their telegraphs. Got all that?
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: Not really. The Lion God and Thunderer are presumed to be on the side of King Avram and his forces. Both sides invoke the gods for their intercession. However, one Northron leader, Leonidas the Priest, apparently didn't pray hard enough one day...
- Hurricane of Puns
- Istanbul (Not Constantinople): The many places of Detina are parallels to our real world locations. Examples are
- New Eborac = New York City
- Georgetown = Washington, D.C.
- Nonesuch = Richmond
- River of Death = Chickamaugua
- Peachtree Province = Georgia
- Five Lakes = Great Lakes
- Medieval Stasis: Most of the attitudes, culture and technology are heavily based in medieval Europeand cultures. Instead of pants, most of the men wear pantaloons, crossbows are the long range hand weapons, pikemen are still in use, etc.
- Recycled in Space: The American Civil War retold in Middle Earth. With crossbows, swords, unicorns and Dragons!
- Siege Engines: Both sides use catapults as the cannon alternative, which can either sling heavy stones or firepots, and ballista like weapons, but with higher rates of fire. Their description implies they may be an analogue to the machine gun, with their ability to fire multiple darts at once.
- Stealth Pun: Many.
- A King Kermit is mentioned to be a past king of a French like country. Given that a nickname for French people used to be frogs, one can only see the pun arriving.
- Doubting George is a reference to General George H. Thomas, who was known for his cautious, yet brilliant strategies during the war, and of course to "Doubting Thomas".
- Ned of the Forest is Nathan B. Forrest
- Joseph the Fighter - "Fighting Joe" Hooker
- Thraxton the Braggart - Braxton Bragg
- Leonidas the Priest - Leonidas Polk (Polk was an Episcopal bishop as well as a general). He comes to the same end as well...
- Advance and Retreat is also the name given to General John Bell Hood's own memoirs.
- General Bart is the equivalent of General Grant. Grant was often mistakenly thought to have the middle name Simpson.
- James of Broadpath - James Longstreet