V-S Day: Novel Of Alternate History, A

Three-time Hugo Award-winning author Allen Steele imagines an alternate history rooted in an actual historical possibility: What if the race to space had occurred in the early days of World War II? It's 1941, and Wernher von Braun is ordered by his fuhrer to abandon the V-2 rocket and turn German resources in a daring new direction: construction of a manned orbital spacecraft capable of attacking the United States. When the top secret plan is leaked to Franklin Roosevelt, the president has only one logical response: The United States must build their own spacecraft to destroy it. Robert Goddard, inventor of the liquid-fuel rocket, agrees to head the classified project. So begins a race against time between two secret military programs and two brilliant scientists whose high-stakes competition will spiral into a deadly game of political intrigue and unforeseen catastrophes played to the death in the brutal skies above America. This book is “a novel of alternate history”. It tells the story of a German World War II plan to render America’s involvement in the War impossible and the Americans’ desperate attempts to circumvent the German plot. Set mainly in the period 1941 to 1943, this is a novel which is very evocative of wartimes. I like the blend of history with conjecture/possibility, and the way in which historical characters are written into the story. There is a certain amount of American ‘gung-ho’ patriotism and bravado, but this is nicely offset with the glimpses into the German war effort, with scenes with von Braun and the German leaders, including Himmler and an audience with Hitler himself.