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Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM |
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This Day in Alternate History Blog
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MacArthur's War: A Novel of the Invasion of Japan
Let me be blunt. If you hate MacArthur, you’ll love this book. If you like or admire him, you’ll hate it. The book changes history way back at the Battle of Midway, whereupon the US loses the battle, which somehow leads directly into MacArthur becoming semi-supreme commander of the Pacific Theatre in World War Two…with a mandate for invading Japan. Half the book details the politics and military action – including a ruthlessness and pure evil towards his fellow Americans that beggars belief – leading up to the invasion; the remainder covers the invasion itself. Frankly, it was hard to follow the action from time to time; sweet interludes covering the life of a Japanese girl add nothing, not even a sex scene, to the plot. There is also a second POD. Owing (somehow and implausibly) to Mac’s aide (a charming fellow who abandons someone who could reveal just what sort of person Mac is to the tender mercies of the Japanese), the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos undergoes a meltdown. So the Trinity test at Alamogordo never happens, and atomic bombs are never developed. Or at least not in time for the invasion. Frankly, this seems a little unlikely to this reader…and of course the USAAF was busy firebombing Japan to the point where the Japanese were on the ropes anyway. Just how vital was the nuke to Japan’s decision to surrender? In some ways, it reads very much like a Turtledove…a stripped down Turtledove. Imagine WorldWar or the Great War books, with all of the characters pared down character-wise, some of them being utterly meaningless in the great scheme of things. There is great attention being invested – as the authors admit – in politics, some of it wasted. If FDR has a tool to bring Mac down, why not use it? The book is more than a little incoherent in places, a confusing mix between a character-driven book and an event-driven book. The characters have no time to develop; one goes from a naval commander to a rear admiral – a rate of promotion that Honor Harrington could only envy – without any actual development. (HH earns her stars; the characters here are rarely shown earning them.) The first part of the book DRAGS! GOD - Dugout Doug was an a**hole, wasn't he? Or at least that's the impression that you get from reading this. He talks about himself like Caesar, without the very real competence that underlined Creaser’s works. No one talks about himself in third person, certainly not face to face. I mean...it goes a bit like this in places… "Christopher thinks that he is the greatest writer ever to exist in the history of the world," Chris said. He said nothing at all about his failures to help someone when they needed it. "Naturally, Christopher has no animus against Tom [Thande], but it must be admitted" – insert weasel words here - "that Christopher is by far his superior..." And on, and on, and on... A lot of good research went into this book, to be fair, even if the authors can’t resist the occasional burst of name-dropping to remain everyone how much research they have done. (There’s nothing like the gratuitous intro of Hitler in the Great War books.) The invasion follows actual contingency plans drawn up by the American high command. These plans were declassified decades ago. There are also some interesting and timely comments on decisions; interesting, but more relevant to the world of today than that of 1944. This is the third Alternate History book that these two have produced. Unfortunately, it is also the worst. Two out of five.
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