Reddit reviews The Guns of the South: A Novel

http://www.amazon.com/The-Guns-South-Harry-Turtledove/dp/0345384687

Pretty good novel on that very topic. People go back in time and give the Confederacy AK-47s. Which they end up curb stomping the Union Army.

In The Guns of the South a group of time traveling South African supremacists supplies the confederate army with AK-47s.

The Guns of the South and especially How Few Remain completely changed my view of Abe Lincoln.

The Guns of the South is less important as it's much more fictionalized and involves time-travel. How Few Remain is a sort-of sequel, in that it assumes that the South was able to successfully repel the Northern Armies until an eventual armistice without the time-travel from the first book, which didn't result the events that led to the assassination of Lincoln.

Lincoln then becomes the leader of the American Socialists. I first learned in that book, because Harry Turtledove has a PhD in history, that Lincoln was an avid reader of Karl Marx as a contemporary thinker and defender of workers' rights.

I won't give away more because that's basically the back-cover version, but it's an excellent treatment of how things might have turned out differently.

The WW1 and WW2 books that follow in the "what if the south wasn't reabsorbed into the north?" timeline are also worth a read. In WW2 aliens get involved so it becomes significantly less historical, but the WW1 books are great in their discussion of early 1900s European politics.

Only because modern weaponry would allow me to keep a stand-off distance from all those scary swords and other sharp and blunt things. But then I can't help but picture all the ammo that came with me running out - and having to come to the realization that swords don't run out of ammo... painfully.

Also, OP, read Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove. Its right up your ally. Here it is on Amazon: Amazon: Guns of the South

There's two very good books about this subject.

One is a sci fi called "Guns of the South" it's about time travel and supplying modern weapons to the south. I will say no more.


The other is a history book about how the South accidentally lost the war. I'll have to find that book because I've misplaced it. It was given to me to read when I was in college. Small spoiler - Lee's salvation was sent in a message to him via a cigar case which was lost. If my memory serves me correctly it was "Bobby Lee's" chance to defeat McClellan's larger army at Antietam and continue North with nothing to stop him. I'm simplifying it , but it went into great detail on events and errors of the Souths campaign.

I wish I could remember the name of the history book it was in.

Not quite GOT, but...

You may enjoy reading this book as well: http://www.amazon.com/Guns-South-Harry-Turtledove/dp/0345384687

>The Confederates win the Civil War with aid from South African time travelers in this unconvincing "what-if" tale. Using a time machine, Andrew Rhoodie and his cadre of white supremacists from A.D. 2014 join the rebels and supply them with AK-47 assault rifles.

But do they deserve the freedom to make owning people legal?

Edit: All politics aside, have you read Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove? Time travelers from future apartheid-era South Africa come back to 1863 and supply the CSA with AK-47s. Great alternative history book.

Did he read the prequel and sequel to the Killer Angels written by his son, Jeff Shaara?

You could try some alternative history, I enjoyed Guns of the South.

A nice copy of The American Heritage Civil War would make a nice gift.

A Harry Turtledove fan are ya? My favorite was Guns Of The South where apartheid nuts from the future exploit time travel technology in order to arm Civil War-era Confederate soldiers with Kalashnikovs.

1632 by Eric Flint. Grantville, West Virginia is sent back to 1632 during the 30 years war in Germany.

Island in the Sea of Time by S. M. Stirling. The island of Nantucket is sent back to the stone age.

Much more modern period, but The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove. Bunch of South African nationalists try and keep slavery by sending AK-47s to the Confederates during the American Civil War.

All of them are pretty enjoyable reads if you're really interested in this kind of stuff.

Read Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove and find out!

I'll throw this one in -

Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove

Read this

Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove. Man travels through time to give Robert E. Lee automatic weapons......

The Yiddish Policemans Union By Michael Chabon Imagine an Israeli state in Alaska.

Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson envisions an entire new America and Europe due to the Black Plague

The Difference Engine by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson about the computer age starting 100 years early right in the middle of the Civil War

I'm no engineer, but I assume that your phone is too complex to be readily reverse engineered by the people of 1912, even if it got into the hands of the right people. There are probably too many intermediate levels of scientific knowledge and manufacturing capabilities for the 1912ers to build their own cell phones.

That said, I'm sure that your phone would be recognized for the extremely advanced device it is, so long as it was delivered to an engineer or scientist before its battery died. Once the juice is gone, it's much harder to guess what it does. But if someone gets it and is able to play with it, they'd be incredibly impressed. It would likely inspire efforts to explore then disregarded areas of science, physics, and engineering.

Imagine if we found a cell phone from the year 2112. It hovers near your ear or orbits near any solid object you put it near, and it produce holographic images across up to 100,000 miles away instantly (there's no light speed delay). Even if we had no idea how it was built, the mere fact that it has these features that appear to violate our understanding of physics would inspire our scientists to figure out precisely how it can do what it does. It would trigger research into areas of science that we otherwise might never have considered for decades.

Likewise with the 2012 phone in 1912. Assuming you have a touch screen smartphone, the (right) finder in 1912 could discover its purpose - the first rotary phone was made in 1904, so calling codes based on combinations of digits was already familiar. Looking through your contact list - the match between names and numbers - plus seeing obvious apps and features (e.g., "Phone") would made make it plain what your phone was. Don't forget the Babbage's, either. One of the earliest computers was demonstrated in the early 1900s, so there's already context for the 1912 finder to guess how your phone might work.

The Guns of the South is a good read for thinking about these kinds of things. It makes a good case for how people in the past were certainly sophisticated enough to figure out advanced technology, and especially how they'd be able to at least recognized that technology is advanced.

I mostly read speculative fiction, which is typically divided between the subgenres of fantasy, sci-fi, and alternate history. Alternate history is technically considered a subgenre of Sci-Fi, but I read enough of it to make it worth counting as a separate group. Within each of those subgenres, there is a wide variety of styles and some people might find themselves not a fan of one style but a fan of another. If you are not well read in these genres, then you will want to try a few different styles of story before dismissing it. I also sometimes read novelizations of historical events which have their own sort of enjoyment to them that fictional stories lack. Then there are books that are set from an animals point of view, which range from attempts to be as accurate as possible to being practically fantasy stories.

As far as individual books, I will try to give you a few of the best to pick from without being overwhelming. Some are stand alone stories while others are parts of series.

Fantasy single books:

After the Downfall

Fantasy series:

The Dresden Files

A Song of Ice and Fire aka Game of Thrones

Sci-Fi single books:

Slow Train to Arcturus

Mother of Demons

Sci-Fi series:

The Thrawn Trilogy There are a great many Star Wars books worth the read, but this is definitely the place to start.

Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow

Alternate History single books:

The Guns of the South

1824: The Arkansas War Technically this is a sequel to an earlier book, but this one is leagues better and you don't need to read the first book to understand what is going on.

Alternate History series:

How Few Remain

1632

Worldwar

Non-Fiction:

Band of Brothers

War Made New This one isn't even really a novelization, just an analysis of the changes to military technology, tactics, and training over the last 500 years. Regardless, it is very well written and a great read.

Animal POV books:

Watership Down

Wilderness Champion

The Call of the Wild and White Fang These two books are by the same author and go in pretty much opposite directions. Among literature fanatics, there is no consensus over which one is better and I don't think I can decide for myself so I am recommending both.

Edit: I forgot to mention, the first book in the 1632 series is available online for free. This is not a pirated version, but something the author put up himself as a part of an effort to move publishing into the modern day with technology and make books more accessible to readers.

AKs in the mid-19th Century has been done in depth.

This book (and other's by the same author) look good to me. Haven't had a chance to read them, yet myself.

Not much, but it's a start.

Harry Turtledove's book, "The Guns of the South" has a similar concept.

From the Amazon description: "Using a time machine, Andrew Rhoodie and his cadre of white supremacists from A.D. 2014 join the rebels and supply them with AK-47 assault rifles. Rhoodie's "America Will Break" brotherhood hopes to foster a haven for slavery and extreme racism that will last into succeeding centuries. Thus armed, Gen. Robert E. Lee's troops are soon victorious, and Lincoln agrees to divide the nation. "

Probably one of my favorite books of all time.

mostly related, but not toally - you would probably like the book "Guns of the South" by Harry Turtledove. It's about some time traveling bad guys who go back and give M16's and AK47's to the south during the Civil War. It's been awhile since I've read it, but it's a good book and fun to think about.


The same author wrote several other books about history taking a different turn than it did, so you may want to check into some of his other writings.

If you like this kind of thing, you should check out this book: The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove.

Sci-fi, history, fiction...

Have you read any of Harry Turtledove's books? He writes some pretty cool alternate-history about events that happened in the US. The only one I've read is Guns of the South, where the Confederate army in the Civil War gets AK-47s from a time traveler and ends up defeating the North.

The book is kind of long, but if you like alt-history and US stuff, it may be a place to start

There's a book along those lines where a guy travels back in time and gives Lee's army AK-47s. If you're into alt-history stuff, it's OK. The Guns of the South.