V-S Day

I can only give a partial review here as I'm only on chapter 4 an Interesting read solar.

This is an alternate history of sorts, though it seems almost as if it takes place "out of sight" of the Second World War.This book posits that the Nazis (and then the Allies) decide to build a space ship (more an exo-atmospheric hopper really) to bomb Washingon DC. The idea is that this ship could whip around the planet from the West and fly so high that when it does deliver its payload it would prove devastatingly effective. The Allies catch wind of this plan and build another such ship to counter and intercept the Axis one.The race is on as the story alternates back and forth between the two teams working on their ships. The Axis ship is built in a mountain with mostly slave camp labor whereas the Allied ship is built on a couple of sites with the standard hired labor, but it's interesting to see how both teams deal with the problems they encounter. The story builds to an ultimate climax when the Axis launches and the Allies must try to stop them.Not much characterization and the story feels a bit like a short story expanded out to a novel. There are little intersperses throughout with varoius major world figures at the time though they don't really DO all that much, and I finger these additions as the most likely "padding" to get the short story up to novel size.Fun if a bit lacking in much depth. Recommended for fans of alternate history.

Just finished reading Allen Steele's excellent alternate history novel, "V-S Day". Imagine a military space race during World War 2! Vert well done and well researched for historical accuracy! I recommend it!

I love Alt Histories. This one blows the rest out of the water by far. I am a huge history nut, especially WWII. I was ecstatic when I found this book, especially my prized first edition, first print copy. I loved that the book included the Amerika Bomber project and the Silber Vogel concept, as these are not taught in schools, as they were not actually used in the war. I loved that instead of the V2 Rockets getting off the ground that Hitler and his commanders decided that the Silber Vogel was the best bet at winning the war. The book was very fast paced, and I read it in a day, which is a little fast for me, as I tend to only read one to two books in a week.

Not a bad book, but, at the end, kind of don't care that much about the characters, though it is based as much as possible on real events and people, tweaked by a small variant of history. The author clearly cares about the subject. I have not yet read anything else by him. Qualifies as an author I will read more from but am not immediately looking for more stuff he's written.Update: It occurs to me that this is, in its own way, a lot like "October Sky", the film about Homer Hickam(sp?). It's not bad, but it doesn't quite cut the mustard in terms of making the characters really interesting. It does a competent job with them, but that's all it is, "competently done".

This is an alternate reality history of the space program. I may not be an aerospace engineer but the events of this book might have been attempted had they been necessary.After reading this book I read Richard Tregaskis excellent X-15 Diary and a few books on the X-20 Dynosaur (Dynamic Soaring), which lead eventually to the Space Shuttle.Makes me wonder if we had just left the X-20 program to the Air Force ....

Well written story. Interesting group of characters, including the most interesting and mysterious person of the mid 20th century, Hans Kammler. Since Dr. Goddard rarely gets his due from popular history, it is good to see him as the focus of some historical fiction at least. Well done.

I enjoyed this book albeit the underdevelopment of several of the key characters as others have noted. It's one of my first forays into alternate history (and I'd love some good suggestions of other books-- especially dealing with the Nazi period of history).Mr. Steele has a good writing style, and the book moved along well except for a little dragging about 2/3 of the way through. If he took a crack at other alternate history works dealing with the 20th century, I'd definitely take a look.

When will Steele learn, we want Coyote. This was a poor read with nothing new or interesting

Arrived two days early.