Due mostly to busy weekends and long chapters, its taking me longer to get through The Guns of the South than I had anticpated. I’m only about 150 pages into it at this point and the action is really just starting to unfold.
I’m not giving anything away in revealing that the basic premise of the book is that, in the midst of the winter of 1864, the Confederacy receives aid from some mysterious benefactors who turn out to be time traveling South Africans from the 21st Century intent on changing history. Their means of doing so is to supply the Confederate Army with AK-47s. An unlikely premise indeed, but it does point out the fact that the one reason that the outcome of the Civil War was more or less inevitable was that the South could never hope to match the industrial output and weapons manufacturing of the North. The point of the book is to set up a universe where that weapons advantage was turned on its head by placing 20th Century weapons into the hands of the Army of Northern Virginia.
Another element that is coming forward early in the book is the role of race in the Confederacy. The racism of the time travellers is palpable, and is the primary reason for their desire to see the South victorious. In contrast to them is the character of Robert E. Lee, who the author portrays as a Virginia patriot who does not completely share the racial views of his fellow Southerners. It seems like the inevitable conflict between these views will be a major part of the book.
In other news, I have ordered two more books in this author’s Great War Series.
