Review: Red, White, and the Blues

Red, White, and the Blues by Rysa Walker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a cut above the usual level of writing. It has a complex plot that's nevertheless fully comprehensible and clear. It's well-researched, but the author doesn't make us drink from the exposition bucket, or throw in research facts that don't make any difference to the story just because she worked hard to obtain them. And despite the review copy I received from Netgalley billing itself as an "uncorrected proof," I noticed hardly any copy editing issues (which is vanishingly rare).

Sure, I've complained in previous reviews of the author's books that the genetic science is bunk, but I'm happy to forgive that, especially since it doesn't figure into this installment all that much. The history is solid, and it's not the usual stuff that everyone knows with the same old historical figures (though Einstein does make a brief appearance); it includes a number of now-obscure real people who were well known at the time, and who either promoted or (in a couple of cases) opposed Nazism in the US prior to the US entry into World War II.

Because this is the story of a nefarious plot to "flip" the timeline so that the US never did enter the war, and the Nazis won. Or rather, it's the story of the struggles of a number of determined, courageous people (and one complete bastard) to flip it back again.

The author seems to be fascinated by World's Fairs; a significant amount of the first series in this setting takes place at the one in Chicago at the end of the 19th century, and this one has the New York World's Fair of 1939-40 as a pivotal location. Again, though, that part of the setting is shown to us with restraint, only featuring the things that are either important or highly noticeable.

The whole story is told in first person present tense, from three different viewpoint characters. The present tense makes all kinds of sense as a way to narrate a time travel book; the first person, though, takes me to the only significant flaw I noted in what was otherwise a highly skilled piece of writing. All three narrative voices sounded exactly the same, despite their quite different backgrounds and personalities, and I often had to flip back to the start of a section to check the name so I knew whose viewpoint I was in (especially when I put it down partway through a section in the same viewpoint and picked it up again later). A writer who is as otherwise skilled as this author should be able to make the character voices much more distinct.

Apart from that one complaint, I enjoyed this very much, and will happily continue to follow the series.

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