‘ve read this before. It’s Bookish Vu.

A huge carrier force blasts it’s opponents on the approach to the Hawaiian islands. Pearl Harbor get’s flattened. A landing is made on the north side of the main island. The defenders do what they can to stop it but are largely swept away, in part because of their enemies’ air superiority. Then the last of the desperate fighting, the blood, the tears, all that.

Where was that?

Oh yeah – Days of Infamy, the first book to this two-parter. Then, it was the Japanese turn.

So our cast of characters from the aforementioned first novel find themselves in their various situations. A couple of POWs being working to a starvation death. A housewife forced to be a comfort worker. A Japanese fighter pilot (and also a torpedo bomber guy). An American pilot. A marine. And the Japanese-American boys and their fisherman/radio-personality father. Yeah, they are all back to see this through.

And while it was kinda the same thing a second time around, it was a very interesting read. All those Americans I felt sorry for in the first book – now I was feeling sorry for the Japanese as they got their clocks cleaned.

There were some realisms here, moments so true that they made the book for me. The scars of the comfort worker, and how she might never feel safe and easy about sex again. The POW who nearly starves, and when he does live to eat and eat and eat, a week after getting all the food he wants, he looks to his fellow ex-prisoner and says, “These navy eggs. They really aren’t very good, are they?”

So I liked it. The two volume set was just the right format – we saw the Japanese win and the Americans make their inevitable comeback. It wasn’t one of Turtledove’s monster series, just a quick set that read fast and fun and right.

Have a look. Worth it.

>>>ONLY ONE VOLUME FOR MY BOOKS, AND MY HEROES DIE (SOMETIMES) IN THE END. YEAH, NOT MUCH I COULD DO WITH DIDO<<<