Worldwar: Striking the Balance (Worldwar #4)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

At the bloody height of World War II, the deadliest enemies in all of human history were forced to put aside their hatreds and unite against an even fiercer foe: a seemingly invincible power bent on world domination. With awesome technology, the aggressors swept across the planet, sowing destruction as Tokyo, Berlin, and Washington, D.C., were A-bombed into submission. Russia, Nazi Germany, Japan, and the United States were not easily cowed, however. With cunning and incredible daring, they pressed every advantage against the invader's superior strength, and, led by Stalin, began to detonate their own atom bombs in retaliation. City after city explodes in radioactive firestorms, and fears grow as the worldwide resources disappear; will there be any world left for the invaders to conquer, or for the uneasy allies to defend? While Mao Tse-tung wages a desperate guerrilla war and Hitler drives his country toward self-destruction, U.S. forces frantically try to stop the enemy's push from coast to coast. Yet in this battle to stave off world domination, unless the once-great military powers take the risk of annihilating the human race, they'll risk losing the war.

SYNOPSIS

WORLDWAR: BOOK 4
At the bloody height of World War II, the deadliest enemies in all of human history were forced to put aside their hatreds and unite against an even fiercer foe: a seemingly invincible power bent on world domination.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Turtledove's grand tetralogy of an alternate WWII interrupted by an alien invasion draws to a satisfactory conclusion in this follow-up to Upsetting the Balance, and with a few surprises to boot. The Chinese woman Liu Han, for example, is seen climbing the hierarchy of the Chinese Communist Party as it comes under the control of Mao Zedong. Moishe Russie helps negotiate the final armed truce between the alien Lizards and the humans, with the Lizards withdrawing from most human territory in return for being allowed to settle many deserts in anticipation of the arrival of their colonists. (Neither side can survive an indefinitely prolonged nuclear exchange, and the Lizard edge in technology has been rapidly vanishing.) Readers will be happy to see Ludmila Gorbunova and Heinrich Jaeger reunited, and to note their roles in the final disposition of the heroic lunatic Otto Skorzeny. Turtledove's historical scholarship, narrative technique, dry wit and deft characterization distinguish this novel just as they did its predecessors, making it a rousing wrap-up to a monument of alternate history from a master of the genre. (Dec.)

Library Journal

In this fourth book and conclusion to the alternate World War II history series (the prior installment was Worldwar: Upsetting the Balance, LJ 12/95), Turtledove mixes historical and fictional characters in a war of combined Axis and Allied forces against invading reptilian aliens. Recommended for collections with the earlier books.

Kirkus Reviews

Final installment of Turtledove's long alternate-history Worldwar saga (Upsetting the Balance, 1996, etc.), in which the progress of WW II is disrupted by lizardlike alien invaders. A conservative and ancient race, the aliens—they sent out probes a thousand years ago—were expecting to go up against pikemen and armored knights on horseback. Instead, they're facing nuclear weapons and a world that has united against them.

A cast of thousands with a plot to match, well-drawn if unoriginal aliens, a wealth of fascinating speculation—and scope for any number of sequels.