Japanese Zeros appear in the skies over Hawaii and descended upon Pearl Harbor in a devastating attack that cripples the U.S. Navy fleet and airfields. The land invasion follows. One after another, the islands are conquered and occupied by the Empire of the Sun. In the hands of a merciless enemy, American soldiers in POW camps suffer the cruel punishments meted out to those who have dishonored themselves with surrender. Many older Hawaiians of Japanese origin support the invaders. Some of their children, though, want to fight back. And no matter where their sympathies might lie, under amrtial law, all civilians must respect their Japanese conquerors, relinquish food and shelter on demand, and fend for themselves as goods become scarce. But the domination of the Pacific and the submission of those who live there is merely the beginning. With the U.S. military on Hawaii completely subjugated, there is no one to stop the Japanese from using the islands' resources to launch an offensive against America's western coast. Turtledove's latest twist on history has the Japanese invading Hawaii in December 1941. It recalls most closely Ruled Britannia (2002), except that this book is almost certainly the first volume of another WWII alternate history. The strategic consequences of the U.S. being backed up against its own West Coast, with most of its navy's aircraft carriers sunk, are too extensive to be dealt with in one novel, and one viewpoint character, Joe Crosetti, is training as a naval aviator for the battles to come. But as usual, Turtledove provides an extensive range of characters, civilian and military, of both sides and all ranks. Minoru Genda and Mitsuo Fuchida, both real historical Japanese officers, perform with their expected brilliance. On the other hand, Corporal Shimizu rides ashore in a landing barge and gives a grunt's-eye view of the Japanese army, whose motto is, quite understandably, "Hard work!" U.S. artillery officer Fletcher Armitage and his wife, Jane, were on the verge of divorce when the balloon went up and are now even more thoroughly separated as he labors in a POW camp, and she survives off her turnip patch. Oscar van der Klerk goes from surf bum to amateur spy, and the fishermen of the Takahashi family are divided, father Jiro favoring the Japanese occupiers, and his sons, who considered themselves Americans, disgruntled, to say the least. Demanding, irresistible, and magisterial--to say the very least. Roland Green Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Harry Turtledove—the New York Times bestselling author of numerous alternate history novels, including The Guns of the South, How Few Remain , and the Worldwar quartet—has a Ph.D. in Byzantine history. Nominated numerous times for the Nebula Award, he has won the Hugo, Sidewise, and John Esthen Cook Awards. He lives with his wife and children in California.