Fallout

One act of folly. One poor decision. One moment of rage. The novels of Harry Turtledove show history balancing on single moments. In his astounding new novel, the unthinkable has come to pass. The Cold War turns hot—and the United States and the Soviet Union unleash their nuclear arsenals upon each other. Millions die. Millions more are displaced. Germans battle side by side with Americans, Polish freedom fighters next to Russian fascists. The genie is out of the bottle. And there’s no telling what fresh hell will come next.
 
At the heart of Fallout are Harry Truman and Josef Stalin. Even as Joe McCarthy rises in power, the president is focused elsewhere, planning to cut off the head of the Soviet threat by taking out Stalin. It’s a daring gambit, but the Soviets have one of their own. Meanwhile, Europe’s weak sisters, France and Italy, seem poised to choose the winning side, while China threatens to overrun Korea. With Great Britain ravaged and swaths of America in ruins, leaders are running out of options. When the United States drops another series of bombs to slow the Russian advance in Europe, Stalin strikes back—with horrifying results.
 
These staggering events unfold through the eyes of a sprawling cast of characters: a Holocaust survivor in a displaced persons’ camp in Washington; the wife of a bomber pilot and her five-year-old daughter starting a new existence on their own; a savage Soviet fighter waging war by his rules; a British pub owner falling in love with an American pilot. In the masterly hands of Harry Turtledove, this epic chronicle of war becomes a story of human struggle. As the armies of the world implode, the next chapter will be written by the survivors—those willing to rise up for an uncertain future.
 
PRAISE FOR HARRY TURTLEDOVE
 
“Turtledove is the standard-bearer for alternate history.”—USA Today
 
Bombs Away
 
“Turtledove’s thorough research and grounded imagination work to create a frighteningly realistic past where world leaders act out of desperation and fatalism, and a large cast of common folk suffer the consequences. . . . The vicarious sense of eschatological dread is always powerful.”—Booklist
 
Last Orders
 
“All quite plausible . . . Turtledove’s focus on the characters serves to fill out the big picture with patient, nitty-gritty detail. . . . Armchair warriors will have much to ponder.”—Kirkus Reviews
 
Two Fronts
 
“A you-are-there chronicle of battle on land and sea and in the air.”—Tor.com
 
Coup d’Etat
 
“This is what alternative history is all about.”—Historical Novel Society

Harry Turtledove is the award-winning author of the alternate-history worksThe Man with the Iron Heart, The Guns of the South, and How Few Remain (winner of the Sidewise Award for Best Novel); the Hot War books (Bombs Awayand Fallout); the War That Came Early novels: Hitler’s War, West and East, The Big Switch,Coup d’Etat, Two Fronts, and Last Orders; the Worldwar saga: In the Balance, Tilting the Balance, Upsetting the Balance, and Striking the Balance; the Colonization books:Second Contact, Down to Earth, and Aftershocks; the Great War epics:American Front, Walk in Hell, and Breakthroughs; the American Empire novels:Blood & Iron, The Center Cannot Hold, and Victorious Opposition; and the Settling Accounts series:Return Engagement, Drive to the East, The Grapple, and In at the Death. Turtledove is married to fellow novelist Laura Frankos. They have three daughters—Alison, Rachel, and Rebecca—and one granddaughter, Cordelia Turtledove Katayanagi.