Colonization Aftershocks

World War II. The great powers were at one another's throats. Armies clashed across rolling countryside. Air forces sowed death from above. Then, in 1942, everything changed. A new front opened in World War II—when an alien race attacked the Earth . . .

In his extraordinary alternate-history epic, Harry Turtledove created the acclaimed Worldwar saga. Now, in the Colonization series, what began as war has evolved into decades of epic struggles and rebellions erupting against the invaders known as the Race.

As the 1960s begins, one of the great powers explodes a nuclear strike against the Race's colonization fleet. As she did a generation before, Germany goes to war over Poland, this time against the Race. Retaliation is swift and deadly, leaving much of the Third Reich in ruins. The United States has used its fast-developing military technology to lock the invaders into a standoff. And in China, the ragtag revolutionary army of Mao Tse-tung—armed with Russian-supplied, German-made weapons—may prove the Race's most intractable enemy of all.

On Earth, the alien invaders find themselves confronting a far more complex and difficult species than any they have encountered before. From the hatred between the Jews and the Deutsche to the irrepressible inventiveness of human technology, the reptilian invaders realize they have met creatures that cannot be tamed. Ultimately, only superior firepower may keep Earth under the Empire's control—or may destroy the world.

Despite its military superiority, the Race still fears it underestimates its foes. While uprisings and aftershocks of war shake the planet, while the Race's troops are undermined by ginger addiction, one nation plots a stunning counterattack.

With its sprawling cast of characters, startling plot twists, and uncanny sense of history, Colonization: Aftershocks is another marvelous achievement from Harry Turtledove—the author USA Today calls "the leading author of alternate history."

Harry Turtledove was born in Los Angeles in 1949. After flunking out of Caltech, he earned a Ph.D. in Byzantine history from UCLA. He has taught ancient and medieval history at UCLA, Cal State Fullerton, and Cal State L.A., and he has published a translation of a ninth-century Byzantine chronicle, as well as several scholarly articles. His alternate history works have included many short stories and the Civil War classic The Guns of the South, the World War I epic The Great War series, and the Worldwar tetralogy that began with Worldwar: In the Balance. He is a winner of the Sidewise Award for best Alternate History for his novel How Few Remain.