text: A singularly dull book, the characterizations seemed flat and the peg on which the novel is hung, a South victorious with modern weapons, seemed too trivial.  The author has to make something compelling in that conceit or for the reader the book will mean nothing.  Unfortunately there seems little real purpose to the idea unless one finds the characterizations of historical figures believable and they are not.  The character of Robert E. Lee in the book is just too, too good to be sympathetic or even credible and the stock characters that pop up to lend support seem like cardboard cutouts.  I finally felt that the book was going in such an obvious direction that I put it down halfway through.  I am not sure if it turns out the way I think but frankly there was nothing in the first half of the book to make me care one way or the other
  