Eric Flint, 1824: The Arkansas War Review

Overall Rating

1824: The Arkansas War
Eric Flint
Del Rey, December 2006, $25.95
ISBN 0345465695

With Monroe's two terms coming to an end, the election of 1824 looks to be a battle between the son of a former president, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and war hero Andrew Jackson. However, a third candidate emerges. As Speaker of the House, Henry Clay manipulates events from his powerful seat that threaten much of the freedoms the previous generation fought for and died to gain. Clay's actions succeed in putting him into the White House, and forcing Jackson and Adams to forge a strange bedfellow partnership against him based on the one thing the two diverse men agree on: individual rights.

To change what bothers the voting population from opposing him to supporting him, Clay invades the "Confederacy of the Arkansas", an independent nation that is flourishing due to human rights consensus and tolerance for all, with shockingly, Native Americans and African-Americans as free citizens. Southerners applaud the bold move, while Northerners patriotically support the president, but have doubts as they know little about this nation.

As he did with the first alternative history tale (see 1812: THE RIVERS OF WAR), Eric Flint raises several interesting points inside this exciting action-packed thriller. Readers will debate whether the Civil War could have been avoided if the three regional leaders (Adams, Clay, and Calhoun) stopped marginal compromising by punting the racial divide issue, and instead confronting it. Second, a President can manipulate events so that the only choice is to stay his course, while the opposition looks anti-patriotic bordering on treason. Finally, Mr. Flint lucidly affirms that racism or any form of prejudice will prove debilitating over the long run. 1824: THE ARKANSAS WAR may be the alternate history book of the year, as the exhilarating storyline will hook the audience throughout, and it will leave fans debating "truisms" long afterward.