Book Log 2006 #11: Fox on the Front by Douglas Niles and Michael Dobson

This is the sequel to Fox on the Rhine, which posits what would have happened if the von Stauffenberg bomb plot had succeeded. As the title suggests, the Desert Fox would have a major role in fighting close to home. The sequel furthers that fight, but looks more at a segue from Axis versus Allies to everyone versus the Soviet Union.

On that end I think I found Fox on the Front a little more interesting, as it obviously derivated farther from actual history. On the other hand, the way it derivates is pretty fantastical (not in a The Guns of the South sort of way), and requires some suspension of disbelief. It's also a bit of a chore to keep everyone who isn't a general straight, and even some of the major players are drawn in a way that gets tiresome (George Patton most notably). But it's clearly a work of plot over character, and if you're OK with Tom Clancy's early work you'll do fine here.

The sequel also delves into political matters a little more, but not in a way that overshadowed the action on the battlefield.

Where the book did improve was with the maps, which were drawn much more professionally than in the copy of the first book I read (where the lines indicating troop movement appeared to have been drawn in with a a marker). I'd have liked a few more of them; a map for each section of the book (which broke things down into campaigns or operations) would have been very helpful.

All in all it's a good example of the alt history genre.