« Armistice » Harry Turtledove

In 1952 American cities lie in ruins. President Harry Truman, in office since 1945, presides over a makeshift government in Philadelphia, suffering his own personal loss and fearing for the future of democracy. In the wake of Hitler’s reign, Germany and America have become allies, and Stalin’s vise hold on power in the USSR persists. Unwilling to trust the Soviet tyrant, Truman launches a long–planned nuclear strike on the city of Omsk — killing Stalin and plunging the Red Army into leaderless, destructive anarchy. Meanwhile, the Baltic states careen toward rebellion, and Poland is seized by rebels bred on war. In a world awash with victims turned victors, refugees, and killers, has Truman struck a blow for peace or fueled more chaos?As these staggering events unfold, the lives of men and women across battle lines, ethnicities, and religions play out across the globe. In Los Angeles, an extended Jewish family builds a future, while the foul smell of a refugee camp in Santa Monica blows in on the ocean breeze. In Korea, a U. S. fighter struggles to bring his Korean interpreter stateside as a full American. In Siberia, two German women fight for their survival in a gulag — and begin a strange, harrowing journey home.