V-S Day:A Novel of Alternate History by Allen Steele

Alternate History

From Goodreads:

With a gift for visionary fiction that “would make Robert A. Heinlein proud” (Entertainment Weekly) three-time Hugo Award-winning author Allen Steele now imagines an alternate history rooted in an actual historical possibility: what if the race to space had occurred in the early days of WWII?

It's 1941, and Wernher von Braun is ordered by his Fuehrer to abandon the V2 rocket and turn German resources in a daring new direction: construction of a manned orbital spacecraft capable of attacking the U.S. Work on the rocket—called Silbervogel—begins at Peenemunde. Though it is top secret, British intelligence discovers the plan, and brings word to Franklin Roosevelt. The American President determines that there is only one logical response: the U.S. must build a spacecraft capable of intercepting Silbervogel and destroying it. Robert Goddard, inventor of the liquid-fuel rocket, agrees to head the classified project.

So begins a race against time—between two secret military programs and two brilliant scientists whose high-stakes competition will spiral into a deadly game of political intrigue and unforeseen catastrophes played to the death in the brutal skies above America.

V-S Day by Allen Steele has been on my wish list since it came out in February.  When I found it on the new books shelf at my library I checked it out and started reading.  Set in the present and the past it tells a great story of what might have been.

History and how it is changed is the main thrust of the story.  The change started in December of 1941.  Germany started a new space program and the U.S followed.  V-S Day tells what happened in both the U.S. and Germany as they work to develop a space plane.  The story line is very well developed, the characters interesting and the plot is full of tension. 

When all is said and done I think many of us will wish that this were our history instead of an alternate history. 

I loved the book, the writing and the story.  I enjoyed reading a story where we got to space and stayed instead of how we have shut down and stayed on earth.

ACE Books published V-S Day, a Novel of Alternate History by Allen Steel in 2014.