Steele, Allen M. V-S Day. Ace, 2014.
Like many works by Allen Steele, V-S Day has had a long gestation, with many revisions and republications, not always under the same title. When Steele first moved to Wooster, Mass., he discovered that it was the home of rocket pioneer Robert H. Goddard. He inspired to write an alternate history of World War II in which Goddard and his team create a suborbital interceptor to defeat Werner Von Braun’s suborbital bomber. No surprise. No one has written more alternate histories of the space program than Steele. This one, like Mary Robinette’s Calculating Stars and Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures, makes me wonder whether we could do real-time trajectories well enough to get space flight done without computers. As I recall, Robert Heinlein had it done with slide rules. Steele doesn’t give the problem much attention. ( )

V-S Day is a pretty good book. the plot is that the WWII Germans are developing a space weapon that will apply a kinetic weapon to New York City; the USA must respond. It's tauted as alternate history. It's really just fiction. There are many holes in the author's logic; primary one is the split second targeting that would be required to intercept another space ship in orbit. The impact of earlier manned space flight is really not explored. The hypothesis dragged me in, but the book did not deliver. ( )

V-S Day
Author: Allen Steele
Publisher: Berkely - Penguin - Ace Books
Published In: New York City, NY
Date: 2014
Pgs: 308
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REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Summary:
Robert Goddard and Wernher Von Braun, America and Nazi Germany in a race to the sky. Von Braun has been ordered to abandon the V2 program and concentrate on a manned orbital spacecraft capable of attacking the U.S. British intelligence discovers the plan and forwards the particulars to America. The response is to build their own spacecraft capable of destroying the German Silbervogel before it can attack America.

A race against time; competition, intrigue, politics, catastrophe. A brutal awakening to the stars as a World War reaches beyond the gravity well.

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Genre:
Alternate History
Fiction
Military
Science fiction
War

Why this book:
Space. Nazis. War.
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Favorite Character:
No single character jumps off the page. There are character beats given to Jack Cube, Werner Von Braun, Esther Goddard, and Henry Morse, and his future wife Doris. Most remain ciphers wrapped in cliches.

Least Favorite Character:
Could use the same missive about characters from the Favorite Character category.

The Feel:
Making Lt. Jack Cube, almost Tuskegee airman, rocket engineer, share lodgings with Gerry Mander, redneck, teenage, ex-con, rocket savant seems a bit forced and cliched.

Favorite Scene / Quote:
When Henry breaks security to run away from the hunting lodge to meet Doris, and gets busted by Esther.

The dogfight between Silbervogel and Lucky Linda at the edge of space over the Great Lakes as the Nazi space plane carried her bomb load toward 1943 New York City.

Pacing:
The pace is okay.

Hmm Moments:
The X-1/Lucky Linda and Silbervogel being weaponized space shuttle vehicles didn’t really resonate with me until I was most of the way through the book. In fairness, they are more in a gray area between the Concorde, the space shuttle, and the U-2. Much more in common with those Chuck Yeager piloted experimental aircraft.

WTF Moments:
Lt. Jackson Jackson Jackson’s parents sucked, unforgettable name, yes, still sucked. Among scientists, he is immediately nicknamed Jack Cube.

Meh / PFFT Moments:
The separation of the development team from the test range and launch complex is classic hamburger steak and military intelligence thinking. Rings false from modern sensibility, but in context, it makes historical sense.
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Last Page Sound:
Glad I finished it.

Author Assessment:
Not Steele’s best, but it was alright.

Editorial Assessment:
Could have been more.

Knee Jerk Reaction:
it’s alright

Disposition of Book:
Half Price Books stack.

Would recommend to:
genre fans
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V-S Day a novel of alternative history by Allen Steele. This is great book by a good author. V-S Day stands for victory in space day. This is a take off of V-E day , Victory in Europe, and V-J Day, Victory over Japan. The book asks the question what if the Germans during WWII had put their efforts into building a manned orbital bomber capable of destroying New York instead of making the Vengeance weapons the V-1 buzz bomb and the V-2 ballistic missile? Steele takes this simple premise and writes an engaging and thought provoking novel.Steele takes historical figures such as Robert Goddard,the American who invented the first liquid fueled rocket and launched space age, and Wernher Von Braun the German scientist who designed Hitler’s Vengeance weapons and our Apollo Program, and fashions a believable alternative history. This is a novel about engineers doing what they do best, solving seeming impossible problems using their unique set of skills. I have not read many alternate history stories. The ones I have read changed so many things that the story became impossible to relate to our world. Steele on the other hand changes only one key event. He then created a novel showed how the single change would have affected our world. This was a fun book to read. I like this authors books. I hope he continues writing. ( )

Kind of pulpy, but given the era in which the story takes place, that actually works pretty well. Fun. Not great literature. It's fun. Quite a few holes in the plot. But it's fun. ( )