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Title: Not nearly grim enough
Review: A well-written alternative history by a science-fiction writer, this is the best of the fictionalized accounts of Operation Downfall. It skips over Operation Olympic (the invasion of Kyushu)and concentrates upon Operation Coronet (the invasion of the main island of Honshu). The emphasis upon a somewhat limited cast of characters, while necessary for dramatic effect, in a sense glosses over the horrific cost of the planned invasion of Japan. Potential American casualties were estimated at about a million, with four to ten million Japanese deaths. It is all too easy to forget that the estimated 180,000 deaths at Hiroshima and Nagasaki literally saved the lives of millions. This book paints a gory portrait of what might have been, and the horrors that the atomic bombs actually prevented.
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