Book Review: Dominion, by C.J. Samson

Let me state flat out that is one hell of a book.  You should definitely read this one, if you hadn’t done so already. 

Dominion takes place 12 years after the British Empire signed a peace treaty with Nazi Germany after Dunkirk.  In this version of reality, Churchill never became the wartime Prime Minister that led his country and the free world through those dark days. Instead, Lord Halifax becomes Prime Minister, who quickly negotiates an armistice with the Third Reich. Now during the intervening years, civil liberties are being gradually eroded as Great Britain, clinging to her Empire, slips gradually into fascism. Meanwhile, in the East, Germany continues in its grinding 11-year war with the remains of the Soviet Union. And in America, a new President, Adlai Stevenson is sworn in, signaling a shift in America’s isolationist stance. 

The book, which mingles historical facts such as the Great London Smog of 1952 and the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II with the fictional stories of people caught up in events larger than themselves yet somehow they manage to rise to the occasion.  David Fitzgerald is a mid-rank civil servant working in the government’s Dominions Office, but known only a few, he is also an agent for the British Resistance. Fitzgerald doesn’t tell his wife, Sarah, in order to protect her, but soon, she too is drawn into the events as Fitzgerald is ordered to rescue an old scientist friend who has the secret that might shift the balance of power between the United States and Nazi Germany.

Dominion is a pleasure to read. Characterizations, plotting and scene settings are all done practically in cinematic detail.  All characters, both protagonists and antagonists, have their flaws and strengths, which is a treat. The action moves quickly, but doesn’t leave the reader behind. This is a well researched and a believable alternate history that the world came a hair’s-breadth of actually living.

As I said, I highly recommend this book.  I draw favourable comparisons between this and another alt-history masterwork, Len Deighton’s SS-GB, which is the classic novel of Britain under Nazi occupation.  Of course, the subject of the UK under the Nazi jackboot has been an evergreen topic for many authors and is a strong subset of the genre.   

Equally as well-known, but perhaps only by reputation, is the 1965 film It Happened Here, which tells the story of a young British woman caught up in the battle between the occupying Nazis and the British Resistance. No matter how apolitical she tries to be, she finds herself sucked into the world around her.  The movie is worth watching, if only for its chilling documentary-style footage of German troops marching by the British Parliament buildings:

Next month, I will be reviewing 1920: America’s Great War, by Robert Conroy. So watch this space.

In the meantime, have a look at my own books, Elvis Saves JFK! for just 99 cents and War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History, for $2.99 and now The Key to My Heart, also $2.99 (all are free to preview). All books -- which are already on Smashword's premium distribution list -- are also available through such fine on-line retailers such as Sony, Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iTunes Store.   Thanks.

More Clues in the Search for Amelia Earhart!

One of the things we've been following in this blog, is the continuing search for the fate of Amelia Earhart, who vanished in July 1937 on Pacific leg of her round-the-world flight. Amelia is a prominent character in my alternate history novel War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History and has a short story all to herself in my alt-history collection, Elvis Saves JFK!

According to the National Post, experts are analyzing a photograph of Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra just prior to her doomed 1937 flight.  

Photographic analysts are poring over a high-resolution computer enhancement of a 1937 picture of Earhart’s plane to try to establish whether a distinctive area of repaired metal sheeting matches a piece of wreckage recovered off of Nikumaroro Island  in the Kiribati Archipelago.

Amelia Earhart just prior to her flight: is there a clue in the photo?

Experts believe that a match of the rivet patterns would provide “conclusive proof” that the aviator was not, as was widely believed, lost at sea, but instead managed to ditch in the waters off Nikumaroro Island. If Amelia and her navigator, Fred Noonan, did manage to make a controlled water landing, there is a possibility that they made it to the nearby island. What happened there? A gruesome thought is that Earhart and Noonan might've survived the crash only to starve to death on the island...

In the meantime, have a look at my own books, Elvis Saves JFK! for just 99 cents and War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History, for $2.99 and now The Key to My Heart, also $2.99 (all are free to preview). All books -- which are already on Smashword's premium distribution list -- are also available through such fine on-line retailers such as Sony, Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iTunes Store.   Thanks.

Book Review: V-S Day, by Allen Steele

This month, I’m reviewing Allen Steele’s alternate history novel, VS-Day.

We all know that towards the end of the Second World War, Nazi Germany was hell-bent to develop potentially war-winning secret weapons such as the V-1 flying bomb, the V-2 rocket and the ME-262 jet fighter.  Another weapon that was proposed and thankfully, not developed, was an incredible scheme to build a space bomber – Silverbird - to bomb the United States from orbit.

Wind tunnel model of Silverbird: this was as far as it got in our history

Silverbird was first proposed to the Luftwaffe by husband and wife engineers Eugen Sanger and Eileen Bredt in 1941 and in our history, not much happened beyond that.  Steele imagines that Silverbird gets greenlit by a Nazi high command desperate to score a knockout punch on America.

The Americans get word of this and under the guidance of space pioneer Robert Goddard, race to build their own spacecraft to intercept and hopefully shoot down the Nazi ship. 

VS-Day is in itself, an expansion and a rewrite of Steele’s earlier short story, "Goddard’s People." And therein may lie part of the trouble.  I really, really, wanted to like this novel a lot.  There’s a lot in this book to like – Steele has done a lot of homework – but the problem is that the book – written in a flashback sequence, so even the element of suspense is not as strong as it could be – reads exactly like someone tried to expand a short story into a novel.  Although the plot of the original short story has been expanded, with additional scenes and more action, the plot seems very sparse.   The action does move along in a very deft, assured manner, but compared to his other books – especially Steele’s other entry in his Alternate Space series – The Tranquility Alternative, it lacks the depth and grit of that earlier novel.

Another fact that didn’t exactly endear this book to me –admittedly I am a stickler – but the book had several factual errors in it that should’ve been caught well before galley stage, including this one: “P-51 Warhawk.” Last time I checked there was a P-51 Mustang and a P-40 Warhawk. Hopefully, this and the other gaffes will be cleaned up in time for the mass-market paperback: they get in the way of the devoted fan’s reading.

Beyond that, there are some positive things to be said about V-S Day. For example, the central concept and question– what if the Space Age got off to an early start – is definitely worth examining. I do like the way Steele brings the characters -- including Goddard -- to life. Now would I recommend it even it, even with these caveats? Yes, the book is still an entertaining read.

I’ve just finished reading the latest installment in Taylor Anderson’s long-running Destroyermen series, Storm Surge. Anderson keeps a deft hand on the action and the characters. The series stars the captain and crew of and the USS Walker, thrown into a parallel universe, as they fight alongside their human and Lemurian allies against the inhuman Grik. If you aren’t familiar with this series, you need to be.  It only remains to see how Anderson will wrap up the series that seems to be building to a crescendo.  Highly recommended.

Right now, I’m reading C.J. Samson’s Dominion, which takes place in a 1952 Great Britain that signed a peace treaty with the Third Reich in 1940.  It’s very atmospheric, very well-plotted, very enjoyable reading. More on this in a later post.

In the meantime, have a look at my own books, Elvis Saves JFK! for just 99 cents and War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History, for $2.99 and now The Key to My Heart, also $2.99 (all are free to preview). All books -- which are already on Smashword's premium distribution list -- are also available through such fine on-line retailers such as Sony, Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iTunes Store.   Thanks.

Book Review Time: The Violent Century by Lavie Tidhar and Rising Sun, by Robert Conroy

It's a double feature of book reviews, this time around at Somerset House Press.

First up, The Violent Century, by Lavie Tidhar. Regular readers of this space will remember I said that I was at first uncertain if this book, by the author of the excellent Osama, was an alt-history piece.

Well, fortunately for us, it is. This is the story is of the 20th Century, as viewed through the eyes of a pair of supermen -literally ubermenschen, created in the 1930s by the explosion of a "quantum bomb"that also not incidentally, creates the new timeline.  The book's primary protagonists, Fogg and Oblivion- who work for a top-secret department of the British Government - use their superpowers to simply observe the happenings around them, but never seeming to realize, as according to quantum theory, that even the very act of passively observing has an effect. Fogg and Oblivion observe their way through a curiously altered 20th Century that still resembles ours closely enough for the reader - yet another observer- to draw their own conclusions. I'll add there's a very poignant scene towards the end of the book where the one of the super characters - none of them who age - observes that he "...doesn't know the language people speak... It's as if I'm in an alien world." As I get older, I'm beginning to know how he feels. Although The Violent Century may seem somewhat inaccessible for some readers due to the style of dialogue Tindal uses, it is a worthwhile read. In short:highly recommended.

Next up, is Robert Conroy's Rising Sun. I must admit I was pleasantly surprised here. Conroy delivers a rollicking, if plausible (always key around these parts) tale, based on the premise that the U.S. Navy lost its gambit at the Battle of Midway. Despite the overwhelming U.S. victory, Midway was a close-run thing; a lot closer than many suppose and Conroy uses this knife-edge of history to great advantage. The story revolves around Yamamoto's plan to attack the west coast of the United States following a Japanese victory at Midway to force the United States to the negotiating table. Of course, things don't go quite to plan. Recommended reading, especially for military alt-history fans.

Meanwhile, over the last month I've managed to pick up –wait-for it- five new books that I'll review in later posts. First, there's the paperback edition of Storm Surge, the latest edition of Taylor Anderson's long-running and excellent Destroyermen series that I'm just finishing off and will review in my next posting. Second, there's Plan D, by Simon Urban, that posits life in a present-day Berlin where the wall never fell. Third, there's Dominion, by C.J. Samson which takes place set in an early '50s Britain that ten years previously, signed an armistice with Hitler. Forth, there’s V-S Day, by Allen Steele, which takes place in the author’s “Alternate Space” series. The book itself is a rewrite and expansion of the author’s short story, “Goddard’s People.” The fifth and final book is by Robert Conroy, 1920: America’s Great War, which seems to be a spiritual sequel to the author’s 1901. Some very heavy-duty summer reading ahead, I think. All of these books look like very interesting reads, and I will be sure to let you know what I think. Stay tuned.

Finally, a couple of postings ago in this space, I ruminated on how it my life would've been if I'd gone to work in an auto plant and married that girl from high school. Well, apparently, an old acquaintance of mine from primary school is living my dream. A few weeks ago, I got a friend request from him over Facebook. We'd been out of touch for years, but here's the kicker: he's working in the auto plant, due to retire in five years on a fully indexed auto worker's pension and is happily married with two adult children.

Like I said, living my dream. No-one's life is perfect and I'm sure his wasn't. It just a little too close to my own personal what -if fantasy for comfort.

In the meantime, have a look at my own books, Elvis Saves JFK! for just 99 cents and War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History, for $2.99 and now The Key to My Heart, also $2.99 (all are free to preview). All books -- which are already on Smashword's premium distribution list -- are also available through such fine on-line retailers such as Sony, Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iTunes Store.   Thanks.

History As Alternate History: Margaret MacMillan’s The War that Ended Peace

It’s been a busy month here at Somerset House Press.  Not only am I still holding down my day job, but I’m also writing two novels – one my own H.P. Lovecraft inspired work, the other I’m editing for a friend. I recently picked up a paperback copy of Robert Conroy’s (readers will know I have an ambiguous relationship with him) Rising Sun. I''ll review that novel in  a later posting.

I’m now reading, besides the excellent The Violent Century, by Lavie Tidhar, The War That Ended Peace, by Margaret MacMillan, which tells about the last years of the peace in Europe before the start of the Great War.

Perhaps with the approaching century mark of the start of the war this August, reading a book about the subject makes some sense.  After all, as MacMillan writes, we are still trying to make sense of how and why the First World War started.  Although I’m not yet a third through her book, she I think, cogently demonstrates that this was a war that didn’t necessarily have to happen. “What did the decision-makers think they were doing?” she asks. “Why didn’t they pull back this time as they had done before? Why, in other words, did the peace fail?”

Without the First World War, what would’ve happened?  Would the peace finally have broken down at some point in the future and we would’ve had a Great War, no matter what?  Or would somehow the peace would’ve gone on – no war, no millions dead on the battlefield, no countries shattered, no need to the Treaty of Versailles that punished Germany in a victor’s peace, no Nazi Party and no Adolf Hitler to take control over it, no Second World War, no Holocaust.  No collapse of the Tsarist Russia and no Cold War.

It could’ve been better or it could’ve been worse.  Several authors such as Michael Moorcock, have examined this theme from both sides.

Just as I have always maintained, the it’s the best in alternate history that examines history in new lights, it’s also serves the cause of history best when historians ask, what if?

If you’re interested in a compelling and intelligent non-fiction read, I recommend Margaret MacMillan’s The War That Ended Peace.

In the meantime, have a look at my own books, Elvis Saves JFK! for just 99 cents and War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History, for $2.99 and now The Key to My Heart, also $2.99 (all are free to preview). All books -- which are already on Smashword's premium distribution list -- are also available through such fine on-line retailers such as Sony, Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iTunes Store.   Thanks.