Book Review: Three Books by Robert Conroy

Apologies once again for missing yet another posting. Unfortunately, life has caught up with me again and I am finding myself out of work. It’s been a rough month (If you need a good corporate communications guy, look no further).

I know some time ago and for a long time since I had mentioned that I was going to discuss three books by Robert Conroy: 1882: Custer in Chains, Germanica, and Red Inferno: 1945. Unfortunately, these will likely be the last books I review by the author, who died in 2014. In the past, readers may know that I have been decidedly mixed in by attitude towards Conroy, with my strongest feelings that his characters tended to be one-dimensional.

Fans of Conroy will be delighted to know of the three books, 1882: Custer in Chains, is the best of the lot and likely the best of Conroy’s I’ve read in some time. The point of divergence is that George Armstrong Custer not only survives Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876, but actually wins it, only to be propelled into the office of President in 1882, a role that he is totally unsuited for.  Looking to establish a legacy and some colonies, he goes to war with Spain over Cuba, some 16 years earlier than in our timeline.  I won’t give away too much more, except to say, this is a demonstration of the type of superior alternate history Conroy could do and should be remembered for. Historical research and characterizations are first-rate. Recommended. 

Unfortunately, I wish I could say the same about Germanica.  The book, which takes place in 1945 at the end of the war in Europe and is based upon fears by the Allies that the Nazis would establish an Alpine Redoubt, feels like I’ve read it before.  Too many evil Nazis, too many plucky resistance fighters, and too many brave Allied (read: American – sorry) soldiers.  I guess maybe I’ve read and reviewed too many alt-history books like this.  It doesn’t seem too original. Maybe I need to stay away from this stuff.

The third book, Red Inferno: 1945 is definitely an improvement.  Like Germanica, it also takes place at the end of the war in Europe, but its point of divergence occurs when a shooting war breaks out between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union.  The book is well-written and the plot hums along nicely. I can say that it appears Conroy is more in his element here. Characterizations are more in depth that in some of the author’s earlier novels.  This should appeal to fans of Conroy and of military alt-history looking for a something a little different.

Up Next:
Over the next couple of months, I’ll have a review of the five-episode miniseries SS-GB and then, after that, the final novel in Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter’s Long Earth series, The Long Cosmos. Thanks for reading and stay tuned.

Meanwhile, you can help out a poor unemployed writer by purchasing 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.

BBC Releases Preview of its SS-GB Miniseries

This looks good. BBC-TV has just released a preview of its five-part miniseries SS-GB, based on the book of the same name.  About time I say.

So maybe it’s time I do a quickie review. One of the earliest alternate history books I ever read was Len Deighton's SS-GB (I still proudly have my battered paperback edition).  First published in 1979, it’s a gritty police procedural as only Deighton can write it, set against the backdrop, of a world where the British lost the Battle of Britain and surrendered to the Nazis in February 1941.

Flash forward to November.  King George is a prisoner, locked in the Tower of London, but Scotland Yard detective Douglas Archer, who must somehow maintain a ‘business as usual’ attitude despite everything, is assigned to what is at first seems to be a routine murder case.

Of course, I’m going to stop here.  You know and I know that in these type of books, the “routine” murder cases are never anything but routine.  And when a high-ranking SS officer, Standartenfuhrer Oskar Huth arrives from Berlin with orders from Himmler to supervise the investigation, all pretense of routine goes out the window. Deighton's story-telling, plotting, and characterization are all spot-on, tell-tales of an author at the top of his game.

I love this book.  Along with The Divide, and The Man in the High Castle, SS-GB was one of my earliest entries into the sub-genre. It remains one of my favourites.  If you haven’t read it, do yourself a favour and find a copy now. My hope is that the BBC does a creditable job with it. Like Amazon's The Man in the High Castle, I would expect it to be an adaption, rather than a word-for-word retelling.  Look for my review in this space on this eagerly-awaited project.

Up Next:

I’ll be exploring a trio of Robert Conroy books: 1882: Custer in Chains, Germanica, and Red Inferno: 1945. (I know, I know, I said I'd do it for this month... but well, because reasons. Bear with me, please. It's coming.)

Meanwhile, you can purchase 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.

Reviewing the Second Season of Amazon's The Man in The High Castle

I’ve just finished binge-watching the second season of Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle at a most precipitous time.

The first 10 episodes based on Philip K. Dick’s 1962 alternate history classic of the same name has achieved wide acclaim; the second season of 10 episodes, released this past December, is in my opinion, are equally as good, adding greater breadth and depth to the nightmare world we were introduced to last year.

Although strictly speaking most of the themes of the novel that the series was loosely adapted from were covered in the first season, the second season carries from on some key points from the novel and the first season.  Both the novel and the television series take place in an alternate dystopian 1962, where the Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany won the Second World War and have split North America and the rest of the world between themselves and are teetering on the knife-edge of a Third World War.  In the second season, we are given a guided tour of the capital of the Reich, Welthauptstadt Germania, where the final power struggle to replace an ailing Hitler is coming to a head. We also meet the sons and daughters of the Nazi elite, who are in a quiet rebellion against their elders.

The second season is not without its surprises as the cast of characters continues through their well-defined story arcs.  We also finally meet the titular Man in the High Castle, Hawthorne Abendsen. He’s a rather genial, if mystic figure. We are given hints – and hints only – of how he is able to see between realities.  The second season ends on a similar note to the first: with one the main characters seemingly in transition between worlds.

The sophomore run of The Man in the High Castle is a worthy follow on to the series’ debut season.  Once again, the show’s actors, writers, directors, and producers have put on a master-class in world-building that is both utterly engaging and utterly frightening at the same time.

High Castle's second season concludes at a time when the imagined alternate reality of Dick’s world and the reality of our own seem to be blurring. As Donald Trump is sworn into office, I find that his unexpected election as President of the United States has the ring of alternate history to it. Coupled with the rise of Donald Trump, has been the rise of intolerance against The Other that is happening not only in the United States, but around the world.  Anyone who is different – Muslim, women, black, Latino, Jews, LBGT – is now in the crosshairs of hate groups who only seem to be emboldened by the Trump victory.

I wonder what Philip K. Dick would’ve thought about the whole sad thing that is now unfolding before us. Then I look at my copy of The Man in the High Castle and I already have the answer.

Up Next:

I’ll be exploring a trio of Robert Conroy books: 1882: Custer in Chains, Germanica, and Red Inferno: 1945. (I know, I know, I said I'd do it for this month, but stuff happens.)

Meanwhile, you can purchase 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: The Annihilation Score, by Charles Stross

The latest book in Charles Stross’s Laundry Files series, The Annihilation Score, takes place in the days and weeks following the events of the preceding novel, The Rhesus Chart, which ended with (here be spoilers!) with the apparent death of Angelton, the Eater of Souls and direct superior to Bob Howard. Bob, is of course, the decidedly put down upon spy in the best Len Deighton tradition and employee of a super-secret British occult agency tasked with defending the realm from against supernatural threats.

At the beginning of The Annihilation Score, the marriage between Bob and his wife, Moe, is coming unglued, while yet another threat emerges.  This time, it isn’t Bob who is answering the call, but Moe, who, in a deft piece of writing, is the main protagonist of this novel. As Agent Candid, she is the wielder of a sentient white-bone violin that deals destruction to demons and other assorted nasties. Always on the sidelines, this relationship is one of the many that Stross examines throughout the novel. She must also deal with two of Bob’s ex-girlfriends as she examines the meaning of her own relationship with her husband.

Stross also maintains his usual light touch as the central plot point unfolds: an upsurge in apparent “superpowers” and superheroes and villains – which are actually sourced in magic and driven by the early stages of the world-ending CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN and are therefore The Laundry’s business.  The book is actually a very clever examination – and satire – of the all superhero genre – with subtle dose of bureaucracy insanity thrown in.

The Annihilation Score ends in a hugely satisfying climax but leaves many questions unanswered, as is fitting, as despite the fantastic swirling around, it is still very much rooted in in reality. Both this book and its immediate predecessor, The Rhesus Chart, are not directly related to CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN – which is when the Stars Finally Become Right – and the Many Angled Ones begin to seep through the walls of our universe. With the next novel in the series, the main event should finally begin, and for that I am waiting for with great anticipation.

Regular readers of this space will know by now of my high opinion of both Stross and this series. If you haven’t started reading it by now, you most certainly should. You won’t regret it.

Up Next:

I’ll be exploring a trio of Robert Conroy books: 1882: Custer in Chains, Germanica, and Red Inferno: 1945.

Meanwhile, you can  purchase 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.

Alternate Futures 4: Come Fly With Me!

It has been a very busy – yes even stressful – time here at the blog. First, I’ve got a new job – for which I am very grateful.  There is a steep a steep learning curve attached, but I am confident I will gradually overcome this.  I’m getting ready to move to a new apartment closer to where I work, thus cutting down a killer commute, which is its own source of stress…

…and there’s this Donald Trump thing. Over a week on, I, like much of the rest of the world, am still how trying to get my head around how possibly Donald J. Trump became the 45th President of the United States. Of course, there’s nothing I can do about it. Although I predicted it in this space back in April, I still can’t believe it. Anyhow, the less said about that, perhaps the better.  

On to the main topic of today’s post, a more gentile form of air travel, a passenger flying wing airliner, based on John K. Northrop's XB-35 and YB-49 flying wing bombers of the late '40s and early '50s.  According to its backers, the flying wing jet transport represented the "fulfillment of scientific vision and symbolized the dreams of science for our world of tomorrow." If it were only so. Ultimately, the bomber projects came to naught, stifled by a conservative military, and the the dreams for the big wing airliner faded away.  I like to think that flying wings like these could be flying the friendly skies of some alternate world and may yet somehow fly over our own world in the not-to-distant future:

Design for passenger version of Northrop's Flying Wing

Cabin mock up from promo film.

Blow up of image below; from newspaper.

Here's the Northrop promotional film for the passenger wing, which gives a clue of how it all might've unfolded:

Meanwhile, you can  purchase 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.
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Book Review: Bombs Away, by Harry Turtledove

Harry Turtledove is back with another fresh look at our times through the lens of alternate history.  This time, he asks what if the Cold War – most specifically the Korean War – got hot? In truth, it almost did. In our history, General Douglas MacArthur publically petitioned President Harry Truman to use nuclear weapons in Korea to after Chinese positions just inside China.

Wisely, in our history, Truman turned down MacArthur’s request. The request for nuclear weapons was one of the many clashes between Truman and MacArthur that eventually led to MacArthur being fired as commander of UN forces in Korea.

However, in Bombs Away, the first of his three-part Hot War trilogy, Turtledove posits that MacArthur’s request made against a Korean situation that was more desperate.  With no way out, Truman accedes to the general’s wishes.

Both the United States and the Soviet Union began trading cities in a drawn-out nuclear exchange, much as described by cold war theorist Herman Khan (one of the real-life models for the character of Dr. Strangelove) suggested might happen.  Meanwhile, conventional fighting breaks out in Europe as the Red Army begins its drive across Germany and to the Rhine.  The action unfolds in a frighteningly plausible fashion.

Indeed, Turtledove has picked possibly the last moment that mankind might’ve been able to survive an atomic war with comparatively low-yield nuclear weapons only in the hands of the two superpowers, and the only delivery method being, for the most part, slow propeller-driven bombers.  Work on both ICBMs and far more powerful thermonuclear weapons was under way but had not yet produced anything far from useful.

As befitting any of his multivolume works, Turtledove presents us a wide and diverse cast of characters, ranging from the high and mighty to the soldiers on the front line and civilians caught in the crossfire. It’s to his continual credit that he does not lose track of any of his characters. In a very real way, Bombs Away is a counterpart to the author’s other examination of the same time period, Joe Steel (reviewed earlier in this blog).

Upshot: highly recommended. I will be looking forward to reading the next volume in the series, Fall Out, once it’s out in paperback (remember, I pay for my books).

What’s next?

Next month, I will be reviewing the most recent book in Charles Stross’ the Laundry Files series, The Annihilation Score. Following that, I’ll be exploring a trio of Robert Conroy books: 1882: Custer in Chains, Germanica, and Red Inferno: 1945.

Meanwhile, you can  purchase 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.

Alternate Futures 3: Worlds That Weren’t

We all knew how we were supposed to live in the World of Tomorrow.  Higher, Faster, Better. Everything pointed onwards and upwards.

Except it didn’t.  We probably should’ve known better that the streamlined jet and rocket-like Space Age images that were products the imaginations of countless artists, were exactly that: imagination, and nothing else.  But somehow, it all seemed so tantalizingly close. Dream on:

Following Up:

If you’ll recall earlier in this blog how I reported that how billionaire Elon Musk and other prominent individuals had become convinced that there was a good chance that we were living in someone else’s simulation, à la The Matrix.  Even the Bank of America has jumped on board, recently stating there’s up to a 50% chance that we were living inside a simulated reality.

But now, according to The Independent, two unnamed Silicon Valley billionaires who believe in the simulation hypothesis, are putting their money where their mouths are and have secretly hired scientists “to break us out of the simulation.”

Now, according to Musk - and it is unknown if he is one the funders of this project — if we were living in a simulation, it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. On the contrary, if we weren’t living in a simulation, Musk says, then all human life is in danger of ending, so we should hope that we are living in one.

Stay tuned...

Meanwhile, you can  purchase 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.