Walpurgisnacht
It was in the Year of Maximum Danger
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- He/Him
Night Probe
The CRIME-SOLVING Probe!
Night Probe
One of the later Survivalists, and only two books away from the finale, Death Watch, War Mountain is an interesting diversion into alternate history beyond the chronological start of the series. By this point, it's long stopped being post-apocalyptic and has become this "science fiction but with all my favorite guns" author's toy.
Anyway, the divergence in question, aka the MacGuffin of this book arc, has to deal with a figure common in alternate history-Adolf Hitler. See, the divergence is that the Americans somehow got his body, preserved it, and stuck it in a giant underground facility in upstate New York. No, it doesn't really explain why they did this.
That becks the question i always have, what happens to a Nazi Reich who manged to stay in power for more than 999 years, will they say, we done the 1000 year stuff, lets pack up and go.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika_Night
Swastika Night, by Katherine Burdekin (under the pen name Murray Constantine). Published in 1937, it imagines a world ~700 years in the future, where the Nazis and the Japanese Empire conquered the world between them, and then settled into stalemated conflict. Nazi-controlled society as a whole has regressed to a semi-medieval level, with virtually no surviving knowledge of its true origins. Hitler is worshiped as a 7-foot blonde, blue-eyed god, the "Sacred Aeroplane" he flew to Moscow and won the war singlehanded is revered as a relic, and the "Holy Forest" in Munich where he was "exploded from the head of God the Thunderer" is the holiest pilgrimage site of Hitlerism.
A huge amount of expository dialogue (several chapters were nothing but long, speech-ridden conversations between two characters), but still an intriguing speculation and critique of what the "Thousand-Year Reich" might turn out to be, and the ways it would be sustained through war and hugely aggrandized patriarchal rule at all levels
That becks the question i always have, what happens to a Nazi Reich who manged to stay in power for more than 999 years, will they say, we done the 1000 year stuff, lets pack up and go.
What the heck, Jesus i would love to see with a second coming, but not that little Austria corporal.You'd just have Millenarianism- as the 1,000 years approached everyone would be talking about the forthcoming transformation of the nation to the next level of perfection/the Second Coming of Adolph or something.
You'd just have Millenarianism- as the 1,000 years approached everyone would be talking about the forthcoming transformation of the nation to the next level of perfection/the Second Coming of Adolph or something.
And today in Nothing Dates Faster Than Future History....
The book that launched hundreds of Fuldapocalypses, and a thousand tedious Post-1900 threads, and one of the only three books pre-teen me devoured in one sitting - the others being Nineteen Eighty-Four by y'know that guy and First Among Equals* by <cough> Jeffrey Archer. Both honorary alternate histories themselves, nowadays.
If you don't know the story (shame on you) NORTHAG, CENTAG and SOUTHAG get spanked by the 3rd Shock Army (subs pls chk), the Backfires fly, AS-6 'Kingfish' are launched at REFORGER in the GIUK Gap and an entire glossary of acronyms gets blown up or overrun.
Only as far as Krefeld and/or the Dutch border for plot purposes, culminating in a magitek non-escalating strategic nuclear exchange which dramatically reduces property values in Birmingham and Minsk, and the dramatic collapse of Vorotnikov's Politburo.
(The SS-18 'Satan' probably also ruins Prime MinisterThatchPlumber's chances of winning the 1987 General Election.)
Alt-1985 is not a year we will look back upon with fondness.
*Look, Brighton to Grimsby is a looong train journey when you are twelve, and the batteries of your Walkman have run down.
That becks the question i always have, what happens to a Nazi Reich who manged to stay in power for more than 999 years, will they say, we done the 1000 year stuff, lets pack up and go.
Interestingly, the (somewhat rambling/confusing) Moon of Ice by Brad Linaweaver (POD: FDR is impeached in 1942--over Pearl Harbor revelations of some kind--and Germany has A-bombs by 1944 to win the war in Europe) hints at that in a conversation between Goebbels and a dying Hitler, where the latter says it will take a thousand years to finish building the Reich, which will then last for eternity.
2) Red Napoleon. This was written in the mid-1920s and supposedly happened a few years later. Stalin is assassinated. His replacement is a military and political genius who builds up the Soviet army and then sends it against the nations of Europe, which fall one-by-one to Soviet power and trickery, most of them crouching within their own borders while the others are picked off. The one exception: Mussolini, who leads the Italians to challenge the Red colossus. He is defeated and dies, but comes across as the one truly courageous European leader. (Yeah. Hard to imagine that, but this was written in the mid-1920s when a lot of people believed Mussolini's boasts).
In any case, the Red tide reaches the English channel, then takes Britain through treachery of communist-infiltrated unions and armed forces. The Soviets take the British fleet essentially intact. The same sort of thing happens in Japan. And yeah, we're getting into ASB territory there, but oh well. With all the fleets of Europe and those of Japan on his side, the Red Napoleon has only one major power left to defeat. He invades the United States and takes big hunks of the coasts. The US, along with fugitives from the continent, fights on, with now exiled Italian fascists playing a prominent role in the defense. (Again, written in the mid-1920s, before Fascists had totally discredited themselves).
In any case, the Red Napoleon finally over-extends himself and is defeated. With that defeat, conquered territories revolt and his empire disintegrates.
This is quite well-written and probably seemed very plausible at the time, partly because it played on a lot of the things people feared. I don't know where you could get a copy. Last time I checked, it wasn't available through Gutenberg Project.