Book Review: The Romanov Rescue

[Charles EP M.]

I would normally agree that what politics an author has doesn't have to be the be-all and end-all about a book discussion, unless the book is specifically about their politics. Like, it'd be relevant for "Reds!" because that's about a communist revolution in the USA and how that's a good thing, but it's not that relevant to read "Freedom's Rampart". Maybe if their politics is punching you in the face with no craft; my 'gold star' here is the Primortals tie-in book stopping for ten pages to complain about how sexual harassment hysteria was making good, decent old men lose their jobs, which has nothing to do with first contact and pterodactyl men.

I could guess an alternate history adventure story about a blimp commando raid to rescue the Romanovs won't be written by a big leftie, "the writer overlooked X, Y, and Z because of their politics" could be an argument to have, but most people would want to know how the blimp raid action goes.

However, Kratman wrote a book about how the Muslim hordes will overpower those stupid sissy liberal decadents of Europe and turn it into a backward Dark Age that the Euros deserve, and only American soldiers can check the tide, and he meant this as a dark warning/rebuke at sissy Europe. And that is not normal. That's a very nasty and very extreme view, one sometimes used to justify violence. I think views like that should hang over any discussion of his work because his work will betray them.

 

[Elektronaut]

Really struggling to understand what Chris is getting out of this forum at this stage if I'm honest. Every time he makes a large post or whatever, it just produces 'Well, you're the guy who...'

It seems like a really odd online experience for me. I'm very confident I wouldn't enjoy it myself. I think 'what people do outside of the forum should be left outside the forum' should be absolutely drawn as widely as possible, but there comes a point where that's justifiably unsustainable and there's just no way back to acceptance with people in a community. And I think people on this forum have kind of declared their position on that one, and I can't find fault with it. When you've taken a public stance on what alternate history should be about, that's a public stance, not a private issue, and also very much concerns this community and is inextricably bound up in stuff at the heart of the community. It's not some abstract political stance.

I find this whole situation really odd to be honest, and borderline comedic. There's this continuous stream of Chris' 'I am a very normal internet poster' posts, and then loads of posts in response saying 'You're a sad puppy and we can't take your posts seriously because we know what your angle is'. Which Chris just ignores. And on and on it goes.

It's kind of a bizare situation, really. I don't feel threatened by Chris's presence on this forum, I just feel it's maybe missing the accompaniment of the Benny Hill theme tune.

 

[David Flin]

However, Kratman wrote a book about how the Muslim hordes will overpower those stupid sissy liberal decadents of Europe and turn it into a backward Dark Age that the Euros deserve, and only American soldiers can check the tide, and he meant this as a dark warning/rebuke at sissy Europe. And that is not normal. That's a very nasty and very extreme view, one sometimes used to justify violence. I think views like that should hang over any discussion of his work because his work will betray them.

Different people will have different lines as to when the views one has of an author will impact consideration of any work that author might produce.

Kratman clearly lies at one extreme, for the reasons you describe (and others). Rowling has some dubious views, expression of which post-date the work for which she is famous - she lies somewhere else on the scale. Others will lie elsewhere on the scale, and different people, with different outlooks, will place them differently. But we all draw a line somewhere.

In the case of Kratman, it is important for the reader to know what his views are, because those views permeate his work, even when not directly raised.

I would normally agree that what politics an author has doesn't have to be the be-all and end-all about a book discussion, unless the book is specifically about their politics.

Of course, that is also subject to caveats. To take a self-serving example (I feel safe in commenting on this particular author - I can argue with him later at leisure), the politics of the author of Six East End Boys are self-evident in the themes of the book. However, those politics are not strictly right or left, but issue-based, that of Justice, Redemption, and the Ignored. I'm not sure how to classify the author's political stance on a simple left-right scale, but the politics of the book are fairly open. Any review of the book could and should reference the politics, because they are relevant.

By contrast, that same author wrote Christmas with Sergeant Frosty, where the book rarely touches on anything political (unless one counts Christmas magic and Scrooge magic as political. Mind you, the author's views on the Elgin Marbles are mentioned, so maybe politics does come into it. I digress).

Mind you, I would love to read a review of Escape From the Tower which tried to analyse the author's politics from that book.

 

[David Flin]

Really struggling to understand what Chris is getting out of this forum at this stage if I'm honest. Every time he makes a large post or whatever, it just produces 'Well, you're the guy who...'

I'm not sure that's entirely fair. This discussion has moved on from a discussion of the (poorly-written, in my opinion) book, and into the issue of the relevance of an author's views with regard to a review of a single book from their oeuvre.

Which has relevance to authors such as Rowling, Fleming, Carroll, and Kipling, among others. I've certainly found the discussion interesting.

I think 'what people do outside of the forum should be left outside the forum' should be absolutely drawn as widely as possible, but there comes a point where that's justifiably unsustainable and there's just no way back to acceptance with people in a community.

Now that is a very valid point. Quite what is and what is not acceptable here seems to be something of a gestalt decision-making process - I (and others) unquestionably self-censor simply because of the forum responses.

 

[BBadolato]

Even if I wasn't familiar with Kratman's works or views, this book is still plagued with just poorly conceived nonsense which could easily be debunked by a wikipedia article or two. Women could never ascend to Russian throne since Tsar Paul, and what magic is a nearly defeated and exhausted Germany going to pull off with trying to mess with a technical non-combatant. Lenin was brought in to make hell for the Russians and it was under him that they signed a peace treaty with Germany, as far as they are concerned the East can go rot for now.

Even if my knowledge and understanding of the period really doesn't extend too much from one college course on post 1900 Russian History, which at least had the decency to cover Nicholas II's reign established that Nicholas II was deeply unpopular for so many reasons that I fail to believe that anyone wanted to bring him back, or even Alexi for that matter. Yet this books give us the old, boring, and probably pejorative idea, that Russia was only suited for one authoritarian government, be it the Tsardom or the Bolsheviks.

Yes The Provisional government didn't last long, but they did much more than what could be said of Nicholas II even when his hand had to be forced come 1905. Like there were better alternatives that people didn't have to settle for hoping Nicholas finally learned his lesson he promised, despite doing that thirteen years earlier or hoping that any Romanov has done so because they had no choice?

 

[Hendryk]

Yet this books give us the old, boring, and probably pejorative idea, that Russia was only suited for one authoritarian government, be it the Tsardom or the Bolsheviks.

I have belatedly watched The King's Man and I wonder whether that's where Kratman got the idea. In one egregiously ahistorical scene, we see Lenin personally coercing the Tsar into abdicating. I guess the history of the Russian revolution is so much simpler when you skip everything between February and November 1917.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

I have belatedly watched The King's Man and I wonder whether that's where Kratman got the idea. In one egregiously ahistorical scene, we see Lenin personally coercing the Tsar into abdicating. I guess the history of the Russian revolution is so much simpler when you skip everything between February and November 1917.

God, that’s ridiculous. Everyone knows the Tsar was overthrown because he threw out Rasputin, who put a magical spell on the Romanovs that turned the Russian people against them.


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