Showing posts with label Len Deighton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Len Deighton. Show all posts

Saturday, 3 October 2015

WWII In SF

Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series has a version of World War II that is indistinguishable from the version experienced by my parents, except to some individuals. Manse Everard served in the United States Army Engineers, Charlie Whitcomb in the RAF and both later time traveled to London, 1944.

Philip K Dick and Len Deighton have the Germans winning. Harry Turtledove has alien invaders interrupting. SM Stirling has the Draka coming out of Africa, into what they call the Eurasian War, and conquering Eurasia. I am still reading about the Draka colonization of France.

This is the briefest possible summary. I know that there are other versions with the Germans winning. British television had a serial set in German-occupied Britain where a TV playwright said, "Well, I can't rewrite history!" He could but, in that timeline, it would not be advisable. Fortunately, our writers are free to consider any possibility, however horrific, as Stirling demonstrates.

The Draka loot: art from the Louvre goes into private mansions in the new territories. Jannisaries, serf soldiers, are allowed to loot and rape. Such privileges keep them loyal. In one scene, Citizen officers watch the rape of a nun and Cohortarch Tanya von Shrakenberg merely reflects with mild contempt on the impoverished erotic imagination of the infantryman. In peace time, serf women cannot refuse Citizen teenagers. Citizens brought up like that will continue to support the Domination which, however, makes so many enemies that I continue to question its viability. But this is a timeline in which the worst probabilities happened...