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jjupille's review
5.0
I try to be very chary with the five stars, but I have to say I found this book breathtaking. I think that mostly has to do with the eery accuracy of his predictions.
My copy, published by Wildside Press, had no original publication information, only reading "This edition published in 2006 by Wildside Press, LLC, www.wildsidepress.com". No real publications page. The type is very old looking, the printing quality is rough, but that can sometimes be affectation by a particular imprint. Some typos as well, which reinforced the Samizdat feel of it. The author seems like an interesting guy, check out Milo Hastings via wikipedia, and the protagonist doesn't sound very removed from the writer.
Now, I usually know publication information, but here I didn't. It was recommended to me by someone whose judgment I trust deeply, and I never bothered Googling the author, who was unknown to me. So as I am reading this story, a utopia/dystopia, certainly futuristic but utterly human, I am wondering when it was written. The protagonist is a scientifically dazzling, unadorned but intellectually well-rounded chemist who is seeking to erase a black spot from the map of the world, the spot representing the fortified city of Berlin, autocratic Germany, the only deviation from the gold that maps the extent of the democratic World State. We find him as a boy contemplating five great maps hanging in his uncle's library. 1) "The Age of Nations, - 1914"; 2) Germany's Maximum Expansion of the First World War -- 1918"; 3) "The Age of the League of Nations, 1919--1983"; 4) "Maximum German Expansion of the Second World War, 1988"; and 5) "A Century of the World State", running to the setting date of 2041. As I have said, the entire world is awash in gold, and only the black spot of Berlin remains of socialist (red) and autocratic (black) alternatives to democracy.
All of this is a long-winded way of saying that the rendering of the 20th century was close enough to the real thing that I was certain the book was written post-World War II. But I see that it was written in 1919, and published in book form (perhaps the very form of the edition I have) in 1920.
Wow. This dude, like, saw the future of the rise of fascism in Germany and the advent of World War II. And it wasn't just a lucky guess. Like all good futures, it was an extrapolation. Actually, it's in two amazing extrapolations.
The first involves his analysis of modernity, and especially its dark underbelly. The Germany he invents is a nightmare of scientific rationality, technical efficiency, dispassionate eugenic and social engineering. Again, in a point, it's the dark underbelly of all that warm and fuzzy progress we so enjoy.
The second involves his analysis of the German character. I don't recommend this to my German friends -- it cannot make for comfortable reading. It's painful for me, and I am French (albeit a Germanophile and certainly a Europhile). (On the other hand, you all have been so thorough in confronting war guilt, that it might be worth checking out.) Here, in a nutshell, Milo Hastings more or less predicts the rise of fascism and the advent of WWII, on a roughly accurate timeframe.
Now, that's all he gets "right", but, well, he gets right perhaps the most important events in European history within a roughly accurate timeframe a half-century forward of when he was writing.
Again: I went to check the publication date, and it was 1919. I tore through the book very quickly, utterly fascinated.
I think this book is amazing. The protagonist briskly moves history forward, a bit too smart to believe, too-frequently lucky, but fascinating nonetheless. The narrative unfolds much more successfully than Huxley's did in another book I just read, T[b:Island|7036191|Island|Aldous Huxley|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347618526s/7036191.jpg|3269256]. It's done through dialogue, protagonist's reading, research and reflection, etc. It's a little quirky, not perfect but rarely dull.
The world that Hastings constructs is terrifyingly believable. It's probably most terrifying because he was so uncannily accurate in other respects. Given how much of real history he got right, his imagined future is all the more plausible.
I won't go into all of the details. But he basically presents us with an imagined ethnography of the German people. Everything is there -- the symbolic belief systems, the politics, the economics, the sociology, the technology, the science, the family, demographics, international relations, etc. There are a few places where I have holes in my understanding, or perhaps don't quite buy what Hastings has laid out --social control and room for change coexist a little bit too frictionlessly, for example-- but he has laid out an entire world in compact, readable, and impossible-to-resist form.
I won't talk much about the story. It's a good story, a good vehicle to run us through the world as it might have been and still might be.
If you like futures/dystopias/utopias, this one's for you. Amazing. Five stars.
My copy, published by Wildside Press, had no original publication information, only reading "This edition published in 2006 by Wildside Press, LLC, www.wildsidepress.com". No real publications page. The type is very old looking, the printing quality is rough, but that can sometimes be affectation by a particular imprint. Some typos as well, which reinforced the Samizdat feel of it. The author seems like an interesting guy, check out Milo Hastings via wikipedia, and the protagonist doesn't sound very removed from the writer.
Now, I usually know publication information, but here I didn't. It was recommended to me by someone whose judgment I trust deeply, and I never bothered Googling the author, who was unknown to me. So as I am reading this story, a utopia/dystopia, certainly futuristic but utterly human, I am wondering when it was written. The protagonist is a scientifically dazzling, unadorned but intellectually well-rounded chemist who is seeking to erase a black spot from the map of the world, the spot representing the fortified city of Berlin, autocratic Germany, the only deviation from the gold that maps the extent of the democratic World State. We find him as a boy contemplating five great maps hanging in his uncle's library. 1) "The Age of Nations, - 1914"; 2) Germany's Maximum Expansion of the First World War -- 1918"; 3) "The Age of the League of Nations, 1919--1983"; 4) "Maximum German Expansion of the Second World War, 1988"; and 5) "A Century of the World State", running to the setting date of 2041. As I have said, the entire world is awash in gold, and only the black spot of Berlin remains of socialist (red) and autocratic (black) alternatives to democracy.
All of this is a long-winded way of saying that the rendering of the 20th century was close enough to the real thing that I was certain the book was written post-World War II. But I see that it was written in 1919, and published in book form (perhaps the very form of the edition I have) in 1920.
Wow. This dude, like, saw the future of the rise of fascism in Germany and the advent of World War II. And it wasn't just a lucky guess. Like all good futures, it was an extrapolation. Actually, it's in two amazing extrapolations.
The first involves his analysis of modernity, and especially its dark underbelly. The Germany he invents is a nightmare of scientific rationality, technical efficiency, dispassionate eugenic and social engineering. Again, in a point, it's the dark underbelly of all that warm and fuzzy progress we so enjoy.
The second involves his analysis of the German character. I don't recommend this to my German friends -- it cannot make for comfortable reading. It's painful for me, and I am French (albeit a Germanophile and certainly a Europhile). (On the other hand, you all have been so thorough in confronting war guilt, that it might be worth checking out.) Here, in a nutshell, Milo Hastings more or less predicts the rise of fascism and the advent of WWII, on a roughly accurate timeframe.
Now, that's all he gets "right", but, well, he gets right perhaps the most important events in European history within a roughly accurate timeframe a half-century forward of when he was writing.
Again: I went to check the publication date, and it was 1919. I tore through the book very quickly, utterly fascinated.
I think this book is amazing. The protagonist briskly moves history forward, a bit too smart to believe, too-frequently lucky, but fascinating nonetheless. The narrative unfolds much more successfully than Huxley's did in another book I just read, T[b:Island|7036191|Island|Aldous Huxley|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347618526s/7036191.jpg|3269256]. It's done through dialogue, protagonist's reading, research and reflection, etc. It's a little quirky, not perfect but rarely dull.
The world that Hastings constructs is terrifyingly believable. It's probably most terrifying because he was so uncannily accurate in other respects. Given how much of real history he got right, his imagined future is all the more plausible.
I won't go into all of the details. But he basically presents us with an imagined ethnography of the German people. Everything is there -- the symbolic belief systems, the politics, the economics, the sociology, the technology, the science, the family, demographics, international relations, etc. There are a few places where I have holes in my understanding, or perhaps don't quite buy what Hastings has laid out --social control and room for change coexist a little bit too frictionlessly, for example-- but he has laid out an entire world in compact, readable, and impossible-to-resist form.
I won't talk much about the story. It's a good story, a good vehicle to run us through the world as it might have been and still might be.
If you like futures/dystopias/utopias, this one's for you. Amazing. Five stars.
peterseanesq's review
5.0
My Amazon review -
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2Z8YMZNYWSVRI/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2Z8YMZNYWSVRI/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
snaomiscott's review
adventurous
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
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