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Москау
Что бы случилось, если бы войну выиграли немцы?
- GenresFiction
384 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2012
1 person is currently reading
17 people want to read
About the author
Zотов
20 books11 followersПроект Zотов - самый сенсационный и громкий дебют 2007 года! Задолго до появления на прилавках романа "Элемент крови" в Интернете начали распространяться слухи о подлинной личности автора, а сама книга стала самым обсуждаемым произведением в российской Сети. Zотов - это невероятный справочник для путешествующих автостопом по Раю и Аду, бездна черного юмора, громадное количество Легко Узнаваемых Персон в каждой книге и поистине ПОТУСТОРОННЯЯ интрига. Хотите узнать, как на самом деле обстоят дела в Империи Ангелов и какая участь ждет в Аду Дэна Брауна? Читайте - и удивляйтесь!
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 17, 2020
Москау in many ways echoes an earlier work: Philip K. Dick's iconic "The Man in the High Castle". There are multiple nods in Dick's direction, including some not very friendly ones: the American author confines Slavs to "...their heartland in Asia... to everyone’s relief. Back to riding yaks and hunting with bow and arrow." Zotoв, while equally harsh to the unfortunate North Americans outside of "dictator McCain's California Republic", who in his words "...subsist by hunting possums and feral cats", at least leaves them the dignity of performing that unenviable activity with Sturmgewehr 44, which is apparently as ubiquitous in Mockay's world as its look-alike AK-47 is in ours.
However, Zotoв's work definitely stands on its own despite the historical similarities of the plot. More over, while in Philip K. Dick's novel the worldwide atrocities committed by the Nazi victors are no less calamitous, there is certain academic detachment the writer, and by extension, the readers feel from the action. Not so with the Russian author, whose native land is still scarred by the tracks of the "Panthers" and "Tigers", and bears scorch marks from the flamethrowers of Waffen-SS. When every 8th person in your nation dies in a war, that is bound to feel personal. It certainly does for Zotoв, and he makes no attempt to hide it. In fact, the idea that the world of Москау is somehow wrong is the leitmotif of the book, felt by the characters on almost every page to a point where the whole work starts smelling of mysticism and black magic. However, the author manages to tie everything together in a scientifically sound, convincing, and logical science fiction story.
Although the novel made a huge impression on me, I can't close my eyes to a number of mistakes and imprecisions that distract from the plot and reduce the credibility of the author in the eyes of a typical educated reader (and uneducated readers of alternative history are unlikely). For example, how can we accept anything said about the United States by a person who refers to "...the ungoverned lands of the Far West: the former states of Alabama, Utah, and Kansas"
As memory of WW2 fades, all kinds of groups chip away at the historical records: Holocaust deniers proclaim the death camps to be "props", constructed by the Allies post-factum; die-hard Stalinists deny the decisive effect of the lend-lease arrangement; movements of self-proclaimed "patriots" within every "allied" nation, astonishingly including France and China harbor illusions of how they could have won the war all on their own, etc. However, the major revisionist trend, one that billions of dollars (and other currencies, including rubles) are being pumped into is marginalizing (and I suspect, eventually reversing) the role of the Soviet Union in the war. None of the shards of the shattered Communist empire seem to be interested in setting the record straight, with maybe the weak and weary exception of the Russian Federation. However, that state lacks both the means and the will to reverse the trend that will have their children in 2050 (if any are born by that time) bow their heads in shame at the despicable crimes of that nation under one Joseph Stalin (aka Adolf Hitler), who killed billions and billions of his own people until a United Nations peacekeeping force nuked his bunker in Hiroshima, Japan – a city which his troops were illegally occupying after having raped, slaughtered, and eaten (not always in that order) the local population. Hopefully, the effort of Russia's writers can make up for the state's deficiency in PR skills and funding. We (the human race) are lucky to have authors like Philip K. Dick and Zotoв (Georgi Zotov, Russian: Георгий Зотов) put their talents to the task of helping us all learn from history, rather than endlessly repeat it.
However, Zotoв's work definitely stands on its own despite the historical similarities of the plot. More over, while in Philip K. Dick's novel the worldwide atrocities committed by the Nazi victors are no less calamitous, there is certain academic detachment the writer, and by extension, the readers feel from the action. Not so with the Russian author, whose native land is still scarred by the tracks of the "Panthers" and "Tigers", and bears scorch marks from the flamethrowers of Waffen-SS. When every 8th person in your nation dies in a war, that is bound to feel personal. It certainly does for Zotoв, and he makes no attempt to hide it. In fact, the idea that the world of Москау is somehow wrong is the leitmotif of the book, felt by the characters on almost every page to a point where the whole work starts smelling of mysticism and black magic. However, the author manages to tie everything together in a scientifically sound, convincing, and logical science fiction story.
Although the novel made a huge impression on me, I can't close my eyes to a number of mistakes and imprecisions that distract from the plot and reduce the credibility of the author in the eyes of a typical educated reader (and uneducated readers of alternative history are unlikely). For example, how can we accept anything said about the United States by a person who refers to "...the ungoverned lands of the Far West: the former states of Alabama, Utah, and Kansas"
As memory of WW2 fades, all kinds of groups chip away at the historical records: Holocaust deniers proclaim the death camps to be "props", constructed by the Allies post-factum; die-hard Stalinists deny the decisive effect of the lend-lease arrangement; movements of self-proclaimed "patriots" within every "allied" nation, astonishingly including France and China harbor illusions of how they could have won the war all on their own, etc. However, the major revisionist trend, one that billions of dollars (and other currencies, including rubles) are being pumped into is marginalizing (and I suspect, eventually reversing) the role of the Soviet Union in the war. None of the shards of the shattered Communist empire seem to be interested in setting the record straight, with maybe the weak and weary exception of the Russian Federation. However, that state lacks both the means and the will to reverse the trend that will have their children in 2050 (if any are born by that time) bow their heads in shame at the despicable crimes of that nation under one Joseph Stalin (aka Adolf Hitler), who killed billions and billions of his own people until a United Nations peacekeeping force nuked his bunker in Hiroshima, Japan – a city which his troops were illegally occupying after having raped, slaughtered, and eaten (not always in that order) the local population. Hopefully, the effort of Russia's writers can make up for the state's deficiency in PR skills and funding. We (the human race) are lucky to have authors like Philip K. Dick and Zotoв (Georgi Zotov, Russian: Георгий Зотов) put their talents to the task of helping us all learn from history, rather than endlessly repeat it.
September 13, 2017
Интересный альтернативный взгляд на вторую мировую. Изложение несколько дерганое и торопливо, но необычно.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews