Beyond the Shield

by Nachman Kataczinsky, Nachman Kataczinsky

Beyond the Shield, by Nachman Kataczinsky, continues the story of his popular book The Shield. 21st century Israel – with all its population and know-how – is in the world of the 1940s. Can they gather all the Jews, defeat their enemies, and help build a better world?

315 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 24, 2016

About the author

Born in the U.S.S.R. to Holocaust survivors, Nachman Kataczinsky grew up in Israel. He earned a degree in mechanical engineering from the prestigious Technion University and was an officer with the Israel Defense Forces. His employer put him on the design team for the Merkava, Israel’s first tank, and promoted Nachman to head Research and Development, where he worked on ballistic armor and weapons systems for both Israel and other countries.

In 1987 Nachman moved to the U.S., obtaining citizenship through a program for internationally recognized unique expertise. He is fluent in five languages and enjoys reading history and fiction in all of them, especially if the subject is mid-twentieth century Europe. His research in ballistics, which earned him a Ph.D. from California Coast University, is expressed these days mostly by shooting hand guns at paper. He dabbles in web design and programming, avidly follows political and military activities, and is happily married. The Shield is his first novel. He’s working on a sequel.

Reviews

[Redrake · Rating 2 out of 5]

The basic idea of this book series is not original. John Birmingham did it with Axis of Time, Christopher Nuttall with "Second Chance" Trilogy. Especially Christopher Nuttall's series can be seen as the start of the idea behind Shield. Only, in those books, the 2010 UK is displaced to July 1940. Here is 21st century Israel displaced to July 1941.
The idea is good, but unfortunately the author got overzealous and the whole plot ended black&white. Israel are basically the good guys, everyone else is bad. Nazis are complete idiots and they are outsmarted everywhere.
Too much time is lost on boring plots like how jews from 1941 accommodate in 21st century Israel and on various business plots that are incredibly unrealistic. As an example, Israel provides British with the plans for building Centurion tanks. Within 3 months, those tanks are built and the are used in Southern France from an invasion force coming from North Africa. Totally unrealistic to believe that the tanks are built and then immediately deployed in large numbers. Let alone training their crews.

Even more anachronistic is the idea that Germans are so fooled that they get it wrong everywhere even abandoning nuclear research for teleportation research. They totally believe everything Mossad does without even bothering to question it.
Even by the time technologically superior planes and tanks wearing the star of David flag fight Germans, they continue to be fooled and absolutely no thought is being given on where the allies might've got those technologies.

And near the end, the plot looks rushed with lots of loose ends and ideas compiled on a moment notice without any explanations. As an example, there's a high level meeting of generals in Germany, where those generals decide the end the war. Only, many of those generals are also commanding on the fronts, some on Eastern Front some in France. No reason is given to the idea that those generals might leave their command and go to a meeting in Berlin and it would totally escape Gestapo's notice.

All in all, I give the whole 2 book series 2 stars for the effort and for having tried to use a good idea. But the execution was terrible.

I am not commenting anything on jewish supremacy ideas or something like that. Any author is allow a reasonable degree of subjectivity on his ideas.

[Allen McDonnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good but not great. I read this novel back to back with the first, which was excellent. Sadly this addition did not live up to the high standard of the first novel. The idea expressed in the original novel was that The Shield broke Israel loose in time and it arrived in 1941 at a crucial moment in history. The story that developed from that premise was very good, engaging, well written and fast paced. In the sequel unfortunately the author started adding one technological development after another, despite the consequences of the positive actions taken by Israel in the first novel. With a doubled population and the logistical headaches that would come from that it doesn't seem plausible that the government or major companies would pour vast resources into continued R&D. I respect the author's right to take the story wherever they wish, but building a Universe with so many technological advantages that rapidly advances even further while at war and in a massive population crises rings too much of magic and not enough of diligent hard work to adjust to the new situation.

(Minor Spoiler) I personally was looking forward to the Palestinians being shifted into an alternate past several hundred thousand years back like the prior interglacial with the possibility of a chapter about their lives in a world where Dire wolves and Aurochs bulls were equally matched predators and prey. That was implied to be the plan in the first novel, and I think it would have been a better solution than the different one chosen in this sequel.

As an aside anti-Semitism does exist and has existed in the USA, but the fact that most Americans of Jewish descent did not choose to emigrate to Israel and continue to remain in the USA even now having successful happy lives makes the reactions of the characters in 1942 America seem like wish fulfillment by the author.

[Tim Fay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deus ex machina

As in too much of it, and not enough character development . This story could have used more development of the dramatic elements . Insted it reads more like a info dump/story outline . . . Quite disappointing for the reader. Far too much wish fulfillment for my tastes . Mr.
Kataczinsky would do well to contemplate a rewrite with a view to expanding characters lives...

[Jesse Deleon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great story to the series!

Nachman Kataczinsky has written another fantastic book to this series. Hoping that their will be more. Love it a fa .

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent sequel

I read the shield and enjoyed it. I spent months waiting for the sequel and was not disappointed. It would be interesting to see what direction a third volume might follow.

[M Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

terrific, unpredictable, believable alternate history

[Jeffrey Cherrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb!

Excellent read. Hopefully another book will follow? If you enjoyed the shield you will this second installment of the story.

[Pat Dailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting time travel concept

This is one of the most innovative concepts for time travel I have ever read. I hope there is a 3rd installment.