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The Atlantropa Articles
#1 Amazon Best Seller! ─ Dystopian Alternate History: An ambitious feat of engineering and a continent in crisis
For fans of Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle and Stephen King’s 11/22/63, comes an epic saga by YouTuber Cody Franklin (Alternate History Hub), with contributions from YouTuber Joseph Pisenti (Real Life Lore).
In an alternate timeline, World War II never takes place. Instead, a plan is put into effect by Hitler and the Nazi party to drain the Mediterranean Sea. They promise fertile land, millions of jobs and endless energy. New land to be settled. Living space for a crowded continent. All of Europe came together and signed a treaty to realize this new world, it was called ‘The Atlantropa Articles’
Nazism Survives in A New Europe: by promising to bring endless energy through hydro-electricity and employing millions to build the dams, fascism only cements itself as a mainstream ideology. Hitler is seen as a modern Napoleon, one of the greats for his time. Nazism never disappears.
The Reich Remains Eternal: Two millennia later, the Reich run the world. Aryans have become a race of their own, out numbering their neighbors and ruling with a messianic passion towards Hitler. Europe has been united under the banner of the swastika.
The Sea Is Gone, the Promise Failed: But the plan of a fertile lush land was never realized. The project took decades longer than anticipated. By the time it is completed, what they find is a salty barren world. Now the Mediterranean Sea is a desert basin known only as the Kiln. Southern Europe has been abandoned. This is where Ansel’s story begins. A story of discovery, lies and false prophets. The Atlantropa Articles is an astounding science fiction, alternate history tale that will thrill and transport readers with its detailed world and startling intimacy.
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Published October 15, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 69 reviews
September 18, 2018
Well... it's rather different from other Nazi Victory alt history scenarios.
I got a little bit of an Iron Dream vibe from this, partially because it breifly explores the idea that Europe is united under a fairly idealized nazi state. I would have to say, however, this is a book that draws heavily from history: Atlantropa being the proposed project by German Architect Herman Sörgel in the 1920s to literally build a massive hydroelectric dam across the Strait of Gibraltar with the hopes it would provide nearly limitless energy and more farmland. The book is compared often to The Man in the High Castle because this is where they not only do so but drain a significant portion of that sea in the hopes of farming in most of it.
This story is different from The Man in the High Castle in that the idea that the ocean floor is all fit for raising crops doesn't pan out. It becomes a massive extension of the Sahara Desert referred to as The Kiln and this is where almost the entirety of the story takes place. There are Eagle's Nests which are essentially small cities built on concrete spires poking out of the sand and massive 'ships' that are supposedly repurposed from sea vessels patrol the wastes to fend off 'scavengers,' or people of darker complexion that represent everything that attempts to destroy the Reich. We never get a precise answer in the book (outside of the plot summary on the inside cover which says 'two millenia') but this is supposedly thousands of years after the fact.
The other reason this reminds me of The Iron Dream is because there is violence in excess. The entire novel is first person perspective from the point of a ship captain, I assume something like a privateer as he is no longer in the army. One of the first scenes is his use of a cybernetic arm to break a girl's wrist. There are some gory depictions of people being shot to death, beaten to death, tortured and mortally wounded, essentially lynched, ships exploding with people caught in many of them, shrapnel being lodged in people's necks, stabbings, the list goes on. There are scenes that are essentially long strings of violence or torture that go on for some time and cooldown periods of exploring what I feel is the much more interesting portion of the book.
This is where I feel I have the strongest criticism with this book, because it does have an interesting notion happening outside of those scenes: Hitler and the other founding members of the Nazi party are depicted somewhat differently from actual history (namely they're all blonde haired blue eyed regal adonises). Everything in the vast desert is a treasure trove of things from the era around and just after Hitler's rise to power and the, supposed, foundation of this apparently successful Reich. There are also strict laws that say one cannot scavenge from the desert, again a treasure trove of historical relics from a civilization that values its history and sense of national, even racial identity. One of the characters who devoted himself to the philosophies and morals and ideals of this state has some serious issues with the lack of representation of this era and when he starts to find things from it has such a crisis of faith he's not quite sure if anything he's devoted himself to is even 'real.'
But this story is a victim of its perspective. Ansel is a captain who has suffered and experienced horrific things in the Kiln and this has affected him deeply. He doesn't think about the consequences of his actions, he has beliefs based on his experiences and is stubborn about them. He casually justifies any number of atrocities he has to commit on a daily basis and smiles as he does them. Late into the book he admits he enjoys it, that he doesn't have to be restrained by the 'civilized' nature of the Reich proper. That he can take everything out on the 'savages' that threaten his people seems to give him more joy than the idea of 'his tribe' itself. Some of the awful things he does are perfectly reasonable by nazi standards we're familiar with thanks to depictions of atrocities in World War 2, but in this timeline we're not even sure if that has ever happened.
I feel like we could learn the answers to these things if only Ansel wasn't the main character. He's violent, stubborn, somewhat pragmatic and somewhat apathetic when the idea that not all is quite as it seems is raised. He is eventually shaken to his core but not until he enacts some truly heinous, even by his standards, activities onto the people around him. We get a few glimpses of how the past worked and how this compares to the mythical present but mostly it's action, violence, Ansel being secretly unsure of himself even as he acts like he has no qualms about what he does and what the costs of his actions are. He is literally uninterested in what I feel is one of the most interesting parts of the narrative and actively shuts out any investigation into it further.
It's weird and I don't know if it works.
This is not the only unusual thing about this book:
I said violence in excess and I really cannot stress enough that there's simply too much blood and guts and descriptions of such. It gets almost ridiculous at times, including characters literally having their hands shot off or faces kicked in. The violence is so excessive it literally becomes awkward reading.
The character that is supposed to be the voice of reason here, an 'SS Knight' Ulric who is Ansel's brother, has an almost obsessive desire to use what is known as an 'Aegir Drop' or a literal orbital bombardment rather than engage in direct conflict (as Ansel desires greatly) and is normally completely reasonable (insofar as a nazi would be) but literally whine to use what most others would call a weapon of mass destruction, which we also learn all SS Knights have access to. So in this enlightened, peaceful nazi run state, there's just a group of people who can at any time just call in nearly unavoidable destruction from space. This is from a character who's shocked by the casual violence his brother inflicts on the enemies of his people. I get that he doesn't have to personally witness as much of the destruction but it still seems a little counter to the rest of his character.
The idealized nazi architecture gets so ridiculous at certain points it almost seems like it battles with the narrative. In the beginning we get some pictures of an idealized, Aryan Adolf Hitler statue gazing serenely over the desert that was supposed to be farmland and a new colony for the Reich. This actually fits a bit with the narrative (the statue sort of representing the hopeful ideal and the desert sort of representing the results in a sort of Ozymandias 'look upon my works and dispair' sort of way). But later the almost obsessive attention to detail when it comes to just how hard being in The Kiln is gets a tiny subversion as one of the Eagle's Nests (again a spire out in the desert that has a city on it) has a fountain, and from what I can tell it's not for drinking. This is one of a handful of similar treatments of what things mean in this narrative that are a little baffling.
There are also some literal basic word choice issues. There's a point where characters wrap capes around their 'wastes' which I hope is not the intended word.
My overall conclusion: This is a weird nazi victory scenario but it's still a nazi victory scenario. It has one thing that's different from a lot of other nazi victory scenarios (probably the only reason I didn't rate this lower than it is) and thanks to the main character we get little hints and have to connect the dots. There's still excessive violence commited by people perfectly happy to commit it, obsessions with racial purity (or more the end result of such), obsessions with Hitler and whatever he's done to lead to this point, the near fetishization of nazi iconography and the sciences and brutalist architecture and steel and gray, and World War 2 stuff... this time without the World War 2, maybe.
Nazis are bad. Don't be a nazi. It's great that they didn't win. I think anybody who's glanced at a history book, world war 2 documentary or anything from the Holocaust could tell you this, assuming they aren't working from a broken version of history. The most interesting part of this book is what I feel is the real lesson here: don't settle for a broken version of history, the sciences and philosophies so we don't end up in a place like this.
I got a little bit of an Iron Dream vibe from this, partially because it breifly explores the idea that Europe is united under a fairly idealized nazi state. I would have to say, however, this is a book that draws heavily from history: Atlantropa being the proposed project by German Architect Herman Sörgel in the 1920s to literally build a massive hydroelectric dam across the Strait of Gibraltar with the hopes it would provide nearly limitless energy and more farmland. The book is compared often to The Man in the High Castle because this is where they not only do so but drain a significant portion of that sea in the hopes of farming in most of it.
This story is different from The Man in the High Castle in that the idea that the ocean floor is all fit for raising crops doesn't pan out. It becomes a massive extension of the Sahara Desert referred to as The Kiln and this is where almost the entirety of the story takes place. There are Eagle's Nests which are essentially small cities built on concrete spires poking out of the sand and massive 'ships' that are supposedly repurposed from sea vessels patrol the wastes to fend off 'scavengers,' or people of darker complexion that represent everything that attempts to destroy the Reich. We never get a precise answer in the book (outside of the plot summary on the inside cover which says 'two millenia') but this is supposedly thousands of years after the fact.
The other reason this reminds me of The Iron Dream is because there is violence in excess. The entire novel is first person perspective from the point of a ship captain, I assume something like a privateer as he is no longer in the army. One of the first scenes is his use of a cybernetic arm to break a girl's wrist. There are some gory depictions of people being shot to death, beaten to death, tortured and mortally wounded, essentially lynched, ships exploding with people caught in many of them, shrapnel being lodged in people's necks, stabbings, the list goes on. There are scenes that are essentially long strings of violence or torture that go on for some time and cooldown periods of exploring what I feel is the much more interesting portion of the book.
This is where I feel I have the strongest criticism with this book, because it does have an interesting notion happening outside of those scenes: Hitler and the other founding members of the Nazi party are depicted somewhat differently from actual history (namely they're all blonde haired blue eyed regal adonises). Everything in the vast desert is a treasure trove of things from the era around and just after Hitler's rise to power and the, supposed, foundation of this apparently successful Reich. There are also strict laws that say one cannot scavenge from the desert, again a treasure trove of historical relics from a civilization that values its history and sense of national, even racial identity. One of the characters who devoted himself to the philosophies and morals and ideals of this state has some serious issues with the lack of representation of this era and when he starts to find things from it has such a crisis of faith he's not quite sure if anything he's devoted himself to is even 'real.'
But this story is a victim of its perspective. Ansel is a captain who has suffered and experienced horrific things in the Kiln and this has affected him deeply. He doesn't think about the consequences of his actions, he has beliefs based on his experiences and is stubborn about them. He casually justifies any number of atrocities he has to commit on a daily basis and smiles as he does them. Late into the book he admits he enjoys it, that he doesn't have to be restrained by the 'civilized' nature of the Reich proper. That he can take everything out on the 'savages' that threaten his people seems to give him more joy than the idea of 'his tribe' itself. Some of the awful things he does are perfectly reasonable by nazi standards we're familiar with thanks to depictions of atrocities in World War 2, but in this timeline we're not even sure if that has ever happened.
I feel like we could learn the answers to these things if only Ansel wasn't the main character. He's violent, stubborn, somewhat pragmatic and somewhat apathetic when the idea that not all is quite as it seems is raised. He is eventually shaken to his core but not until he enacts some truly heinous, even by his standards, activities onto the people around him. We get a few glimpses of how the past worked and how this compares to the mythical present but mostly it's action, violence, Ansel being secretly unsure of himself even as he acts like he has no qualms about what he does and what the costs of his actions are. He is literally uninterested in what I feel is one of the most interesting parts of the narrative and actively shuts out any investigation into it further.
It's weird and I don't know if it works.
This is not the only unusual thing about this book:
I said violence in excess and I really cannot stress enough that there's simply too much blood and guts and descriptions of such. It gets almost ridiculous at times, including characters literally having their hands shot off or faces kicked in. The violence is so excessive it literally becomes awkward reading.
The character that is supposed to be the voice of reason here, an 'SS Knight' Ulric who is Ansel's brother, has an almost obsessive desire to use what is known as an 'Aegir Drop' or a literal orbital bombardment rather than engage in direct conflict (as Ansel desires greatly) and is normally completely reasonable (insofar as a nazi would be) but literally whine to use what most others would call a weapon of mass destruction, which we also learn all SS Knights have access to. So in this enlightened, peaceful nazi run state, there's just a group of people who can at any time just call in nearly unavoidable destruction from space. This is from a character who's shocked by the casual violence his brother inflicts on the enemies of his people. I get that he doesn't have to personally witness as much of the destruction but it still seems a little counter to the rest of his character.
The idealized nazi architecture gets so ridiculous at certain points it almost seems like it battles with the narrative. In the beginning we get some pictures of an idealized, Aryan Adolf Hitler statue gazing serenely over the desert that was supposed to be farmland and a new colony for the Reich. This actually fits a bit with the narrative (the statue sort of representing the hopeful ideal and the desert sort of representing the results in a sort of Ozymandias 'look upon my works and dispair' sort of way). But later the almost obsessive attention to detail when it comes to just how hard being in The Kiln is gets a tiny subversion as one of the Eagle's Nests (again a spire out in the desert that has a city on it) has a fountain, and from what I can tell it's not for drinking. This is one of a handful of similar treatments of what things mean in this narrative that are a little baffling.
There are also some literal basic word choice issues. There's a point where characters wrap capes around their 'wastes' which I hope is not the intended word.
My overall conclusion: This is a weird nazi victory scenario but it's still a nazi victory scenario. It has one thing that's different from a lot of other nazi victory scenarios (probably the only reason I didn't rate this lower than it is) and thanks to the main character we get little hints and have to connect the dots. There's still excessive violence commited by people perfectly happy to commit it, obsessions with racial purity (or more the end result of such), obsessions with Hitler and whatever he's done to lead to this point, the near fetishization of nazi iconography and the sciences and brutalist architecture and steel and gray, and World War 2 stuff... this time without the World War 2, maybe.
Nazis are bad. Don't be a nazi. It's great that they didn't win. I think anybody who's glanced at a history book, world war 2 documentary or anything from the Holocaust could tell you this, assuming they aren't working from a broken version of history. The most interesting part of this book is what I feel is the real lesson here: don't settle for a broken version of history, the sciences and philosophies so we don't end up in a place like this.
October 17, 2018
The book is good, but no great. I have never seen any of the youtube videos of the author, I was introduced to this book thanks to my boyfriend who has seen all of them. On the one hand, the characters are surprisingly compelling, although I do feel that all the relationships in the book lacked deep, especially the two brothers relationship that only evolves because the plot needs it to. This book is a strange case of well fleshed out characters whose interactions are lackluster .Another problem is that the violence in the book is quite meaningless at times, it feels like violence for the sake of violence, which is not my cup of tea.However, both mistakes are completely understandable as this is the first book from this author.
On the other hand, the book have a solid, engaging setting, Im specially surprised on how the author manages to create a distinctive "feel" around the "kiln", and I really feel the need to come back to this ruthless desert and see more of its people, conflicts and more.The whole concept of the "kiln" feels like an underdeveloped gold mine for me, the author only need a little bit more of polishing, and we might find ourselves in front of a literary success. Another strong point is the way all the worldbuilding is presented in the book, and how the subjectivity of the MC permeates everything we experience in the novel.
To sum up
The great:
-The worldbuilding in general, and the kiln in particular
-The pacing is really really good for a first time author
The good
-The characters backstory and subjectivity
-The themes expressed in the novel, are well developed overall, i would have liked a more "subtle" work, but its only my personal preference
The "meh"
-The first person voice, is kind of there. It feels really clunky at times.
-The backstory on how the reich formed, is not bad, but my BF told me that the author was an expert in alternative escenarios, so I may have had higher expectations
The bad
-The characters relationships in general
-The violence, blood,guts dont really serve a narrative purpose, it just for show most of the times
The TERRIBLE:
-Nothing i can think of
Overall, is a good novel, which becomes a very good novel when you learn that this is a first time author, i see a lot of potential here, all the high quality material is there, it only needs more time and hardwork. I will follow the next works of this author with great interest, who knows, i may even subscribe to his channel.
On the other hand, the book have a solid, engaging setting, Im specially surprised on how the author manages to create a distinctive "feel" around the "kiln", and I really feel the need to come back to this ruthless desert and see more of its people, conflicts and more.The whole concept of the "kiln" feels like an underdeveloped gold mine for me, the author only need a little bit more of polishing, and we might find ourselves in front of a literary success. Another strong point is the way all the worldbuilding is presented in the book, and how the subjectivity of the MC permeates everything we experience in the novel.
To sum up
The great:
-The worldbuilding in general, and the kiln in particular
-The pacing is really really good for a first time author
The good
-The characters backstory and subjectivity
-The themes expressed in the novel, are well developed overall, i would have liked a more "subtle" work, but its only my personal preference
The "meh"
-The first person voice, is kind of there. It feels really clunky at times.
-The backstory on how the reich formed, is not bad, but my BF told me that the author was an expert in alternative escenarios, so I may have had higher expectations
The bad
-The characters relationships in general
-The violence, blood,guts dont really serve a narrative purpose, it just for show most of the times
The TERRIBLE:
-Nothing i can think of
Overall, is a good novel, which becomes a very good novel when you learn that this is a first time author, i see a lot of potential here, all the high quality material is there, it only needs more time and hardwork. I will follow the next works of this author with great interest, who knows, i may even subscribe to his channel.
April 11, 2025
Jag hittade den här boken spontant när jag och Ludde var inne på Myrorna och så fort jag såg framsidan så fångade den mitt intresse. Efter att jag hade läst baksidestextens första mening så visste jag att den skulle hem med mig🫂
9kr spenderades och jag skulle aldrig ta tillbaka dem med tanke på hur bra den här boken var. Den var inte mer än 190 sidor men lyckades ändå föra samman andra världskriget med min nyfunna kärlek för sci-fi på ett så underhållande och kreativt sätt att jag inte kunde sluta läsa🫣
Ingen tvekan på att jag kommer läsa den igen!
4,5⭐️
9kr spenderades och jag skulle aldrig ta tillbaka dem med tanke på hur bra den här boken var. Den var inte mer än 190 sidor men lyckades ändå föra samman andra världskriget med min nyfunna kärlek för sci-fi på ett så underhållande och kreativt sätt att jag inte kunde sluta läsa🫣
Ingen tvekan på att jag kommer läsa den igen!
4,5⭐️
December 29, 2022
3.5 stars
Cody Franklin's YouTube videos are amazing. That's why I got this book.
Unfortunately, his amateur writing level is evident throughout the book. Several typos, awkward phrasings, etc. Many of those were difficult to get through.
HOWEVER! I'm very glad that I stuck with it. I was expecting to get a story that basically served as an excuse to explore this fascinating alternate 3rd or 4th millennium. While I did get that deep dive, I also got quite a compelling story about two brothers. While the style of Cody's writing is amateur, his grasp on plot and motivation is on point. When I got to the end of the book, I was reading less because of the alternate history aspect and more for Ansel and Ulric!
Cody plans on releasing another novel set in this brilliantly unique alternate universe in about a year or so. I will definitely be picking it up no matter what. However, I genuinely hope that he gets in contact with an editor to make a smoother flow if not simply to root out some of the egregious typos.
Cody Franklin's YouTube videos are amazing. That's why I got this book.
Unfortunately, his amateur writing level is evident throughout the book. Several typos, awkward phrasings, etc. Many of those were difficult to get through.
HOWEVER! I'm very glad that I stuck with it. I was expecting to get a story that basically served as an excuse to explore this fascinating alternate 3rd or 4th millennium. While I did get that deep dive, I also got quite a compelling story about two brothers. While the style of Cody's writing is amateur, his grasp on plot and motivation is on point. When I got to the end of the book, I was reading less because of the alternate history aspect and more for Ansel and Ulric!
Cody plans on releasing another novel set in this brilliantly unique alternate universe in about a year or so. I will definitely be picking it up no matter what. However, I genuinely hope that he gets in contact with an editor to make a smoother flow if not simply to root out some of the egregious typos.
February 12, 2020
I really don't like giving this even one star.
Advertised as "for fans of Man in the High Castle" I kept waiting for it to turn the corner to "here is where the allegory is; nazi's = bad".
By the halfway point of the book I had to give up and accept that I was tricked into reading a masturbatory "if only the nazis had won" fantasy. If the latter half of the book has any redeeming qualities I'll never know.
I dont know (or particularly care about) the authors politics or beliefs. As a writer they've done a piss poor job of telegraphing anything other than dreamy Hitler worship.
Advertised as "for fans of Man in the High Castle" I kept waiting for it to turn the corner to "here is where the allegory is; nazi's = bad".
By the halfway point of the book I had to give up and accept that I was tricked into reading a masturbatory "if only the nazis had won" fantasy. If the latter half of the book has any redeeming qualities I'll never know.
I dont know (or particularly care about) the authors politics or beliefs. As a writer they've done a piss poor job of telegraphing anything other than dreamy Hitler worship.
Read
April 16, 2019Sorry if you got a lot of notifications on this, I had trouble with the GUI, but this author was actually a youtuber, who does really cool alternate history videos! Recently, he made this book, around 2018? Anyways, his videos are as good as his book, just amazing! It made me think of just what our world possibly could've been. I don't really think so, but it is a pretty cool what-if story.
November 25, 2024
I've followed the author's work on Youtube for a long time, and was pleasantly surprised by this book. The world building starts out slow, but it gets really good towards the back half. Strongly recommend sticking around till the end.
July 28, 2019
I'll start off by saying that this was not a good book. It is rather sub-par for the genre. If I could generalize the feel of the book: it felt like I was reading an extended fan fiction.
From the very start of the book I had a feeling this wasn't going to be a good ride. This is disappointing since I had pre-ordered the book after seeing the announcement on Cody's youtube channel. The first chapter was a slog of dully written and gratuitous violence. It was further accented by a boorish usage of vulgarity. Boorish in the sense that it had no imagination. It just felt like a lazy way to pad the length of the first chapter. This won't be the first time the repetition of overused tropes or arguments hinders the book. For now let us focus on the prose. Quite frankly it is stilted and inconsistent. Tenses get mixed up, perspectives are often unbearably hard to follow, and the language is flat out boring to read. Descriptions often fall short of inspiring anything in the mind. It is good that illustrations were included because without them you may as well be staring at a picture of a sand dune.
The little merit this book has, that which earned it that second star, lies within the actual ideas in the book. It looks like Cody had a curious idea and a wealth of possible branches he could have explored. It just doesn't seem like he had the literary aptitude to actually do so. The whole premise is fascinating in itself. In one part of the book we even see the main characters have to reckon with the past. There is something very interesting to be explored there, but instead we are hurried to a sloppy conclusion. The resolution of the book isn't a satisfying one. That isn't to say that all books should have satisfying endings. I have read marvelous books like "The Folly of the World" that leave you anxious and questioning. That's just it, it leaves you with an unsettling feeling and much to question. This book more or less leaves loose ends untied for no good reason. This book does not even attempt to leave you with a dilemma to question. It just leaves a series of "what ifs" that were introduced and never expounded upon. It truly is regrettable that so much potential was allowed to fizzle out like a dud.
I slogged through this book over the grueling course of 6 hours. It isn't a long read at all and that is partially due to the horrid formatting of the book. It is made to look a lot longer than what it is. (And that isn't even very long even with the padding.) The paragraphs are formatted nonsensically; they often break off too early or don't even form full sentences. Each line of dialogue is separated out on its own line in what can only be described as a lazy attempt to pad for page length. There is also a frustrating amount of repetition in the book. The two main characters have the same argument about 5 times over the course of just 2 chapters. None of those times does anything meaningful come of it. Perhaps this was intended as some deeper meaning relating to the Kiln, but it seems like it was just poorly written dialogue. The characters, to the previous point, also show the barest amount of development from the book. Only one of the main characters makes a change and the whole process feels more rushed than a Black Friday crowd surging forth for the newest iPad.
Overall, an exercise in futility. This should have never made it past a blog post. It is, I repeat, a shame to see such wasted potential. I should hope someone will take up the topic in the future and produce something worthwhile from this failure. Any attempt to make a sequel to this book would be utter folly. This either needs a whole revision or the premise needs new life in another book.
From the very start of the book I had a feeling this wasn't going to be a good ride. This is disappointing since I had pre-ordered the book after seeing the announcement on Cody's youtube channel. The first chapter was a slog of dully written and gratuitous violence. It was further accented by a boorish usage of vulgarity. Boorish in the sense that it had no imagination. It just felt like a lazy way to pad the length of the first chapter. This won't be the first time the repetition of overused tropes or arguments hinders the book. For now let us focus on the prose. Quite frankly it is stilted and inconsistent. Tenses get mixed up, perspectives are often unbearably hard to follow, and the language is flat out boring to read. Descriptions often fall short of inspiring anything in the mind. It is good that illustrations were included because without them you may as well be staring at a picture of a sand dune.
The little merit this book has, that which earned it that second star, lies within the actual ideas in the book. It looks like Cody had a curious idea and a wealth of possible branches he could have explored. It just doesn't seem like he had the literary aptitude to actually do so. The whole premise is fascinating in itself. In one part of the book we even see the main characters have to reckon with the past. There is something very interesting to be explored there, but instead we are hurried to a sloppy conclusion. The resolution of the book isn't a satisfying one. That isn't to say that all books should have satisfying endings. I have read marvelous books like "The Folly of the World" that leave you anxious and questioning. That's just it, it leaves you with an unsettling feeling and much to question. This book more or less leaves loose ends untied for no good reason. This book does not even attempt to leave you with a dilemma to question. It just leaves a series of "what ifs" that were introduced and never expounded upon. It truly is regrettable that so much potential was allowed to fizzle out like a dud.
I slogged through this book over the grueling course of 6 hours. It isn't a long read at all and that is partially due to the horrid formatting of the book. It is made to look a lot longer than what it is. (And that isn't even very long even with the padding.) The paragraphs are formatted nonsensically; they often break off too early or don't even form full sentences. Each line of dialogue is separated out on its own line in what can only be described as a lazy attempt to pad for page length. There is also a frustrating amount of repetition in the book. The two main characters have the same argument about 5 times over the course of just 2 chapters. None of those times does anything meaningful come of it. Perhaps this was intended as some deeper meaning relating to the Kiln, but it seems like it was just poorly written dialogue. The characters, to the previous point, also show the barest amount of development from the book. Only one of the main characters makes a change and the whole process feels more rushed than a Black Friday crowd surging forth for the newest iPad.
Overall, an exercise in futility. This should have never made it past a blog post. It is, I repeat, a shame to see such wasted potential. I should hope someone will take up the topic in the future and produce something worthwhile from this failure. Any attempt to make a sequel to this book would be utter folly. This either needs a whole revision or the premise needs new life in another book.
September 18, 2018
I'm not sure when I'll read it again as I found it extremely hard hitting. The concepts, however, were fascinating.
March 27, 2019
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS! Please, do yourself a favor, and read the book first!
The Atlantropa Articles by Cody Franklin is the story of an expertly crafted main character that takes place in an alternate timeline in which World War II never happened, and instead Germany conquered Europe by building a dam to drain the Mediterranean.
It does a brilliant job of putting you in the shoes of someone fighting for the Reich, someone who's lived there his whole life and has been raised under the ideals of the Reich, but also demonstrates how unwilling someone can be to challenge their own perceptions, even in the case that undeniable evidence comes to their attention.
The contrast between Ansel's and Ulric's character arcs is brilliantly executed. While Ansel remains a very stubborn individual who hides his own doubts behind aggressive behavior, Ulric grows as a character to the point where he'll outright reject his brother's orders and favor death. This doesn't even mention Ansel's inner struggle between his desire to protect his brother and his refusal to reject the status quo.
I will say, the book definitely could use some polishing up. As well done as the writing itself is, there are quite a few weird typos and oddly worded sentences that just seem like they flew under the radar when they were going through the editing process. It's not uncommon to have a few typos, but they were unusually rampant in this book. That said, there weren't enough to completely ruin it, but they were definitely there every chapter or two, and they did pull me out of it for a few seconds as I tried to decipher what it was supposed to say.
All that in mind, I'm going to give this book a 5/5. It's a brilliant read, it does a great job of capturing this dark alternate timeline and the grim subjects that occur within it, the worldbuilding is fantastic, and the character writing is an absolutely remarkable thing.
Oh, wait, that's the last book I read.
The Atlantropa Articles by Cody Franklin is the story of an expertly crafted main character that takes place in an alternate timeline in which World War II never happened, and instead Germany conquered Europe by building a dam to drain the Mediterranean.
It does a brilliant job of putting you in the shoes of someone fighting for the Reich, someone who's lived there his whole life and has been raised under the ideals of the Reich, but also demonstrates how unwilling someone can be to challenge their own perceptions, even in the case that undeniable evidence comes to their attention.
The contrast between Ansel's and Ulric's character arcs is brilliantly executed. While Ansel remains a very stubborn individual who hides his own doubts behind aggressive behavior, Ulric grows as a character to the point where he'll outright reject his brother's orders and favor death. This doesn't even mention Ansel's inner struggle between his desire to protect his brother and his refusal to reject the status quo.
I will say, the book definitely could use some polishing up. As well done as the writing itself is, there are quite a few weird typos and oddly worded sentences that just seem like they flew under the radar when they were going through the editing process. It's not uncommon to have a few typos, but they were unusually rampant in this book. That said, there weren't enough to completely ruin it, but they were definitely there every chapter or two, and they did pull me out of it for a few seconds as I tried to decipher what it was supposed to say.
All that in mind, I'm going to give this book a 5/5. It's a brilliant read, it does a great job of capturing this dark alternate timeline and the grim subjects that occur within it, the worldbuilding is fantastic, and the character writing is an absolutely remarkable thing.
Oh, wait, that's the last book I read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 27, 2019
Absolutely ghastly. Great idea. Very badly written. Very badly edited. Took me three days to get through the first 39 pages (of 188), before I gave up and binned it.
Love the idea of a book about the Atlantropa project, intrigued by the alternate history aspect in which Hitler isn't a monster (though even in such a fictional context, gooey lines about the Glorious Father are so, so wrong), hated the writing.
Apparently Mr Franklin's book grew out of his Alternate History Hub YouTube site, which tells you all you need to know about modern publishing. Phillip K. Dick is turning over in his grave. DNR . Do Not Read, or Do Not Resuscitate. You choose.
Love the idea of a book about the Atlantropa project, intrigued by the alternate history aspect in which Hitler isn't a monster (though even in such a fictional context, gooey lines about the Glorious Father are so, so wrong), hated the writing.
Apparently Mr Franklin's book grew out of his Alternate History Hub YouTube site, which tells you all you need to know about modern publishing. Phillip K. Dick is turning over in his grave. DNR . Do Not Read, or Do Not Resuscitate. You choose.
January 22, 2019
I loved this book, it had to be one of my favorite books ever. One of my favorite things about this book is how throughout it, I expected the main character to do something different than what he ended up doing and almost every action he took and every feeling he had took me by surprise. I will worn anyone who wants to read this that the book uses very vulgar language and more than a sufficient amount of gore (including the vivid description of somebody having their skull broken open). I would recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of dystopias.
April 11, 2025
Read this if you like: Naziism in an aloof way, the video game Highfleet
I'm going to say something that will piss a lot of people off. Writing a book... is easy.
People who have written books will contest that. People who have made movies won't. Literature is the artistic pursuit stripped down to its most essential and lean. You don't need good character designs, just the idea of a good character design, and the same for visuals and framing, symbolism, everything. The audience will do all the heavy lifting. This means that books can have a breadth and depth of content that any other artform struggles to have for simple reasons of cost. Two trilogies can be written by one person in the time it takes for fifty people to make two movies, or a hundred people to make one video game.
When you have people step down from more expensive artforms to the less expensive one of writing, they grasp this intuitively. How they react tells a lot about how they are as creatives. Cody Franklin is a Youtuber who makes simplistic cartoons about history. Even though they're simple cartoons, he has to understand visual design, video flow, voice acting, scriptwriting, and all the technical details that come with each. When he tried writing a book and realized it was really easy, his first thought was "I can tell big-ass story I've wanted to tell that I couldn't feasibly make with my normal style!", and this is one common response. Another component is that, because writing is so much cheaper than videomaking, if the result bombs, he's out far less of his time and money.
So his first truly narratively complex project turned into the most unmarketable thing I've ever read.
The POV character is a violent ape, and also basically the antagonist, and everyone's a Nazi, and it takes place 2000 years in the future, and it's grimdark and kinda written like shit. It's WarHitler 4k, complete with gene-modded supersoldiers and megaarchitecture and a long-gone messianic leader! It's alt-history!
There's a scene early on when the heroes look at a statue of Adolf Hitler erected centuries ago to re-memorialize the creation of Atlantropa and the eternal Reich, and the Fuhrer is described more like an Arno Breker statue than the actual Hitler, blond-haired and blue-eyed and giant. This says a lot of things (that turn out to be very relevant) about the way the society of the fairly-far future works. However, you won't understand that if you don't remember off the top of your head what Hitler looked like and realize that THAT isn't it. I think a lot of reviewers missed it and thought it was the uncritical elevation Hitler and not a sign that something was off about this whole "Naziism" thing.
To interrogate an idea, you have to be able to treat it like a person, accepting that it might be absolutely right about some things and absolutely wrong about others and somewhere in the middle on further issues. If you treat it like an archetype, like it's all good or all bad or all misguided, you lower your own thought to the most base tribalism, and if you then try to interrogate it, you wind up treating lines in the sand as enlightenment. This doesn't mean you have to like an idea, you don't even have to accept it, we as a society kill ACTUAL people all the time. However, there's no point trying to understand an idea if you aren't willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.
This puts chud (far-right) literature in an interesting position because they're willing to question ideas everyone else considers unquestionable, to ask how far we've really come, but if they're good writers they'll come out with interesting things to say instead of "the holocaust should happen for real this time". I think this book passes that test, the Nazis are still the bad guys but the things they did as a product of the times aren't treated as immutable aspects of their ideology, many heinous acts were added and removed and changed as a result of the differences in history. Add in two millenia and you basically get human-POV xenofiction.
I found the relationship between the two main characters extremely well-conceived and largely well-executed. It's common for fiction with a strong central idea to turn the characters into metaphors for different parts of the argument but like in most real cases the people experienced different things that gave them different personalities which they justify with different ideologies. At the same time you can tell that these two have a deep familial bond that keeps them together far longer than they otherwise would be. For all the grand architecture and high ideals and sweeping histories, at the end of the day, what happens comes down to a bunch of angry young men with guns. A truth only means as much as the people who care about it.
I rate it four stars because, although it really is very amateurish in a lot of places, it also gave me a lot to think about. I think there are very few people who would gel with it, the constant ultraviolence and the ever-present Nazi imagery and the repeated conversations about Nazi ideology (although centuries of cultural drift has caused the Nazi ideals to mean very different things). SS Knights are peace-loving political scholars with the authority to call down orbital bombardment. In the context of the story's conflict it makes a lot of sense but how do you convince someone to not laugh at it?
I'm going to say something that will piss a lot of people off. Writing a book... is easy.
People who have written books will contest that. People who have made movies won't. Literature is the artistic pursuit stripped down to its most essential and lean. You don't need good character designs, just the idea of a good character design, and the same for visuals and framing, symbolism, everything. The audience will do all the heavy lifting. This means that books can have a breadth and depth of content that any other artform struggles to have for simple reasons of cost. Two trilogies can be written by one person in the time it takes for fifty people to make two movies, or a hundred people to make one video game.
When you have people step down from more expensive artforms to the less expensive one of writing, they grasp this intuitively. How they react tells a lot about how they are as creatives. Cody Franklin is a Youtuber who makes simplistic cartoons about history. Even though they're simple cartoons, he has to understand visual design, video flow, voice acting, scriptwriting, and all the technical details that come with each. When he tried writing a book and realized it was really easy, his first thought was "I can tell big-ass story I've wanted to tell that I couldn't feasibly make with my normal style!", and this is one common response. Another component is that, because writing is so much cheaper than videomaking, if the result bombs, he's out far less of his time and money.
So his first truly narratively complex project turned into the most unmarketable thing I've ever read.
The POV character is a violent ape, and also basically the antagonist, and everyone's a Nazi, and it takes place 2000 years in the future, and it's grimdark and kinda written like shit. It's WarHitler 4k, complete with gene-modded supersoldiers and megaarchitecture and a long-gone messianic leader! It's alt-history!
There's a scene early on when the heroes look at a statue of Adolf Hitler erected centuries ago to re-memorialize the creation of Atlantropa and the eternal Reich, and the Fuhrer is described more like an Arno Breker statue than the actual Hitler, blond-haired and blue-eyed and giant. This says a lot of things (that turn out to be very relevant) about the way the society of the fairly-far future works. However, you won't understand that if you don't remember off the top of your head what Hitler looked like and realize that THAT isn't it. I think a lot of reviewers missed it and thought it was the uncritical elevation Hitler and not a sign that something was off about this whole "Naziism" thing.
To interrogate an idea, you have to be able to treat it like a person, accepting that it might be absolutely right about some things and absolutely wrong about others and somewhere in the middle on further issues. If you treat it like an archetype, like it's all good or all bad or all misguided, you lower your own thought to the most base tribalism, and if you then try to interrogate it, you wind up treating lines in the sand as enlightenment. This doesn't mean you have to like an idea, you don't even have to accept it, we as a society kill ACTUAL people all the time. However, there's no point trying to understand an idea if you aren't willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.
This puts chud (far-right) literature in an interesting position because they're willing to question ideas everyone else considers unquestionable, to ask how far we've really come, but if they're good writers they'll come out with interesting things to say instead of "the holocaust should happen for real this time". I think this book passes that test, the Nazis are still the bad guys but the things they did as a product of the times aren't treated as immutable aspects of their ideology, many heinous acts were added and removed and changed as a result of the differences in history. Add in two millenia and you basically get human-POV xenofiction.
I found the relationship between the two main characters extremely well-conceived and largely well-executed. It's common for fiction with a strong central idea to turn the characters into metaphors for different parts of the argument but like in most real cases the people experienced different things that gave them different personalities which they justify with different ideologies. At the same time you can tell that these two have a deep familial bond that keeps them together far longer than they otherwise would be. For all the grand architecture and high ideals and sweeping histories, at the end of the day, what happens comes down to a bunch of angry young men with guns. A truth only means as much as the people who care about it.
I rate it four stars because, although it really is very amateurish in a lot of places, it also gave me a lot to think about. I think there are very few people who would gel with it, the constant ultraviolence and the ever-present Nazi imagery and the repeated conversations about Nazi ideology (although centuries of cultural drift has caused the Nazi ideals to mean very different things). SS Knights are peace-loving political scholars with the authority to call down orbital bombardment. In the context of the story's conflict it makes a lot of sense but how do you convince someone to not laugh at it?
January 27, 2025
Not worth the effort it took for me to pick it up.
I am good with each of these individual premises:
1. That the Reich survived into the distant future, largely through Hitler dying before he could start WWII and so avoiding a needless military conflict.
2. That the Atlantropa project became a mechanism for propping up that regime.
3. That in 2 millennia the myth of who Hitler was would/could overcome his own words and actions to leave behind a benevolent founder myth.
What I absolutely hated about this treatment were the following:
1. Centering the story on a couple of talking heads with no character arc.
2. Spicing up the tedium of this badly told story with regular intervals of splashy violence. Particularly the needless opening sequence with a grotesque bit of casual deserving violence directed against a 'whore'.
3. That there is no rational reason given for why the Atlantropa Project has been allowed to go on. Cheap electricity is insufficient justification for the resulting desert and chaos. Half of Europe, all of the southern regions, are made uninhabitable. Seems like a poor trade off.
4. Two millennia ago ships were powered by wind, travel was either on foot or horse powered, and the only source of light was burning stuff. Aside from a mechanical prosthetic arm (made of iron?), there seems very little change from the present day. There isn't much social change either, the social roles are very familiar and uninteresting.
5. The presentation is a travesty. This is a badly written, weirdly formatted, randomly spelt, non-linear, and illogical book, and just an exercise in self-harm to read. There are a lot of one sentence paragraphs double spaced throughout. This is clearly an attempt to puff up a novella to a novel.
6. How this book is a blatant effort to establish a franchise. For all the yacketa about 'world building' and how exciting and new this premise is, the authors do virtually nothing to inform us about how this world works. There is no way that what we shown represents a fully established world. This world works this way because Cody says it does.
7. That the historical artifacts that turn up from time to time actually survived the test of time. a bound mass production early edition copy of Mein Kampf moping around in the Kiln for thousands of years? A vinyl record making it all that way without a skip? And what happened to digital media? Just not invented? Then see objection 4 above.
8. No part of this premise is convincingly a possible future. Look kids, this book is terrible. It's not AltHistory, it's a badly imagined fantasy novel without even an attempt to puzzle out how this future would ever have come into being. It sort of feels like Franklin utterly punted on this important step in favor of dreaming up a premise that would allow him to write about Future Nazis.
Utterly amateurish and horrible.
I am good with each of these individual premises:
1. That the Reich survived into the distant future, largely through Hitler dying before he could start WWII and so avoiding a needless military conflict.
2. That the Atlantropa project became a mechanism for propping up that regime.
3. That in 2 millennia the myth of who Hitler was would/could overcome his own words and actions to leave behind a benevolent founder myth.
What I absolutely hated about this treatment were the following:
1. Centering the story on a couple of talking heads with no character arc.
2. Spicing up the tedium of this badly told story with regular intervals of splashy violence. Particularly the needless opening sequence with a grotesque bit of casual deserving violence directed against a 'whore'.
3. That there is no rational reason given for why the Atlantropa Project has been allowed to go on. Cheap electricity is insufficient justification for the resulting desert and chaos. Half of Europe, all of the southern regions, are made uninhabitable. Seems like a poor trade off.
4. Two millennia ago ships were powered by wind, travel was either on foot or horse powered, and the only source of light was burning stuff. Aside from a mechanical prosthetic arm (made of iron?), there seems very little change from the present day. There isn't much social change either, the social roles are very familiar and uninteresting.
5. The presentation is a travesty. This is a badly written, weirdly formatted, randomly spelt, non-linear, and illogical book, and just an exercise in self-harm to read. There are a lot of one sentence paragraphs double spaced throughout. This is clearly an attempt to puff up a novella to a novel.
6. How this book is a blatant effort to establish a franchise. For all the yacketa about 'world building' and how exciting and new this premise is, the authors do virtually nothing to inform us about how this world works. There is no way that what we shown represents a fully established world. This world works this way because Cody says it does.
7. That the historical artifacts that turn up from time to time actually survived the test of time. a bound mass production early edition copy of Mein Kampf moping around in the Kiln for thousands of years? A vinyl record making it all that way without a skip? And what happened to digital media? Just not invented? Then see objection 4 above.
8. No part of this premise is convincingly a possible future. Look kids, this book is terrible. It's not AltHistory, it's a badly imagined fantasy novel without even an attempt to puzzle out how this future would ever have come into being. It sort of feels like Franklin utterly punted on this important step in favor of dreaming up a premise that would allow him to write about Future Nazis.
Utterly amateurish and horrible.
August 6, 2022
The story is different from other alt-novels has the events that lead to this different timeline happen thousands of years ago.
From the start everything has become normalizated has there is little any knows of the past has we learn. Most historical facts from the time we know has WW2 us lost to the sands of time and the machinations of those in power(Ex. Historical pictures deleted or changed, and a complete lack on who there enemies are).
Has the story progressed we get most the POV of two brothers one who has lived years of hardened belief in the Reich and the younger academical who truly believes knowledge of the how and why there society is important. Do the story progresses sit dos come off abit werid how they kept find facts that turn there world inside down even the older brother had been traveling threw thouse lands for close to a decade but I felt if the worth should gave more backstory for the older to better give ways this could’ve seem more natural.
Then this lead a Hugh plot hole has why the Reich doesn’t wipe the ‘Savages of the Kline’ complete with mass orbital drops are sends in army to wipe them out. It toke me a while to think that maybe the high command lets them live on to give there peoples common enemie to hate has history has shown if a United society dosen’t have a strong enemy to oppose they’ll turn inward agents them self.
All those points didn’t ruin the story for me it just left me believing the story had a lot of minor things that could’ve changed to raise it to a higher Lv.
From the start everything has become normalizated has there is little any knows of the past has we learn. Most historical facts from the time we know has WW2 us lost to the sands of time and the machinations of those in power(Ex. Historical pictures deleted or changed, and a complete lack on who there enemies are).
Has the story progressed we get most the POV of two brothers one who has lived years of hardened belief in the Reich and the younger academical who truly believes knowledge of the how and why there society is important. Do the story progresses sit dos come off abit werid how they kept find facts that turn there world inside down even the older brother had been traveling threw thouse lands for close to a decade but I felt if the worth should gave more backstory for the older to better give ways this could’ve seem more natural.
Then this lead a Hugh plot hole has why the Reich doesn’t wipe the ‘Savages of the Kline’ complete with mass orbital drops are sends in army to wipe them out. It toke me a while to think that maybe the high command lets them live on to give there peoples common enemie to hate has history has shown if a United society dosen’t have a strong enemy to oppose they’ll turn inward agents them self.
All those points didn’t ruin the story for me it just left me believing the story had a lot of minor things that could’ve changed to raise it to a higher Lv.
November 3, 2018
Good for a first attempted but...
I overall enjoyed Cody's first book and will be looking forward to his next book. However I did see some flaws in this book that should be addressed.
Firstly, the author forget to write a description for a airplane existing when the Camel go's to the wrecked ship so when he later describes the airplane a being up in smoke when the howling dark was leaving and the old man says the scavengers where trying to get to the plane, I was like "wait...what plane are you talking about?".
Secondly, his explication of hydrodames is incorrect as it is explained in the book. Hydrodames rely on releasing the water throw turbines using gravity to make electricity. However if this is true then shouldn't there be a large salt water river running throw this dessert.
And thirdly, witzel or whatever his name was should have been given more of a character before his death as he meant as much to me as those six faceless crewmen.
Overall, great book but needs reworking.
I overall enjoyed Cody's first book and will be looking forward to his next book. However I did see some flaws in this book that should be addressed.
Firstly, the author forget to write a description for a airplane existing when the Camel go's to the wrecked ship so when he later describes the airplane a being up in smoke when the howling dark was leaving and the old man says the scavengers where trying to get to the plane, I was like "wait...what plane are you talking about?".
Secondly, his explication of hydrodames is incorrect as it is explained in the book. Hydrodames rely on releasing the water throw turbines using gravity to make electricity. However if this is true then shouldn't there be a large salt water river running throw this dessert.
And thirdly, witzel or whatever his name was should have been given more of a character before his death as he meant as much to me as those six faceless crewmen.
Overall, great book but needs reworking.
June 17, 2019
Spoilers ahead:
In my opinion this book has an excellent premise and background but it needed to be expanded further, when the prisoner talks of a "caliphate" down south of the kiln they could have lead into a part where Ulric tries to go and search for said caliphate and maybe finds it is either a resistance movement in Saharan Africa or maybe a literal caliphate which may be where the scavengers have been coming from and said scavengers are used to distract the Reich from the existence of the caliphate. One thing that greatly annoys me is when Ansel simply burns and throws the original copy of "my struggle" away, it really could have lead into him eventually trying to make right his previous mistakes and ultimately avenge his brother. I do hope that the author does continue this story with a sequel and preferably it be at least 300 pages this time and explore all those interesting concepts I mentioned previously and then maybe go further such as talking more about the Reich's colonisation of the other planets or maybe a potential conflict with the caliphate.
In my opinion this book has an excellent premise and background but it needed to be expanded further, when the prisoner talks of a "caliphate" down south of the kiln they could have lead into a part where Ulric tries to go and search for said caliphate and maybe finds it is either a resistance movement in Saharan Africa or maybe a literal caliphate which may be where the scavengers have been coming from and said scavengers are used to distract the Reich from the existence of the caliphate. One thing that greatly annoys me is when Ansel simply burns and throws the original copy of "my struggle" away, it really could have lead into him eventually trying to make right his previous mistakes and ultimately avenge his brother. I do hope that the author does continue this story with a sequel and preferably it be at least 300 pages this time and explore all those interesting concepts I mentioned previously and then maybe go further such as talking more about the Reich's colonisation of the other planets or maybe a potential conflict with the caliphate.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 6, 2022
I feel like this had so much potential, but was just a complete miss. I enjoy the author’s YouTube channel and moved this to the top of my tbr when I finally bought it. Unfortunately I was disappointed.
I feel the story could have been better told through the brothers perspective, and centered more around the “mystery” of the reclamation. The main character was honestly insufferable all around.
I also feel there was no growth or point to the story besides it being set in the future of an alternate reality. Like yes, there’s the struggle about the ship breaking down and the the battle and finding a few old objects. But nothing too substantial happens with them. Like as soon as something interesting happened it was ignored or talked about between the two and dismissed. Where was the actual plot?
I feel the story could have been better told through the brothers perspective, and centered more around the “mystery” of the reclamation. The main character was honestly insufferable all around.
I also feel there was no growth or point to the story besides it being set in the future of an alternate reality. Like yes, there’s the struggle about the ship breaking down and the the battle and finding a few old objects. But nothing too substantial happens with them. Like as soon as something interesting happened it was ignored or talked about between the two and dismissed. Where was the actual plot?
November 8, 2018
Rather enjoyed the whole experience
I know I'm biased when giving this review due to how much I enjoy Codys YouTube channel, but in saying that I can still appreciate the atlantropa articles at face value.
It's a great first attempt in writing for the author, I was kept interested throughout the book, but I found there was a lack development for minor characters, and some questionable pacing at times. But this was only in a few instances.
To sum it up, Cody Franklin has a bright future ahead of him, when he learns from his few errors. The book was my first introduction into the world of alternate history novels , and thankfully it was a pleasurable one.
I know I'm biased when giving this review due to how much I enjoy Codys YouTube channel, but in saying that I can still appreciate the atlantropa articles at face value.
It's a great first attempt in writing for the author, I was kept interested throughout the book, but I found there was a lack development for minor characters, and some questionable pacing at times. But this was only in a few instances.
To sum it up, Cody Franklin has a bright future ahead of him, when he learns from his few errors. The book was my first introduction into the world of alternate history novels , and thankfully it was a pleasurable one.
May 1, 2019
This book describes an alternate future where nazi germany builds dams to create new lands between Europe and Africa. So, is it any good? Well, it has very creative worldbuilding, the alternate future sounds plausible - which is expected, given the author. However... pretty much everything else either falls flat or is bland by themselves. The characters evolve a bit, but much of that feels like time wasted. The plot has an interesting idea, but the execution is very, very bad. At the end, I felt the conclusion arc was too fast, and the solution wasn't that sadisfactory at all.
Worth if you really like alternate history plots, pass otherwise.
Worth if you really like alternate history plots, pass otherwise.
January 19, 2021
Alternative historical fiction is tricky for me. I wanted more from this. I think that it is so far into the future kept me from enjoying it more. I love the author's YouTube channel, but this was a different kind of project because what I love about his videos is the speculation of what would be different RIGHT NOW or AT THE TIME, whereas this look at an alternative timeline is many generations removed. The concepts and the world he created are really good, but I just feel that it's more sci-fi than alternative history. I like the point of divergence a lot, there is so much that could be done with this idea.
January 22, 2022
this is strange and by all accounts, this shouldn't work but it does, I had no idea where this was going and the ending shocked me and the main character becomes even more irredeemable and this is interesting the narrator is a morally reprehensible piece of shit and it's by design so yeah and this is the definition of a car crash in slow motion (this is a world where the nazis reign and the author make it so that the world is a shitty place to live its one of the worst book worlds to live in and good on him for making such a bleak world) and this is a bad ending where no one wins not even the narrator. First YouTuber book and it works
December 17, 2018
An interesting take on a alternate history Nazi Germany, as well as a rusty/wasteland type setting. The novel shows us of a future many years in the future, where the Nazis never invaded but instead over time take over all of Europe. The reader is introduced to Captain Ansel; a bitter and harsh war veteran and his noble and peaceful little brother, Ulric. As Ulric and his crew set sail on "The Howling Dark" and soon find themselves discovering the truth on the Scavengers, the führer, and the Atlantropa desert.
February 9, 2019
A book which starts with a good concept and ends with a whimper. The only character we can even sympathise with is the only one who doesn't commit extreme acts of violence on every other page. However, when he questions the entrenched truth, the true nature of fascism shows as he is ruthlessly killed. A bad book. From the poor descriptions, uncertain technology throughout, bad sense of distances and even worse the constant right-wing rhetoric. I'm glad I read it just so I have a new baseline for bad.
June 14, 2019
Alright Kids buckle your seat belts because this is a wild ride! The Mediterranean sea is now a great desert called the kiln, with tank-like ships bringing supplies to the scattered settlements. Now join the crew of one of these ships and see the true brutality of the kiln. Hardened veteran Ansel and his newbie brother Ulric play off each other very well, and this leads until some awesome character development.
Also there are Nazis.
They're Nazis.
And another note, Check out the author's YouTube channel, AlternateHistoryHub.
Also there are Nazis.
They're Nazis.
And another note, Check out the author's YouTube channel, AlternateHistoryHub.
December 15, 2019
I really wish I could say I liked this book. The only reason it even gets two stars is because it's an interesting concept. However it starts rough, improves briefly and then any editing seems to go out the window in the latter half of the book. There are missing punctuation marks, typos, there's even a section with pages out of order (153-155). If he had delayed this and worked more on it, made sure he had a good editor, it could have been at least a decent book, but it seems more like he should stick with broad concepts rather than in depth stories.
August 5, 2021
The intro was a little rough, but after the first chapter, the world building is incredible. It shouldn’t surprise me since the author does YouTube videos about alternate histories, but the technology the crew and captain use, the environment they live in, and the enemies they face are very well developed, and I was surprised at the level of philosophical inquiry, especially in the last 1/3 of the book.
The characters, though, are not the most interesting, and this is why the introduction suffers so much, since before we know where we are, we meet Ansel and Ulric Manafort, who do most of their development in the third and second-to-last chapters when they reconnect as brothers. Until then, they’re almost like walking cliches; the bloodthirsty mercenary and the navel-gazing professor, respectively.
If the same energy had been given to the characters as to the setting, this would have been a phenomenal book.
The characters, though, are not the most interesting, and this is why the introduction suffers so much, since before we know where we are, we meet Ansel and Ulric Manafort, who do most of their development in the third and second-to-last chapters when they reconnect as brothers. Until then, they’re almost like walking cliches; the bloodthirsty mercenary and the navel-gazing professor, respectively.
If the same energy had been given to the characters as to the setting, this would have been a phenomenal book.
June 14, 2022
This was a solid first outing from a new author. Cody Franklin depicts a Nazi dominated far-future where the Mediterranean exists as desert basin called the kiln. The sea was drained by dams to power Europe for an eternity. Ansel and Ulric are brothers aboard a tread-powered desert ship, protecting Europe from the scavengers. The writing is brisk, and there's a massive world for exploration. That said, there's not much character development, and the staples of science fiction such as technology and details are lacking. But perhaps that's the point. The brothers discover an ancient photo of Hitler that counters their world's Aryan depictions. Could the eternal Reich be based on a lie? Does it matter? There are great themes on the relevance of truth, history, ideology and memory which more than compensate for the stated shortcomings.
November 22, 2023
This was an offbeat read and not what I was expecting.
While during the course of the book, there is some explanation about the backstory of how they got to the book's setting, there is a real unanswered question of how much of the prior history was lost. The main characters come across "artifacts" in the desert such as a record and have no idea what it is. The author just requires you to believe that somehow hundreds of years of history just disappeared.
It was an interesting read. A cross between alternate history and a little science-fiction.
While during the course of the book, there is some explanation about the backstory of how they got to the book's setting, there is a real unanswered question of how much of the prior history was lost. The main characters come across "artifacts" in the desert such as a record and have no idea what it is. The author just requires you to believe that somehow hundreds of years of history just disappeared.
It was an interesting read. A cross between alternate history and a little science-fiction.
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