What do you think?
Rate this book
Volk
SET DURING WORLD WAR II, Volk is the story of friendship that transcends politics and war. Lane is an American fighter pilot; Quality, an American pacifist Quaker; and Ernst, a Nazi.
296 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
13 people are currently reading
196 people want to read
About the author
Piers Anthony
442 books4,218 followersThough he spent the first four years of his life in England, Piers never returned to live in his country of birth after moving to Spain and immigrated to America at age six. After graduating with a B.A. from Goddard College, he married one of his fellow students and and spent fifteen years in an assortment of professions before he began writing fiction full-time.
Piers is a self-proclaimed environmentalist and lives on a tree farm in Florida with his wife. They have two grown daughters.
Piers is a self-proclaimed environmentalist and lives on a tree farm in Florida with his wife. They have two grown daughters.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 3, 2020
“My understanding is growing. But not my ease of conscience.” “War is not kind to conscience.”
Anthony introduces counterintuitive protagonists who embody new interpretations of the cultures clashing in World War Two. All fall far short of stereotypical and personal perfection. Quality is problematic as a Quaker, adherents of that faith may agree. Her infatuation with Nietzsche’s writings is a case in point.
“The more she read, the more she was satisfied that Nietzsche was not the man that many others claimed. His original views were well worthy of consideration.”
Readers are introduced to the inside of German plans to capture Gibraltar (how that might have changed World War Two) and atrocities in eastern Europe, though the Nazi’s industrial-strength ethnic cleansing in Poland and Lithuania are overlooked.
“The cost was great, to us personally, but small in terms of military matters.”
“And that human cost is echoed all over the world. Wherever there is war.”
“Wherever there is man.”
The denouement is too easy and too neat. But Anthony is used to writing fantasy where what Tolkien called the “eucatastrophe” is de rigueur.
“I owe him my life and love.” “Can good come of an ill motive?” “It can, and ill can come of a good motive. We do not comprehend the ways of God.”
After thoughts: “Apparently it was the determination of General Eisenhower and General de Gaulle that Germany should be rendered forever impotent, and the killing of German captives was part of the process. The Red Cross tried to protest, and the Quakers, and the British and Canadian governments, but they were barred from the camps, and mail privileges were denied, so that the prisoners themselves could not describe their situation.
“What of the Geneva Convention? It was claimed that these were not prisoners of war, but Disarmed Enemy Forces—DEF— who had no such protection. In fact it was a gross and deliberate violation of human rights, similar to what the Nazis and Russians did.
“I am well aware that there is still no general public awareness in America of what happened to the disarmed German soldiers. Denial is a powerful if misdirected force. It is not me you have to refute, but history.” Piers Anthony
Anthony rightly condemns the American treatment of Germans but he glosses the context: the Holocaust. The atrocities the Germans and Russians committed against one another (and Stalin against his own people) pale next to Hitler’s systematic genocide of the Jews and others. Eisenhower and the American soldiers were fresh from viewing the death camps (and probably didn’t know what had happened in eastern Europe, though Eisenhower hesitated to return Russian POWs because he knew Stalin considered them traitors.
That none of his protagonists fought against the Germans on the ground and that Anthony could not find a publisher for this novel while the Greatest Generation was robust suggests Anthony didn’t delve deep enough into what American soldiers experienced in western Europe.
I knew a Liberator, one of those who first approached a death camp. The horror short circuited his mind and morals, and he was just as contemptuous of the German soldiers and civilians who claimed no knowledge of the atrocities. Read Michael Hirsh’s The Liberators: America’s Witnesses to the Holocaust.)
That the British play war as if it were cricket should be no surprise. Their record on concentration camps, especially for the Jews, was less stellar. See Leon Uris’s Exodus.
Four stars is awarded, not earned, because Volk has a message worthwhile to contemporary readers. Paradoxically, it was written (though published much later) when many American authors (see Alex Haley’s Roots and James Mitchner’s Hawaii) looked hopefully toward an coming multi- and mixed racial America anathema to Hitler and also the racial exclusionists (of all colors) today. American interest over racial pedigree used to run to pride to our mongrel heritage, still seen in older individual’s proclamations of Native American, African, Asian, Mediterranean, and Jewish forebearers; younger voices of all ilks now demand racial separation and privilege. That won’t end well.
Anthony introduces counterintuitive protagonists who embody new interpretations of the cultures clashing in World War Two. All fall far short of stereotypical and personal perfection. Quality is problematic as a Quaker, adherents of that faith may agree. Her infatuation with Nietzsche’s writings is a case in point.
“The more she read, the more she was satisfied that Nietzsche was not the man that many others claimed. His original views were well worthy of consideration.”
Readers are introduced to the inside of German plans to capture Gibraltar (how that might have changed World War Two) and atrocities in eastern Europe, though the Nazi’s industrial-strength ethnic cleansing in Poland and Lithuania are overlooked.
“The cost was great, to us personally, but small in terms of military matters.”
“And that human cost is echoed all over the world. Wherever there is war.”
“Wherever there is man.”
The denouement is too easy and too neat. But Anthony is used to writing fantasy where what Tolkien called the “eucatastrophe” is de rigueur.
“I owe him my life and love.” “Can good come of an ill motive?” “It can, and ill can come of a good motive. We do not comprehend the ways of God.”
After thoughts: “Apparently it was the determination of General Eisenhower and General de Gaulle that Germany should be rendered forever impotent, and the killing of German captives was part of the process. The Red Cross tried to protest, and the Quakers, and the British and Canadian governments, but they were barred from the camps, and mail privileges were denied, so that the prisoners themselves could not describe their situation.
“What of the Geneva Convention? It was claimed that these were not prisoners of war, but Disarmed Enemy Forces—DEF— who had no such protection. In fact it was a gross and deliberate violation of human rights, similar to what the Nazis and Russians did.
“I am well aware that there is still no general public awareness in America of what happened to the disarmed German soldiers. Denial is a powerful if misdirected force. It is not me you have to refute, but history.” Piers Anthony
Anthony rightly condemns the American treatment of Germans but he glosses the context: the Holocaust. The atrocities the Germans and Russians committed against one another (and Stalin against his own people) pale next to Hitler’s systematic genocide of the Jews and others. Eisenhower and the American soldiers were fresh from viewing the death camps (and probably didn’t know what had happened in eastern Europe, though Eisenhower hesitated to return Russian POWs because he knew Stalin considered them traitors.
That none of his protagonists fought against the Germans on the ground and that Anthony could not find a publisher for this novel while the Greatest Generation was robust suggests Anthony didn’t delve deep enough into what American soldiers experienced in western Europe.
I knew a Liberator, one of those who first approached a death camp. The horror short circuited his mind and morals, and he was just as contemptuous of the German soldiers and civilians who claimed no knowledge of the atrocities. Read Michael Hirsh’s The Liberators: America’s Witnesses to the Holocaust.)
That the British play war as if it were cricket should be no surprise. Their record on concentration camps, especially for the Jews, was less stellar. See Leon Uris’s Exodus.
Four stars is awarded, not earned, because Volk has a message worthwhile to contemporary readers. Paradoxically, it was written (though published much later) when many American authors (see Alex Haley’s Roots and James Mitchner’s Hawaii) looked hopefully toward an coming multi- and mixed racial America anathema to Hitler and also the racial exclusionists (of all colors) today. American interest over racial pedigree used to run to pride to our mongrel heritage, still seen in older individual’s proclamations of Native American, African, Asian, Mediterranean, and Jewish forebearers; younger voices of all ilks now demand racial separation and privilege. That won’t end well.
January 20, 2020
Probably the most political insensitive novel with nazis ever written since the war. No excuses for this "both sides did evil/good" crapola. Have You forgotten all the fun German "Holiday camps" like Bergen-Belsen and Treblinka. The Allies didn't have extermination camps for people with the wrong ancestors or religion. The Nazis killed 6+ Million in theirs. This novel makes excuses for it. To be unread...
November 2, 2015
This WW II novel is definitely a departure from Anthony's usual lighter science fiction and fantasy. He again shows his skill as a writer and story teller.
That being said, I found some of plot and the coincidences used to move that plot along to seem a little to contrived and unbeliveable.
That being said, I found some of plot and the coincidences used to move that plot along to seem a little to contrived and unbeliveable.
October 27, 2023
I'm in between books and looking up some old Piers Anthony books. This one is supposed to do with personal friendship between an American and a German pre-war and then during WW2. But it was just too slow. I slogged to apparently 143 pages on my Kindle (still the chapter on America though) and called it a day. I'm not really looking for in books that tell a message right now. I'm just looking for good reading.
July 2, 2019
Great read.
Want to read
January 15, 2010Wanted
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews