Marching Through Georgia

Draka #1

by S.M. Stirling

The first book of the Draka series.
1942: The Eurasian War.
The fleets of Imperial Japan raid the coasts of a United States that stretches from Panama to the Arctic. The Nazi war machine takes Moscow and sweeps east to the Urals. To the south the Domination of the Draka is a giant forge with serf-manned factories pouring out tanks, airplanes and artillery as the Janissary legions gather for the final triumph and revenge.

Genres: Alternate History, Science Fiction, Fiction, War, Historical Fiction, Dystopia, Military Science Fiction

410 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1988

About the author

Stephen Michael Stirling is a French-born Canadian-American science fiction and fantasy author. Stirling is probably best known for his Draka series of alternate history novels and the more recent time travel/alternate history Nantucket series and Emberverse series.

MINI AUTO-BIOGRAPHY:
(personal website: source)

I’m a writer by trade, born in France but Canadian by origin and American by naturalization, living in New Mexico at present. My hobbies are mostly related to the craft. I love history, anthropology and archaeology, and am interested in the sciences. The martial arts are my main physical hobby.

Reviews

[Elliott · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book first 10 years ago.
I can't finish it today.
S.M. Stirling has endured quite a bit of criticism for this book to the extent that he began the title page to his later non-Draka book Conquistador with this quotation: "There is a technical term for someone who confuses the opinions of a character in a book with those of the author. That term is 'idiot'."
I don't make any presumptions as to Stirling's opinions. That's THE cardinal sin of literature analysis.
Leaving the author's work as separate from the author though does not make this book any better.
In the introduction to the short story collection Drakas! Stirling states that he distilled the worst of Western Civilization, put it onto the mineral rich Cape of Good Hope (ironically named in this context), and then let the worst of all possibilities emerge. Ergo a dystopia.
Great. No problem. Depending on where you draw the start up of Sci-fi: Frankenstein, The Time Machine, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym dystopia is there.
But consider the best of the genre. 1984 is probably the easiest but that's a cliched example and the comparisons to Marching Through Georgia are way too obvious. Instead think of The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad (a really great book for its satirical take on the sci-fi genre itself). Like the Draka books it's an alternate history imagining the distillation of the worst of Western Civilization though in one individual instead of one country. The conceit of the novel is that Adolf Hitler emigrates to the United States and becomes a science fiction writer who disseminates his far-right philosophy via award winning science fiction novels extolling the sword and sorcery "virtues" of racial purity and SS-chic to an American populace eagerly snapping them it up. His influence is such that The Lord of the Swastika (the novel within a novel) creates its own fan culture of leather and silver clad geeks who play Naziism on the weekends.
The purpose of the novel is to expose a far right and authoritarian tendency within the genre and its authors (here's looking at you Heinlein). It's an effective novel because its frame narrative takes away from any appeal the fictional novel may generate aside from the fact that The Lord of the Swastika is deliberately not very well written.
Marching Through Georgia however is reasonable well written. It has no frame narrative. The Draka kill Nazis. The main character is a reluctant soldier and a decent enough sort. The nation he lives in is a superpower with cool guns and tanks that never loses. Sure the Draka preach national/racial supremacy and practice slavery but a section of the book has a slave state that even though she's a slave she's better off under the Draka than with her parents who mistreated her and the Draka believe their supremacy is only through hard work. And then it's off to the rest of the novel which is pure action.
S.M. Stirling says that he's confused why people would want to live in this world. It's because he didn't really create a dystopia. He created a world that's blonde, sexy, and packing where no one works except slaves who really don't mind and actually rather like being slaves, Christian or any other morality is no obstacle save what brings the absolute pleasure although occasionally there's a war. But even then war brings out a bunch of cool toys and the Draka are guaranteed to win.
Stirling remarkably skirted the whole point of dystopia then which is to come back to the reader.
That's why most dystopias put the reader in the mind of the oppressed, to illustrate what is wrong with the fictional society and thereby keep note of those aspects that seem familiar in day to day life. Stirling didn't accomplish this. In fact he appears to go out of his way to not accomplish this fact reveling in action and technology rather than social commentary which makes his Draka series unreadable to me any longer.

[Duffy Pratt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking forward to this because I had heard a lot about how terrible the Draka are. And, as is so often the case, they didn't live up to their billing. I also thought, as an early book, this would likely go deeper into the cool idea Stirling has, and have less of the surface adventure story that he usually delivers. On that, I could not have been more wrong.

The story is basically a drawn out battle with nearly impossible odds between a Draka paratrooper unit and Nazi mechanized infantry. Sterling almost falls into the trap of being more interested in his guns than his people, but I thought there was enough meat on the bones of the main character to support this story.

The Draka are ruthless bastards, hyper-rational, and firm believers in their superiority as a master race. There's an interesting tension here, because the master race belief isn't particularly rational, and it doesn't tend to make the bast use of human resources. Also, a culture devoted to the preservation of the aristocracy is doomed to failure. The Draka have managed to sustain theirs by relentless expansionism, but there is always a limit to expansion no matter, and when that limit gets reached, the aristocracy will start to turn on itself. Either the older heirs will have to exclude their family members, and thus create internal tension, or the property will get split too thin and threaten the foundations of the society.

The Draka should be more aware of these looming problems than they seem to be. And that strikes me as odd, because it looks like Stirling is aware of them, and the Draka are not stupid. So I'm left wondering what explains their blind spots. So I have some concerns about Stirlings construction. But I am curious where he takes this, so I'm sure I will continue on to the next book, and may read the whole series.

[Nate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun alternate history, but doesn’t quite deliver on the awesome premise. It’s basically about a country called the Domination (kind of like if Rhodesia had existed much earlier and turned into a huge empire with stunningly advanced technology and a huge slave labor force.) In this short novel we learn via infodump how the Domination came into existence and then witness its existence into WW2, determined to cut a fresh piece of empire from Europe by wresting it from the Nazis. The plot itself is all about the struggle between Domination forces and the Wehrmacht over a strategically important village. The action was great, but the characters are not really likable (I can’t fault Stirling for this, as this has to do more with the protagonists either being racist, imperialistic Draka or, well...Nazis.) and like I said, just didn’t do as much as I wanted with the premise. Of course, this was only the first in a quadrilogy and the other novels seem to be longer and deal with a bigger scope. I’ll certainly be continuing on at some point and seeing how they work out.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

My friend and I read this book together because we wanted to decide if it was meant to be satire or a power fantasy for weirdos. Unfortunately by the end we still weren’t really able to decide which. I still lean towards it being satire, but I feel like the Drakan protagonists are granted a sort of “look, they’re redeemed now guys! They know some of what their country does is wrong!” that I didn’t feel was earned. It’s nice that they take issue with their system, but it doesn’t wash away what they’ve already done in the name of that system.

[Annette · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting and unusual alternate history of (a portion of) WWII. Stirling proposes an additional colony of Europeans taking deep hold in Africa after the American Revolution. In the ensuing century-and-a-half, the "Draka" (for Sir Francis Drake) have taken over and fairly brutally enslaved most of the continent. The 10% of so of "citizens" are trained for war and conquest from early childhood - and many of them realize that they Must continue in conquest until they rule the world or die trying, since their political system is absolute anathema to those of the US and portions of Europe, not to mention vice versa. During WWII, however, they find themselves uneasily allied with the Americans and British since Hitler's threat is immediate while their own is still a generation or two away.
Stirling does a good job of taking a group of people that by all standards of political correctness ought to be the world's biggest and most evil villains, second possibly only to Hitler himself, and making many individuals within it reasonably sympathetic. He does this without particularly excusing their political system: he uses an American character's viewpoint quite effectively to show how oppressive and foreign it is to our way of thinking. A few of his main characters also at least partially comprehend the ugliness of the situation: one young man found himself breaking all sorts of laws getting his own daughter (by a serf/slave) out to America. And yet one of his serfs, brought home as a young survivor of a Draka conquest a generation earlier, takes the American reporter to task for simultaneously pitying and despising her. The way she sees it, her masters are not harsh to her, and her life is considerably better than it would have been had she and her family survived as dirt-poor peasants in Europe.
Anyway, quite a complex set of issues to chew on as you read the well-paced and well plotted narrative and find yourself rooting for the slave-owner's victory over the Germans. :}

[Checkman · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first of Stirling's Draka series. A fascinating look at a fictional race of conqueors. The Draka society is multi-layered and detailed while the military sequences are exciting and well written.

There are problems with the story however. The Draka would have to be the luckiest people in the history of the world to achieve the level of power that they have reached at the start of the novel. Stirling wants his creation (the Draka) to be strong and almost invicible. As a result he creates a world that is rather unbelievable, especially the technological achievements of the Draka.It is also hard to believe that the other world powers would left the Draka just gobble up so much the world before finally saying no. But ,despite my quibbles, the novel grabs you and keeps you involved.

Of the four Draka novels Marching Through Georgia is mostly an alternate history/military action story. After this novel the next three novels progress steadily into the realm of the science-fiction/action genre and like so many series the first installment is the strongest.

[Elizabeth Rebecca Shaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting alternate history about what might have happened if the British had moved their Loyalists from the USA to South Africa at the time of the American Revolution. The White slave owners took over from the Boers and with additions along the way created a revolutionary society with slavery being a large part of it. This story takes place in WWII when the Draka defeat the German Nazis and take over Europe. Can be hard to read in places.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been going through boxes of books that my husband and I have in storage and came across this series my husband read years ago. I loved Stirling's Nantucket series and decided to give it a try.

What can I say? The Draka are a sociopathic society. They live in fear of their millions of serfs rising up some day and slaughtering them, so they ruthlessly suppress any dissent to prevent that happening. This story is mostly about the battle between a paratrooper outfit of Draka holding a small town in the Caucasus from the Nazi Germens, but it goes into a lot of background about how the
Domination came to be and how it maintains itself. I think I'll read the second book about the war between the Domination and the American Empire, but I don't know if I'll read all five books in the series.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of creepy. It's a reasonably fleshed alternate world, but its alternate-ness, while explained, isn't really believable. Basically it requires that a society with buckets of slave labor dedicate itself to...working ultra hard at all times to become military badasses, as opposed to leisure. The internal logic makes sense, but it's just not an "evolutionary stable system". It only works if you pretend human nature is something it isn't.

It's also a little uncomfortable to read just due to the political anticorrectness: the protagonists (Draka) are a bunch of raping, pillaging racists. Admittedly the primary antagonists are the Nazis, who are worse, but the book makes it clear that these bad guys (Draka) are going to win World War III anyway.

The characters are interesting if a little one-dimensional...the "character development" of the main protagonist is pretty shallow. The action is okay but mostly filler. I didn't dislike reading it but it has no deeper redeeming qualities. I intend to read the other four anyway, but that says more about my love of universes/series than the quality of the book itself (it has to be a TERRIBLE book 1 before I'll pass on book 2).

[David Leemon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an entertaining romp through Georgia.

[Jake Hahn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too slow and technical to get into.

[Ken Finlay · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Marching Through Georgia”, first in the 'Draka' series, is a melange of histories and cultures - think of the worst of Sven Hassel, the Roman Empire, Nazi occupied countries, and eugenics.
The Draka, originally Germanic mercenaries fighting in the U.S.A. for the British, are offered a colony based around Cape Town when the British are driven out.
Essentially, largely cut off from the world, they become a warrior caste (The Domination of the Draka) with no real raison d'etre except conquering other nations (or tribes) and enslaving their people.
Those 'serfs' (they don't like the connotations of the word 'slave') are given little or no education but, as long as they behave, they are allowed to live. Any rebellion is ruthlessly crushed and, in some cases, the population is eliminated.
Increasingly, Draka State Security is coming down on anyone (including the Draka elite) who expresses any doubts about their way of the world.
The book is set in 1942 when the Draka have conquered all of Africa, just taken Italy, and are invading Russia where a powerful Nazi force is retreating.
It's just the kind of opportunistic fight the Draka glorify - two mighty powers have drained themselves almost dry and will prove easy pickings.
The book is full of explanations of Draka society, technology, weaponry, military unit details, etc., some of which is extremely boring.
While the morality of Draka society is explained it is portrayed as the norm, even a good thing. It didn't work for me.
At another level there is Centurion Eric von Shrakenberg, leader of a parachute unit, who has just landed in Georgia. His heavy artillery and aerial support is lacking, which allows for short and brutal, sometime hand to hand, fighting.
Outgunned and outnumbered it takes lots of lateral thinking and, sometimes, sheer berserkery to avoid defeat.
Eric, externally the perfect Draka aristocrat, is far from convinced that the ever-increasing empire is a good thing, but (with numerous firefights not leaving a lot of time to think of anything else) keeps his opinions to himself.
An American journalist, William Dreiser, is embedded with Eric's troops.
America (now including much of South America) is a temporary ally of the Draka.
But, with the Draka's stated aim of global conquest, it is only a matter of time before they become an enemy.
The good news for the Draka is their huge expansion. The bad news is that they are becoming dangerously overstretched and their supply lines are breaking down at the edge of their conquered lands.
It's an interesting read (mostly), though the Draka morality is highly suspect (for example, looting, pillaging and rape are actively encouraged).
3 Stars.

[Nikolay Sarkisov · Rating 1 out of 5]

I know I’m late to the party, like 40 years late but still. This book continues to generate chatter, being talked about by creators that I find interesting, so I decided to give it a read.
That was a mistake.
First problem- it is well written enough to get me deep enough so I couldn’t just quit.
Second problem- all the inaccuracies. I happen to come from the region where this book takes place. I know that google was unavailable in the 80s but still, the mistakes are glaring. The Georgian military highway does not go through Ossetia, Ossetian is majority Christian, so a mosque would not be in the center of town. The Muslims of the north Caucasus don’t wear turbans so it makes no sense to call them rag-heads. They would not speak Circassian in an Ossetian village, they would speak Ossetian, their own language. Also, whatever the Russians are speaking is not Russian, is a weird mixture of polish, Russian and something else? The vegetation described in the book is wrong for the region… I mean, it’s fiction but this is very annoying to read
Third- the world building. Something this book is lauded for. The author doesn’t bother to explain how a nation composed of the losers of the revolutionary war, the losers of the boer war and the losers of the civil war became a nation of winners of every war they take part in without changing their way. What drives technological progress in a feudal nation so much that they are more advanced than the Americans and Europeans combined.
Lastly, this is not a novel. It’s fan-fiction. The worst kind of it- self insert fan fiction. The protagonist is just, smart, beautiful and can’t lose. The nation wins just cos, has more industry and more technology just coz also.
It is telling that in a book with the Nazi as antagonists, you cheer for the protagonist to lose.
Fuck this book.
I’ve heard that the second book is shlocky erotica so I might give it a read.

[Scylvendi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun pulpy action romp with a mary sue anti-hero civilization. Anti-hero, not villainous, because there are Nazis here. The Nazis are shown to be 100% irredeemable scumbags, who rape and mistreat their Russian woman slaves, and that think themselves part of a master race despite being descended from potato farmers.
Unlike the Draka, who have actually bred themselves into actual physically superior blonde beast ubermensch, and whose slaves are all willing and therefore don't need to be beaten and abused.
Is that the trick? By being shown that these guys (fulfilling nazi ideals) are not as bad as the nazis, I end up thinking that these guys (fulfilling nazi ideals) are kinda cool and BAM! My low media literacy ass just got tricked into liking nazis! Fuck!

Though, the action sequences are fun exactly because the Draka are Draka. They have superior tech, superior tactics, mixed gender units, a warrior culture, superior morale, control adrenaline at will, charm the soon-to-be-enslaved locals, fight against overwhelming odds...
No, look, I'm reading this and shaking my head, ok?

[DuxFr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book is generally good written. battles are somewhat confusing and told from to many pow. world building is what I have most problem with. How the fuck can Anglo-Saxon, Germanic and Nordic mix not have why of integrating large part of European nobility and upper class into citizens, avoiding unnecessary casualties and desperate defence, but French monarchist and confederates were ok? Also why is duty to race four children and not more? Also why rishi females in combat, specially of childbearing age. Also the Race is not the race but culture, why insist on race theory and do not understand basic genetic. I have extreme problems with ability to pacify waste territories in one generation, it would take at least 3 or 4 generation for any mayor territorial expansion to make sence. also security directorate is state with in the state in with special rules that makes little sence in world building. Dominion is state of free cities and not SSSR stile of government where everyone is subservient to party leader.

[Mads Hvelplund · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can see that others liked this book, so I can only say why I didn't. The story feels like the author wanted to experiment with an alternate history where the nazis had competent leadership and plenty of resources, and then let them fight the "inferior" real-world nazis. The prose is a little plodding at times, and I hate all the characters, even the main character who everyone else in the book seems to think is "a good sort". I got about a third through the book before I decided life was too short to read about sociopaths making war on each other.

Also, there was a weird rapey undertone to all of the scenes with female serfs and I got very tired of hearing about "wenches". Uh ... "spoiler", I guess?

[Will Strickland · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m gonna give this a 3.3. First half is a veeeeery dense ready, lots of world building that can get confusing. I’ve always been interested in alternate history stories especially WWII scenarios so the concept of the Domination as a country was interesting. You do end up feeling like you clearly understand the Draka’s history and motivation, but it’s still boring to start with either way. The book is as its best during the combat and battlefield strategy scenes and really picks up in excitement in the last 3-4 chapters. Interested to read the next in the series!

[Mike Glaser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. I found out about this series by reading. Harry Turtledove book that included stories where Mr. Turtledove wrote about other authors’ universes. His story about the Domination invading the United States whetted my appetite for more which led me to this book. While not quite as dark as Orwell’s 1984, it comes close. But is also makes you want to read more in the series to see where the story is going. Highly recommended.

[John Morgan]

Fun to read. Bloody awful universe to live in.

[Robert Bartlett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book on how the Draka came to be and their military capabilities. A country that allows women to be in the military, unlike the US and German militaries depicted in the books.

[John Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very limited military campaign rather than the broader scale international conflict.

[Patrick Elsey · Rating 1 out of 5]

dumb as shit and I don't think my UEL ancestors would become a weird racist cult.

[Sean Gray · Rating 1 out of 5]

it's just a long story of an invented battle in an invented 2nd world war. quite tedious and oh so pretentious

[Hideoijj · Rating 4 out of 5]

What if Britain had taken Capetown during the Revolutionary War and sent Loyalists from the US there after they lost? What if later Confederates joined them? And Nietzsche? And a few other dissident racist and egomaniacs? Why, the colony would grow to conquer all of Africa by the time of WWII, under a system of brutal slavery and repression, ruled by an elite with a Will to Power and a desire for world Domination. Let Hitler actually defeat Stalin in Russia, but at a high enough cost that the Draka could then sweep through Germany's forces in Europe and Asia, and you have this lovely series. Totally geeked out for Risk and Age of Empires fans (recent convert, me), but with Stirling's attention to detail and muscular prose, it's everything a geek could want.

[Not HG · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF
I just couldn't do it. The story is incredibly interesting, a country basically made up of all of history's losers (Loyalists, Confederates, etc.); the world building is amazing in how detailed it is; the characters are well-rounded and 3-dimensional.
So why did I give up?
It's so damn SLOW. The book stars in April 14, 1942 at 4 am (it's a military operation, so they give out the time), by the time I gave up at roughly 160 pages it was April 14, 1942 at 7 AM. Almost two hundred pages just to cover 3 hours!
Like I said before, the story itself is interesting and I genuinely want to know what happens next. I'll go back to it eventually, but for now I'm gonna go read more fast-paced novels.

[Rick Yagodich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reread, 20-some years on.

Definitely not my normal fare. And yet… While the setting is alternate-history military, the story itself is of personal evolution and the pressures of social context: the truth that ethics and morality are the consequences of culture. That right and wrong are the product of perspective: a migration of psyche away from what would be considered forward-thinking and open-minded in the modern world, but entirely understandable in context.

The writing itself is, for the most part, excellent. At times bordering on literary. But with a dozen or so instances of mid-paragraph – even mid-sentence – point-of-view jumps that are quite jarring from a modern perspective; some requiring a reread to figure out whose perspective we have shifted to.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good "alternate history" novel. I don't normally go in for those, but I like everything Sterling writes. I'm looking forward to book 2 in this series. The setting is 1942, and there is an extra world power taking advantage of the mutual destruction the Germans and the Russians are doing to each other. I thought the characters were well drawn, and the battles and action were well written. My only struggle was that the stars of this show are evil, and even the likable members of their tribe are despicable human beings. Who are battling equally despicable humans. At the end, we get a glimpse of the moral and philisophical struggle ahead, and it should be interesting.

[Chris Gardner · Rating 3 out of 5]

An alternate history romp through the mountains of southern Georgia.[return]The world took a different turn after the end of the American Civil War. The die hards of the south did not give up. They moved to South Africa and built the strongest, most militaristic dynasty the world has every known.[return]The time is now the 1940's and the Straka hold sway over a third of the world. [return]In southern Georgia the Straka have opened a new front against the declining Nazis. A young Straka Centurion learns what is means to be a leader.[return][return]An excellent story. Recommended.

[David R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of Stirling's earliest dystopian novels, and the first of his "Draka" series. The action takes place in April 1942 as the alternate-world Domination of Draka battles Nazi Germany for control of the Caucasus. Stirling's Drakans are possibly more chilling than even the Nazis: a militaristic oligarchy atop a serf-based economy, and they're dedicated to world conquest. By the end of the book they have absorbed three continents. Within: lots of detailed military narrative but some surprisingly multifaceted protagonists.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the best alternate histories. What if the British Loyalists, the Confederates, and most of the oppressive losers created a militaristic society. South Africa turns into the Domination of the Draka, where from childhood, kids are trained to fight.

By the 1940s, they've subjugated Africa and come into WW2 against the German's, ostensibly as allies of the US.

What happens in the next books is extremely disturbing but an interesting analysis of what can happen when people don't fight for freedom.