Rating: 
Summary: Small Change Makes Great Waves in Believable History
Review: The premise that Hitler dies in the bunker is a tiny change to history. He almost died that day, but fate saved him. Niles and Dobson took that privelege away and the book flows from there. As an ex-Army officer, with a background in WWII history, I'd say this is a rocking-good book! The soldiers feel like soldiers, and the combat scenes are very satisfying. Rommel comes across as a true General, like many that I have met in real life. Kudos to Niles and Dobson. I read it in one day, and it was a great day!BTW, I read the other reviews here, and I have to wonder if these guys are WWII or ground combat enthusiasts. I don't think 5 stars is too high a rating, but I certainly think 1 or 2 is far too low. If you like this stuff, you'll love this book!
Rating:
Summary: A masterful work of alternate history!
Review: Wow! It's rare that a long-awaited novel meets my expectations, but Fox on the Rhine not only met them, it smashed them flat beneath the treads of advancing panzers! The essence of the plot is believable and eminently satisfying. The authors twisted history just a bit to create a compelling tale that takes WWII on an interesting new time-line. The characters are strong and believable, mostly historical and well researched. The technical military detail is superb. The authors' knowledge of the campaigns, command structures, and military possibilities leaps off of every page. Battles are presented in an exciting, readable manner so they are easily followed and brutally realistic. I highly recommend Fox on the Rhine to any fan of alternate history or WWII drama. I can't wait to read their next book!
Rating: 
Summary: Not for the serious fan of alternate history
Review: I believe that the writers had a good, if fanciful, idea when they came up with the premise for this book. Even the unlikely separate peace with the Soviets was an interesting take. The problem with this book is in the writing. The authors are proffessional game designers which, I am sure helped in working out the fictional tactics and strategies used by the combatants, but, they should have employed a writer to at least help them with their style and substance. I found the characters to be flat and in some cases cartoonish. The authors use of German was poor at best, ham fisted at worst. Read this book if you have a few hours to kill, but if you have anything better to do, like trim your toenails, take a pass.
Rating: 
Summary: An enjoyable book, but a quite a stretch.
Review: While I enjoyed reading this book, and thought that while well written and using an interesting plot device, that it was also fairly stretched as far as believability goes. Let us forget the obvious item of the Soviets signing a separate peace agreement with the Germans after the mass Summer Offensive of '44 when it was obvious to all that the War in the East was over, and go with the ones that try to be more believable. The first is the total lack of allied tactical air cover except for a few key plot moments. While leaving it out does give the illusion that the Germans could have achieved momentary air parity with the allies by producing the Me-262 is decent numbers, the reality was that by the summer of 44 that they allies had total air superiority not only strategically but tactically, which alone prevents many of the items that take place in this book from becoming believable. The other item that makes this difficult to believe is the total lack of mention of Germany's other fronts besides the East and West. What of Italy? Did that theatre just cease to exist? And except for a few blurbs about U-Boats, what about the battle of the Atlantic? Clearly what we have here is a stretch of the imagination and reality to basically fit one small concept (the assasination of Hitler and survival of Rommel) into a larger scheme without really thinking all aspects through to make it realistic. While the book was somewhat fun to read, I really cannot recommend it as it really cannot make you believe that what they are stating is possible. For a better look at alternative WW2 history, try SSGB by Len Deighton.
Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable Military Alternate History
Review: Fox on the Rhine is an enjoyable piece of alternate history based on the supposition that the plot to assasinate Hitler had succeeded. The book is packed with battle scenes and historic figures like Rommel, Himmler, and Patton reacting to the new situation. The book bogs down a little in intrigues between the assasins and the NAZIs. Also one would have really liked to know how the post war world would have looked under the changed circumstances (perhaps in a sequal?). Nevertheless I could hardly put the book down, which for my busy lifestyle is praise indeed.
Rating:
Summary: Plot on the Wane...
Review: Fox on the Rhine details an alternate history where the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler's life succeeds in killing Hitler, but the conspirators are unable to completely wrest power away from the Nazi Party, and Himmler takes control. Rommel, recovering from injuries, is thus not forced to take poison as in our history, and is assigned to the Western Front. Himmler manages to negotiate a truce with the Soviet Union, and with forces redeployed, Rommel launches a much larger Ardennes/Battle of the Bulge, which largely succeeds until an American group cuts off the German penetration and the German army is forced to surrender. That's about all I remember from this book, because although the premise (a successful assassination of Hitler) was interesting, the execution of the plot has much to be desired. I can believe Rommel being appointed commander of the Western Front, and I can even believe that an intelligent German High Command would launch a Battle of the Bulge-style offensive, but the idea of a truce with the Soviet Union in 1944 is quite frankly ludicrous. The authors attempt to create a plausible deal with Germany handing over all territorial gains in the East, as well as their rocket and cruise missile programs, which strikes me as plainly absurd, as the Soviets would have plainly gotten that and much more in the course of fighting the war. The American counter-attack, too, was lead by a completely contrived character, the prototypical "do no wrong-ignored til everything goes to hell-doomsayer-superhero-type" leader who manages to capture the entire German penetration by capturing and holding a single bridge. There's a completely nonsensical assassination attempt by the Nazi leadership on General Rommel and the American General (whose name escapes me, as he is so vanilla), as if such an assassination attempt could keep the surrender from happening. All in all, the book starts out with such promise, but completely drops off a cliff, and I'm very glad that I read it from my library instead of wasting my money purchasing it.
Rating:
Summary: Alternate History?
Review: Yes it's alternate all right- as in the authors ARE NOT historians and just make it up as they go along. I read through the previous reviews and only counted 5 (?) negatives which only proves that the detractors did not feel compelled to expend effort on a story they didn't like or the positive writers were smoking some good stuff and didn't really remember too much of what they read. I read each of the NEGS to be sure I didn't rehash prior arguments. Straight off I was discouraged by the complete lack of knowledge and/or research in their project. On page 33 there is a description of the "Nineteenth AD" division insignia; "a white star on a badge of crimson". HOLY COW Batman, US armored divions, then as now, all use a triangular patch of red, blue and yellow with their numeric designation centered in the bottom half. Question to the authors... what the (heck) is a Schmeisser? It is not a German SMG as the authors in child-like enthusiam repeatedly misuse the term. You might say, "bah these are small things" but they are indemic of a poorly crafted work. I am struggling mightily to finish this horrid tale as I am stubborn and refuse to let a book "beat me" but I have already binned my mass-back copy of the follow-on Fox on the Front UNREAD. Fool me once, shame on you-fool me twice shame on me!
Rating:
Summary: Exciting, well-written what-if novel
Review: What if the attempted assassination of Adolph Hitler in June 1944 had succeeded instead of narrowly failed? The authors predict that Himmler, head of the SS, would have become Fuhrer and that his wartime leadership of Germany would have been more rational than Hitlers -- although equally brutal. The authors build up a complex alternative history peopled with characters both real and imagined and events close enough to fact to be believable. This novel plays itself out -- like the war games the authors invent -- into a climatic battle on the Western front. It's exciting reading with good characterization and descriptions of desperate battles and a clever, almost comical twist near the end. Patton and Rommel are the protaganists -- and formidable ones at that -- and the supporting cast is strong. The Americans tend to be cardboard cutouts, but the Germans characters are drawn with some literary skill. I recommend the novel to anyone who is interested in World War II and alternative history novels.
Rating:
Summary: A good, entertaining alternate history novel
Review: As a coauthor of counterfactual history, I am equally interested in both the idea and the writing. Niles and Dobson come through on both counts.
At its premise, this book takes that the effort to kill Hitler in July 1944 succeeds but leads Himmler to take power and gamble on making peace with the Soviet Union. His temptation for Stalin is knowledge of the vengeance weapons and the technology to make the Soviet Union potentially dominant against the Western Allies.
That truce (and both sides know it is a truce not a peace) allows Germany to focus on defeating the Anglo-American armies.
They then posit that Himmler would have relied on competent military leaders like Rommel, Guderian and Galland and amassed German military power more intelligently than Hitler allowed.
The book evolves in a very engaging and satisfying way and I recommend it highly for anyone interested in how a military campaign could unfold and how strategic change could lead to different developments.
Rating:
Summary: What Fox?
Review: About three fourths of the way through this book, I decided to finish reading it because I'd put time into it already. The authors apparently never read the Rommel Papers or Mannstein's memoirs, two basics for anyone wishing to understand Wehrmacht capabilities and the military possibilities open to Germany. The Eastern Front still had incredible forces, they were just spread over a 3000 mile front, and constricting that front by pulling back to the border would have given Germany an eastern army that could stop the Reds, armistice or no. That front only collapsed in the summer of '44 due to the stripping of air power for France after D-Day. Bring the boys within range of some fighter cover, and they could have stood their ground. And, the 'stand and die' order rescission alone would have saved Germany, as Mannstein proved before he was fired for ignoring it. Rommel never, and I do mean never, gambled with the lives of his forces, as this book portrays. Many times, he attacked overall superior forces by creating a series of local superiorities which he then leveraged into an overall victory, but he never, ever, left himself without a solid escape route for the committed forces (and everyone else). This Bulge scenario is nonsense. Also, he routinely pre-identified and assigned sufficient guards for all his vulnerable points, and had contingency plans for the loss or reinforcement of any given point. These authors gave no hint of the staff work and staff leadership that went into creating his victories, and so the whole thing comes off like a Hollywood oversimplification for the seventh-grade-reading-level masses. Even if you leave that out, he simply wouldn't have left Dinant vulnerable or failed to build additional bridges as soon as he had riverbanks to do so, nor would the fighting have been over when the bridge was blown; when your bridge is blown, you fight the necessary battles to rebuild it. Then there's the nearly complete absence of air support at the level of wisdom Galland could have and would have brought to bear. For such an important effort, temporary airfields would have been set up in just a few hours just far enough away for security, so the whole Luftwaffe could pounce on an attack at once. And then there's the glaring question of what would happen to Mrs. and Manfred Rommel when Erwin surrendered. Meathooks all around, and he knew it, and if he were going to sacrifice his wife and son to save his men, he should have at least agonized over the choice for us.
The writing was overall weak, as well. For exampl,e guns don't "crash," they "boom," "crack," "whack," "bark," or "spit." Splitting the good guys and bad guys so obviously that you may as well have issued colored hats was sophomoric and inaccurately portrayed the men of the various services. The Panzergrenadiers never put in a showing, despite their vital importance and great power, the US forces never seemed to think clearly, even while winning, and a Jabo isn't a fighter used for ground attack, it's a fighter-bomber (Jagdbomber=Jabo). There's a difference.
I'd like my money back. More importantly, I'd like back the time I spent reading it. Sorry, guys. Better luck next time.
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