Fatherland

Rating:
Summary: All Around Great Story
Review: Hey, wait a minute, am I confused or did somebody write a dark, spooky alternate history novel that can actually claim to be at the same level as Gorky Park? This is an all around great book; it is not often that an author can come up with such a comprehensive book as this on his first try. This had it all, a great story, good characters, wonderful action and a quick pace. This is an exciting book. The story is very believable and tight. You can really believe the out come of the War produced this. Ok so it is not the only book out there with a Germany won theme, but he pulls it off very well. It is dark but you need that darkness on this type of book, something light and happy would not fit the premise.

Rating:
Summary: Stale Land
Review: The first 50 or so pages were great!

But then, it started to feel more like a history lesson. There was really no reason why it had to take place in a gigantic Nazi state. The author didn't utilize the fictional environment to it's fullest potential. It could have taken place in modern day America and used the CIA instead of the Gestapo. And, the author went through great lengths developing Charlotte as an American reporter, but in the end, there was really no essential point of her being an American or a reporter. She could have been a prostitute who happened to come across confidential Nazi documents.

It didn't feel like a mystery novel. There were too many people responsible for the puzzle that Xiaver March was trying to solve. In most mystery novels, it's traditional to have one prime suspect who eludes the public eye. In this book, it was kind of obvious from the start, and with too many people also being accountable for the "solution" at the end, there wasn't an air of suspense of finding out whodunit. The "twists" and "turns" weren't exciting, they only trailed off to more characters and more places Xiaver has to search.

The author is gifted when it comes to description but dosen't make things very suspensful.

Rating:
Summary: Speer's Metropolis
Review: Seeing as WW2 was such a damn close run thing, it's not surprising that there are very, very many "what if" books speculating on the alternative outcomes. This one, Harris's first novel, is the "what if" novel to end all "what if" novels. It postulates a Berlin of the early 1960s where the Gestapo still thrives and where the only rival power is President Kennedy's America. Joseph Kennedy, that is. Edward VIII is restored to the throne, Vichy France is a way of life, Albert Speer's grandiose city redesign has been executed and Heydrich is the power behind Hitler's throne. Harris has a wonderful grasp of the grottiness of the situation and the intrinsic corruptness of the Nazi regime. Has nice dabs of irony. (Wehrner von Braun, it seems, has taken the Fatherland into the space race.) Was made into an abysmal film.

Rating:
Summary: A brilliant concept.
Review: Brilliant. No, not the plot, which is certainly above average, but mostly typical of a good suspense thriller. What's brilliant about Robert Harris' "Fatherland" is the concept. The events of this suspense thriller are set in 1964, in post World War II Germany. Nothing unusual so far. Until you realize that Germany has won the war, Europe is dominated by the victorious German reich, and that celebrations are underway for Hitler's 75th birthday. It is this alternate history that makes "Fatherland" a thriller that stands out from the average.

Is it plausible? Harris is well-qualified to write such an alternate history, having written a well-researched non-fiction book on Hitler. In fact the events of "Fatherland" are mostly rooted in history, as Harris notes at the end of the book that many of the characters whose names are used in this novel actually existed, and many of the documents quoted in the text are authentic. The novel centers around the historic Wannsee Conference of 1942, where Hitler's top men met to decide on a permanent solution to the Jewish question: extermination in the horrific gas chambers in places like Auschwitz.

The plot itself is credible and fast moving, although those who are offended by vulgar language, blasphemy and immorality will find these occurring rather too frequently. Xavier March is a criminal investigator who is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery around the body of an old man found floating in a lake outside Berlin. His investigation leads him to discover a series of deaths of high ranking officials. Together with Charlotte Maguire, an American journalist, he uncovers the chilling truth and the heart of the dark conspiracy behind these deaths. But can March and Maguire escape the German reich with a story about a secret so horrible that Hitler's men have done everything possible to remove all trace of? And if they are caught, can they withstand the torture that is sure to follow?

The concept of a political cover-up, government conspiracy in at the highest level, and those threatening to expose it being silenced with death, is not a new concept. But by dressing this concept in new garments of an alternate history, Harris has created a novel that surpasses the average suspense thriller. The alternate history is in many respects fictional, but at its core it is about a horrible reality that is just as shocking today as it was when it was conceived in 1942. In producing "Fatherland", Harris has fathered a novel with a concept so brilliant, that the chilling non-fiction aspects of its story become all the more shocking. And that's why this is a novel not worth missing.

Rating:
Summary: WOW!!
Review: I am still trying to absorb everything that this book had to offer: a murder of two very high ranking political officials, art fraud, government cover-up, betrayal & a little bit of romance..."Fatherland" has it all!
This is not an alternate history novel...the war is over & Germany has won. That is the setting. Harris uses great detail to describe how Germany looks "today" (1964), the way Albert Speer (Hitler's favorite architect) planned to build it. Harris also gives us a real character, Xavier March, to empathize & sympathize with, which I certainly did. March is an overworked, underpaid officer who has no life outside of work. He is divorced & his son hates him, giving him nothing to really live for. He is assigned to the case of the murder of the first political official but quickly gets taken off of it. March (who has nothing else to do) decides to keep investigating this case & soon realizes that he is on to something big. The "higher-ups" have a lot to lose in this case & will stop at nothing to get March out of the way. March manages to stay just one small step ahead of those who are trying to kill him, but the reader doesn't find out just how small that step is until the end of the novel. I must admit that I really wanted a happy ending in this novel, but I guess a happy ending wouldn't have been very believable. When dealing with a huge cover up like this, and given the powerful people who are after March, the ending that Harris provided the reader with is entirely plausible, as well as likely.
I felt soooo incredibly sorry for March, which made this story all the better for me. Everytime he turned around, something negative was happening to him...he just couldn't get a break anywhere.
Harris appears to have done his homework with this novel...at the back of the book, his footnotes explain who these main characters really were & how they really died. Also in the book are several political documents that March uncovered in his quest to find the killer he so desperately needed to find. Harris' footnotes state that most of these documents are authentic and the ones that Harris had to create, he did so based on fact (and he also gives these facts in his footnotes)
If you are looking for an alternate history novel, this probably isn't the book you're looking for. However, if you are looking for a good mystery book with a great setting, then I can't recommend "Fatherland" enough!

Rating:
Summary: A Chilling Reminder Of What Might Have Been
Review: Robert Harris is one hell of a writer, who certainly knows his stuff and has researched meticulously for this novel, which is both scary and an interesting alternative history. Barring a few writing liberties which means this book does not get the full five stars (the hero being a Nazi who is against Nazism ahead of a dyed-in-the-wool Fascist, the American who finds out everything and just happens to survive), this is near-perfect, and not to mention horrific, when we hear about how they plan to kill people having abortions and other moves which are incredibly right-wing.
The thing which hit me the hardest, ahead of all the realistic touches (Hitler now being treated as a god, Europe now just a trading block, the new US President a far-right extremist, no Germans really knowing what happened to the Jews), was that the Nazis organised tour guides around Russian gulags showing how brutal Stalin was. Having been to Auschwitz and seeing how gruesome that is, this made me think: what if we did the same sickening things to German war prisoners, and it's just been covered up? After all, the atmosphere always makes it seem like a place of great evil.
At the end of the book, right up to its philosophical Orwell-style conclusion, I remember heaving a sigh of relief and thinking: "Thank God these crazy bastards didn't win the war." If what Harris says is remotely true, then we can just count ourselves lucky.

Rating:
Summary: Overpraised
Review: Fatherland is overpraised as a work of alternate history, but is still a good yarn. I was disappointed largely because Harris seems less interested in his setting -- Berlin in 1964, under a 75-year-old Hitler and anticipating a visit by President Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. -- than in telling a detective story. If you like that sort of thing, you might enjoy this book but would be bored by what alternate history there is. If you're an alternate history fan, you'll be bored by the sleuthing. Harris does offer some entertaining visual descriptions of alternate Berlin, where Albert Speer's mammoth monuments and buildings have been constructed, but because of Harris's ambivalence about what kind of book this is, the result is the perfect novel for no one.

Rating:
Summary: Read this book.....Now
Review: "Fatherland' is stylish, disturbing, and depraved. It is a masterpiece of noir fiction.

The plot is an historical "What if." What if Germany won the war? What if Joseph Kennedy became President, not JFK? What if the world never found out about the Jewish exterminations that took place at German concentration camps? All scary prospects to be sure; but Harris does a fine job with the story and details, and truly makes the reader feel that, not only is it plausible, but could have very easily happened.

The first part of the book is a murder/conspiracy mystery, and then when the mystery is solved, the second half hinges on suspense. While reading 'Fatherland", I could not help but feel like I was reading an important piece of fiction. That may not have been the case, but I am sure that I was reading one of the finest alternative histories ever written or imagined.

If you like historical fiction, or if WW2 fiction interests you, then do not miss this fine novel.

Rating:
Summary: Great stuff!!
Review: This was the first book by Robert Harris I picked up and I am glad i did coz Archangel proved to be rather disappointing compared to this masterpiece. Robert Harris' reconstruction of Nazi Germany is realistic and spinechilling, having put alot of effort into the verification of historical names and facts. He has created a chilling and frightening world which I am glad the world did not get to see. A good book for history fanatics who are interested to see how a novel can be molded and shaped from actual happenings, as well as highly readable for people who know zilch about Nazism or Germany during the war -- they WILL wanna know more after reading this gem!! Character development was excellent and the protaganist Xavier March made me feel so much for his struggles and tortures, it was hard to put the book down. I finished reading at 4am in the morning and the poignant ending made my heart ache and get up a few times in the night (or morning??) just so I could look at the book again. One of those books which keeps you on edge and moves you profoundly. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!! MUST READ!!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Very enjoyable
Review: It's hard being a policeman who cares about the truth, when you work in a police state. "A police state," as the author reminds us, "is a nation run by criminals." An interesting story, worthy of such alt-history greats as Harry Turtledove or S.M. Stirling. I enjoyed it.