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2023 reads, #85. I recently got interested in seeing just how many alt-history novels now exist that revolve primarily around the what-if idea of the Nazis actually winning World War Two; and that got me thinking again about Robert Harris' 1992 Fatherland, one of the best of them all, a murder mystery set in an alternative Mid-Century-Modernist 1960s where a bunch of skinny-tie Nazis in sharp Kennedy suits are preparing to dually celebrate the 20th anniversary of the end of the war and Hitler's 75th birthday. And that was a reminder that I read that book years and years before becoming a full-time reviewer (literally picked up for a quarter at a random yard sale 25 years ago), and that I've never looked further into the career of this surprisingly interesting journalist and historian turned thriller author.

Out of the 15 books he's now published since then, the one I mostly wanted to read was 2019's The Second Sleep, because that's one of the only ones besides Fatherland that scratches my alt-history speculative itch; namely, it's set about a thousand years after a civilization-destroying apocalypse, in which there's been such a long period where humanity's official policy was "never speak of the Science Years" (plus a complete lack of any historical records from our times, because of all of it originally being digital) that humanity has completely reverted back to a society identical to the beginning of the Medieval period, where they believe that this is how society has always been, with humans living in thatched huts and cowering before an angry and judgmental God before He eventually became vengeful and apparently destroyed this mysterious "Cloud" where all the world's information used to be stored.

Unfortunately, though, just like my recent read of Daphne du Maurier's 1972 Rule Britannia (my review), Harris doesn't seem to have been able to come up with an actual compelling story to set within this fascinating universe, attempting to skate by on 300 pages of just concept alone; and let me tell you, once the novelty wears off on a "future humans think it's still the Medieval Age" concept, it simply becomes a historical fiction book, as if it was actually set in the Medieval Age, which is not the book I was wanting to read when I first picked this up. And while Harris tries to save the book the same way he made Fatherland so interesting, wrapping the plot around a mystery that's obvious to us modern readers but constitutes a shocking discovery to its characters (namely, when a '60s murder investigation accidentally reveals the Holocaust from twenty years previous, which had been quietly swept under the rug by the Germans after actually winning the war), here the reveal doesn't nearly spark the imagination, as our filth-covered neo-serfs very, very, very slowly come to realize, "OH MY GOD, HUMANS USED TO OWN COMPUTERS, WHATEVER THOSE ARE!!!!!!!!!!1!!"

To be clear, neither of these reveals are supposed to be shocking to the readers themselves (and in neither case are spoilers either, which is why I don't mind divulging the information); but why it works in the case of Fatherland is because it's fascinating to picture a world in which the Nazis manage to completely hide the concentration camps from the public, leaving us a group of people who are certainly hard-right warmongers, but who in history's eyes aren't any worse than Spain's Francisco Franco (who held power for 36 years) or Russia's Joseph Stalin (who ruled for 29 years). If the Nazis hadn't bothered trying to eliminate the Jewish people, would they now not be thought of as The Greatest Monsters In The Entirety Of Human History? That's an interesting question to contemplate! What isn't an interesting question to contemplate, though, is, "What would happen if, a thousand years in the future, a group of people who have entirely lost the history of the 18th through 21st centuries suddenly rediscover it, but without the means, training or intelligence to duplicate any of it?" That's instead simply a gimmick, which like a jump scare in a horror movie is good for only a few seconds of legitimate entertainment before the audience goes, "Okay, what else you got?"; and that's why this book is so flat and disappointing, despite it being just as good in quality as Fatherland from 27 years earlier. That would normally get the book two and a half stars from me, being rounded up to three here at the "no half stars" Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ, so take that under advisement when deciding whether or not to pick the book up yourself.