Customer Reviews

Tomorrow the World: In which Cadet Otto Prohaska Carries the Habsburg Empire's Civilizing Mission to the Entirely Unreceptive Peoples of Africa and Oceania (The Otto Prohaska Novels)

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4 star:		(1)
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ALL of these novels are gems. This one is one of his best. Set in the early 1900's, Prohaska is a cadet seaman on a voyage of discovery. Like all the novels, this one exposes the rotten core of the Austrian civil and military systems in a way that will have you rolling on the floor. I've loaned these books to my friends and they won't be coming back anytime soon. They have become a regular topic of conversation in my historical group. Highly recommended even if you aren't interested in the period.

I have read each of the four Otto Prohaska novels written by John Biggins.
Amazing creative work. Set in the first World War era, with the Empire of Austria/Hungary falling apart, Otto Prohaska experiences the total incompetence of the Austrian government and its military component. The actual writing is superb. I wish I recognized the place-names as well as the geography of the novels. Otto Prohaska lives to be over 100. His experiences are incredible. The writing is wry and tongue-in-cheek as he details his naval experience and his combat flying experience. First rate!

From reading reviews of Mr. Biggins' Otto Prohaska series, I thought that this would be a good book. However, I was wrong. This was an incredibly excellent, thought-provoking, and witty book. I recommend it to the history buff or anyone who enjoys a good read.

There is a reasonably good chance that you have never heard of John Biggins. Let me put it this way: If you have ever enjoyed one of the Flashman novels (Flashman: A Novel) or one Patrick O'Brian's sea tales (The Far Side of the World (Aubrey Maturin Series)), then you should STOP what you are doing and find obtain a copy of one of John Biggins' marvelous Otto Prohaska books. They are just that good.

Our man Otto Prohaska was a naval officer in the relatively short-lived and long-departed Austro-Hungarian Navy. In 1986, Prohaska spins out his tales to a tape recorder and his caretakers from the unlikely vantage point of the advanced age of 101 while residing in an old age home on the edge of world - Wales.

Biggins makes Prohaska far less randy than Harry Flashman (happily, also far less bigoted). Biggins writes with more irony and humor than O'Brian. But Otto's adventures are on a par with anything experienced by Flashman or Jack Aubrey.

The first three books take place during the Great War, but in Tomorrow the World, Biggins takes us back to Prohaska's days as a naval cadet in 1900. He manages to win a spot on a scientific cruise while still in school. Otto's sails aboard a modest-sized sailing ship (The ship is also equipped with a small mostly useless steam engine). Biggins creates a palpable sense of a world on the cusp of momentous change and nowhere more so than in the lives of sailors.

Biggins sends Prohaska to West Africa, Brazil, Cape Horn, and the South Pacific. His descriptions of life at sea match any produced by O'Brian. The attempt to round Cape Horn going east-to-west is a testament to fortitude, discipline, and irrationality (one is left wondering why any sane person would ever again venture aboard any watercraft after surviving the terrors of the cape).

Ottokar's experiences on shore are a joy and a marvel. The `clashes of civilizations', if you will, that Biggins describes are somehow incredible, yet entirely believable (or nearly so) and stupendously entertaining. At least some of the tales are based on historical events or persons, such as Otto's encounter with the `lost' archduke of Austria (google John Orth) in the islands of Tierra del Fuego.

Tomorrow the World is the fourth and sadly apparently final book in the series (it was published in 1993). I usually recommend starting with the first book in a series, but one could logically start the Prohaska adventures here. Once you do you will read the other three anyway. Highest recommendation.

I've read Sailor of Austria 3-4 times now--that's a wonderful book indeed. The next two, which took Prohaska away from the sea were decent, but not of 5-star quality. Tomorrow the World was available only at a high price through used book dealers, but now it's back in print, and certainly worth buying. This is the prequel to Sailor of Austria: it narrates how Prohaska joined the K und K academy in Fiume and his adventures on the K und K's training sailing ship.

The bulk of the story takes Prohaska to distant ports--Africa, Chile, the Pacific. Rounding the Horn by sail is an epic tale here. You'll meet some thoroughly unpleasant people on the ship--some officers and a truly nasty scientist who likes collecting fresh skulls--the fresher the better (Prohaska is put to work emptying the boiled-off flesh at one point). Cannibals--Prohaska survives, as you should expect--since hopefully you've read a sequel or three.

For additional reading, nonfiction in this case, Georg von Trapp's excellent To the Last Salute about life of a K und K submarine in WW I was translated into English only a couple of years ago.

Mr. Biggins provides us with a very detailed, descriptive story of seafaring at the turn of the century (1900) in a declining empire (Austria-Hungary). Full of humor, Mr. Biggins keeps his story interesting and flowing, rarely bogging down along the way. A good read for anyone who enjoys naval historical fiction.

A very enjoyable tale of a time when efficiency was not measured in how quickly something could be done.

The story covers the fictional voyage of a ship in His Imperial and Royal Majesty's fleet around the world. No, not the Royal Navy, but the Austro-Hungarian Navy.

The story basically details the beginning of the carreer of Otto Prohaska, a fictional Czech (and future hero) in the service of the Empire's Navy. Lots of little tidbits of real and made-up lore are given that seem to accurately protray attitudes of the period (though maybe the protagonist is a bit too modern)--I read it from start to finish fairly quickly, but it did take a while (I did have to take time off for little things like work and sleep). I woudl have given it a higher score, but the ending seemed a bit rushed, like the author ran out of steam. It's good enough that I intend on finding another book in the series.

As a fan of the _Flashman_ series (at least until I learned that Fraiser wasn't as tongue-in-cheek as I has previously assumed), John Biggins' Otto Prohaska books were recommended to me. I am pleasantly suprised. _Tomorrow the World_ is the last of the series, but chronologically the first; therefore it seemed the logical place to begin.

Set in 1900, Otto Prohaska, a young Bohemian subject of Emperor Franz Josef, becomes a cadet in the Royal and Imperial (k. und k.) Austro-Hungarian Navy. (I know - part of the charm is the silliness of a largely land-locked Empire even having a navy, a fact that is not overlooked by the author.) By luck, Prohaska lands a position as one of four naval cadets to embark on a year-long circumnavigational cruise. In this respect, it is equal parts Patrick O'Brian (given the naval jargon and vivid descriptions of ship-board life) with George MacDonald Fraser.

Biggins, however, is not as mean-spirited as Fraser in his treatment of the protagonist and of the natives - in fact, young Otto Prohaska is a foil to show both the crushing bureaucracy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as well as a tool to mock the horribly ethnocentric European racial attitudes of the age, as the thin line between "cruel barbarian" and "imperialistic civilizers" is blurred. Perhaps the most biting criticisms, however, are saved for European aristocrats, as young Prohaska describes the MittleEuropaishe gentry as, "some of the most vapid, futile, aimless, utterly pointless semi-vertabrates that God in his inscrutable wisdom had ever allowed to crawl upon the earth: charming to be sure, and quite well educated, but about as devoid of initiative and purpose as any living creature can be and still get up in the morning." (p 84) Having known some of these people, I agree.

The story was tremendously entertaining both as naval fiction and as a parody of alleged European cultural and intellectual superiority. For fans of either the Aubry / Maturin novels, or of the Flashman series, I strongly recommend these books - it is light-hearted (rather than mean-spirited) and nautically romantic. Perfect summer reading.