Customer Reviews

What If?: Alternative Historical Time Lines

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Let me start out by saying that, as a big fan of alternate history, I really wanted to like this book. Giving it one star, however, is being overly generous. Despite the blurb on the back cover professing that Mr, Blumetti has an "extensive knowledge of history" and that his stories "do not stretch the imagination", I find quite the opposite to be true. The very idea that, after a failed D-Day invasion, Great Britain would simply throw in the towel and sign a separate armistice with Hitler is incredible enough. To then describe the Wermacht as turning east again at that late stage of the war and marching on to Moscow and beyond, defeating the Soviet Union is unimaginable. If this weren't bad enough, the writing is absolutely atrocious! The sentences, when there are actually complete sentences, are short and choppy. Spelling and grammatical errors are the rule rather than the exception. Either this book was originally written in a language other than English and then translated by someone with a very poor command of the language, or it was written by a not particularly bright fourth grader. I did manage to slog my way through the entire book, but it was a real chore to do so. There are some interesting ideas in the book, but the poor writing style negates any plusses. All in all, you'd be better off watching a Three Stooges episode. At least you'd have fun doing it.

Blumetti presents interesting four what if... scenarios. The problem is that he does it so badly that you want to throw the book the away. I'm not a grammar Nazi, but the awkward sentence structure, spelling mistakes, and brain dead language makes this unreadable. I defy anyone to enjoy the Napoleon born in United States scenario. It starts off bad, gets worse and sinks under its own mediocrity. It's hard to explain this, but I'll try: imagine the worst creative exercise story you ever heard badly recited by the dumb kid in your junior high English class... Got it? Good, 'cause that's what you get here.
It's amazing that this thing got published.
Alternative History can be fun, but this was just awful.

Blumetti seems to have a solid grasp of 19th century European history, and his scenario of a Napolean raised in America is imaginative. However, it appears that his manuscript WAS NOT PROOFREAD by ANYONE before being sent to the printers, with the result that the huge number of grammar mistakes, misspellings, and sentence fragments makes his book almost unreadable.

I usually read the amazon reviews before buying, and I can only wish that I had done so before making this purchase. All the negative reviews are accurate, and I'll sum up my review as a top-5 problems with this book.

1. Changing tense in the middle of sentances do seem distracting
2. Bad maps
3. Taking historical "what ifs" to undefendable lengths
4. Did bad grammer mentioned?
5. Poor cover, production value, proofreading

This review covers both this wretched volume and its equally wretched companion, What If? - Two.

Now, I understand these were self-published efforts. Really, I understand. But for God's sake, have some pride in your work, man! Aside from the truly laughable timelines presented in these two books, the typos are amazingly awful. There are very few misspelled words; instead there are word substitutions - as an example, the book description on the back cover of the first one has a line that says: 'He has not stretched the imagination, but rather tried to explode alternative outcomes that actually could have happened.'

'Explode'? Surely, you meant 'explore'. And this on the cover of the freakin' thing!

As to the timelines themselves... Ugh. Where do I begin? On second thought, screw it. I'm not gonna get into it. There are six timeline/essays in the first book, five in the second. All eleven of them have the virtue of being really cool ideas, but that's really all they have going for them. The conclusions this guy draws are really something.

There's quite a bit of disturbingly racist overtones; for some reason, this guy seems to feel that every alternate timeline results in blacks being expelled from North America back to Africa. Doesn't matter which timeline, he's just got to throw that in. There are other, more egregious examples, but they frankly sicken me too much to describe.

It says this 'author' has published four previous books. Um... yeah. There's also this amusing blurb after the contents page in the first book:

"A special thanks to Rudolph Carmenaty for his assistance with the proofreading of this book."

Way to go, Rudolph Carmenaty! A bang-up job you did! Bravo!

I wish I could be mad at someone other than myself, but I've only got myself to blame for purchasing these wads-of-TP-disguised-as-books. All the other reviewers (except the author, oops I mean the unbiased reviewer, who gave it five stars) tried to warn me, but did I listen? Nooooooo.

In short, avoid at all costs.

Decent enough ideas, and somewhat interesting stories (though kind of farfetched in most cases.) Editing was terrible. Lots of grammar and spelling mistakes. Sometimes the wrong word is used in a sentence. It's to the point of being almost unreadable in some cases. Did anybody at all edit this book? If they did, they should be fired.

While the author has some original insights and twists to his outlines, they need further development to make them into real stories.

The number of misspellings, sentence fragments, and the overall writing style of a teenage boy who spends entirely too much time playing pseudo-historical video games makes this absolutely unreadable.

I am a big fan of alternate history. This is junk.

The scenarios in Blumetti's What If? are well thought out, interesting to read and exhibit a thorough understanding of 19th and 20th century history. Blumetti relies on his in depth knowledge of military history to weave credible alternatives out come for World War Two, in 1942 (Germans attack Moscow instead of Stalingard) and 1944 (What if the Allies are defeated at D-Day?), and what might have happened afterward to transform the course of the war. In any alternative scenario, the farther one moves from the point of divergence, the greater is the speculation of how history will play itself out. At times, an author might let his imagination soar into the realm of the unbelievable, but Blumetti's tales remain rooted in the possible, if not the probable.
The scenario about Bismark creating Greater Germany shows that Blumetti has a scholar's understanding of 19th century European geo-politics and power diplomacy among the great powers of Europe. But I found his tale about Napoleon born in America clearly rooted in Thomas Caryle's theory that "History is the biography of great men." Napoleon, being one of those "supermen" who appear from time to time on the stage of history, would, according to Caryle, transform the age he was born into, no matter where he was born, or the history of whatever country he was a citizen. The fact is--Corscian rebellions, of which his father was one, did flee Corscia and many did settle in New York City, and under the leadership of Alexander Hamilton (who organized the birgade)did fight in the American Revolution. Carlos Bonaparte did want to join his fellow freedom fighters, but was convinced by his wife, who was carrying Napoleon, changed his mine and so he accepted the French offer and thus, Napoleon was born a French citizen, instead of a citizen of the New York colony.
Since Carlos Bonaparte was one of the leaders of the Corscian freedom fighters, he probably would have played a major role and become friends, or at the least, knew Hamilton. If Napoleon had been born American, he probably would have entertained a career in either the military or American politics--or both. If this did happen, then anything was possible--but Blumetti does constrain his imagination, and constructs both a well-thoughtout and entertaining scenario that is well worth reading. IT IS A MUST! for anyone who enjoys alternative histories.

The basic idea of the book, some alt history scenarios as mind candy for people interested in it, is laudable. However its execution and therefore the book is ridiculous at best, if not outright damnable.

Two of the scenarios, 1866 and 1916, are actually quite interesting and would have deserved better, grammatically correct English would have been a first step. Some are downright silly like Napoleon Bonaparte as third president of the US; others are absolute crap and read like the wet dream of an old Nazi.

What hurts is the total disregard for facts. To give one example: Napoleon Bonaparte, born in 1769, could not have been a candidate for president in 1804. For that you have to be 40. And so on, and so on ...

So my advice for prospective readers: go for a walk instead.