Customer Reviews

The World War (Gamekeeper Series, Book 2)

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

 

 

What can one say about a book in which the main battles are won by bulldogs and sealions with magnetic mines. I never could get serious about this book. Why two stars, read a whole lot of AH books that were much worse! Its readable if you have nothing better to do but be prepared for war winning bulldogs and sealions. I was expecting parachuting spider monkeys to appear at the end. Sorely dissapointed!

One of the interesting sub-plots (in The World War) was the development of mechanized combined armies by Germany. In the prequel (Gamekeeper's Night Dog) Germany is given the designs for a T35, the most effective main battle tank in the real WW II. Unlike the real world Germany, the fictional Germany does not develop mobile war tactics on the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War. It conducts massive war games on a remote North Sea island, operating on a scale equal to the Spanish Civil War, but in secrecy. Therefore the fictional Germany springs a devastating blitzkrieg on the Western Allies that is more effective than [...] blitzkrieg. Why is the fictional Germany smarter than the real one? Answer: General Alfred Graf von Schlieffen. The real Schlieffen was an unparalled military genius. He designed Germany's plan for defeating France in WW I. But he died before the war and his plan was weakened and modified. There is a school of thought that the original Schieffen plan would have delivered victory to Germany. In the World War, the fictional Schlieffen's plan is allowed to come to fruition.

To show how much I loved The World War by Dave Putnam, I was not bored as I usually am with long descriptions of military tactics and weaponry. I also hate spiders with a passion, yes I have a phobia and the spider on the cover of the book cover was turned face down when I wasn't reading it. Having said that, it is a great work of alternate history and continues the Gamekeeper Trilogy. Favorite characters like Fred Greystone, David Banner, and others return plus some interesting new ones. The greatest treat for me was the continuing saga of a man I consider the most outstanding leader in the 20th century, Winston Churchill. There are also nice segments on the aging Queen Victoria and many others. The World War begun in the first book is covered in detail, a combination of our two World Wars. There is a creation of a real life and death war game that is supposed to help the human race become less blood thirsty over all and to develop new technology well ahead of its time. Animals again play a major part in this second book. The book, like the first one, is not afraid to make religion and belief in God the focal point. The book plants the seeds for the third book in the series that sees the world faced with the greatest Godless threat of all time, communism. There is also a bow to how leftist Hollywood film companies try to influence elections. I only read other reviews after I have written mine so that I will not be influenced. I was concerned with some snobbery from a reviewer on the first book about the publisher "Bulldog Press". I will honestly say that threw me a bit myself until I remembered that thanks to the net and other factors, small publishers can now slug it out with the big ones. No longer does an author have to be concerned whether he or she will be loved by the New York Times. Thanks to Amazon, our own reviews carry at least as much weight (I'd like to think more) than reviews in the so called big press, "the old media". And David Putnam carries a lot of weight gaining equality with Eric Flint and again surpassing Harry Turtledove. As I said in my review of the first book, I wish that this series had been available when I was teaching full time, but after 40 years I am retired. I did use alternate history and government books in my classes and have even had some published myself.

This is a great sequel to the excellent "Game Keeper's Night Dog", and the second in a "must read" trilogy for science fiction and alternate history enthusiasts. The author makes vivid and imaginative use of historical/industrial characters such as Winston Churchill, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, the German hero-General Hindenburg, Rudolph Diesel, and Henry Ford - not to mention the emergence of the Zulu race as the world's preeminent aviators. Especially creative - building on the key role of the English Bulldog species of canines in "Gamekeepers" - is the evolution of intelligent birds, mammals, and anachronids and their mobillization as very new and different weapons of war. This volume concludes with an intriguing "new technology" battle, staged in the Hawaiian islands.

This novel is an alternate history of the second World War, well the two world wars combined. On a purely physical level, the major alteration is the extensive use of trained animals in combat, which, for me, was the most appealing aspect of the novel. Ever since I read about the German World War II tactic of using dogs with land mines strapped to their backs to destroy tanks, I've wondered why Germany didn't upgrade their technology and have the dogs deposit their deadly cargo and live to fight another day, rather than make a suicide charge. Even in its primitive state, the actual tactic was devastatingly effective and had Russian tankers slaughtering dogs wholesale whenever they recaptured a town or village. It was about as effective as the suicide car bombings that occur every day in Iraq. To make the tactic work on a higher level, in The World War, an extensive panoply of new technology is created, which is developed in the first few chapters. Once the combat begins, dogs are outfitted with camouflaged bullet-proof spider-silk war harnesses, the canine mobile land mines (as they are called) are used in battalion-sized numbers and with an extensive operational procedure and doctrine that includes a devastating and total element of surprise. Would something like this have really worked? For me, it was believeable. Heck, that's what alternate histroy is all about, asking the question, What If?

I really enjoyed this work! This novel is an amazing alternate history read. It's much shorter, refined and readable than the author's first novel, The Gamekeeper's Night Dog, albeit the first was quite fascinating. The author's imaginative use of animals outfitted with state-of-the art military equipment and working as an intelligent force is intriguing. More thought-provoking is the analogy of Britain as the world power and its striking similarities with modern day America, including a domineering and war mongering government. I hope the author continues the series and forays into the realm of science fiction.

The World War continues the plot line of the Gamekeeper's Night Dog, but in a more refined and credible manner. The characters are more complex and geopolitics becomes more convoluted, and hence more believable. The borderline megalomaniac... Queen Victoria... is one of these more fully fleshed out characters. She takes irreversible steps down a path to world domination that will either result in a one world government centered in London or it will wholly destroy Britain. I think the author is contrasting the inadvertent empire that America is stumbling into today to the conscious and deliberate global hegemony of his fictional Britain one hundred years ago. There is a message in this novel... any anglophone superpower seeking to rule the world had better crave power and be willing to grab it with both hands; either that or don't even try. I give The World War two thumbs up.

Dave continues to stand toe-to-toe with Thomas Pynchon--the only writer today that is Dave's peer. If you think I am stretching--order his book and read. You will be immersed in a world where the threads between fiction and history cross more than in a $25,000 oriential rug. But the rug will wear out in a few generations and Dave's work will continue to glow with a rich weave.

This book was the worst. Implausible. Unexplained technological advances. Boring from the outset and drives you away like a cold rain drives you inside a warm house.