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Festung Europa: The Anglo-American/Nazi War by [Jon Kacer]

Festung Europa: The Anglo-American/Nazi War Kindle Edition

by Jon Kacer (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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1942. Stalingrad falls, and with it, the Soviet war effort. A victorious Third Reich turns its attention west and enters a stalemate with the Western Allies. An uneasy truce begins, but it will not last forever.

Starting with an overview of the world leading up to the resumption of all-out war between the Allies and Nazi state, we see the all-too possible results of the Nazi Party in control of Europe for an additional decade and longer. This is followed by a detailed examination of the tactics and politics that might well have resulted in a WWII far more destructive than what was experienced in our time.

Written in the style of an actual history of the War done years after its conclusion, Festung Europa approaches one of the great "What Ifs" of alternate history in a unique manner.

Print length

325 pages
Language

English
Publication date

September 25, 2015
File size

1653 KB
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Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B015URFGEC
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Sea Lion Press; 1st edition (September 25, 2015)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 25, 2015
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1653 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 325 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1976423236

Best Sellers Rank: #1,073,187 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #2,191 in Alternative History
- #3,813 in Alternate History Science Fiction (Books)
- #6,335 in War Fiction (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
110 ratings

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Customer reviews

5 star		42%
4 star		28%
3 star		13%
2 star		8%
1 star		10%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

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Austin Terry

Fantastic read but needs an editor

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 28, 2022

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Like others have said, this is a very enjoyable read but the massive number of typos and other editing mistakes irk on you after awhile.

As an example, there are a number of mentions of Ju-688s in one chapter, than the next inexplicably has changed to Fw-688s. Not a huge deal but kept pulling me out of the narrative and were also annoying considering the author understood Junkers and Focke Wolf were different companies.

Definitely recommend, just would be a 5 star instead of 4 if it had even one pass by an editor.

One person found this helpful

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Thylacine

So close, yet so far!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 12, 2015

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I would sorely love to give this book a 5 star review. It is a well thought out alternate history story which is written differently to alot of alternate history works. Rather than have the reader follow the stories of various characters this book looks at the events of an alternate outcome to WW2 from the perspective of time. Written as an academic analysis of the conclusion to the war ( some 10 years after WW2 in our reality with the collapse of the Reich & the use of atomic weapons) this book focuses on how things could have gone so much differently for both the Axis & the Allies. And it is brilliantly thought out and constructed - although if you dont enjoy academic type stories then there is good chance you may not enjoy this book.
So why therefore only 4 stars? As always with these self published books it's down to the editing. For an author who has so obviously invested a lot of research into this story, to not hire a decent editor was a crime. While there were not alot of spelling issues but it also had a big selection of words which sound the same but are spelt quite differently and have different meanings! For some this may be a small niggle but for me it threw off the entire flow of the story and took away quite significantly from my enjoyment of what otherwise is a fantastic alternate history red!

6 people found this helpful

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matthew

Fantastic- one of AH.coms best

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 2, 2016

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First off I be seen a lot of people criticizing this for the fact that it is written as a historical account of this alternate ww2. The problem is that this format is fairly standard for the community that most of Sea Lion Press' books come from, the forums at ah.com. A lot (I'd even say most) of the timelines on that are written as excerpts from fictional in universe histories, hence the academic tone. This isn't the kind of Alternate history that Robert Conroy or Harry Turtledove writes. If you can't handle the non-fictional tone, then sadly this isn't for you.

This is my third time reading this work, the first two being over on alternatehistory.com. It remains on the the best executed alternate histories I've ever read. Like a lot of alternate history it relies on a few moments that require suspension of disbelief (which the author is totally open about) but if you can go with you'll be well rewarded. The author might by writing in the style of an academic history but it's still got a story, and that sometimes necessitates some unrealistic elements (the defeat of the Soviets, the cease fire, the nazis not having the bomb and a couple others), but that just leads to the writing of a haunting and gripping work of alternate history.

My only complaint is the sketchy editing.

4 people found this helpful

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wfm

Should have saved my money.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 19, 2015

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Um, what to say about this effort? Well, endless references to non-existant future (future after 1945 or thereabouts) weapons, approaches, goals, concessions, agreements, and so much more. Written as a history book, I think that was the point, but even historical chronologies occasionally refer to some of the thoughts of the more important decision makers. This does not, it simply goes from page 1 to page whatever the last number was, without pause to reflect or catch one's breath.

Note to author: you can describe tactics and battles without endlessly including nomenclature and type/number descriptions of aircraft, vessels, weapons that never existed. For example, a machine gun is a machine gun. You don't always need to add the type, number and description, you could skip that now and then, or even oftener if you want to really interest the reader.

In this book (it really isn't a story) the second world war goes on so long it staggers the imagination that any single nation, group of nations or even the entire world working together could actually produce what our hero (the author) insists was created. At least not while the astounding body count he suggests is even partly correct. Materials are hard to come by, extract, tool, craft and produce on demand if there's nobody to do the work. Within festung europa there simply are not enough to do the job.

I thought this might have been a good premise, given that at some point Hitler might have actually achieved his goal while forcing an acceptable peace, or at least an end to active warfare. Our hero does not present a case for that, he makes no case for any of his historical work. I'd call it a story but there simply isn't one here, just dates, places, actions and outcomes.

It IS alternate history, but without the background of events that should have, must have, badly needed to be present to understand what was going on. Endless warfare of this type is at the least, unlikely.

9 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Merlin Etzold

Good idea but poor execution

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 12, 2015

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The book clearly gets a star for a good idea - asking the question "what would have happened if Russia had fallen" is clearly worth doing.
The problem of this book is that it is a novel, written in the style of a history book.

The choice of style prevents the author from introducing any human element, making the author to loose interest in the long run. The only remaining element of the book is the "what if" scenario introduced at the beginning. The initial discussion of the alternative reality is interesting, but as the story develops, things become very predictable very easily, which makes the book boring. I started skipping pages from being about half through the book. I never felt, I missed anything.

That's why I cannot recommend the book.

I feel inclined to discuss a few aspects of the storyline, which is done after the spoiler warning.
[SPOILER]
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I find the fundamental idea behind the book great, however, I think the author exaggerated some of the assumptions he made.
The first assumption is that Germany essentially stagnates technically and intellectually since 1945, whilst the Western Allies essentially go through the same development as if there had been a cold war with Russia. Whilst I can clearly agree with the idea that Western democracies are more flexible and open to innovation, I doubt that the difference would be as extreme as the author indicates. This leads to situations in which the Allies field kit essentially a decade ahead of the Germans, whilst the Germans only manage to field improved versions (Panther Mk III) of the WWII kit. The Germans are also described as tactically inflexible due to the fanatism of the NS organisations and particularly the SS, something which cannot be said about the Germans during World War II.
The removal of the atomic bomb from the German arsenal is a necessity for the story. How the author did it - disinformation particularly by the Russians - is not very likely. Of course, the Americans, in the mean time, develop the atomic bomb along the same lines as the cold war including tactical nuclear weapons. Not even Israel managed to keep the nuclear arsenal a secret - is it likely that the Western Allies would have managed that?

In my opinion, the book is lost as soon as the war turns from "warm" to "hot". The story becomes predictable, and it reads a bit like the author wants to unleash the full late 1950 inventory of weapons on the Germans. It is very clear that the Germans will eventually loose, for the same reasons as they lost the "real WWII", but with more brutality and more innocent and unnecessary victims.

This is the reason why a good idea eventually led to a bad book.

8 people found this helpful

Kindle Customer

Flawed but brilliant

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 4, 2015

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So this book has flaws, and I actually agree with some of the comments from the other reviewer (12th October - Amazon Customer) about the assumptions made. However, I found both the concept and the execution completely riveting. I downloaded this book yesterday evening and started reading it on the tube... then continued on the tube home... then did nothing else but read until 1am when I finished it. I can't remember a book that's gripped me so strongly so I have no choice but to give it 5 stars.

I can't go into much more depth without spoiling, but i will add that one of the best (and simultaneously most frustrating) things about this book was how it hinted at a very different world to ours in (the alternative timeline's) modern day. The results of the war in this book are very different and far more extreme, and the tantalizing (almost teasing) glimpses at what this would mean post-war left me very desperate for at least one sequel looking at what happened next.

3 people found this helpful

Jeff N.B

A Really Good Read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 1, 2016

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This World War 2 alternate history is unusual in that it is told in the style of a history book rather than a novel. This is the style that Gen. "Shan" Hackett wrote his brilliant "History of the Third World War" some years ago. It is a style that some may not like but I think it works very well when well written. This book is pretty well written.

I do have some technical issues about equipment performance but that is just a personal judgment and may not be valid. What I do find difficult to get my head around is that WW2 lasts close on 20 years. How the economies of both the Allies and the Axis could manage to stay on a war footing for so long. That being said this is a good attempt by Jon Kacer to put together a very complex piece of alternate history.

I regret that this book has quite a few typo's, spelling mistakes and wrong words especially in the last quarter of the book. Please authors get your books properly proof read.

2 people found this helpful

Andy Casey

Andy's review

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 20, 2019

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Downloaded this as I was intrigued by it and I am glad I did. I found it quite compelling & thought provoking , as some of the scenarios could have happened had Stalin attacked the West in the 1950s.. Altogether a good read.

Jonathan

Good Book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 12, 2015

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Great read, I love this alternative history book and the larger scale of the war, you read the book, getting drawn in more and more, thinking 'Dam im glad this is only fiction'!. Good read really enjoyed it.

One person found this helpful

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