Review: Decent Alternate History
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 24, 2013
The alternate history genre has one important rule:  change one critical event in a plausible way and then extrapolate from there.  Mr. Nuttall has written an interesting account of a Nazi victory in WWII that has brought an infirm Adolf Hitler to decide in 1950, with the Continent firmly under his heel, on his long-delayed invasion of England.  There are the expected air and sea battles needed to protect the beachhead, and some quite good descriptions of the Englishmen who are caught within the German lodgement.  The German victories that led up to this are explained, however, by changing two events, not one.  The battle of Moscow resulted in a German victory that led to the collapse of the Soviets and the death of Stalin; and the Japanese did not bring the US into the war by attacking Pearl Harbor.  Sorry, that's one too many.The writing is acceptable but the proofreading is not.  I don't really have a strong criticism and found much to like, but I have to say that I thought the German characters and their dialogue were too stereotyped.  As is often the case with alternate histories, Mr. Nuttall felt compelled to find various artificial ways to provide explanations of his version of history.  Finally, and this is a purely subjective comment, I found myself wondering at how limited the scope of the German invasion was.