The Afrika Reich: A Novel

I'm not a regular reader of alternative-history fiction, but The Afrika Reich has an interesting premise: it's 1952, Germany won the war and the Nazis control Europe, Russia and half of Africa. The main character, Burton Cole, is a retired mercenary and is talked into the proverbial "one last job" to eliminate a Nazi leader in Africa with whom he has a personal score to settle. The money from the gig would provide a secure future for him and his girlfriend, who is married to someone else. It all sounds very clichéd but the story starts off interestingly enough, the details are intriguing and the Nazis always make loathsome bad guys.

Unfortunately, about half way through the book I started losing interest as one or more of the characters would barely escape a difficult situation, again and again, only to find themselves in another, even more difficult and horrific situation. The author clearly enjoys the premise of "out of the frying pan and into the fire." It even literally occurs to one of the characters too. The narrow escapes were so overdone that one scene had me chuckling as the Nazi soldiers apparently couldn't hit the good guys with machine gun fire, despite their proximity. I couldn't tell if they were Storm Troopers from Germany or Star Wars!

Another problem was the violence, torture and overwhelming sense of dread. Other readers might be more tolerant than I am, but I just found it all to be extremely oppressive, sickening and depressing. I think the author has a strong torture-porn fetish.

It was a struggle to finish the book, but I pushed on in order to get some closure. Alas, it was not meant to be. The book ends with another narrow escape, more death, no resolution and an obvious opportunity for a sequel, which I will not be reading.

I'm a real sucker for "alternate history" stories, in general, and especially for alternate history stories based on the premise that Hitler and Nazi Germany won World War II. Two finely crafted, well-written and haunting masterpieces of this genre are "SS-GB," by Len Deighton, and "Fatherland," by Robert Harris, both of which I re-read every few years. The latter is one of the most powerful and unforgettable books I've ever read. A couple of others I've enjoyed are Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle" and Allen Steele's "The Tranquility Alternative." The blurb for Guy Saville's "The Afrika Reich" piqued my interest, and I looked forward to reading it. The story takes place in 1952 in an Africa divided between British and German occupation zones. World War II had ended in 1943, after the disaster at Dunkirk decimated British forces, with an Anglo-German peace treaty. The U.S. never got involved. Just looking at the familiar but tantalizingly different map of Africa in the front of the book made me eager to start reading.

"The Afrika Reich" is a quick, easy read with a straightforward, fast-moving plot. The action starts early and never stops, as a band of mercenaries assassinates a German Governor-General in Deutsche Kongo and then try to escape from the SS forces that relentlessly pursue them. In fact, action seems to be the whole point of the book. In some ways, it reads like a screenplay for the next Stallone or Schwarzenegger commando movie, with bullets flying, big explosions, rooftop chases, improbable escapes and so on. Characterizations definitely take a back seat to the action.

I remained interested throughout "The Afrika Reich," and I read it thoroughly and with a quick, page-turning intensity to find out what happened next. It was engaging up to a point, but, as I got deeper into it, I had a vague sense of dissatisfaction that I couldn't quite put my finger on. As an example of a genre that I really enjoy, why did I find it falling short of my expectations? Finally I figured it out. In my opinion, what "The Afrika Reich" lacks is the myriad tiny, intriguing and vital details that would make the settings seem "real." There are some such details, of course, but not enough to give the aura of authenticity to the premise. There's not much in it that makes the story uniquely one that takes place in the alternate world. The mercenaries could be operating in today's Africa, or in South America, or the Middle East, or Southeast Asia, and the story would still be pretty much the same. In short, the alternate history aspect of "The Afrika Reich" seems more like tacked-on window dressing than an integral component.

I enjoyed reading "The Afrika Reich" for what it was, but I found it ultimately unconvincing as an alternate history novel. In his upcoming sequel(s), I hope Mr. Saville devotes more effort to providing a broader, far more detailed and richly textured treatment of the major and, even more importantly, the minor everyday differences from today's world that would have come about had Hitler really won World War II.

Dull - if it even made any sense. The characters are a blur. The "plot," such as it is, is incoherent. But the worst of it is that the author is trying to capitalize on the Bernie Gunther series, but without the wit, context, or research that Kerr puts in to his work (and Kerr's work is not without its problems). A colossal waste of the hour or so that it took to leaf through this. Donated to charity (and maybe I'm being unfair to my local thrift shop).

In this alternative history set in 1952, debut author Guy Saville assumes that the negotiations of Lord Halifax, a British supporter of appeasement throughout the war, has led ultimately to détente between the Great Britain and Germany. In 1943, the two countries had met at in Casablanca and agreed to divide the African continent into two spheres of influence. The divisions would be primarily along the historical colonial lines: West Africa would remain largely under German rule, with Kongo, Kamerun, Dutch East Africa, Nazi-occupied Angola, SW Africa, and Madagaskar part of the German sphere, and Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, Nigeria, Egypt, Sudan, Kenya, Rhodesia, and Bechuanaland under British rule.

Setting much of this novel in German Kongo, author Saville depicts the changes in the growing colony. The Germans have already shipped most of the black population from their colonies to Muspel, a huge, undeveloped desert area in German West Africa. Remaining behind are those blacks who can be used as forced laborers for the creation of an elaborate empire. When Donald Ackerman, a Brit, appears at the home of Burton Cole in rural England, representing "interests in Northern Rhodesia," he makes a case to Cole, a former French Foreign Legionnaire, for the assassination of Walter E. Hochburg, now the Governor General of Kongo. For undisclosed personal reasons, Cole is anxious to see Hochburg dead, and reluctantly, he accepts the job.

In a dramatic opening scene, Cole arrives in Kongo as an SS surveyor, stabs Hochberg to death, then escapes with some of his co-conspirators, only to discover later that Hochberg is still alive. Determined to finish the job, Cole and six other trained men try to escape from Kongo, dividing into two groups, one heading toward Sudan, and Cole and two others toward Nigeria, with the German SS in hot pursuit. Eventually Burton Cole and his group connect with the resistance in Angola, including two brave women who have nothing to lose in their fight against the Germans.

Reading this novel is like reading a movie. The action is so graphic and so cinematic, that it is easy to imagine a violent action film, peopled with characters as impervious to pain as Superman. By the halfway point, Burton Cole and his friend Patrick Whaler have been beaten, stabbed, slashed, smashed, and tortured to the breaking point - except that they never break. Whether one has a broken femur, a broken nose, burns, or eyes swollen shut because the enemy has ground a hot pepper into them, none of these men gives in. About a dozen dramatic, over-the-top scenes including fires, bombings, shootings, torture, incredible escapes, near misses, and captures emphasize the author's focus on the action. Unfortunately, we know almost nothing specific about the Germans' long-range plans or about most of the characters, only as much as we need to know to keep them from becoming confused with each other. They remain sketchy and stereotyped, not characters with whom the reader identifies, a situation which may keep the audience reading for the excitement but weary of the repetition of near-misses, violence from which the characters somehow manage to escape, and little development in terms of character. The author knows how to keep the tension high and the excitement coming and coming, but I'll be hoping for more depth of character and more fully developed motivation in future novels from Saville.

I read some reviews of Afrika Reich, was interested, and got a copy. I really enjoy alternative history stories and thought this idea was a no brainer.

Could only get about 20% through it and had to abandon it. Didn't care for the characters, the story or the writing. Not spellbinding, as I anticipated.

Congrats to those who read it and liked it.

liked it a lot

Nice read but not earth shattering

This is not half as good a book as it sounds like it might be, or indeed could have been. I was hoping for some thought-provoking alternate history wherein we see the evolving of Nazi Germany after they've won the 2nd world war. Well, in this version of history they don't actually win the war, which I think would e interesting, they just come to terms with the other world powers. Which leaves the author free to produce a tired tale of Nazi despicableness and brave allied guerrillas. Very much like the next installment of "The Expendables" without the visual pyrotechnics (how boring would that be). Endless chase scenes with our plucky but reluctant (aren't they always) heroes pursued by / tortured by / escaping from the villainous SS. Blah, blah.Utterly one-dimensional. Couldn't finish it

That was my inpression as I read this book, so much reminded me of those movies and I enjoyed reading them immenselyand had I hard time putting it down. Can't wait for the next in the series, hope it's just as captivating

I've read this book twice in the past month as I wasn't sure what to make of it on a first go. Initially I picked it up because of a review in the Telegraph comparing it to Robert Harris' Fatherland, one of my favourite novels of recent years. I'm not sure that comparison stands up. In fact if you're looking for a repeat of Fatherland, I suggest you look elsewhere.

Yes, they're both set in worlds where the Nazis have won the war but whereas Fatherland is more a thoughtful police procedural, Afrika Reich is a big action adventure story (indeed it reminded me of the Alastair Maclean books I used to read... with a bit of Wilbur Smith thrown in for good measure). Despite this qualification it's still a page-turning read.

There's a tremendous energy to it all (in fact one of my criticisms might be that it never lets up) and a true epic quality as we follow Burton Cole across the continent of Africa from the Congo to Atlantic. The set pieces - the battle in the tunnel, the train chase - are handled with a cinematic eye, packed with action and an array of Nazi technology.

For me the world of Nazi Africa wasn't as vividly drawn as Robert Harris. Partly this is because of the story. In Fatherland all the action is set in Berlin, so Harris has plenty of time to explore every detail. With Afrika Reich we're constantly moving through the landscape, so it is glimpsed rather than drawn in forensic detail (though the depiction of Stanleystadt works well). Also the reader is shown Nazi Africa from the point of view of an outsider, rather than someone working within (like March in Fatherland).

The characters are good, especially world weary Patrick and the wonderfully over-the-top Hochburg, who I ended up enjoying more than is probably decent. I don't know if this was intentional but he seems to be drawn from the traditional of Italian commedia dell'arte. Despite his evil he also has all the best jokes - in fact I was surprised just how raucous the book was in places.

One of my criticisms of this type of fiction is that normally the prose is rather functional - so I was surprised to find how well written the book was. There is some fantastic phrasing, such as the helicopter gunships `waiting like hornets for their honey' or Urhig and his `slaughter house eyes'.

Having read other reviews on here, I think there is some undue criticism. Afrika Reich is escapist fantasy - it doesn't pertain to be high-literature and yet other reviewers are judging it on this basis. Mostly this seems to be because of an Economist review. I haven't seen this review myself but it seems a bit harsh to criticise the book just because a reviewer elsewhere liked it and you feel misled.

Overall a smashing read, especially if you enjoy a good what-if romp. It's probably more a 4.5 star book - but given it's a debut I'm going to round it up to the full 5 out of 5.