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Anarquiaby Brad Linaweaver & Review:courtesy amazon.comby Wally Conger What if rocket scientist Wernher von Braun hadn't worked for the Nazis before and during World War II but instead had made aerial weapons for the anarchists in Spain? What if, while fleeing Europe and her arms manufacturer husband Fritz Mandl on her way to Hollywood, actress Hedy Lamarr had met, inspired, and become the lover of von Braun? What if, instead of being crushed between the Republicans (Communists) and Nationalists (fascists) during the Spanish Civil War, disparate anarchist factions had successfully linked arms and won out (with the help of von Braun's rockets)? Those are a few what if's addressed by ANARQUIA, a sci-fi alternate history of the Spanish Civil War by Brad Linaweaver and J. Kent Hastings. I've had a copy of this novel for a few months, and I'm not sure why it took me so long to get to it. I'm glad I finally did, because I had a blast reading it. Ever since I first read Ray Bradbury's A Sound of Thunder in the seventh grade, I've been fascinated by the idea that if you tweak this or that in a timeline, new paths emerge and things down the pike necessarily change. L. Neil Smith has written some wonderful spins on history (his PROBABILITY BROACH, of course, is a libertarian classic). And Harry Turtledove's made an industry of the alternate history genre. But ANARQUIA is special in that it covers ground I can't recall seeing covered before. There have been dozens of speculative novels about "what if Hitler had won WWII?" New takes on the U.S. Civil War are pretty common. But the Spanish Civil War is fresh territory, and Linaweaver and Hastings don't waste it. They've stuffed every conceivable "what if" into Anarchía, as well as every possible true-life figure you can imagine: Eric Blair (aka George Orwell), Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Francisco Franco, Louis B. Mayer, G.K. Chesterton, Ayn Rand (and her husband Frank O'Connor, who has an affair with Hedy Lamarr in the book), Konrad Zuse, John Dos Passos, and scores of others. And almost every political stripe is represented: Fascists, Falangists, Carlists, Marxists, Trotskyites, Separatists, Loyalists, Royalists, International Brigades, Comintern members, Syndicalists, Distributists... Some readers will be annoyed that the dialogue in ANARQUIA often consists of speeches. But that's customary in most philosophical novels (think Rand). This novel's a must for both history buffs and political junkies. |
