Author - Andrew Blencowe
Series - N/A
Genre/s - Historical Fiction/Historical Romance
Publisher - Hamilton Bay Publishing
Release Date - March 12, 2014
Edition/Formats - Kindle and Paperback
Blurb/Synopsis -
Short Synopsis
What if, by the passing of just two events, Japan and Germany had won World War 2? The Goddess of Fortune explores the possibilities as a steamy work of speculative fiction revealing the private foibles, quirks, and lusts of the famous (and often rich) of the period.
Long Synopsis
What if, by the passing of just two events, Japan and Germany had won World War 2?
The Goddess of Fortune is a work of speculative fiction in which alternate history is explored, and consequences examined.
- Beautiful Louise, while only 24 years old, uses her intelligence, wiles, and body to dominate the so-called "stronger sex."
- Kaito Sasaki of the Bank of Tokyo, inspired by Lenin (“The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency”), proves just that with his printing of U.S. 100 dollar bills.
- The treachery of Hermann "Fatso" Goering is uncovered and his punishment is swift.
- The duplicity of Roosevelt and his so-called Brains Trust is exposed and the doubts of the urbane gentleman, Henry Morgenthau, are made clear.
As a work of historical fiction, Goddess reveals the private foibles, quirks, and lusts of the famous (and often rich) of the period. How could the end goals of the Axis come to fruition given these events? Goddess explores just how, and in doing so brings to light in imaginative prose the lives of historical figures we have only known from our history books. Prepare to reimagine history.
Without saying a word, the host moved to the desk and pressed a hidden electric buzzer. Four SS guards entered the room; the host nodded. With the authority of the German Chancellor, the four lifted Goering bodily and stood him against the cold concrete wall.
Goering’s eyes opened wide.
“You can’t be...”
Before he could finish his sentence the four had discharged their Lugers. The corpse of the former Great War flying ace—leader of the late Red Baron’s Flying Circus—slumped to the floor.
“Get rid of him,” the host said flatly, as if ordering one of his favorite cream tarts.
“Bury him behind the greenhouse. Use the picks to break the frozen ground.”
Paul and the host left, taking with them the folders.
Once back in the great room, the host said,
“What the hell was he thinking; did he not realize the implications? With your radio work and my performances, we’ve neatly been able to trick the world. The rest of the world wonders openmouthed at the power and the solidarity of the German juggernaut. Damn, if the world actually knew how frail we actually are, how brittle this spider’s web I try to hold together. Jesus. Remember when we marched into the Rhineland in ‘36? I know those fools in the Wehrmacht were ready to skin me alive if the democracies so much as farted. But as the British and French did nothing, our Struggle survived to live another day. Do you think the British are weak and as brittle as we are? Surely not—they cannot be that frail and fragile. For one thing, they have a wonderful ruling class. And that big moat, of course. But we have to be so, so careful. You know, I loved Hermann, and he had so many great and redeeming features, but perhaps it was the morphine for the shoulder. Perhaps it was the loss of his Swedish princess. Perhaps it was... God, I don’t know. He was such a tower of strength. Such a titan.”
Paul nodded at the host’s puerile musings. Business-like, as always, he said,
“Well, we’ll announce that he was killed by the Resistance while visiting France. Always good to bank some grievances, real or imagined. If the truth ever does get out, we will simply deny it; we should be safe for at least six months. Now regarding these files, I see absolutely no reason to keep them or the film. Yes, of course you are correct, there are other copies—those fucking French can be depended on to try to fuck us, but thank goodness we found this out now and not later.”
Back in the great room, Paul fed one sheet at a time on to the fire. Even the plain, buff-colored manila folders themselves were burnt. The cellulose film burnt with an acrid smell and filled the great room with lachrymose fumes. After a few minutes, all that remained was the charred steel spool.
As a weekend student of history, one point he noticed over and over was how a seemingly trivial action had such immense consequences. Regarding this point of minute actions, it is akin to a 1,000-ton boulder balanced precariously on a steel knife edge; at present still, but with the smallest nudge, an army of men cannot stop the monolith from rolling down the hill.
Another reoccurring point was how people's time frames are always myopically short; Zhou Enlai, when asked in the early 1970s about the significance of the French Revolution, was reputed to have answered, "Too early to say".
This myopia is daily becoming worse and worse as the destruction of the intellect by mobile "telephones" accelerates. Combined with iPads and other electronic reading devices, the ability of the human mind to think and ponder disturbance-free is being destroyed one interruption at a time.
These are some of the main threads in Blencowe's novels - the arrogance and massive overconfidence in the new (blithely and wrongly considered better); the panoply of quick fixes rather than a thoughtful analysis of the unexpected consequences of these often dangerous modern expedients.
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