Book Reviews

And sometimes the movie is better.

Okay, there’s no movie, but there is a television series and it’s a far improvement over the novel. Now, it’s not the worst thing I’ve read, but there's a reason few have heard of it—including me.

The story has the foundation of something great—at least in concept. And that’s what Amazon uses to develop a really good story. The book just stews far too long in mundane prose and by the time it finally starts taking off, it’s too late. The book ends.

But there are almost always some good elements. Again, the premise is exciting: the Allies have lost WWII and the United States are no more. Well, they are carved into Japanese ownership on the west coast and the Germans possess the east coast. The middle? No one particularly wants that so it’s effectively neutral. Sorry, Denver. But it’s fiction.

The dialogue is interesting too. Speech is simplified to where you often don’t know if they’re speaking in Japanese or German, or our own language has been streamlined to remove superfluous words.

And there’s more uh...well, honest language than in the series. In the book, people show their true colors and have harsh (and albeit racist) feelings about their occupiers. We don’t really get this in the series—which is understandable—but in the book, many people are not kind when referring to the ones who conquered them.

Yet, some have conflicting feelings too, like perhaps there are good reasons that the victors won. They struggle with these suspicions.

So yes, there are positive takeaways, but it was just too easy to put down this book. And I really wanted to like it more. In this case, you’re fine with just watching the series.