Moon of Ice

A "what if the Nazis" yarn (cf. Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, Len Deighton's SS-GB, etc.) that ruminates accurately on the Nazi philosophy, unfortunately to the exclusion of plot and drama. In 1944 of this alternate world, the Nazis built the first atomic bombs and with them defeated both Russia and England; America defeated Japan and developed its own bomb. So now, in 1976, a nuclear stalemate prevails. Nazi Europe is peaceful but stagnant. America is a Libertarian state (this translates into private opulence but public squalor). Hilda Goebbels, anti-Nazi daughter of the infamous Nazi Minister for Propaganda, is in New York to present her publisher, Alan Whittmore, with a copy of her father's secret diary. In extracts from the diary, we learn that Burgundy - a state carved out by Himmler's SS to be the epitome of Aryanism, including all the wackier beliefs: the Earth is hollow, the Moon is made of ice, etc. - kidnapped Dr. Goebbels and took him to confront Richard Dietrich, a renegade Jewish scientist who had prepared a virus that would wipe out all non-Aryans. Goebbels, about to be burned alive by the Burgundians, was rescued (the timing was sheer coincidence) by Hilda and her pro-freedom underground, the latter having arrived to destroy Dietrich's ghastly laboratory. But - did Dietrich himself escape? Linaweaver's facts are all in order - the material is, for most of us, inherently fascinating and appalling - and his extrapolations are ingenious. But in the absence of anything to tie it all together, it numbs rather than stimulates, no matter how clever the presentation. (Kirkus Reviews)