Reddit reviews Caliphate

I think we need an SaS book club. We could start with the one above, this one and this one. I'd recommend stopping after that to retain any sanity you may have.

Afterword

Yep, of course Kratman has to write an afterword. What would you expect given his in-text political preachiness? It's not long, but it is rather, ah, illuminating.

>"This story began on a dare, of sorts.
>
>John Ringo created a very interesting, and very bloody, series called, generally, either the Posleen Universe, The War Against the Posleen, or The Legacy of the Aldenata. The series presupposes an alien invasion—a sort of Mongol Horde in space—and a decadent galactic civilization which is able to give Earth much needed technology to defend itself and which needs humans as soldiers to defend it, the controlling Galactics having been genetically and/or culturally manipulated into a helpless pacifism. Much of the tech described is very neat stuff, of course, but the social ramifications are staggering. This is the major reason why the reader will not see as much Galactic Technology (GalTech to the uninitiated) in Watch on the Rhine as one might have expected. The one aspect of GalTech that seems to have the greatest potential social impact is the ability to rejuvenate human beings."

So, wait, you wanted to create a Mongol Horde? If so, you failed miserably. Genghis Khan, for all of his evils, was also a military genius. The Posleen are mindless imbeciles who only exist to further the authors' fiat of dying in droves. Genghis Khan was able to unite numerous tribes to his banner, outfight his enemies on the field of battle and bring about hte largest terrestrial empire known to mankind. The Posleen struggle to build wooden rafts.

And rejuvenation is the one that you think would have the, "greatest potential social impact?" I'd think pedestrian antimatter generation, antigravity magic and EZ faster than light travel would dwarf that kind of stuff, but that's probably because I'm actually thinking about their consequences instead of an excuse to bring Nazis back to the battlefield. Kratman continues:

>"Initially, Tom wasn't all that interested, having other fish to fry (like the series John and he are planning on doing . . . hint, hint. Finish the outline, John). But the more Tom thought about it, and the more he considered the twin impacts of both rejuvenation and a war of extermination being waged by these aliens, the more fascinated with the idea he became.
>
>The conversation went something like this:
>
>Tom (who may have been drinking at the time): You know, bro', thinking about Germany, the coming invasion and rejuvenation, they're going to need all the trained and experienced combat soldiers they can lay their hands on.
>
>John (who may not have been drinking at the time): Well, duh.
>
>Tom: Did you ever think about where they are going to get them? Can you say Waffen SS?
>
>John: Cooool. Let's do it. I'd love it. More importantly, Jim would love it."

If John Ringo things that bringing back the SS to fight a modern war would be cool, he'd probably thing an erotic Anne Frank fan fiction would be Nobel prize winning literature. What is up with people mentioning the SS as, "trained and experienced combat soldiers" while ignoring that other part of them being responsible for killing tens of millions of unarmed people? Is that supposed to improve their military kill count? Actually, don't answer that one.

>"Initially Watch on the Rhine was "Die Wacht am Rhein" and was only going to be a long short story or a short novella, 45,000 words tops. But Jim wanted a book. Set in the PosVerse. We decided on doing a companion novella, "Back to Bataan," that would appear with Die Wacht am Rhein and would concern the Japanese defense of the Philippine Islands against the Posleen. (Which, by the way, we may still do. Time will tell.)"

Hey, Kratman, I think we could all already tell this could have only started out as a short story. It's pretty obvious.

>"But the story of Hans and Dieter and Anna and Gudrun . . . and, yes, even that Nazi bastard Krueger, kept growing. It grew until it ate all the time and space allowed for both stories. As it turned out, Jim liked that better.

"Kept growing" is an unusual way of describing: "Well, we needed to add more pointless filler to make this novel-length."

>""But why the bloody damned SS?" the sensitive reader asks. Put simply, because they would be there in John's universe. Deal. "But what about Malmedy?" Go do a Google search: "biscari sicily peiper." Let ye among you. "But the concentration camps? Babi Yar? The holocaust?" To which we would answer, "Horrible things and the men responsible should have all been hanged. But we fail to see why those things would keep desperately needed soldiers out of action, whatever larger organization they belonged to and whatever symbols they wore.""

I think the simple answer is, "Well, I really like the SS and their nice uniforms." The fact that this technology was not used for other purposes is also rather telling, such as rejuvenating soldiers on the side that actually won World War II. By the way, Googling, "biscari sicily peiper" just brings up this stupid book. Oh, wait, there's more!

>"There is another reason, too. Dear reader, we wanted to shock the hell out of you.
>
>Right now, Western Civilization, however much many of its members may refuse to admit it, is involved in a world war. No, it has seen no entire cities destroyed; no trenches have drawn their scars across entire continents. It is a world war all the same. Moreover, it is a world war that is putting to the test every notion of individual liberty, freedom of conscience, and rule of law that the West prizes. And should we lose we will see, or our grandchildren will, the erasure of all that is good in Western Civilization.
>
>We cannot afford to lose.
>
>Yet winning will have its price, too. Just as the invasion John described is ordained to change humanity into something that one of Hitler's Waffen SS would recognize and call home, so too will this war change us. Because side by side with the virtues of Western Civilization are paired vices that may destroy us: a narrow legalistic mindset, an emphasis on form over substance, and an unwillingness to do the ruthless and violent things we must if we are to survive. This list is not exhaustive. Perhaps worse than these things, however, the West has nurtured at its own breast a set of execrable, vile, treacherous and treasonous villains that seem to seek at every opportunity to do all they can to ensure its destruction.
>
>Yet there is hope. "Survival cancels out programming.""

Spoiler alert: The enemy are Muslims. Seriously. Kratman later wrote another book set in the near-future about this, Caliphate. I'll give you three guesses as to what that it's about.

Youu know what? The answer is Muslims taking over, by the way. You can just take your guesses back now.

And with that political BadEverything, our book finally comes to a close . . . I thought Kratman would never shut up.

If we wait 50 years, we will all be speaking Kebab by then (or probably not, as we will be killed as infidels)

I highly suggest reading this book (Caliphate by Tom Kratman), it shows how will Europe, and especially Germany, turn out if the current trends are not halted and/or reversed (it is free for Kindles and mobile apps)

My former boss thought the same way. He actually recommended I read this trash and gave me a copy.

Too bad Italy makes shitty pizzas. I spent time there and they were all bland and too oily. They may have invented it but America did it justice.

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