So, yes, this will spoil some stuff, so if you didn't read it...
At your own risk
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Frankly, even the blurb didn't convinve me about the GP, hence I didn't buy, as customary, the eARC, not even the kindle, rather went the bundle version which baen offers for a month.
My issues with the book :
1) Minor but a personal peeve: if you write about historical features in a book, I am assuming that you mean the real ones and hence that they are orthographed correctly. I know it is not an issue if you aren't an history buff, usually, but frankly Reinhard Heidrick ( I am assuming you were thinking of Reinhard Heydrich) and von Rundstet (instead of von Rundstedt)... I know, minor, but when dealing with historical figures, I simply have higher expectations.
2) the date for Hitler's assassination doesn't work in my eyes: 16th of may 1940, the funny war (drôle de guerre in french) has ended with the beginning of Blitzkrieg on 10th of may... I am pretty sure that French, English, Belgian, whatever intelligence agencies would pick quite quickly upon Hitler's death and with political disarray, even in the middle of a war, I don't see the Wehrmacht being as successful as it was nor France collapsing that fast (keep in mind, the ceaserfire happened on the 22d of June...) or Dunkirk being needed.
3) The whole Shikegi family really comes around as a big bunch of A$$holes frankly. OK, I understand the thingie with wanting to save their own universe, no biggie here. But their ruthlessness makes this reader actualyl happy each time they got their butt kicked. They had the potential for grandeur, true but no matter of exposition, family life, whatever can make them look like anything else than a goon squad.
4) the whole thingie with Grandad was not bad but the way he got converted to the cause in the blink of an eye was a bit too much, too fast. Oh yea, my wife and small kids just got slaughtered because my idiotic grandson didn't take enough precautions and didn't even warn me of the possibility of an attack and now I am to get my pound of flesh from the bad guys... I felt it lacked subtlety.
Besides that, I found some reviews of the book amusing as people were ranting about the whole beginning and sensitivity training and interpreted it as DW and JH being bigots and pushing their socio-political views to the forefront... and at that point the usual SJW crew quit reading and missed the whole point (meaning that people are simply complex and can't be categorized with one broad stroke... oh well...).
It wasn't a bad book, by far, but point 2 kinda ruined it for me... Placing the assassination of Adolf on the way back from Rethondes after the ceasefire was signed, for example, would have been totally possible and would have made the whole setup more credible.
Just my 2 cp, and please don't see it as a rant, just wrting what I think and as english isn't my first language, I probably lack subtlety. My goal isn't to offend anyone.
