Hendryk
Banned
Jour J is a counterfactual graphic novel series and "L'Imagination au pouvoir?" (Power to imagination?) is the sixth volume to date (a seventh one is scheduled for next October).
Like most commercial AH, the Jour J series wouldn't meet AH.com's exacting standards, but most volumes are a fun read nonetheless and this one is the best so far. The POD: in May 1968, as Paris is in the throes of the student-led uprising, de Gaulle dies in a helicopter crash on his way to the military base at Baden-Baden (in OTL, he landed there safely). The sudden power vacuum causes the situation to degenerate; the rioters step up their actions and the military brass, freaking out, send in the tanks. However, the rioters have been issued with stolen rocket launchers and the attempt to bring the situation under control actually causes it to escalate into all-out civil war. The fighting lasts for two years, and when the dust settles, the Paris Commune is in place.
The story is set another three years later, in 1973, as the new regime settles in, under the leadership of Daniel Cohn-Bendit. A battle-scarred Paris is being rebuilt according to the Commune's rule "power to imagination" and crazy psychedelical buildings are sprouting from the ground. But for all the ambient utopia, it looks as though a new Thermidor is imminent, as a scheming François Mitterrand has schmoozed his way into the provisional government and looks set to take over once the Sixth Republic is officially proclaimed.
The intrigue revolves around a rogue special ops agent who was involved in the theft of the Banque de France's reserves in the midst of the chaos in 1968, and wants to get even with his former accomplices who left him for dead. It turns out he's an unwitting pawn of some well-placed people.
The story does a pretty good job of providing context without the kind of clumsy infodump often seen in commercial AH. The vistas of this alternate Paris are weird in an interesting and almost plausible way, and as always it's amusing to see how various historical figures fare in an ATL.
Like most commercial AH, the Jour J series wouldn't meet AH.com's exacting standards, but most volumes are a fun read nonetheless and this one is the best so far. The POD: in May 1968, as Paris is in the throes of the student-led uprising, de Gaulle dies in a helicopter crash on his way to the military base at Baden-Baden (in OTL, he landed there safely). The sudden power vacuum causes the situation to degenerate; the rioters step up their actions and the military brass, freaking out, send in the tanks. However, the rioters have been issued with stolen rocket launchers and the attempt to bring the situation under control actually causes it to escalate into all-out civil war. The fighting lasts for two years, and when the dust settles, the Paris Commune is in place.
The story is set another three years later, in 1973, as the new regime settles in, under the leadership of Daniel Cohn-Bendit. A battle-scarred Paris is being rebuilt according to the Commune's rule "power to imagination" and crazy psychedelical buildings are sprouting from the ground. But for all the ambient utopia, it looks as though a new Thermidor is imminent, as a scheming François Mitterrand has schmoozed his way into the provisional government and looks set to take over once the Sixth Republic is officially proclaimed.
The intrigue revolves around a rogue special ops agent who was involved in the theft of the Banque de France's reserves in the midst of the chaos in 1968, and wants to get even with his former accomplices who left him for dead. It turns out he's an unwitting pawn of some well-placed people.
The story does a pretty good job of providing context without the kind of clumsy infodump often seen in commercial AH. The vistas of this alternate Paris are weird in an interesting and almost plausible way, and as always it's amusing to see how various historical figures fare in an ATL.
