DBWI: 1848 Series - Awesome!

Has anybody else read this epic series, now at 18 books (not counting The Rage of Allah spinoff series) with one more due to come? It's a fine work of AH, I must say, mostly due to the author's dedication and consistency, as well as the sheer size of the books, some of which are in multiple volumes.

PoD seems to be the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 failing, which leads to Austria not uniting Germany at the Frankfurt Convention. Germany gets united anyway, but the result is decades of war...

I must say, the author must be some sort of Germanophobe, given by how ridiculously evil they are in the Second Great War sub-series. Also, the books get more boring as time goes by, with far more attention given to ATL pop culture and politics than the action that dominated the previous ones. Here's a list of all the 1848 books and subseries for those that want to read them:

The mainline series, listed by sub-series and date in-universe:

  1. A Failed Spring (Germany; 1848-1849)
  2. Empire of Eagles (France; 1850-1855)
  3. That Peculiar Institution (America; 1859-1861)
  4. Death or Glory (America; 1862)
  5. The Breaking Point (America; 1863)
  6. The Junker Kingdom (Germany; 1864)
  7. Last Chance (America; 1865)
  8. Was ist das deutschen Vaterland? (Germany; 1866)
  9. Lieb Vaterland, magst Ruhig Sein (Germany; 1870-1871)
  10. Appointment at Sarajevo (First Great War; 1914)
  11. Hell on Earth (First Great War; 1915-1916)
  12. Death to the Tsar! (Russia; 1917)
  13. War's End and Beginning (Germany; 1919/1939)
  14. A Phony War (Second Great War; 1940)
  15. The Evil That Men Do (Second Great War; 1942-1945)
  16. Kalterkrieg (Cold War; 1962/1983)
  17. Bundesrepublik (Cold War; 1989-1990)
  18. To the Moon (Cold War; 1969)
  19. God's Twilight (Second Great War; 1945)
The Rage of Allah spinoff series, ordered by date of publication:


  1. Towerfall (2001)
  2. Graveyard of Empires (2002)
  3. Alas, Babylon (2003)
  4. COIN (2008)
  5. Sic Semper Tyrannis (due early 2011)
OOC: Inspired by the USA series DBWI.
 
Its a good series, but I could never get over the POD. The author employs a double-fistful of handwavium to change Kossuth from the political giant he was into some sort of bumbling fool. The idea that the Hungarians don't take Vienna during the revolt there is a fairly far-fetched one. However, I will say once you get past the opening chapters the series is remarkably detailed and consistent, which is more than be said for any other AH I've read working in the same period.

Though Prussian-led Germany, and all that it implies, just seems... odd.
 
Haven't read any Rage of Allah yet, but I liked the main series -- well, except the last four books, and even then, Bundersrepublic was OK, and the last one did a good job filling in some of the plot holes (probably would have been better had I read it after book 15...)
 
Given how little the author seems to like the Germans/Germany, I found it rather surprising how many of his books focus on it, while we see little to nothing of the other big players Europe, like France, Russia, Britain, from their perspective.

Most often I found myself sympathizing with the Germans (except during the Naso arc) simply because the other nations (French, British, Russians) seemed rather bland, with little development. Thankfully the books set in the mid-20th remedied that, with characters like Stalin, Churchill, Montgomery, or Mussolini.

For the later books I honestly dislike his idea of "Superpowers" consisting of a single nation that's able to bully around all others. Yes, I know it's somewhat reminiscent of the British or Spanish empires, but those were mostly up against primitive natives, with a huge technology gap, which isn't the case for the later part of the series where the US isn't that far ahead of its enemies or allies.
I also found it rather silly how post-SGW all possible opposition or counterbalance for the US (who the author seems to love to pieces) either simply falls apart (Soviet Union), is almost completely ineffectual (European Union), or has no interest in opposing them (China).

It seems like he wants to build up the people of the Middle East and the Islam as the new main antagonists, but I'm rather sceptic about that, given their track record in the series so far, and how the people there also seem unable to catch a break...

- Kelenas
 
I do wish the author had gone into more detail about the rest of the world, especially during the Cold War. What we get from some of the NKVD (I think) and OSS agent viewpoints seems very interesting, to say the least. Imagine the spy novels one could write.
 
Ah, found it!

Here's a map of the series' world, in-universe year 2010, made by a group of fans. Don't know what the colours indicate...

2010-november.png
 
The different colours are probably for the more important/noteworthy nations, which would explain why most of Africa is white; from what I remember being mentioned it's pretty much the definition of "Hellhole" in the series' TL, since decolonization went a lot worse than OTL.

- Kelenas
 
The different colours are probably for the more important/noteworthy nations, which would explain why most of Africa is white; from what I remember being mentioned it's pretty much the definition of "Hellhole" in the series' TL, since decolonization went a lot worse than OTL.

- Kelenas

From what the author post in his website, the problem was not colonization per se (at least not the major), the problem was decolonization, after the second global conflict , World War II IRC, the colonial powers were broke and the various colonies asked indepedence even using violence (aided in this by the 'superpowers' who want to be rid of some rival and for ideological reason) so in just a couple of decades all the empires are gone and the various country are free...without any kind of preparations or the formations of some local administrative corps, and voilat we have basically hell on earth.
 
Haven't read any Rage of Allah yet, but I liked the main series -- well, except the last four books, and even then, Bundersrepublic was OK, and the last one did a good job filling in some of the plot holes (probably would have been better had I read it after book 15...)

Rage of Allah is okay, it's at least partially a return to the 'actioney' style of the earlier books.
 
Ah, found it!

Here's a map of the series' world, in-universe year 2010, made by a group of fans. Don't know what the colours indicate...

I wonder why East Prussia is split between Poland (which inexplicably gained Pomerania) and Russia here. But from what I read of The Evil That Men Do the Russian leader set the eastern German border at the Oder, and occupied the eastern half of it! Prussia's core lands easily falling to Russia is nearly ASB.
 
I wonder why East Prussia is split between Poland (which inexplicably gained Pomerania) and Russia here. But from what I read of The Evil That Men Do the Russian leader set the eastern German border at the Oder, and occupied the eastern half of it! Prussia's core lands easily falling to Russia is nearly ASB.

Easily is not a word i will use for the eastern front, that part of the war was basically a war of exterminaton by both parties, frankly some of the more vivid and disturbing describtion of battle and war atrocities i ever read...basically on the same level of the one in the Pacific front.
 
IIRC this was explained by the Nasos being at war with... pretty much everybody. Still, the borders certainly would take some getting used to, especially in Central and Eastern Europe.

- Kelenas
 
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