RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Media Alternate History Book Club

Our focus here is the "What-If" genre of science fiction. What if such-and-such had happened; how would our current history be different?

Our first novel is Fatherland by Robert Harris, which presents a world in which Nazi Germany won World War II. Here's the jacket copy:

Berlin, 1964: Twenty years after Nazi Germany won World War II, Hitler's seventy-fifth birthday celebration is barely a week away. Good Germans throughout the Fatherland are looking forward to the big parades and festivals. Adding to the excitement: an announcement that President Joseph P. Kennedy will visit Berlin to initiate detente with the Reich.
Amid the hoopla, the body of a once-important Nazi official washes up on a river bank--and Detective Xavier March has the bad luck to take the call. March is divorced, disaffected, and more than a little tired of his Nazi masters, but he's too good a cop to let his investigation drop--even after the all-powerful Gestapo orders him to desist. Putting his freedom--and his life--on the line, March enlists the aid of a beautiful American journalist. Together, they unravel a conpiracy that began during World War II and now threatens Hitler's deal with President Kennedy--and the very underpinnings of the Nazi regime.
Fatherland is a breathtaking tour de force, a novel that conjures up a painstakingly detailed and chillingly plausible world. What would have happened had Hitler won? Guerrilla warfare throughout the eastern Soviet Union. An eight-lane autobahn from Berlin to Moscow. England, France, Holland, and the other European countries governed by Nazi puppet regimes. The implementation of "racial purity" laws throughout the continent. The realization of Albert Speer's grandiose architectural plans for a Fatherland meant to rule the world.
With this novel, Robert Harris enters the front ranks of such international suspense writers as Len Deighton, Martin Cruz Smith, and John le Carre. An international success, Fatherland is the most intriguing and talked-about novel of the year.

And yes, there is a movie. It was produced by HBO some years ago. I got it from the library on VHS; not sure if it's available on DVD. You may have to dust off the VCR for this one.

i hope this is as successful as the other one!

What other one?

When are we gonna talk about Playboy?

no you are

Has anyone read Fatherland?

I liked the two page spread showing the woman with the ample bossoms.

In 1829 the China-men invented cyborgs and we all died.

They prefer "Asian-Americans". You're so insensitive.

joe, please stay on topic.

the movie was not very good or true to the novel............thebookwas phenomenal...............it should be required reading for all ungrateful Europeans.

There's a Playboy movie?!

In my little town
I grew up believing
God keeps his eye on us all
And he used to lean upon me
As I pledged allegiance to the wall
Lord I recall my little town
Coming home after school
Riding my bike past the gates of the factories
My mom doing the laundry
Hanging out shirts in the dirty breeze
And after it rains there's a rainbow
And all of the colors are black
It's not that the colors aren't there
It's just imagination they lack
Everything's the same back in my little town
In my little town I never meant nothing
I was just my father's son
Saving my money
Dreamin of glory
Twitching like a finger on a trigger of a gun
Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town
Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town
Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town

youre no pjp.

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.

Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover
That you'd just be
One more person crying.

So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred.

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.

An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.

Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not fergit
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in.

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him.

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in.

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.

Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony.

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes
Must get lonely.

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only

Impotence
Boomerang
I'll stab you

Clumps of hair
In the sink
Who's hiding
Things from me?

You knew all along, goddammit
But you wouldn't tell me
Well, look at you now

It's not funny, my ass is on fire
Paraplegic, inhuman liar

Carve a smile
On your face
Everything's great
Suffocate

It's beyond my control...I'm coming!

Boo
Redundant...
Boring

I wanna lock Betty Crocker in the kitchen
And knock her upper during supper
Clutter up her butter gutter
Hostess Ding Dong wrapped an eggroll around my wong
While Dolly Madison proceded to ping my pong
Your Milky Way is M'n'M in your britches
And I'll tell you Baby Ruth it looks mighty delicious
Keep blowing my gum, cuz here I come
I'm gonna get you all sticky with my Bubble Yum
Knick knack paddywhack and give your dog a bone, baby
I was givin' some head to some french bread
It was a four course orgy on the spread of my bed
French kissin' french fries in my Fruit of the Looms
I get deeper penetration with a fork and a spoon
I got yogurt meat loaf smeared all over my ass
I stick my weiner in two buns and and then give it the gas
Sour cream from my spleen into Levi jeans
Gonna bust the seams with my refried beans
Ronald McDonald just loves to be fondled
With Big Mac he'll fuck it like a Chicken McNugget
Colonel Sanders wants to goose Granny's loose caboose
He's gonna give her a boost with that Kentucky fried juice
Sooper doop poop scoop, loop de loop, chicken coop
Shoot some hoop, top sirloin from the groin
Topped with dick cheese, sneeze, wheeze,
From the skeez disease, wooi!
Take a dump, baby, squirt some gravy
Pour some sugar on me, honey, make it brown & runny
Give a little Flavor Flav, back from the grave
Gonna burn some toast, pump some humpin' rump roast
Knick knack paddywhack, jump in the sack, in fact
Jerk the smack and crack Jack from the back
Bananarama or ramabanana
Fuckin' Barry Manilow on the Copa Cabana
Squeeze me macaroni, slop your face with my bologna
You gotta syphon the spinach, you gotta cream the corn
Sperm scrambles the eggs and a meal is born
Cookin' like a beginner, but I'm goin' up in her
I had Fritos for lunch I'm havin' bush for dinner
Chef Boyardee and the Three Muskateers
Shove Charleston Chews in their rears like queers
Holy moly, guacamole! said my Chips Ahoy
I'm gonna pinch a ravioli on the Pillsbury dough boy
Knick knack paddywhack and give your dog a boner, baby
We came to pottie...we came to pottie down your throat

that was the first song at my reception.

When did this become the "quote song lyrics" thread?

15th one down, pay attention.

AFLAAAAAAC. AFLAAAAAAAC.