Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hitleriffic!, 3 Jan 2007
I was expecting the usual boring Christmas presents - a porsche, a harem of slavishly devoted beauties to wash my feet, the country of Spain, etc.
But to my surprise and thrill I received this book instead! I'm not a World War II buff or a technical details junkie, but I've always had a passing interest in World War II; I'd watch documentaries on the Discovery/History channel and such. This book does contain a good portion of technical specs but what really makes it a five star achievement in my book is Zack Parsons' relish and love for the subject matter. His fictional explorations of what would have happened in development and deployment are incredibly well written and something to look forward to after coming to grips with how insane and off the wall some of these ideas were - Flying tanks, back pack helicopters, stupidly gigantic land cruisers, and not to mention a Nazi Space Station!
Cracking read!
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Funny, informative, and well worth a read, 27 Dec 2006
Although this book is definitely not a traditional history book, I can still thoroughly recommend it to anyone who has a passing interest in World War Two as a whole or weird and wonderful inventions in general. The author has clearly done a good task of researching a wide range of crackpot ideas whilst managing to avoid descending into dull technical history, which could have been quite easy given the lack of much 'real' evidence of these hypothetical inventions.
Interestingly, the technical aspects of each invention are accompanied by both a hypothetical deployment history and a short story entitled 'what fight have been'. Despite the fact that both of these sections are complete conjecture, they give the reader a feel for the weirdness of the schemes which figures alone could not do. It is a very unusual step for a history book to take, but it works very well.
The book is also well illustrated throughout, which again makes it a lot easier to get your head around what is being described.
Finally, for those familiar with somethingawful.com, the book is seeded with a sense of humour that always makes it lively, witty and a pleasure to read. I'll admit that it made me laugh out loud less than I thought it would based on the website, but that is only because it is actually a work of real substance which constant silliness would have got in the way of.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An awesome read, 12 Feb 2007
I'm the kind of person who'll read lists of trivia just to have something to randomly inject into conversations. I don't know why, but randomly blurting out things like "Adam from Mythbusters worked as a model maker for ILM" in a pub and seeing the bewildered faces of other people at my table amuses me. But after a while, TV and movie based trivia begins to tire. That is why I am grateful for this book.
Now, instead of "they use the wilheim scream in this scene", I can say "The Germans planned to use rocket powered suicide bombs in world war two", and be able to back it up with fact.
This book is what makes history fun. Sure, normal documentaries are fine, but reading about a tank so large it physically can't use paved surfaces without breaking them beyond repair is far more interesting. Or how about an aircraft carrier made of ice? Flying tanks? Some of the creations in this book genuinely defy belief, and if I hadn't done a little prodding around myself I'd have thought them made up for entertainment.
Don't make the mistake of believing that this book is full of boring technical readouts and blueprints, as it isn't. Each chapter covers the development history, any actual production of the invention, and an analysis of just how useful it would have been, with colourful and amusing comments on the zaniness and downright stupidity of some of them. Alongisde these are a theoretical deployment of the inventions, with an after-action style report, and a personal diary-like entry of someone involved in the invention itself, which are also brilliantly written.
An altogether brilliant read whether you're a WW2 history buff or not. The blurb on the back of the book says it all: "Only the slow-witted are reading this anywhere other than in line at the cash register. Ask an adult to help you if you're still not sure you want to buy the book."
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