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The Iron Dream
 
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The Iron Dream (Paperback)
by Norman Spinrad (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  (4 customer reviews)

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Product details
  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Toxic (23 Aug 1999)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1902002164
  • ISBN-13: 978-1902002163
  • Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 1.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 673,817 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
    (Publishers and authors: Improve Your Sales)
  • Other Editions: Hardcover  |  Paperback  |  Mass Market Paperback (Reprint) |  Unknown Binding  |  All Editions


Product Description
Synopsis
Set in a post-nuclear holocaust world, a novel which traces the rise to power of one Feric Jaggar, an exile among mutants and mongrels to absolute rule in the Fatherland of Truemen. With an afterword by James Sallis.

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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
5 star: 75%  (3)
4 star:    (0)
3 star: 25%  (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Swiftian classic - angry, shocking and hilarious, 5 Dec 1999
By A Customer
A sly alternate history (Hitler emigrated to the U.S.A and became a hack sci-fi writer, and the book-within-a-book (complete with author's bio and list of other books by the same author) is the one he might have written), and a devastating satire of the fascistic tendencies of much sci-fi and sword-and-sorcery (and I speak, both in sorrow and in anger, as a devoted fan of both genres).

It might be nice to think that this aspect of the book is now outdated; unfortunately, a cursory glance at many of the books sitting alongside "The Iron Dream" on the shelves of any bookshop shows that most of them are still peddling the same themes (the hero who, by virtue of his hidden descent from the ancient heroes etc. etc., is alone genetically equipped to wield the mystic weapon/unleash his magical powers etc. etc. against the evil hordes of subhuman monsters/mutants/orcs etc. etc.) with a terrifyingly straight face. "The Iron Dream" is genuinely shocking because it is alarmingly close to much of what is being published today, while pushing it just a little bit further into something chillingly recognizable to anyone even vaguely familiar with 20th-century history.

It's also horribly funny. I found myself sniggering at Feric's obsession with tight black leather and the grotesque idea that such a campy absurdity could gain near-instant power over a whole nation merely by staging huge torch-lit parades and delivering stagy speeches - and remembering in the next split-second that, of course, someone no less grotesque did in fact do so ... Like Jonathan Swift's legendary "Modest Proposal", it's a joke in very bad taste, written out of the most intense morality and blazing anger.

As someone who only discovered this extraordinary book for myself this week, I was appalled to learn that it has only recently come back into print; Toxic deserve major congratulations for making such a classic available again. More than 20 years since its original publication, its audacity is still breathtaking (literally - at several points in the book, I gasped in shock, despite usually considering myself unshockable).

It's the existence of books like "The Iron Dream" that reminds one just how good science fiction can be. Read this book.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Hitler goes sci-fi, 1 Sep 1999
By A Customer
This is a novel within a novel - the premise being that in an alternative timeline Hitler left Germany in the 1920s and became a science fiction writer in the USA rather than dictator of Germany. This is his sci-fi masterpiece -' The Lord of the Swastika'. In fact the fantasy story he tells mirrors the rise of the Nazi movement and WWII as it happened in actuality. This novel provides as good an insight into the psychological appeal of the paraphernalia of Nazism as any serious historical work. In addition it works as a acerbic and mordant satire on the power-fantasy (i.e. basically fascistic) driven nature of so much of 'heroic fiction' and 'sword and sorcery'. All this and it works as a novel it its own right. Cannot recommend too highly.