"Donovan Sent Us" review

Gwern Branwen · 11 Oct 2010, 23:36 · from 2010-October.txt.gz

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From: gwern0 at gmail.com (Gwern Branwen)
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 19:36:02 -0400
Subject: (urth) "Donovan Sent Us" review
Message-ID: <AANLkTikf0L=gYS8RXixCFDnkKZ3x=1QehNw0xoxyXaOG at mail.gmail.com>

http://www.bestsf.net/2010/10/08/gene-wolfe-donovan-sent-us-years-best-sf-15/
--Mark Watson

> I had been looking forward to reading a Gene Wolfe story in this volume, but in the end was rather let-down.

> It?s a Second World War alternate history ? what if the USA didn?t join in, and the Germans won. The political setting in America is also different, as Eisenhower isn?t president anymore, but a President Kuhn, of the German-American Bund. Having read the story on the train, with no Google on hand, I had to wait to get home to find out about this anti-semitic, anti-communist, pro-Hitler piece of 1930s American History. I struggled to engage with the story ? an American parachuted into occupied Britain to rescue a VIP. The American is fluent in German, but in speaking English in the guise of the German, he speaks in a terrible cod-German not very far off ?ve haff vays of making you talk?. He infiltrates a bunker quite easily, and co-incidentally stumbles across the VIP, whom he rescues. Pondering next steps over a fine cigar (there?s your clue as to the identity of the VIP), the perceived potential threat to world peace of the VIP leads to an unexpected denouement.

> I wouldn?t have identified this as a Gene Wolfe story, and it comes from the same anthology as Robert Charles Wilson?s ??This Peaceable Land, or, The Unbearable Vision of Harriet Beacher Stowe??, which I enthused about at length, and which is a country mile ahead of this story in terms of quality. Unless of course Wolfe is being very, very clever, and there?s a clue in there that I?ve missed that gives fuller richness to his story.


-- 
gwern
http://www.gwern.net/

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