@Billy Awesome and everyone else: yes, that’s the joke!
Spinrad was parodying John W. Campbell, Doc Smith et al by writing what purported to be a book from an alternate history where Lt Hitler emigrated to America in 1921 and worked for ‘Amazing Stories’. This ‘Skylark’-meets-Wagner saga ‘Lords of the Swastika’ is sort of SF’s very own ‘Springtime For Hitler’.
Yes, the Spinrad alternate history Hitler wrote SF. Badly. Just wish they had embellished the conceit with examples of pre author Hitler’s artistic efforts in his first job as a pulp fiction cover artist. http://www.apocalypsebooks.com/img/cover/iron-dream.jpg
It’s a very special kind of satire, and easily misunderstood — imagine if bona fide Nazis bought the book and thought it was actually written by Hitler…
Oo! Aesthetics debate. Does the quality of satire vary with how much it’s misunderstood? Remember, some thought that Swift was advocating eating babies FOR REALZ.
Privy Councilor: Johnny, babes, love the piece. Totally there. Finally somebody has done more than just complain, but actually offered a solution.
J. Swift: Solution? Well, yes, but . . .
Privy Councilor: I mean, it’s brilliant! Kills two micks, er, I mean, birds, with one stone. Famine and overpopulation—done!
J. Swift: Uh, Sir, you do realize it’s a work of satire?
Privy Councilor: Satire shmatire, it’s brilliant I tell ya. Only question is, I mean, can we really get away with killing and eating the Irish babies? I mean, isn’t the PC crowd gonna get all bent out of shape and all? Could be a huge PR mess.
J. Swift: *sigh*
@anon—yes, if I get your question. I’m agreeing with @Dead Stuff that one mark of genuine satire is that a chunk of its audience thinks it’s literal. Like irony, only on a deeper level, it divides the audience into those who get it and those who don’t.
I Have No Maus and I Must Scream
Flow My Tears, the Gestapo Said
Behold the Übermensch
A Canticle for Fritz
I, Jackboot
A Case of No Conscience Whatsoever
@B.Chiclitz: Oh, come on! There really is (or at least should be) a higher minimum requirement of intellectual consideration for things to be satire. I don’t think GSS reaches that. You’d have to be fairly thick to think GSS is somehow real. A mere misunderstanding of the target of mockery by a random new reader doesn’t count.
@anon—thank you for the chiding, and the clever youtube link. If I had the slightest idea what you were talking about, I’d be even more chastised. I get the feeling you are practicing satire on me. Well, I always appreciate your commentary.
@B.Chiclitz, @Tat Wood: Assuming you weren’t making fun of me:
I was referring to B.Chiclitz’s last two words. GSS can not be satire because it can’t be confused to be “real” (vs. satire) since AFAIK there isn’t anything “real” that GSS as a whole could be satirizing, i.e. there is no “real version” of GSS you could confuse it with because it’s all in jest.
@anon—not wanting to drag things out, but for the record, no not making fun of you. Thought you were giving me the business in fact. Hard to read tone in these posts, which is a danger. My little joke about GSS had to do with the “in” group “out” group thing, which it has in common with satire. Not claiming GSS *is* satire, per se. Sometimes GSS posters get accused of mean-spirited mockery when, as others have pointed out repeatedly, it’s really all in the spirit of homage. If we didn’t love SF, we couldn’t bust these covers so beautifully, but that’s sometimes misread.
@anon (27): I was making fun of myself for spending so much time on this site.(And it was an excuse to use the Rodney Bewes clip again).
But is anon 27 the same person as anon 26? Are they the same anon as the one who does whimsical anagrams of the blurbs? See, as soon as someone invokes PKD I get very unsure of myself. I’m ontologically challenged.
@anon, @TatWood, @B. Chiclitz
Did you ever stop to think that you three guys are the only real people on this site.
And everyone else, including me, are GSS Admin sock puppets?
@Tag Wizard: Stop to think? Who do you think I am? I close my eyes, hunch down and speed up. If any problems arise, I resort to violence and name-calling. It works surprisingly well in traffic.
@Tag Wiz—you think we need a new generation of tags? Something ontological? Start tagging posts, maybe with a numerical value on the Sock Puppet-Homo Sapiens scale? I don’t know about @DSWBT, but I’d trust your judgment. 😉
I’ve read the book. It is an extremely nasty satire… among other things, it seems to imply that Hitler would’ve fit right in at any ordinary American sci-fi convention! Also, that Hitler was deep, deep “in the closet”…
February 29th, 2016 at 12:11 pm
Mein Camp.
February 29th, 2016 at 12:44 pm
Jude Dredd
February 29th, 2016 at 1:00 pm
Sieg Heil’s Angels
February 29th, 2016 at 1:12 pm
Somehow Nazis always look cooler in leather.
February 29th, 2016 at 1:33 pm
The Sound and The Fuhrer
February 29th, 2016 at 1:35 pm
Totenkompfensatingforsomething
February 29th, 2016 at 1:46 pm
Hitler wrote award-winning Sci-Fi? Learn something new every day.
February 29th, 2016 at 2:04 pm
@Billy Awesome and everyone else: yes, that’s the joke!
Spinrad was parodying John W. Campbell, Doc Smith et al by writing what purported to be a book from an alternate history where Lt Hitler emigrated to America in 1921 and worked for ‘Amazing Stories’. This ‘Skylark’-meets-Wagner saga ‘Lords of the Swastika’ is sort of SF’s very own ‘Springtime For Hitler’.
The cover is exactly right, unlike the French one (which looked as if they were taking it at face value http://livre.fnac.com/a1776891/Norman-Spinrad-Reve-de-fer ).
February 29th, 2016 at 3:06 pm
The Adolf Hitler Motorcycle Diaries.
February 29th, 2016 at 3:21 pm
Fonetic Cincher Panties
Sir Dan Pornman
<thirsts for Dolph Lundgren’s fine classic Gaawas wine>
ONE RAD HERMIT
February 29th, 2016 at 4:28 pm
Yes, the Spinrad alternate history Hitler wrote SF. Badly. Just wish they had embellished the conceit with examples of pre author Hitler’s artistic efforts in his first job as a pulp fiction cover artist.
http://www.apocalypsebooks.com/img/cover/iron-dream.jpg
February 29th, 2016 at 4:38 pm
Pretty crazy cover for this book, but is it the BEST cover?
This one is pretty good.
This one I kind of love.
This one, on the other hand, forgot to include Hitler.
February 29th, 2016 at 4:42 pm
Stupid Rocket Hitler
February 29th, 2016 at 6:01 pm
This cover is an excellent thematic representation of the book. I still wouldn’t want to be seen reading it in public.
February 29th, 2016 at 6:28 pm
It’s a very special kind of satire, and easily misunderstood — imagine if bona fide Nazis bought the book and thought it was actually written by Hitler…
February 29th, 2016 at 6:47 pm
Oo! Aesthetics debate. Does the quality of satire vary with how much it’s misunderstood? Remember, some thought that Swift was advocating eating babies FOR REALZ.
February 29th, 2016 at 8:26 pm
@DSWBT:
Privy Councilor: Johnny, babes, love the piece. Totally there. Finally somebody has done more than just complain, but actually offered a solution.
J. Swift: Solution? Well, yes, but . . .
Privy Councilor: I mean, it’s brilliant! Kills two micks, er, I mean, birds, with one stone. Famine and overpopulation—done!
J. Swift: Uh, Sir, you do realize it’s a work of satire?
Privy Councilor: Satire shmatire, it’s brilliant I tell ya. Only question is, I mean, can we really get away with killing and eating the Irish babies? I mean, isn’t the PC crowd gonna get all bent out of shape and all? Could be a huge PR mess.
J. Swift: *sigh*
February 29th, 2016 at 8:52 pm
@B.Chiclitz: That would just be proof that it’s satire and not some sloppy, farcical parody.
February 29th, 2016 at 9:10 pm
@anon—yes, if I get your question. I’m agreeing with @Dead Stuff that one mark of genuine satire is that a chunk of its audience thinks it’s literal. Like irony, only on a deeper level, it divides the audience into those who get it and those who don’t.
Like GSS . . . . 😉
February 29th, 2016 at 9:50 pm
“Well… someone’s gotta deliver this giant fountain pen!”
March 1st, 2016 at 6:53 am
Some more great sci-fi written by Hitler:
I Have No Maus and I Must Scream
Flow My Tears, the Gestapo Said
Behold the Übermensch
A Canticle for Fritz
I, Jackboot
A Case of No Conscience Whatsoever
March 1st, 2016 at 9:31 am
@B.Chiclitz: Oh, come on! There really is (or at least should be) a higher minimum requirement of intellectual consideration for things to be satire. I don’t think GSS reaches that. You’d have to be fairly thick to think GSS is somehow real. A mere misunderstanding of the target of mockery by a random new reader doesn’t count.
March 1st, 2016 at 3:32 pm
@anon—thank you for the chiding, and the clever youtube link. If I had the slightest idea what you were talking about, I’d be even more chastised. I get the feeling you are practicing satire on me. Well, I always appreciate your commentary.
March 1st, 2016 at 3:53 pm
@anon: Whaddaya mean, GSS isn’t real? These covers don’t exist? I’m hallucinating typing this right now?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da1Lc9faSqs
March 1st, 2016 at 5:38 pm
Born to be Reviled.
Philip K Dick was right. The Nazis won the war and this is all a dream.
March 2nd, 2016 at 9:36 am
Not Christ on a Bike! Adolf on a flying bike!
March 2nd, 2016 at 5:45 pm
@B.Chiclitz, @Tat Wood: Assuming you weren’t making fun of me:
I was referring to B.Chiclitz’s last two words. GSS can not be satire because it can’t be confused to be “real” (vs. satire) since AFAIK there isn’t anything “real” that GSS as a whole could be satirizing, i.e. there is no “real version” of GSS you could confuse it with because it’s all in jest.
March 2nd, 2016 at 5:47 pm
Is that phallic rocket-appendage there to counter-act the drag of the giant swastika?
March 2nd, 2016 at 6:34 pm
@anon—not wanting to drag things out, but for the record, no not making fun of you. Thought you were giving me the business in fact. Hard to read tone in these posts, which is a danger. My little joke about GSS had to do with the “in” group “out” group thing, which it has in common with satire. Not claiming GSS *is* satire, per se. Sometimes GSS posters get accused of mean-spirited mockery when, as others have pointed out repeatedly, it’s really all in the spirit of homage. If we didn’t love SF, we couldn’t bust these covers so beautifully, but that’s sometimes misread.
I’ll let Good Sir Tat speak for hisself.
March 2nd, 2016 at 7:46 pm
@B.Chiclitz: Unanimity status: positive. (See the last sentence.) Who does the hive collective attack next?
March 2nd, 2016 at 7:49 pm
@anon (27): I was making fun of myself for spending so much time on this site.(And it was an excuse to use the Rodney Bewes clip again).
But is anon 27 the same person as anon 26? Are they the same anon as the one who does whimsical anagrams of the blurbs? See, as soon as someone invokes PKD I get very unsure of myself. I’m ontologically challenged.
March 2nd, 2016 at 8:22 pm
Who am us anyway?
March 2nd, 2016 at 8:42 pm
@anon, @TatWood, @B. Chiclitz
Did you ever stop to think that you three guys are the only real people on this site.
And everyone else, including me, are GSS Admin sock puppets?
March 2nd, 2016 at 9:23 pm
@TW: So THAT’S who has his hand up my arse!
March 2nd, 2016 at 10:43 pm
@Tag Wizard: Stop to think? Who do you think I am? I close my eyes, hunch down and speed up. If any problems arise, I resort to violence and name-calling. It works surprisingly well in traffic.
March 3rd, 2016 at 4:43 am
@Tag Wiz—you think we need a new generation of tags? Something ontological? Start tagging posts, maybe with a numerical value on the Sock Puppet-Homo Sapiens scale? I don’t know about @DSWBT, but I’d trust your judgment. 😉
March 4th, 2016 at 5:39 am
@Noel: wasn’t it the Roman Empire which had never fallen? Or am I just mis-remembering “Valis?”
March 4th, 2016 at 8:34 am
I’ve read the book. It is an extremely nasty satire… among other things, it seems to imply that Hitler would’ve fit right in at any ordinary American sci-fi convention! Also, that Hitler was deep, deep “in the closet”…
March 4th, 2016 at 10:40 pm
Get your motor running
Head out on the highway
Looking for lebensraum
And whatever Jew comes my way
Ja Adolf you could make it happen
Take the world in a loving embrace
Fire all of your guns and once in
Explode into space
I like smoke and lightning
Heavy metal thunder
Racing with the wind
And the feeling that I’m Fuhrer
March 4th, 2016 at 10:59 pm
@RayP: And like a true Anschluss child
We were Bern-born to be wild
We could claim Sudety,
I never want to die!
Bonn to Bevilard!
Bonn to Bevilard!
March 7th, 2016 at 10:16 am
@BMunro – I was thinking ‘The Man in the High Castle’, which I haven’t read for a long time and may be getting confused.
March 15th, 2016 at 12:15 am
I own this book. And I’m very pleased to see it here. (Goes off to sink even more time into GSS because there’s time enough)
March 31st, 2016 at 8:51 pm
I got @tayandyou to describe this cover!
May 25th, 2022 at 3:00 am
Six years later…
@Perry Armstrong: I Have No Maus… you, crack me up! That’s a double zing doodle! Oh the geekiness of it!