Deep Winter

[diamond lil]

Oh dear lol

[SooBee]

Within the parameters of not spoiling...it would help if the Americans tried to understand us Europeans a bit better before writing on a worldwide front.
The general ideas are good but the detail, though beautifully described is often fundamentally faulty.
Perhaps the best thing is to say that the basic lack of understanding of our strong German/French/British sense of independent thought is probably reciprocated.


Soobee

[Arzosah]

The general ideas are good but the detail, though beautifully described is often fundamentally faulty.

What was the thing that struck you most, SooBee?

Perhaps the best thing is to say that the basic lack of understanding of our strong German/French/British sense of independent thought is probably reciprocated.
Soobee

Thats so deep into not spoiling I'm not quite sure what you mean, sorry I read it, and ended up scanning it - that level of detail, especially about something of which I've no comprehension at the moment (generators, guns, the geography of Spokane) isn't really interesting to me. Nor is the religion.

And to think that the UK population, or the French or the Germans, for that matter, would act in the way described, no matter how much individual American policies are questioned ... its way off, way off.

[SooBee]

I think that all three countries -France, Germany and Britain are the types who have a history of being able to take on all comers and it is highly unlikely that an alternative hierarchy could seize power without a major fight right down to the guerrilla warfare seen in two world wars so far. Historically that assumption is not well reasoned...but then...America is the one factor that Americans think of first rather than equally. I'm sure we can reciprocate that and often do.

The small detail is good inasmuch as it gives a timescale to everything but it is flawed in its ability to hold everyone to a scary plot. I suspect that many will be put off by it.
Some things just jangled wrong bells in my head but I would need a second read to pin them down. I think it is mostly to do with the communications stuff.

I'm into the second book and still going though so it is holding me.


Soobee

[Arzosah]

I think that all three countries -France, Germany and Britain are the types who have a history of being able to take on all comers and it is highly unlikely that an alternative hierarchy could seize power without a major fight right down to the guerrilla warfare seen in two world wars so far. Historically that assumption is not well reasoned...but then...America is the one factor that Americans think of first rather than equally. I'm sure we can reciprocate that and often do.

Gotcha, thanks. I agree, as well.

The bit of yours that I've bolded is interesting to me: sometimes we do, in the UK, and sometimes we're so self critical about being British, its astonishing: for instance, imagine someone in the UK flying the Union Jack outside their house, the way many Americans fly their flag outside their house (my cousin does this, by the way, I'm speaking from personal knowledge) - if a Brit did that, there'd be uproar, I bet, unless the football was on (and then it would have to be the English/Scottish/Welsh/Irish flag).


Thanks for posting

[diamond lil]

Lots of people here fly the Saltire outside their houses

[Arzosah]

Lots of people here fly the Saltire outside their houses

I like that! There's a different dynamic going on, isn't there, I guess flying the Union Jack round where you are adds another element altogether but in most of England, to fly the Union Jack or the Cross of St George (and I never like it that the dragon died ) seems to be either looked down on or wound up with very right wing views, or both.

[SooBee]

Unfortunately the Union Jack flown outside the house would have the police wondering if we had become a tad too right wing and were possibly racist too.
It shouldn't be that way but it seems to be safer to fly our flags only when there is a special occasion.

Our traditions go way back though and have been useful in the past. Napoleon described us as a "nation of shopkeepers" and thought we would be easy to walk over. Hitler had a similar opinion. Keeping our political heads down and maintaining a non-confrontational image is a tradition I would say is not likely to change. It does not mean we are not a force to be reckoned with but so many people think that might be the case. We think that all that matters is that WE ARE BRITISH...but we don't spend our time shouting it so not a lot of people know that...GOOD!

I have lived abroad and the Germans are just as suitably phlegmatic as we are. The French simply don't understand why the rest of the world doesn't want to be French because they are so right about everything that matters. I can't see the main assumption about Europe in the "Deep Winter" series ever happening.


Soobee

[tc556guy]

Within the parameters of not spoiling...it would help if the Americans tried to understand us Europeans a bit better before writing on a worldwide front.
Soobee

Probably not going to happen, in general. We Americans look at the world through an American lens.

Many more conservative Americans..the type who would read the Deep Winter books... view you Brits as brothers, but as a society your socialistic views are viewed as having advanced so far that your society is doomed in terms of individual freedoms. You've become the canary in the cage, a warning to conservative Americans that your example is the one that must be avoided at all costs lest we follow down that same path. The rest of Europe is seen as case studies of even more socialistic nations whose policies since WW2 now has them tottering on the edge of implosion. The only exception, interestingly enough, is Germany and their fiscal policies.......

[SooBee]

Our countries are very different. We have different ways of dealing with things. Your country is huge compared to ours and has a much bigger population. You have managed this by keeping things running state by state on a day by day basis and managing to tie things together federally at the top. We are about the size of one of your states.

We have problems and advantages connected with the safe assimilation of immigrants just as you do. If trying to be nice to them so as to settle them in quickly is the socialist problem you see in us then I suggest you check our position on the map. We are an island...manning our borders is nigh on impossible except through ports of entry. We are also the end of the rainbow. Best to make friends except when the friendship proves unfriendly.

The good thing about our size is that it is very hard for folks to vanish. We find them. America often loses people for years.

I could go on but I suppose your spectacles are already needing a quick clean.

What a good thing we actually like Americans!


Soobee