Talk:In the Presence of Mine Enemies

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On 30 March 2021, it was proposed that this article be moved to In the Presence of Mine Enemies (novel). The result of the discussion was no consensus.

How ironic. Someone deleted the link to "pedophile apologetica".

This is exactly what this book is about: a public that has been taught to despise a minority, without really understanding anything about that minority. Several others and myself read this book and immediately recognized our own situation reflected in the experiences of the characters, especially Alicia Gimpel.

And here someone sees the article making this link, and immediately goes about making sure no one learns from it - doing exactly as they have been programmed. Hate the childlovers. After all, Love isn't Human, is it?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.195.243.52 (talk) 04:42, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

what? I suppose you can put the link back if you want to, although a 'list of highly unpopular groups' article might be better than singling out. Myself, I was more curious as to why this was categorised as a science fiction book. It's one of Turtledove's alternate timeline works.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.194.52.25 (talk) 09:35, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That's a very obtuse and tenuous connection being made, and it probably violates WP:NPOV. Johnleemk | Talk 17:41, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pedophile apologizing??? I think someone needs to look up what ephebophile means.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.51.8.89 (talk) 07:43, 28 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative History IS a subgenre of Science Fiction Jon 19:35, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This book reads like a total copy of the Soviet collapse.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.51.8.89 (talk) 07:46, 28 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I borrowed a copy of this book and this is what I found worth mentioning:

• The United States was conquered by the Germanic Empire and Japan a generation after the end of the Second World War during the Third World War, possibly somewhere in the 1960s. The Germans and their allies unleashed nuclear bombs that wiped out some of the major cities including Washington D.C. and Philadelphia. That war wiped out a third of the American population though it was compared little to what the Nazis inflicted on the Slavs of the Soviet Union. The Nazis then occupied America and established bases in New York, Los Angeles and St. Louis. With Washington gone, the Americans move their capital to Omaha. The Americans are required by the Nazis to pay tribute every year. As they have done before, the Nazis commit atrocities including murdering Jews and Negroess in camps.
• The Germans and the Italians genocided the Arabs of the Middle East on a scale similar to what they had done to the Jews and Slavs because the Institute for Racial Studies considers them a Semitic people.
• Corporal punishment is used in schools in the Germanic Empire with children being whacked by the paddle. The teachers use this to punish students for getting their answers wrong and not doing their homework.
• Himmler was the second Fuhrer of the Greater German Reich. According to the book, though officialy he died in 1985, some claimed that he had actually died in 1983 and that a junta consisting of high-ranking SS and Generals ran the Empire till Kurt Haldwein was chosen as the third Fuhrer.
• Rivalry exists between the Greater German Reich and the Empire of Japan similar to the Cold War between America and the Soviets. However, there is a Japanese restaurant in Berlin called Admiral Yamamoto, Japan exports electronics to the Nazis and Japanese tourists visit Germany. Japanese beer is also illegal under the medieval purity law Reinheitsgebot. In this alternate reality, California rolls are called Berlin rolls. The Nazis consider the Japanese inferior because they are not Aryans and think that they would continue to fall behind in technology annually.
• Britain also gets conquered and London suffers widespread damage including the destruction of the British Parliament, Big Ben and St. Paul's Cathedral. Britain is ruled by the British Union of Fascists with the Prime Minister being Charles Lynton and the monarch being King Henry IX. London also took nearly a generation to rebuilt and is still doing so as of 2010. Compared to their German counterparts, the British are poorer. The Medieval English Association (which one of the characters Susanna Weiss is part of) has its third meeting in 2010. Heathrow Airport remains the city's international airport.
• After the third Fuhrer Kurt Haldwein dies, the Minister of Heavy Industry Heinz Buckliger is appointed the new Fuhrer. He is apparently a reformer andreduces the American yearly tribute by nine percent and withdraws a division from America. However, a hardliner named Lothar Prutzmann - who is the head of the SS - launches a coup while at a holiday on the island of Hvar. Unfortunately for him, this launches chaos in the Reich and in the end, he commits suicide and the SS gets disbanded. The Fuhrer's personal airliner is the Luftwaffe Alfa and the Lufftwaffe possesses fighter jets including ME-662 fighters.
• Following World War II, Hitler commissioned the Arch of Victory in Berlin which resembles and dwarfs the Arc d'Triomphe in Paris. The Victory arch is nearly 170 metres wide and a 1700 metres deep. Captured weapons of war from conquered territories are also displayed in the square including the wreckage of a British fighter, a Russian tank and the conning tower of an American submarine. Nearby is the Soldier's Hall which exhibits the radioactive remains of the Liberty Bell which are stored behind thick leaded glass, gliders used to conquer Britain, the first Panzer IV to enter the Russian Kremlin and the railroad car which was yielded by the Germans to France in 1918 and 1940. There's also a massive swimming pool nearby called the Heiratbad which is which is open 24 hours a day and can contain possibly thousands of people.
• Other people considered inferior by the Reich include Homosexuals, Gypsies, Negroes, Russians, Serbs, Poles, Ukrainians and the disabled.

Can someone please help me add this information into the text and make this article's standard similar to another article on yet another alternative history novel the Fatherland by Robert Harris? MyNz 09:23, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I deleted the last sentence of the article which tried to compare the book's protagonists to "child lovers" in the UK and the USA as if "child lovers" were recognized minorities and not simply pedophiles or apologists for pedophiles. Sandinista—Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrcocksman (talk • contribs) 03:28, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This seems completely pointless to me because the only historical characters in this book to my knoweldge have been dead since before the novel's present starts, in some cases decades. (Yes, a few of the fictional characters are rather similar to historic ones with the major difference being having a German sounding name instead of a Russian sounding one.) Jon 19:34, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is a real person mentioned in the book: Leni Riefenstahl. If I remember correctly, the main characters make a remark to the effect that she died only a year or two earlier. As Riefenstahl died in 2003, it seems to me that the book, rather than taking place in 2010 (I have no idea where that date came from), simply took place at the exact time Presence was published, except in this alternate universe. --67.174.15.145 00:51, 2 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is mentioned that the initial events of the book take place in 2010. Liefenstahl might have lived a longer life in this timeline.--Wehwalt 05:10, 2 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Page 1 of the novel mentions that the costs of occupation of the US were up from 2009.--Wehwalt 16:22, 2 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The "summary" is very exhaustive, but somebody forgot to include the publishing date!—Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.20.17.84 (talk) 16:51, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the unsigned comment. The same effort you put into the "gotcha" comment could have been invested in going to amazon.com or a similar source, getting the publication date, and inserting it. But I guess it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun, eh?--Wehwalt 19:17, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This section comes off as original research. Are there any cites from third parties that would back it up? Zombie Hunter Smurf (talk) 20:21, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This article goes into a lot of detail about the "world" of the novel, but doesn't actually describe the plot at all. Is there anyone who has read the book recently who can write a plot summary? Zombie Hunter Smurf (talk) 14:33, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I can. We'll need to cut back on the world description considerably, as parts of the plot are covered in various sections. We need to do that anyway.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:44, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

True. Plus this article needs to look more like an article about a novel. Currently it reads more like an article about a novel series. Zombie Hunter Smurf (talk) 14:57, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The map shows England and the Low Countries as simply occupied. However, the text describes them as officially annexed (in "blood red"), rather than pale red. Only three countries were specified as occupied (pale red): United States, Canada, France. Commonlaw504 (talk) 05:11, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Where does the text describe the UK as annexed? They have their own King, money, prime minister, and take the lead in the reform effort. Similarly, Netherlands are allowed their own elections. And where is Canada even discussed?--Wehwalt (talk) 05:18, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See page 24 of the hardcover: "The Germanic Empire, shown in the blood-red of the flag, stretched from England deep into Siberia and India. Paler red showed lands occupied but not formally annexed: France, the United States, Canada."

So going by plain language, England and the Lowlands are in the blood-red of the empire.

Plenty of empires have allowed their subjects to have rubberstamp governments of their own, even left monarchies in place. It's practical from an administration standpoint to have local governments at least run internal affairs. Doesn't mean they were any less subjects. Commonlaw504 (talk) 14:51, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The text of the novel, and the portions of the story that take place in London, make quite clear that England is not part of the German Empire. "From England" properly means "from the boundaries of England", just as one might say that the United States stretches "from Canada to Mexico." Note the empire explicitly stretches "into" Siberia and India, not "from" or "to". Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 15:59, 15 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't recall any text stating England was specifically occupied as opposed to annexed. And Turtledove took great pains to list three occupied countries: the U.S., France, Canada. England was not on that list. Commonlaw504 (talk) 17:18, 15 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh look, it looks like over a decade later, a more accurate map would be added to the article. --JCC the Alternate Historian (talk) 21:15, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The phrase "That might have the effect that, for future Jews, the Minor Holidays would become in practice the major ones." is pure speculation about the future of the alternate world. The comment "The episode seems to be borrowed from Mark Twain's description of the Old South in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,..." There are many literary examples of racists dehumanizing disfavored groups, who is to say that this particular example was turtledove's model. Both comments have no source. 173.72.50.75 (talk) 03:19, 23 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The name of the recently deceased Führer, "Haldweim", is an obvious anagrammatical reference to former UN Secretary-General and President of Austria, Kurt Waldheim. Is that worth including in the article? (And no, I don't think any external source is needed; it's right there in the name itself.) --CRConrad (talk) 12:42, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is a move discussion at Talk:In the Presence of Mine Enemies (disambiguation) which may affect this article. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:40, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The following sentences (or part thereof) do not make sense:

• The Nazis compel the Duce of the Italian Empire.
• ...an "Aryan-dominated" Italians to large-scale massacres of Arabs in their portion of the Middle East.

I cannot fix them as I do not know what is intended. I'm guessing that the first sentence should be "The Nazis control the Duce of the Italian Empire." But how do they "control" him? And the second sentence seems to mean that the Italians carried out large-scale massacres of Arabs in their territories in the Middle East. But what does "Aryan-dominated" mean? That the Italians are effectively ruled by the Germans? Or that the paler-skinned Italians of the north dominate the darker-skinned people of the south? Can somebody familiar with the book clarify, please? 86.41.39.137 (talk) 11:20, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It seems the sentences were inadvertently mixed up in this edit. I'm fixing it now. 86.41.39.137 (talk) 14:32, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 02:58, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]