So I read this novel recently because it was short and it happened to be on my Kindle.
Quality-wise, it isn't bad. I've read much worse.
Thematically, however, it all seems a bit crypto-fascist.
So first of all, what is this novel? It's not quite alternate history, because it takes place thousands of years in the future. However, it's the future OF an alternate history in which the nazis won World War II.
This in itself is not a red flag. Could be an interesting setting.
The first red flag? Both the main characters are nazis. In fact, almost every character in the story is a nazi. The closest thing this story has to a hero is a nazi. Now, he's a nazi because he's been the victim of a lifetime of propaganda, and this is obviously meant to be tragic, but still: the ONLY character who comes close to acting heroic is a nazi.
Second red flag: although the novel is set in a brutal warzone, it's mentioned multiple times that Europe is a peaceful, civilized, prosperous place... which is completely populated by genetically modified aryans and ruled by the nazi party.
Third red flag: the only other major power shown is an Islamic empire, which is depicted as behaving as brutally as the nazis, if not more so. The nazis believe that their enemies are Jewish, but it is explained by one of the enemy soldiers that the Jews are a peaceful and unremarkable people, and that the ones that the nazis have been fighting are a mix of Islamic soldiers and their Christian conscripts. So the book seems not to be antisemitic--but possibly Islamophobic.
Fourth red flag: The story would have worked just as well if it were about an imaginary evil empire, rather than one based on the historical nazis. I honestly think nothing is gained by this being a specifically nazi-dominated future, or in fact of even occurring on this planet. Evil fascist empires can exist completely independently of earth and its history (see: Star Wars).
Overall, the book just seems to portray nazism (albeit a "revised" version of nazism that evolved over thousands of years) a little too positively.
I don't trust it.
So, why did I buy this book in the first place?
As I was reading it, I thought that it was one of the many novels I've gotten through Humble Bundle. However, when I went to search for it in my Humble library, it wasn't there.
So I figure, it must have come in an itch.io bundle instead. Nope, it's not on itch, either.
Did I buy it on Amazon and just forget? Checked my purchase history--nope.
At that point I decided to look at the actual file stored on my PC for clues. Maybe the folder it was in would tell me where it came from.
It was nowhere in my ebooks folder.
How did this book get on my Kindle?