Fiction and reality intertwine in Russia and Ukraine.

August 1, 2014 1:45 PM

The Sci-Fi Writers' War. "A pro-Western, NATO-backed Ukrainian government faces a stubborn insurgency in the pro-Russian East. Fighting rages around Donetsk, with civilians dying in artillery fire and airstrikes, while Russian troops mass on the Ukrainian border. The latest headlines? No, a two-novel series by Russian-Ukrainian science-fiction writer Fedor Berezin: War 2010: The Ukrainian Front and War 2011: Against NATO. In a startling plot twist, Berezin, a 54-year-old former Soviet Army officer and Donetsk native, is now living inside a real-life version of his own story: He is deputy defense minister of the embattled 'Donetsk People’s Republic.'"
posted by Sticherbeast (17 comments total)

I'm not really getting the way in which much of the fiction under discussion is science fiction.
posted by clockzero at 2:00 PM on August 1, 2014

Perhaps alternate history is being grouped under science fiction? Or perhaps these are prequels to the "War 2030" series mentioned in Berezin's English Wikipedia page.

Google Translate of the synopsis of War 2010: The Ukrainian Front from a Ukranian alternate history forum:

"Above all Ukraine cloudless sky ..." And this is the sky with impunity NATO aircraft. And the world "liberal" print keeps mum about the beginning of the invasion. And no orders to deploy air defense systems. But there is a duty officer and military equipment of Soviet production. And there is Russia, which is sure to come to the rescue ...
World War III on the doorstep!
World fire starts in Ukraine.
Armed conflict broke out in the Crimea, threatens to spill over to the whole of Europe.
And Russia does not stay away from the decisive events.
The main front of a future war would be the Ukrainian front!

posted by XMLicious at 3:11 PM on August 1, 2014

So, is this proof that the criminals that are trying to seize eastern Ukraine have been planning for more than 5 years?
posted by Megafly at 3:13 PM on August 1, 2014 [5 favorites]

Geopolitical fanfiction?
posted by mrjohnmuller at 3:14 PM on August 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

It totally is. Not infrequently alternate history is written by a historian laying out what should really have happened to her or his favorite historical figure, instead of the real history of them dying from a poisonous medication prescribed by some quack to balance the humors.
posted by XMLicious at 3:30 PM on August 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Scary. Now think of all the far right SF writers who are writing novels about a civil war that happens when the liberal-socialist-feminist-gay conspiracy takes over America, and the red blooded True Americans have to take it back.

Yeah, they're probably just indulging in saber rattling and wistful thinking. Maybe.
posted by happyroach at 4:21 PM on August 1, 2014 [5 favorites]

Now think of all the far right SF writers who are writing novels about a civil war that happens when the liberal-socialist-feminist-gay conspiracy takes over America, and the red blooded True Americans have to take it back.

Way, way ahead of you: Tom Kratman's A State of Disobedience in which a not very thinly veiled future Hillary Clinton and her ungodly lesbian-liberals impose their jackbooted politically correct thugs on the ol' USA!
posted by Justinian at 5:31 PM on August 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

Interesting times, indeed. Fast too. I dodged a bullet about 5 years ago when my wife and I didn't settle down near Lwów. We were this close. I guess given the current rate of change, there is still plenty of time for a dystopian future war in Nova Scotia too.
posted by Meatbomb at 5:41 PM on August 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

Justinian: “Tom Kratman's A State of Disobedience in which a not very thinly veiled future Hillary Clinton”

Funny, I thought of The End by G. Michael Hopf, where a thinly veiled John McCain stand-in winds up President, but clings to the old ways, won't just kill the right people, doesn't carry a gun, and winds up getting killed by a biker gang. (We'll ride right past an entire carrier battle group and MEU mutinying.) It makes Patriots look like Swiss Family Robinson. I only read it because it was free, and it was a waste of the inconvenienced electrons it took to get it on my Kindle.

That said, I'm even less enthusiastic about the prospect of World War III than I am soi-disant patriots finally getting their Second American Civil War.
posted by ob1quixote at 7:07 PM on August 1, 2014

Iron Sky had Sarah Palin as President.
posted by XMLicious at 7:12 PM on August 1, 2014

Persons briefed into standing Russian plans to destabilize Ukraine should the need arise will be able to write some pretty predictive fiction.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:00 PM on August 1, 2014 [3 favorites]

Way, way ahead of you: Tom Kratman's A State of Disobedience

Kratman of course being the dude who wrote a sf novel called Watch on the Rhine in which heroic rejuvenated Waffen SS soldiers fight an alien invasion and bond with the finest men of the Israeli Defence Forces.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:32 AM on August 2, 2014 [1 favorite]

Kratman of course being the dude who wrote a sf novel called Watch on the Rhine in which heroic rejuvenated Waffen SS soldiers fight an alien invasion and bond with the finest men of the Israeli Defence Forces.

Post of me really wants to read that in an oh-no-John-Ringo/car crash way.
posted by jaduncan at 8:53 AM on August 2, 2014

Martin: Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it even more offensive than that? They don't just, like, bump into the Israelis and bond the Waffen SS guys actually sacrifice themselves in a desperate rear-guard action to save Israel's population?
posted by Justinian at 3:12 PM on August 2, 2014

Krautman evidently had a constant web search looking on for things like his name, "Watch on the Rhine", SS, and the like. I expected him to show up on LiveJournal, but I was rather surprised when he popped into an rpg.net discussion to defend his writing and correct "mistaken impressions" about the SS. It was rather weird.
posted by happyroach at 7:57 PM on August 2, 2014 [1 favorite]

Russia to Bulgaria : Please stop making our statues look like this
posted by jeffburdges at 8:07 AM on August 21, 2014

Haha jeffburdges I walked past that statue many times.
posted by Meatbomb at 5:12 AM on August 22, 2014