History Literature / TheIronDream

* DropTheHammer: The Steel Commander, aka the Great Truncheon of Held, is as light as a feather ([[OnlyTheChosenMayWield to its rightful bearer]]) but strikes with the mass of a mountain.

** It is surprisingly obscure knowledge, but Hitler was for a short time a member of a secret police unit and was tasked with infiltration of political movements. He attended his first German Workers' Party (later renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazi Party) meeting as a police spy, liked what he heard, and joined up for real). He quickly concluded that brute force only causes the dissenters to hide, and the covert intelligence operations are much more likely to yield good results. Likewise he was against police brutality and would not allow German police to carry guns or truncheons, which he considered demeaning to the public.

* AwesomeMcCoolname: Feric Jaggar! See also MeaningfulName, below.

* TakeThat: The book suggests that in the real world, the works of certain specific sf and fantasy writers, their {{Fandom}}, and the science fiction and fantasy genres as a whole at large have UnfortunateImplications. [[invoked]]

** The higher-ups in Jaggar's party also have names similar to those of their real-life Nazi counterparts: Joseph Goebbels becomes Seph Bogel, Rudolf Hess becomes Ludolf Best,and so on.

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Quite a few
** Heldon = Germany
** Zind = the Soviet Union
** Bora = Moscow
** Universalists = Communists
** Dominators = Jews
** Wolack = Poland
** Borgravia = Austria
** Vetonia = France
** Husak (capital Kolchak) = the Netherlands
** Cressia, Arbona, Karmath = unclear, perhaps Iberia or Italy
** Feder = Belgium
** Knights of the Swastika = SA
** Sons of the Swastika = SS
** Gormond = Linz
** Heldhime = Berlin
** High Republic = Weimar Republic
** Classification Camps = concentration camps (Konzentrationslager)

** Feric Jaggar is horrified by the prospect of using nuclear weapons against Zind (because the fallout would taint the gene pool of the true humans). TruthInTelevision in that Hitler was known to be very negative toward the idea of nuclear weapons. He was forced to conduct research into nuclear weaponry only because the Germans knew that the other Powers would do so. Surprising? Likewise he was against police brutality and would not allow German police to carry guns or truncheons, which he considered demeaning to the public.
** It is surprisingly obscure knowledge, but Hitler was for a short time a member of a secret police unit and was tasked with infiltration of political movements. He attended his first German Workers' Party (later renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazi Party) meeting as a police spy, liked what he heard, and joined up for real). He quickly concluded that brute force only causes the dissenters to hide, and the covert intelligence operations are much more likely to yield good results. And his aversion to [=WMDs=] might have been caused by being wounded in a gas attack during Great War.

* ContemptibleCover
** Just try explaining to a horrified busgoer why the book you're reading features a blond Nazi triumphantly raising a truncheon above his head.
** Later editions [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil openly put Hitler on the cover]] (see [[http://www.librarything.com/work/49259/covers/ here]] for examples)-- and then there's [[http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/s/norman-spinrad/iron-dream.htm the edition]] that shies away from Nazi imagery (barring one swastika).

* SchizoTech: The book starts in a post-apocalyptic world where steam-powered buses are common transportation, but swiftly moves through World War II-level weaponry before ending with cloning and interstellar spaceships.

* OnlyTheChosenMayWield: Only Jaggar can wield the Truncheon of Held.

* MindControl: How the Dominators dominate. Jaggar is the only one able to resist them.

* AuthorAppeal: The massive amount of PhallicWeapon and HomoeroticSubtext on display suit many theories about Hitler having had some issues with sexuality. There's also a scene involving mutant warriors [[PottyFailure crapping themselves]] that is described in unusual detail--in real life, one of the more persistent claims about Hitler is that he may have had a scat fetish.

* {{Deconstruction}}: Of the HeroicFantasy and ScienceFiction genres, intended to show the creepy fascist aspects at their core.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance

* TakeThat: The book suggests that in the real world, the works of certain specific sf and fantasy writers, their {{Fandom}}, and the science fiction and fantasy genres as a whole at large have UnfortunateImplications - see the [[YMMV/TheIronDream YMMV page.]] [[invoked]]

%% * FantasticRacism: A bit of that, yes.

* UnfortunateImplications: Apparently, if the Nazis hadn't taken over Germany, the communists would have instead, resulting in a Greater Soviet Union that dominates most of the world, with only an American-Japanese alliance holding out. [[invoked]]

* :AstralFinale: [[spoiler:When the Dominators pollute Earth with radiation all over again, Feric responds by colonizing the stars]].

* [[spoiler:AstralFinale]]: [[spoiler:When the Dominators pollute Earth with radiation all over again, Feric responds by colonizing the stars]].

** DieselPunk: as Feric Jaggar ascends to power, the Held air force uses giant aircraft with ten gasoline engines each and just as big steam tanks. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_X Both]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_tank existed]] in RealLife in the period between UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and 1933 [[RealLifeWritesThePlot and performed poorly]], just as Jaggar himself admits. It's the reason for which our hero pushes the Helden industry to develop smaller, faster and more practical designs.

* WhoWouldBeStupidEnough: The author analyzing Hitler's story notes that while some fans may yearn for such a decisive and iron-willed leader to save them from Soviet domination, he concludes that no rational person would ever stand such a clearly delusional, bloodthirsty tyrant, and that they certainly wouldn't be swayed by [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-04062A,_Nürnberg,_Reichsparteitag,_SA-_und_SS-Appell.jpg snappy uniforms, precision marching, and gigantic displays of stirring imagery]].
** He also rejects the idea that Doms are an anti-semitic metaphor, as given the Soviet Union's persecution of their own Jewish population, no-one would seriously believe that Communism was a Jewish conspiracy.

** Feric Jaggar is horrified by the prospect of using nuclear weapons against Zind (because the fallout would taint the gene pool of the true humans).
** TruthInTelevision in that Hitler was known to be very negative toward the idea of nuclear weapons. He was forced to conduct research into nuclear weaponry only because the Germans knew that the other Powers would do so. (Surprising? Likewise he was against police brutality and would not allow German police to carry guns or truncheons, which he considered demeaning to the public.)
** It is surprisingly obscure knowledge, but Hitler was for a short time a member of a secret police and was tasked with infiltration of political movements. (He attended his first German Workers' Party (later renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazi Party) meeting as a police spy, liked what he heard, and joined up for real.) He quickly concluded that brute force only causes the dissenters to hide, and the covert intelligence operations are much more likely to yield good results. And his aversion to [=WMDs=] might have been caused by being wounded in a gas attack during Great War.

** Feric (or "ferric," for iron) Jaggar (or ''Jaeger'', German for "hunter"). Other characters, usually ones loyal to Feric, have vaguely Germanic names. Ernst Rohm becomes Stag Stopa

* RuleOfCool: it's not clear why truncheons and motorcycles play such a big role in modern warfare, except that Hitler thinks that truncheons and motorcycles are cool.

** DieselPunk: as Feric Jaggar ascends to power, the Held air force uses giant aircraft with ten gasoline engines each and just as big steam tanks. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_X Both]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_tank existed]] in RealLife in the period between UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and 1933 [[RealLifeWritesThePlot and performed poorly]], just as Jaggar himself admits. Reason for which our hero pushes the Helden industry to develop smaller, faster and more practical designs.

** A while after the last example, it is reported to Jaggar that nearly forty thousand pure human females have been found suitable for breeding with the SS. (Meanwhile, [[FridgeHorror seventy thousand suitable SS recruits have been found]].) [[invoked]]
** All of this is, of course, intentional, reflecting as it does both Hitler's general lack of interest in women and Nazism's simultaneous encouragement of traditional female roles and tendencies towards postering overbearing masculinity. It also reflects a general tendency within many works of HeroicFantasy to basically reduce women to scenery.