Caliphate Mass Market Paperback – 23 Feb. 2010

Prophetic and depressingly accurate view of our not too distant future in Europe (unless Europe wakes up to the realisation that it is being colonized by a hostile force....).Well written, accurate in its depiction of a very sick culture, and a scathing condemnation of a woolly-headed population whose "leaders" will allow them and their culture to be destroyed by invasion disguised as immigration.For those who cry "racist" - No. This book is about a culture and a way of life utterly foreign and hostile to the civilised west. A culture and way of life which considers it right to murder anyone who disagrees with them.Read it and be warned.....

I found this book to be unpleasant to read but that isn’t a condemnation: it’s about an unpleasant subject matter. Some of the sex scenes were quite graphic but none of them pornographic. The violence, too, was nasty but – as I said earlier – violence is meant to be nasty: this isn’t ‘Saturday morning pictures’. I can't add much to the plot discussions that hasn't already been covered by other reviewers, but I will say that I take issue with the accusations of racism – the author is clearly not racist. He doesn’t like religious extremists much but that’s not racism: that’s just common sense. He doesn’t like Europeans much either. But everyone’s entitled to an opinion. I rejoice that I live in a society that this sort of book can be published in – not possible in many areas of the world. Will I read it again (as I often do with really good books). Probably not. Would I recommend it to a friend? Yes I probably would.

This is a "future history" novel which charts how the next century could be dominated by religious wars which destroy human lives on an even worse scale than the national and ethnic wars of the 20th century.Imagine that in 2103 the so-called "Islamic state" which is currently (January 2015) running parts of Iraq and Syria has brought half the world under their murderous and barbaric rule, and the other half of the world has become virulently anti-Islamic in a way which isn't very attractive either, and you have a good idea of the dystopian world presented in "Caliphate."The most frightening thing about this book is that when I first read it in 2008 I thought it was presenting a "worst-case scenario" view but with the rise of the so-called "Islamic State," which does indeed aspire to create a Caliphate like the one in this novel, it in danger of looking prophetic.My original review included the following sentence, which I no longer think is tenable:"Many muslims, by no means all of whom are extremists, will consider this novel Islamophobic. I do not share that view but I do understand it."That was a reasonable opinion in 2008, but it isn't now. The savagery and cruelty of the real-world caliphate which Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is currently trying to establish, starting in Iraq and Syria, are all too similar to those of the one depicted in this book - if anything the so-called "Islamic state" is even worse.The novel "Caliphate" begins in 2103 AD, in a dystopian future in which the world is split into two warring power blocks, in both of which freedoms and rights which we take for granted have been removed. The Caliphate, an empire which includes continental Europe, is run by Taliban-style Islamofascist extremists who treat all women and the christian minority like dirt, impose the death penalty for converting from Islam or for being gay, and so on. The USA has become a militaristic empire which wages a cold war against the Caliphate and a hot one against Canadian "rebels" (e.g. those who resist the forcible annexation of their country) and any other country which might allow Islam a foothold in the Americas.The story revolves around two victims of the Caliphate's tyranny: Petra, a German girl who is taken from her family and sold into slavery to pay a tax levied on the Christian minority, and her brother Hans, who is conscripted as a Janissary.One of the few Muslims who shows Petra kindness teaches her to read, enabling her to understand the one family posession she has been able to keep: the diary which her great-grandmother, Gabrielle von Minden, began to keep in 2003 and which explains how the ghastly world Petra is living in came into being.Although it presents the Islamic dictatorship in the book as a ghastly tyranny, the history in the book also has the United States grossly over-react to Al-Qaeda atrocities with terrible crimes of its own, and there is no suggestion in the book that the author would encourage or justify those actions. Kratman is criticising both appeasement and murderous over-reaction alike, and warning how a situation where each side responds to atrocities with fresh atrocity could spiral out of control.One of the saddest moments of the book is the diary entry in which Gabrielle's viewpoint flips from one pole to the other. She has spent her life to that point bending over backwards to excuse Muslim extremists in the belief that this is tolerance for Islam (Kratman makes a good argument that actually this sells moderate Muslims down the river.) Gabrielle has previously always blamed her own culture for the actions of islamic extremists. However, when she is finally confronted with an inexcusable and horrible crime which it would be almost impossible for any human being to forgive, in her pain and anger Gabrielle comes out with the most shocking thing a 21st century German liberal could possibly say.Nowhere does the book suggest that either Christians or Muslims have a monopoly of good or evil: the Christian and Muslim characters alike in the book include some who are good and some who are evil. (There are no atheists in 2103 AD in the book, mainly because the Caliphate has exterminated them in the area it controls.)Secondly, while Kratman makes clear in the afterword that he is not suggesting that a future history like the one in this book is inevitable, he is probably right that if we are stupid enough to let it happen, much worse wars of religion than we have yet seen could indeed occur - and it is worth thinking about how to avoid that outcome. If this book makes people think about how to strike the right balance which achieves religious toleration without either appeasing extremists or victimising the innocent, that's a good thing.Alternatively you can read it just as an exciting fantasy.

I approached Kratman's novel with an open mind after reading a few other reviews.Needless to say that I couldn't put the book down. It was brilliant! "Caliphate" is just one possibility for our future in Europe among many such possibilities. His portrayal of both an Imperialist Islamic Europe and a hardline fascist America really do hit home as it looks convincing. However, it's not designed to be.The book is neither anti-Islamic nor anti-Western. It is simply an alternative history story, personally I found "Invasion" by DC Alden to be more hard hitting. The reader should approach the novel with tongue firmly in cheek as there are some funny moments (I'll not mention any, you can find out for yourself). The real villains of the story are the scientists and their perversions (Again, I won't spoil it). There are also scenes some may find offensive, but such is the thing with novels; sometimes they're supposed to be.It's entertainment and damn good it is too.

Not to sure about this

This is a well written story, the pace is good, and the characters are believable and fleshed out.I'm not sure if I'd choose the bouncing back and forward style between the current story and the Gabi back story, but it works here quite well.What stops this getting a 5 star is the political stance the author seems to have taken, I found at several points in the story the decidedly anti European bias a bit much.The views of Christianity / Islam were more balanced and believable however.The afterword explains it quite well, so is well worth reading, but I do not agree with many of his conclusions, though they are well thought out.There are a few nasty bits in the story, I think that they could have been described more briefly without losing any plot, so be warned it isn't for the faint hearted, though if you skip a few paragraphs / a page or so you still get the idea of what happens at these points.

this could really happen, if it does then we all need help.took me a while to sort out the dating system, but once i did, i was sorted.and i am very glad that i didn't live there.

Superb tale, very defly written. I enjoy all of Tom's tales, due to the way the mores of the cultures interact with the morals of the folk in the stories. Thought-provoking, as well. I re-read Glubb Pasha's books, on the Middle East, after finishing Caliphate, to refresh my memory about the origins of the Muslims, and about the workings-out of their religion. Another book, from WWII, was also re-read, and it was Poppski's Private Army (for western Egypt, and Libyia, and the folk living there).

the book is quite good, but suffers from three issues:- the writing style and quality are a little poor IMO, but still offer an easy reading- the plot is nothing impressive- the author uses the book to promote his own political views and prejudices, although he's obvious in doing soon the other hand, the story is captivating, the characters well developed, and above all, the scenario is thrilling. The setting is imaginative and speculative, of course, but still it makes the reader wonder what are the chances of it becoming a real eventuality, and in so doing to ponder about the present day issues which look like grim omens of that imaginary future. After all, the book was written well before the rise of the ISIS...

Not a great book, but still an interesting read. The plot was decent, even if it is predictable. The characters were very good, fleshed out so that you really get a feel for them. I do think that some of the more explicit sexual scenes were unnecessary, did not add any thing to the story, while trying to portray the muslims as more evil than the westerners. Also the SF parts of the novel were not explained in a way that the reader could understand.I would recommend this book to anybody that enjoys reading dystoian, fantasy or thrillers.Afterword, do read this as it is good for a laugh. Mr. Kratman seems to think he is in a position to be giving advice to Europeans. In fact he has a list of 10 things we should do to save ourselves from this terrible fate. I won't bore you with the list, except to say that the U.S. is doing a good many of the same things that Mr. Kratman accuses the Europeans of!He also mentions Mark Steyn's position, ( I suppose he is referring to his book "America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It") about the decline of Europe. Yet he fails to mention Mark Steyn's other book " After America: Get Ready for Armageddon" where this time Steyn's position is the downfall of the U.S. Only faster and a lot less pleasant than Europe's.Mr.Kratman also mentions some legal cases in Europe where the judges took the side of the Muslims even to the point of citing the Koran.In Pennsylvania at a Parade of Atheists of Central Pennsylvania. a man was attacked by a Muslim for wearing a costume of a Zombie Muhammad. Even though the man admitted to attacking the other man, this did not stop the judge from throwing the case out of court, an stating the following:"In fact I have a copy of the Koran here and I challenge you sir to show me where it says in the Koran that Mohammad arose and walked among the dead. I think you misinterpreted things. Before you start mocking someone else's religion you may want to find out a little bit more about it. It makes you look like a doofus... In many Arabic speaking countries something like this is definitely against the law there. In their society in fact it can be punishable by death and it frequently is in their society."I think Mr. Kratman would be better off offering his advice to his fellow Americans, after all according to his own afterword it s too late for us!I was pleased to see he dedicated his book to Oriana Fallaci among others, one of my favorite authors. RIP Oriana

Der Roman ist ein interessantes Gedankenexperiment. Eingefügte Zitate zeigen, dass diese Ideen schon heute manche Muslime bewegen. Stil und Aufbau sind nicht jedermanns Sache, besonders wenn es um die die Schilderung der amerikanischen Akteure geht.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story of a possible future showing the outcome of an Islamic supremacist takeover of Europe. By the 22nd Century former native residents have become jizya-paying 2nd class subjects, or janissary troops in the Caliphate military, or outright slaves. Islam has become the central ideology across the continent, and tolerates dissent even less than the cosmopolitan Left does today. The novel follows the turmoil that enters the lives of several characters pulled from their toil. The escalation of events is handled very well, pushing up what's at stake and showing the protagonist's measured, building, visceral response. The story's climax really rocks! I have since gone on to read the first two titles in Kratman's 'Carerra Series', and those too are storytelling at its finest.I also enjoyed how the author explores the world according to Islam, its ideology, its worldview, where the expansionism comes from, what it portends, how it can be resisted and fought, what the risks are, and what the outcome could be if no resistance is forthcoming.Plus the novel is just great entertainment. It's one of the best high-action, adrenalin-fueled suspense novels on a plausible direction this global conflict could take. It's full of relentless action. Plus the characters resonate and feel very true-to-life.