There have been literally dozens of alternate history stories whose critical event is some aspect of
World War II, many of them set in a world where
the Germans and Japanese won the war and
occupy part or all of the United States. The MAN
IN THE HIGH CASTLE (1962) by Philip K. DICK,
SS-GB (1978) by Len Deighton, and Fatherland
(1992) by Robert Harris are some of the more
popular examples. One of the earliest and still
among the best of these is this novella by C. M.
KORNBLUTH, one of the last things he wrote prior
to his death.
The protagonist is Edward Royland, a scientist
working on the Manhattan Project who partakes of
a peyotelike hallucinogen and awakens to find
himself 150 years in the future, in an America that
has been ruled jointly by Germany and Japan ever
since 1955. Royland is not an entirely sympathetic
character. He had formerly found much to admire
in the efficiency of the two dictatorships, and once
he accepts that he has been projected into the future and is not just dreaming, he attempts to find a
place among the conquerors instead of the conquered, hoping that his knowledge of atomic
weapons development—which has apparently
been completely lost—can be used as a bargaining
chip to better his circumstances. He finds instead
that the Germans, and later the Japanese, are
both dominated by a primitive tribal culture that
lacks flexibility, retards progress, and reacts with
dull routine to even extraordinary circumstances.
Kornbluth, who had previously expressed some
disdain for the shortsightedness of the masses in
“The MARCHING MORONS” (1951), shows a
similar pessimism about the leadership elite as well.
Contained within the story is a short but interesting scenario that explains the outcome of the
war, and that proves to the narrator that he is not
in his own future but in an alternate universe
where Hitler was a minor player and Herman
Göring ruled a Germany that was more victim
than predator. He eventually reawakens in his original time and place, convinced now of the wisdom
of developing an atomic bomb as the lesser of two
evils.