"Whenever Yael studied this map, she couldn’t help but be amazed at the scale of Hitler’s victory. According to the stories, when the Führer first announced his vision of an occupied Africa and Europe to his generals, some of them had laughed."
Yael is the name of the protagonist of the story. She is a young Jewish girl. This quote effectively situates the defining premise of the novel. The map that Yael is looking at is one which reveals that Nazi Germany has succeeded in taking over Africa and Europe. The map is one in which large swaths of territory are colored crimson. The red signifies which areas are under full control of occupying German forces. There is no actual historical map to be found in which all of Europe and the entire crown of northern Africa are marked as being under the dominating thumb of fascist forces during World War II. The laughter referenced here at Adolf Hitler's dream of controlling all of Europe and much of Africa was an absurd fever dream throughout the war which never came to fruition. What this quote informs the reader in an efficient fashion is that this book presents an alternative history in which the fascist domination of Germany and Japan triumphed rather than experienced humiliating defeat.
"This was Experiment 85: Every other morning, at the end of the four-hour roll call, a guard shouted out Yael’s number. Every other morning, she had to follow him through two sets of barbed-wire gates and over the train tracks, all the way to the doctor’s office."
In addition to being an example of the alternative history literary genre, the novel also introduces an element of hard science fiction as the driving force of the storyline. Experiment 85 draws upon the historical abomination of Nazi Frankenstein-like attempts to attain genetic perfection for their so-called superior race. In this fictionalization of that historical reality, Experiment 85 takes the whole concept of the fantasy of a supreme Aryan race to a complicated level. The experiments are designed to transform those who do not represent the ideal Aryan dream of physical appearance into replicated copies. In other words, dark hair is turned blonde, brown eyes are turned blue, etc. The reference in the quote to fences with barbed wire and the train tracks leading to the gate alludes to the concentration camps in which Nazis tortured and experimented upon helpless subjects. The motivation of the experimentation is to turn the very Semitic Yael into a proudly blonde, blue-eyed replication of the Aryan physical perfection which, notably, Hitler himself stood in complete opposition to with his own physical appearance.
“Our honored Führer and the Emperor Hirohito welcome you to the tenth Axis Tour. Ten of the Fatherland’s finest youths have been selected from our most rigorous training programs. They will race alongside Japan’s ten strongest. These racers will endure the desert sands of Africa, the jagged peaks of the Indian subcontinent, the tangled jungles of Asia, the waves of the Pacific. Only the hardiest and purest will survive. Only the strongest will win.”
Experiment 85 does not go entirely as planned. Yael is not just able to replicate the blonde hair and blue eyes of presumed Aryan perfection, she is able to transform her appearance at will. Using this ability, she can take on the physical appearance of a popular female motorcyclist. The Axis Tour is the revised historical equivalent of any modern-day global sporting competition. It is an opportunity for the combined fascist superpowers of Germany and Japan to propagandize their victory while distracting fans across the world from any failures of policy they may be suffering from at the hands of those two leaders. It is no mere coincidence that the race takes bikers across half the world. That is the world under the control of fascism. This bike race is integral to the plot. The winner will enjoy the spoils of victory that include a dance with the beloved leader of them all, Adolf Hitler. And if Yael can pull off this victory in the guise of the female favorite, it will become the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to assassinate the Führer live in front of a global audience. Success will not just eliminate Hitler but also prove that the resistance can result in revolution.
