Historical Fiction

 

Ken Follet has taken on an ambitious project with his Century Trilogy. The first in the series is Fall of Giants and is a great read. The story follows several families in England, Germany, USA, and Russia and begins just prior to WWI. The families are interconnected through either blood relations, or circumstances that bring them together. The historical aspect of the novel is accurate and is a great way to learn, or in this case, re-learn history.

 

When I picked up the second book, Winter of the World, a few weeks ago, I was wondering if I would remember the characters from a few years back. I did not review the cast of characters but jumped right into the story and it soon all came back to me.

 

The location and time is pre-war Germany and Ken Follet gives a very chilling account of what it was like to live during those years when  Germany was led into Fascism. Some of the characters are pro Nazi while others recognize early on just what it is all about. The interesting thing is that many people in the rest of the world were also pro-Nazi and later communists as socialism was the 'in thing'. The novel is political as well as personal, taking us behind the scenes as leaders of the world are thrust into predicaments that result in war. There are chapters on the Pacific theater of the war, as well as in France, Spain, Poland, and Russia. The brutality and waste, the suffering and pain of war, is vividly portrayed as the heroes either live or die in those desperate times.

 

It took me a few weeks to get through the 940 pages, but well worth it. The story ends with the Communist Russians engineering their first A-bomb after stealing a blueprint from one of the scientists who helped develop the American version, and the beginning of the cold war as Berlin is divided between the victors of WWII. The history is just approaching the time when I came on the scene so the next and last installment will be greatly anticipated by this reader. Both the history and the development of the characters combine to make this novel hard to put down.

 

4 stars