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| Author: |
David Kowalski |
| Barcode/ISBN13: | 9781405038041 |
| ISBN: | 1405038047 |
| Imprint/Brand: | Macmillan Australia |
| Release Date: | Aug 2007 |
| Format: | Trade Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 739 |
| Weight: | 976 grammes |
| Price in AUD: | $35.00 |
| Categories: | Australian Author Alternate History Suspense / Thriller Fiction Staff Favourites / Staff Recommendations Award Winners Time Travel Bestsellers Book |
Winner: 2007 Golden Aurealis
Winner: 2007 Aurealis Award: Best Science Fiction Novel
He could feel it. The flutter of butterfly wings that would herald a brighter, better world. He looked out to the flat, calm ocean, the moonless night. Beyond the ship's illumination the dark waters rose up so that he felt as if he and the ship lay at the centre of a vast opaque bowl. Then at a distance, under the starlight's dim flicker, he saw it. First, a jagged edge, then two irregular peaks, riding black against the black night sky.
Conspiracies linking events as disparate as the sinking of the Titanic and the assassination of J.F.K., have played themselves out in dark and unforeseen ways.
The Cold War between Greater Germany and Imperial Japan is drawing to a close.
America, divided and scarred, will be the final battleground in a world distinctly different, yet disturbingly familiar to our own.
Six people have the means to avert the apocalypse.
Welcome to the secret history of the 20th Century.
Delivery of this item will likely take 6 weeks. This is because it is not currently in stock and is an indent item with our supplier. Indent titles are not held in the Australian warehouse but brought by the Australian distributor via by surface freight to satisfy orders.
This is a time travel thriller with science fiction elements. It is firstly a suspense mystery with secrets and cold war espionage, and a conspiracy of staggering ambition, but at the core of the story is time travel. Most of the story is set in an alternate near future earth, of similar technical level to ours but with refreshingly different science applications. I was a little perplexed that an Australian writer would set most of the story in America, even if an alternate America, not the USA. However, one could argue that the past 100 years or so has seen the rise of America and as this story shows, history could easily have been different. Kowalski has Germany still triumphant from the Great War and Japan its major rival. North America has suffered proxy wars and partitioning. The plot repeatedly revisits the sinking of the Titanic and follows the unfolding understanding of its significance to the protagonists. Some are subverted to be true believers, some go mad and some oppose because they cannot understand.
There are many characters and this can get confusing, but their ranks thin as the plot thickens. Once I was well inducted into Kowalski's world (say 100 pages) I was as hooked as I would be to a Matthew Reilly action adventure. This is of very different style, however, and reminded me of "Ash" by Mary Gentle, "The Scar" by China Mevielle and "Marrow" by Robert Reid. In his storytelling, he achieves where many new writers fail, he shows rather than tells. There is plenty of exposition, but it is in the action that we see the characters develop. His medical background shows in some of the language use, but appropiately as when we read from the perspective of a character who is a doctor. The story jumps often in perspective from character to character and has many short chapters. This reminded me of the flicker of old B&W newsreels, as it imparts a sense of history happening, with the flickering unknowability of historical fine details. After all, who knows what really happened on board the Titanic, and how the 20th century could have turned out, and what conspiracies are true.
