End of the Beginning: A Novel of Alternate History |
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End of the Beginning: A Novel of Alternate History
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by Harry Turtledove
Sales Rank: 494929
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List Price: $25.95
$1.11
At Amazon
on 6-20-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 448 pages
Published by: NAL Hardcover November 1, 2005
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0451216687
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0451216687
Book Dimensions:
9.1 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
Weighs: 1.4 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
The human price of war, regardless of nationality, is the relentless focus of this chilling sequel to Turtledove's alternative history Days of Infamy (2004), in which the Japanese conquer Hawaii after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Times are hard for Americans under the occupation. Scarce food and resources result in privation and a thriving black market. Japanese soldiers work POWs to death with heavy labor on insufficient rations. Women are forced into prostitution as comfort women. But the U.S. armed forces have a few tricks up their sleeve, notably a new kind of aircraft that can hold its own against the Zero. Both the Japanese and American militaries scheme, plan and train, while surfer bums, POWs and fishermen just try to get by. A plethora of characters, each with his or her own point of view, provide experiences in miniature that combine to paint a broad canvas of the titanic struggle, if at the cost of a fragmented narrative.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
The Japanese occupation of Hawaii after Pearl Harbor has delayed the U.S. cross-Pacific offensive for two years. But it is coming, with Joe Crossetti as part of the spearhead, piloting a Hellcat off of the new carrier Bunker Hill. Marine Sergeant Leo Dillon and his platoon aren't far behind. Meanwhile, the Japanese in the islands know they are in a logistically impossible situation and outnumbered, to boot. Some, like Minoru Genda and Mitsuo Fughida, do their best to continue the fight. Other Japanese seem to spend most of their time making Americans miserable. Fletcher Armitage is building a tunnel under slave-labor conditions, while his estranged wife, Jane, has been forced into being a comfort girl. Jiro Takahashi is profoundly embarrassing his Americanized and loyal sons by making propaganda broadcasts for the occupation authorities. And Oscar van der Klerk hopes that if he catches enough fish and keeps his head down, both he and Susie Higgins will survive the high-intensity combat that wrecks Honolulu in the second half of the book. An able continuation of the outstanding exploration of the unpleasant WWII alternate scenario that Turtledove launched in Days of Infamy (2004). Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Reader Reviews
I recently reviewed Days of Infamy: A Novel of Alternate History and while I thoroughly enjoyed the book, I complained that author Harry Turtledove perhaps understated the brutality of the Japanese during World War II. End of the Beginning picks up where Days of Infamy left off, and this time, I think the true horror of living in a Japanese occupied territory during World War II is clearly illustrated. Perhaps it is just me, but I am more horrified by violent rape than I am by death. Death can be horrible, but with death, the horror ends. In End of the Beginning, some of the characters that I had learned to identify with and had grown fond of find themselves in increasingly desperate straights. Hawaii's civilians are slowly starving. U.S. prisoners of war are on a program of accelerated slow death. Their hunger is punctuated by random beatings and grueling manual labor. Fletcher "Fletch" Armitage, a U.S. POW, is a walking skeleton and his wife Jane, who had been in the process of divorcing him when the war began, is forced to work in a Japanese "comfort house" as a sex slave. She is beaten and forced to satisfy numerous Japanese daily. The writer does an excellent job of bringing home the shame and horror of being forced to surrender your body repeatedly to other humans who do not perceive you as human but as an object to be used. This is not a book for children. I felt queasy reading certain passages, and I am perhaps one of the most jaded Americans I know. Despite or perhaps because of the discomfort I felt as the stories of characters I had come to care about unfolded and took turns for the worse, this book had me hypnotized throughout. It was better than Days of Infamy mostly because I was rooting for America to retake Hawaii the whole time. I had to wait to read End of the Beginning for this to happen. Although the Japanese are portrayed as brutal (and they were, historically speaking), Turtledove also portrays some of his Japanese characters as likeable men dedicated to their duty. Commander Genda, who is the engineer of the invasion and Admiral Yamamoto's protege, has an affair with the recently crowned Queen of Hawaii but he is a likable, intelligent man who is not brutal by nature and is simply doing his best to serve his nation. End of the Beginning managed to to suck me through its 440 pages in two days and left me wanting to hear more of the story. My own war here in Iraq seems boring by comparison to the scope and scale of events in World War II, and Turtledove's imagined land invasion of Hawaii is not that far off what might have happened. A highly worthwhile read for history buffs, action fans, romance lovers and adventure aficionados.
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End of the Beginning: A Novel of Alternate History
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Price: $1.11
Updated on 6-20-2008.
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