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40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An epic tale that picks up where Days of Infamy left off, May 3, 2006
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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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
read this while hungry, November 1, 2005
Here is a suggestion. Try reading this book when you are hungry. It will put you into the right mood to empathise with the most common theme pervading the book. Hunger. Turtledove depicts Hawaii under Japanese occupation during World War 2. There is extensive treatment of a collage of characters, in the manner familiar from many of his books.
He shows the privations endured by civilians and captured American soldiers. The experiences of the latter were far grimmer. Though keep in mind that while specific incidents are fictional, the general experiences are not. He draws upon actual events in our timeline, in places like China, Hong Kong, Philippines and Singapore, that underwent occupation. The bitter passages in the text about the POWs are no exaggeration of what actually transpired at Bataan and Burma.
As you surely know, Turtledove has produced several long series of books. When I started reading this book, I thought it might be at least the second in a trilogy. But after reaching its end, I am not so sure. The last pages could be a very apt ending to this series. I am not going to reveal this. Read the book and see if you agree.
What if there is to be another text? The narrative describes the European theatre as basically unchanged from our timeline. And the US focuses its effort there first. So Germany falls in May 1945. But Japan has essentially bought up to two extra years, in which it shores up its defenses, between the Home Islands and Hawaii. There is repeated reference to this in the text. So both the Japanese and the Americans take far heavier casulties, across the Pacific. Now suppose the Manhattan Project continues on the same schedule as historically. By July 1945, the Americans might not control Tinian or any other island close enough to Japan to launch an atomic attack. If the war goes onto 1947, the US will have lost many more soldiers; and have 8 to 10 atomic bombs. The urge to use these might be irresistable, given that they are at hand, and the high casualties, especially considering the atrocities in Hawaii. In our history, "Remember Pearl Harbour" was a rallying cry. But in the book's timeline, this would have far greater force. Not the least because of what the American civilians in Hawaii experienced. (In our timeline, no significant numbers of American civilians endured occupation anywhere.)
An ironic worse outcome for Japan, due to its initial victory at Hawaii.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Masterpiece, January 15, 2006
In this second work of an alternate history in which the Japanese invaded Hawaii after their sneak attack, Turtledove shows his brilliance yet again. He manages to take an alternate view of things, ask "what if it happened this way?" and proceed from their in a logical and, most importantly, an interesting manner. He does well at this in all his works but this one is especially well done.
The situation involves a Japanese occupation of Hawaii. The US wants it back and has failed once already to take it. Caught in the middle are the POWs, the native and the occasional tourist who were trapped there on December 7th. This can be read as a military adventure and it does well as such but the best parts are the characterizations. The bad guys sometimes have some redeeming qualities. The good guys often have flagrant flaws and nothing is as simple as it seems. Especially telling is his account of two US born citizens of Hawaii whose father and mother are Japanese immigrants. Dad is loyal to the emperor; the kids are loyal to Uncle Sam and nobody really trusts them.
Its an exciting read. It is also a thought provoking one.
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