Customer Reviews

Half a Crown

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Walton's 'Small Change' Trilogy, begun with Farthing, and continued with Ha'penny is brought to a satisfactory, and somewhat surprising conclusion in this book. Unlike its predecessors it does not revolve around a crime. Instead it is focused on the actions of two characters, the commander of Britain's political police, the Watch, Commander Carmichael, and his ward, Elvira Royston, as they grapple with the political and social realities of this alternative Britain of 1960. Carmichael, and his partner/manservant Jack provide continuity with the previous novels, though mention is made of characters from both, and characters from both previous novels make appearances.

Walton plays with alternative history like a musician, bringing in elements from actual history with a slight skew. In Farthing it was the Cliveden Set, in Ha'penny, it was the Mitford sisters; here it is Burgess, minus Maclean, Philby, and Blunt, but elevated. The novel concludes with a twist, as surprising as it is welcome, delivered by a character singularly appropriate for the role.

The concluding volume of an alternative history trilogy in which Britain made peace with Nazi Germany in 1940. The volume recounts the fall of the British authoritarian state through the experience of its 2 protagonists. Walton is a competent writer but this book lacks the best features of its predecessors. The prior books contained some clever plot construction, the first book was a variant of the country house murder mystery, the second a clever play on Hamlet, but this one lacks any such elements. The prior books drew on some historical characters as models for some of the characters but this one does not. The plotting and characterization are workmanlike. Several aspects of the plot are a bit strained. As an alternative history, this book doesn't do very well, with little interesting detail or effort to flesh out the proposed alternative path of history.

Jo Walton's "Small Change" trilogy is a challenging one to classify. Her previous novels in the series, and , easily fit a number of genres - alternate history, murder mystery, suspense novel thriller - without entirely being defined by any one of them. This book, the final novel in her series, is no different. Less a murder mystery than a political thriller, it takes her concept of a Britain descending towards fascism and moves it a decade into the future. By 1960, Britain has been ruled by politician-turned-dictator Mark Normanby for a decade. Jews and other perceived undesirables are frequently rounded up and sent for disposal to the Continent, where the Nazis have triumphed in their long-running war against the Soviets. Most Britons have accepted fascist rule, with a police force that now regularly tortures suspects, and a body called the Watch which serves as a domestic Gestapo; some have even come to believe it to be beneficial. Yet not everyone has submitted to the regime. Among the ranks f the few resisters is Peter Carmichael, a former Scotland Yard inspector turned secret policeman, who runs a clandestine organization that struggles to help rescue people when possible. Yet he is faced with the twin challenge of a potential coup by the Duke of Windsor and the discovery of his secret life by his ward Elvira Royston, the orphaned daughter of his former police partner. Together they threaten to unravel his clandestine work, possibly even at the cost of his life.

As with the other volumes, Walton develops her story by alternating between the first-person account of the naive Elvira and a third person narrative focusing on Carmichael. Yet there is no great mystery in this volume but a dual plot focusing on the emergence of the totalitarian "Ironsides" movement and Elvira's growing exposure to the realities of her world. Without the mystery, the emphasis is on suspense, yet Walton comes up short here. While she implies that her alternate Britain is a terrifying place, little of this seems to come out in the novel itself. Instead, everything seems almost laughably tame, from a secret policeman who is astonishing indiscreet and easily caught unawares to a underground coup that is hardly anything to fear. All of this saps the suspense from the story, making it a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion to an otherwise enjoyable and well-realized series.

I just finished the third book on a plane. I kept delaying finishing the books because I did not want it to end. Through the whole series I was unable to predict anything coming. Most books are obvious where they are going but not this series. There is a wonderful feel to the books of London after the war. The characters are believable and varied.

The ending was uplifting. After finishing it was hard to pick up another book.

To anyone who has visited London the atmoshphere is perfect but the questions raised about security are well worth pondering. I kept asking myself what I would do in the character's situation.

Much better than the author's fantasy books.

One shouldn't take the "alternate history" trappings of Walton's "pocket change" trilogy too seriously. Other, lesser, writers have created works based on counterfactual historical premises in which the whole point is to explore the ramifications of a world in which, for example, Napoleon wins at Waterloo, or someone uses a time machine to ship a load of AK-47s and ammunition to Robert E. Lee.

Jo Walton's trilogy does rest on a historical counterfactual--that the United States refused to support Britain in 1940, and that Britain was consequently forced to make peace with Hitler. However, the counterfactual is not central to Walton's work; it is only a literary device that serves to set the story in a place that both is, and is not, here and now. Because the world of Walton's trilogy is a distorted version of our own, both recognizable and yet alien, what might have been an ideological diatribe becomes instead a most effective parable.

Walton uses this dark mirror of our world as a stage-setting for a parable that illustrates compellingly the ease with which men can be seduced into accepting evil in return for an imagined safety, and how quickly ordinary and decent people can be made to descend the declivity of betrayal, corruption, fear, and self-hate. Walton writes as though she cares about her characters, and consequently makes us care. Most of them are neither totally evil nor altogether good; they are almost always interesting. Caught up in events they cannot control, these people must make decisions that entail compromises; some win through, while others lose their lives or--worse--their souls.

Though Walton's story has clear parallels to the present day, she is never heavy-handed, obvious, or judgmental. While Walton's trilogy isn't an ideological sermon, it does disturb and--one hopes--gives rise to serious reflection.

My one criticism of this work is that Inspector Carmichael gets off too lightly. The inspector has compromised too much of his integrity; I feel that there should have been a price required for that.

Half a Crown is well written and exciting to the last page. It also relies on a hugely implausible occurrence to keep the plot in motion. And the book is also disturbing, probably in a way the author did not intend.

The hole in plot is an extraordinary lapse of judgment by Watch Commander Carmichael, in which he deliberately reveals his true aims and activities to a complete stranger, and inadvertently to another person. Carmichael's out-of-character foolishness is a transparent and clumsy plot device. It moves the plot along, but it is a rip in the narrative that I was never able to put out of mind.

There are other weaknesses in the story. People travel in airships, which is a truly hackneyed way of signaling to the reader that this is a different world. Carmichael, the head of the British Gestapo, is fearful that any stranger at his door could be an assassin, but takes a long country drive with no security in sight. These are small things, but they stand out as failures by the author to maintain the perfect pitch she sustained in the first two books.

The troubling part of the story is that it strongly suggests that Britain could have been just fine if it had made peace with Hitler. In the Farthing world, by 1960 Britain is one of three global powers (with Germany and Japan); the country is prosperous; and the empire is secure and mainly subservient. Change one crucial detail - give Britain a democracy rather than a fascist government - and Britain in the Farthing world is arguably much better off than in the real world where it fought Hitler and bankrupted itself. The author did not have to go this route with the story - that is, fascist Britain did not have to be wealthy and powerful - and it is too bad she did.

One other jarring note is the depiction of the United States. The U.S. is apparently a third-rate power, has lost wars with Japan and Britain, is coming apart at the seams, and to add insult to injury someone has nuked Miami. I don't know the author's intentions, but she has painted a picture of the United States that I suspect matches what much of the European elite thinks ought to have happened to the upstarts across the ocean.

I have a final criticism. The author never explained how James Thirkie was induced to commit suicide by gassing himself in a car. Having gone through the trouble of setting up this extraordinary situation, the author never does anything with it. Thirkie becomes even more intriguing when we learn that not only did he negotiate peace with Hitler, but his sister-in-law was married before the war to Himmler. There was a lot more that could have been done with this character, but the author did not take the opportunity.

Half a Crown does not disappoint, and Walton brings her superb trilogy of fascist Britain to its inevitable conclusion. Unlike some reviewers, I do not think the ending was too optimistic or unexpected. Recent history has shown that there are cycles to the behavior of governments and individuals, and whether one is lucky enough to be around in one of the "good" cycles, or unfortunate enough to be living in one of the "bad," what goes around, comes around, and everything ends, even tyranny. Though it appears the new regime will be more liberal and enlightened, and certainly the previous crowd were mad as hatters, I do not think it certain that Walton is telling readers that now everything will be ok. A new group is taking over, they look and smell better, but it's really only a question of their time having arrived, who knows how it will all end up. After all, we all get the governments and the leaders we deserve.

Watch Commander Carmichael deftly walks a fine line again. He has to deal with Prime Minister Normanby, his old boss Penn-Barkis at Metropolitan, his valet and lover Jack, and his illegal activities saving Jews. Add into the mix his "niece" Elvira who is more concerned with what jewelry to wear when being presented to the Queen than the creeping Fascism enveloping England.

Like the other two, I couldn't put this one down. The girl who thought Fascism was jolly good fun learns first-hand its horrors as she gets further involved, through no fault of her own, in a subversive plot. Saying that her eyes get opened is putting it mildly. Elvira's experiences takes Normanby's Fascism from an abstract concept to a deeply-felt personal experience. Watching how she changes during this is part of what makes this book worth its stars.

I also enjoyed seeing how Walton refers back to the other two books. I kept looking for any references and was glad to see them when they showed up.

What cost this book its fifth star was the ending. The last book in the trilogy could have ended better. Also, Walton set the bar pretty high with the first book. Duplicating the feel of encroaching doom would have been hard.

All in all though, anyone who has read the first two will greatly enjoy this one

This loose trilogy of books are among the best books i've read in the last few years - wonderfully written, carefully crafted, and eminently credible characters and situations, set in an alternate what if scenario stretching from the 1930's to the 1960's in England. Jo Walton deserves to be at the top of the bestseller lists. 10/10!

In 1941 Britain and Germany signed the Farthing Peace accord, which allowed the English elite to continue to live an affluent lifestyle while "undesirables" like the Jews and any anti government protestors have been and still are shipped to Easton Europe in cattle cars. Nineteen years later, London hosts an international peace conference in which the three superpowers Britain, Germany and Japan plan to increase their respective spheres of influence.

Peter Carmichael left Scotland Yard to become head of the Watch, a secret police whose midnight raids have terrorized much of the country. His mission is to weed out dissenters and traitors as well as Jews. However, he tries to sneak the Jews to safety when he can. He also knows his relationship with his valet Jack, if discovered will send him to the camps in the east as that behavior is unacceptable. However, everything will soon come to a head for Peter when teenage ward Elvira Royston overhears a conversation that if she reveals will destroy her guardian.

One of the best alternate historical miniseries in recent years, the final tale is as terrific as its predecessors (see HA'PENNY and FARTHING) due to the strong characterizations. Readers obtain a taste of living under a totalitarian rule especially how the next generation, who were born after the Farthing Peace Accord, react; in many ways Elivra's simple acceptance of the inevitability of human brutality makes the tale and the saga. In all the bleakness as the let them eat cake affluent party thrives while many suffer; there remain slight flickers of hope, but slowly they are being snuffed out.

Harriet Klausner