Customer Reviews

Two Hawks from Earth

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The scene is World War II. Native American Bomber Pilot Roger Two Hawks, off course on a mission to bomb the Ploesti oil fields in Rumania, has a mid air collision with a German plane over enemy territory. Along with Pat O'Brien, turret gunner, he is the only person to successfully manage to get a parachute open and descend to the countryside.

Hawks felt something odd just before the crash, however, and that oddness is reinforced when Hawks and O'Brien land. The people are all wrong, with technology distinctly primitive (~World War I era) by even backwater Rumanian standards. What's more, they speak a language that Hawks recognizes as a derivative of an Iroquois tongue.

Hawks, as a reader of science fiction and comic books has figured out what has happened. Somehow he and the gunner have wound up in a parallel history. One where the Siberian tribes that would have gone to America (only a chain of islands here), instead rolled west and vastly changed subsequent history. But events quickly sweep up Hawks along, as this world has a World War on a scale similar to his own going on...

Two Hawks from Earth is the story of Roger's quest to make his way through this world, and find a way to get back home. Along the way, his skills in this slightly technologically backward world are much in demand. And, of course, like any good adventure novel, there is always the love interest.

Some of the science (especially the ethnography) is outdated and flat out wrong. Given that, though, Two Hawks from Earth does what Farmer wrote very well--action and adventure, with a protagonist making his way in an unfamiliar world.

I read this book years ago in its bowdlerized and shortened edition (The Gate of Time) and I wondered if the re-read would hold up to my memories. I noticed the differences in the text, but the basic premise of the novel and the writing still held up for me.

I enjoyed it heavily. Fans of Farmer should not miss this reprint of a long-out-of-print novel, and fans of Alternate History novels will appreciate this as well. Its not a door stopper that people such as Turtledove put out, Farmer keeps the pace crackling and the novel and story never get dull.

Sometimes you can go back into your reading past and come away delighted again. I certainly was in this case.

I read most of Phillip Jose Farmer's books between 1978 and 1985. Recently I started reading them again. The intervening years may have caused my preferences to change. After rereading a lot of his stories, I have revised my opinions. I think Two Hawks is his best novel in several respects: the way he developes believable speculative science; and the way the history, linguistics and ethnology of the parallel earth were developed.

Two Hawks From Earth - The magical transposition of beings from our Earth to an alternative Earth is one of the standard plot ideas common in the universe of science-fiction novels. Authors usually employ some pseudo-scientific hocus-pocus to justify this highly improbable event. The hero muses about the "warp in the space time fabric" and temporary "time gates' opening or the old standby a "black hole eruption" to rationalize the experience. Clever authors soon have the heroes up to their neck in alligators and leeches. Musing about author's the crackpot speculations are soon forgotten and the plot rumbles or stumbles on.

Phil Farmer, an author I hold in high esteem, wrote "Two Hawks' early in his career. Mr. Two Hawks, a WW2 bomber pilot, and his gunner are spirited to Earth 1 as they parachute from their disabled plane. Earth 1 is appreciably unlike in geography, evolution and technological development from our Earth. One aspect of the world that is identical is War. The story line then is fairly straightforward. Two Hawks, a military man from an advanced Earth, is hunted by the military intelligence services of the warring factions. His goal is to return to his "home" Earth. Farmer works with great diligence to keep this potboiler bubbling but, quite frankly, it is a story that has been told better by other writers.

It is painfully apparent that Mr. Farmer spent many long hours researching continental drift theories, ancient migration patterns, language development and conjectures on racial development. Instead of padding his story with a few smart sounding observations we are given the whole load - pages and pages of esoteric theories and ideas. All this excessive "information" did was to turn a modestly interesting story into a very uninteresting one.
If you have read Farmer's Riverworld" books you find the discussion in "Two Hawks from Earth" concerning air ships, there construction and use as a military weapon, familiar.

In the forward to my 1985 Berkley edition Farmer tells us that he was very displeased when, in 1966, an editor changed the title to "The Gate of Time" and revised some of the dialog. Farmer had the intended title restored, dialog reset and added some addition words expanding the ending. Interested readers may want to read "The Gate of Time' which is available here, used, on Amazon.

I read this book so many years ago but still remember just how exciting and great read it was.
An American Indian military man goes into an alternate reality where the Germans are in charge.
A must read for action/adventure fans!