The Proteus Operation [Mass Market Paperback]

James P. Hogan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1986

When malcontents from a utopian twenty-first century use their time gate to transform Hitler into an invincible conqueror, a band of freedom-fighting Americans launches the Proteus project and builds a second time gate. Reprint.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 407 pages
• Publisher: Bantam Books (September 1, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 055325698X
• ISBN-13: 978-0553256987
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,812,876 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining Mixture of Secret and Alternate Histories, September 12, 2000

By 

Randy Stafford (St. Paul, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Proteus Operation (Mass Market Paperback)

Financed by a rich oligarchy losing their power and influence in a prosperous and peaceful 21st century, Project Overlord decides to create a world more to its liking. A world in the past, a world where Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party are more than just obscure players in German political history.

They succeed, and the novel opens in 1974 with an America grimly preparing to fight the final battle against the Nazi menace which spans the globe. The Proteus team -- commandos, physicists, and politicians from that doomed world -- travels back to 1939. There they will attempt to reshape history with political manipulation and atomic weapons.

Hogan not only does a nice job of building an alternate timeline which diverges from ours in 1930's Germany, but he also details the history of Nazi aggression in our world and constructs, through the Proteus team's efforts, a secret history of our timeline. Or is it? Hogan, establishing the mutability of history, keeps the reader guessing as to the outcome of what seems to be our past.

Along the way, he not only gives us the expected historical figures of Churchill and Roosevelt, but also physicists Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, and Edward Teller. And there's an odd young writer named Isaac Asimov hanging about too.

I have one minor complaint with this novel. Hogan belabors the explanation of the quantam mechanics he uses to move the plot. However, his detailed explanation was probably necessary for those for whom this is their first exposure to the idea, presumably a fair number of the technothriller and alternate history crowd who should like this book as well as Hogan's usual science fiction reader.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A mixture of science fiction and alternate history, August 29, 2000

By 

Francis McIlvaine (Fairfield, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Proteus Operation (Mass Market Paperback)

The story starts in the 1970's America, an America that is different from our own because of the Axis victory in WW II. Some agents find out that the reason for this Axis victory was that people from the future had come into this time-line and provided help to the Nazi's. The Americans are committed to also go back into the timeline and counteract the help the Nazi's are receiving to desperately help themselves out of their bleak prediciment. They chose to contact Winston Churchill,(who was killed fighting the Nazi's in their timeline) in an attempt to redirect their past. It is very interesting even to discover why they thought that this person should be their contact point. This novel has everything you would want in a novel, likeable characters that you care about, fast paced action, internally consistant technology, and historical perspective. What I liked about this book is that you are given "the big picture", but you are following characters so that you are also "living the story". When I read this novel for the first time, I remember getting the data together so that I could finally make the assessment on how these worlds related to our time-line. The elite team that goes back in time in an attempt to save the US is really the best that the nation has to offer. Their exploits will make you race through the novel. I really like Alternate history type novels, I have read a large number of them, and this is far and away my favorite. I have read this novel a number of times, and each time I get lost in the story. This novel allows you to suspend disbelief, and becomes a real page turner. If you have not had the pleasure of reading this book, I believe that you are in for a treat.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Fertile Plot, May 29, 2003

By 

vanishingpoint - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Proteus Operation (Mass Market Paperback)

Yes, the characters may be a bit cardboardish. Yes, the writing might be a tad clunky. But Hogan makes up for all of his mechanical shortcomings by inundating the reader with massive amounts of plot -- and I loved every minute of it. It's been so long since I've read a purely plot-driven novel, and it was refreshing.

The main character of this novel is probably Ferracini, whom we most identify with since we experience most of the book with him. He's a special-ops kind of guy who doesn't understand everything but carries out the various missions to safeguard our world from Nazi Germany and Co. Winston Churchill would probably get second billing, and he's as colorful as ever.

There's a lot of science and history in this novel, but Hogan never under- or overexplains. All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable read. History buffs and scifi fans will both get something out of this novel.