Customer Reviews

Proteus Operation

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

James Hogan writes a well-written alternative history novel based on the premise "What if Hitler and the Germans 'won' WW2 due to American isolationism? JFK is the US President and America stands alone, the rest of the world dominated by the Nazis, the Japanese militarists, or Italian facists. The US government, being in a desparate situation, send a team back into time to change history. In doing so, the author explores the concept of "changing history" -- is time travel really travelling to a parallel universe? The plot is interspliced with plausible expla- nations of how Hitler came to power and how he could have won WW2. For alternative history buffs, I recommend it

I rarely re-read books but I have, this one. James P. Hogan combines alternate history, hard science fiction and suspense. He gives us fictionalized famous figures from history as well as characters we care about. Set in a bleak alternate 1975 where the Nazi's had won World War II, a team of scientists, soldiers and other specialists go back to 1939 to change the course of history. An interesting twist is that they are not the only one's who do. Mr. Hogan is thorough in his research and has really thought his scenarios out well. There is sentiment but a very real one, not sappy or maudlin. In between there are twists and turns in the plot that keep it all interesting.

There have been many alternate history stories but this one stands out with that added twist of time travel and it's implications.

This is James Hogan's best book in my opinion. I will be short. It's about the theory that all possible outcomes of events occur based upon their probability. In doing so parallel universes form as a result! So we have worlds where WWII never happened and competing futures try and alter the past to form NEW future universes more ameniable to those losing their power in what they feel is an unfavorable future.

This book has time travelers going from 1976 America where President Kennedy sends them to go to the 1930s to try and alter the course of history to save mankind from the coming nuclear war with Nazi Europe. They can only go back so far because they only have a standard 1970s power facility and not the Fusion Power plants of the 21st century where the whole process was developed. From THAT 21st century meddlers from the future helped bring Hitler to power and cause the recession of the 1920s rise to the great depression. Hilter of course turns on his masters however.

Eventually these travelers from a version 1976 facing Nazi Europe fights to cut off the 1930 Nazi gate to the their 21st century patrons.

Great cameos for Edward Teller, Albert Einstien, and many other prominent politicians and scientists of the 1930s!

Great read!

I don't remember being this wrapped up in a science fictionstory since I first read some of HeinLein's work while in my early teens 40 years ago. I really look forward to getting more of this man's work.

James P. Hogan's Proteus Operation is one cleaver book. The plot is a standard alternate history of World War II, but with a twist. Time Travelers from the 21st Century have gone back to the 1920s to help Hitler dominate and win World War II. By the 1970s, with the United Kingdom's leaders living in Canada, Hitler and Japan have conquered everywhere outside of North America - including nuking Russia - and Canada and the United States are gearing up for the final conflict for world domination. The problem for the last hold outs of democracy are obvious to its leaders: no matter how valiantly they fight, they will fail.

But, they have a secret weapon: the time traveling technology has fallen into the hands of Kennedy's America and a small group of Special Operations forces and scientists will travel back to 1939 to change history and prevent the fall of the British Isles.

What a brilliant idea, especially so once the full extent of the plot and its twists reveal themselves in this entertaining story.

Once in 1939, the small group of time traveling interlopers must enlist the help of Churchill, Einstein, Roosevelt, and Fermi if they are to succeed. Hogan nicely weaves both the real character and historic events into the story in such a way that it meshes nicely with the history as we understand it.

The Proteus Operation is one of Hogan's best books.

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A Guide to my Book Rating System:

1 star = The wood pulp would have been better utilized as toilet paper.
2 stars = Don't bother, clean your bathroom instead.
3 stars = Wasn't a waste of time, but it was time wasted.
4 stars = Good book, but not life altering.
5 stars = This book changed my world in at least some small way.

I'm not a history buff and I know very little of pre-war British politics, but The Proteus Operation has planted a seed in me to learn more. Who can say SF is worthless? That being said, I believe Mr. Hogan has done an admirable job explaining WW2-era history (three separate timelines worth!) so that readers don't become too confused, nor does it bog down.

Time Travel is a favorite SF conceit and I love the idea of it; the power it enables those who are time travellers, but there are a lot of problems that our human minds based in this reality can't really resolve. One of the ways to rationalize time travel is with the alternate universes theory (which Hogan has used before in "Thrice Upon a Time" 1980). While this makes it easier to understand, it has its own problems. To Hogan's credit he has created lots of compelling solutions for these. I enjoyed the time travel mechanics very much and I liked the story and plot development.

The characters are a bit forgettable and the famous ones are too quaint, but the plot moves along well enough that it doesn't bring down the quality of your time spent with the book. My biggest gripe is that towards the end I lost my suspension of disbelief. There are many twists and turns in the story, which make it more and more exciting as it progresses, but the showdown near the end at Hammerhead just spoiled it for me with one big coincidence and too many convenient happenings.

I had to force my way through the final part of the book as my interest had completely waned. The good score of 4/5 stars is based on how much fun I had up until that point and how it has interested me in discovering more about this era in history.

Nobody does pure Science Fiction like James P. Hogan. And it doesn't get much more pure than this story. As always, his premise is based on actual scientific thoeries and research. I couldn't put it down.