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The Proteus Operation
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.
468 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published October 1, 1985
About the author
James P. Hogan
98 books240 followersJames Patrick Hogan was a British science fiction author.
Hogan was was raised in the Portobello Road area on the west side of London. After leaving school at the age of sixteen, he worked various odd jobs until, after receiving a scholarship, he began a five-year program at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough covering the practical and theoretical sides of electrical, electronic, and mechanical engineering. He first married at the age of twenty, and he has had three other subsequent marriages and fathered six children.
Hogan worked as a design engineer for several companies and eventually moved into sales in the 1960s, travelling around Europe as a sales engineer for Honeywell. In the 1970s he joined the Digital Equipment Corporation's Laboratory Data Processing Group and in 1977 moved to Boston, Massachusetts to run its sales training program. He published his first novel, Inherit the Stars, in the same year to win an office bet. He quit DEC in 1979 and began writing full time, moving to Orlando, Florida, for a year where he met his third wife Jackie. They then moved to Sonora, California.
Hogan's style of science fiction is usually hard science fiction. In his earlier works he conveyed a sense of what science and scientists were about. His philosophical view on how science should be done comes through in many of his novels; theories should be formulated based on empirical research, not the other way around. If a theory does not match the facts, it is theory that should be discarded, not the facts. This is very evident in the Giants series, which begins with the discovery of a 50,000 year-old human body on the Moon. This discovery leads to a series of investigations, and as facts are discovered, theories on how the astronaut's body arrived on the Moon 50,000 years ago are elaborated, discarded, and replaced.
Hogan's fiction also reflects anti-authoritarian social views. Many of his novels have strong anarchist or libertarian themes, often promoting the idea that new technological advances render certain social conventions obsolete. For example, the effectively limitless availability of energy that would result from the development of controlled nuclear fusion would make it unnecessary to limit access to energy resources. In essence, energy would become free. This melding of scientific and social speculation is clearly present in the novel Voyage from Yesteryear (strongly influenced by Eric Frank Russell's famous story "And Then There Were None"), which describes the contact between a high-tech anarchist society on a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, with a starship sent from Earth by a dictatorial government. The story uses many elements of civil disobedience.
James Hogan died unexpectedly from a heart attack at his home in Ireland.
Hogan was was raised in the Portobello Road area on the west side of London. After leaving school at the age of sixteen, he worked various odd jobs until, after receiving a scholarship, he began a five-year program at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough covering the practical and theoretical sides of electrical, electronic, and mechanical engineering. He first married at the age of twenty, and he has had three other subsequent marriages and fathered six children.
Hogan worked as a design engineer for several companies and eventually moved into sales in the 1960s, travelling around Europe as a sales engineer for Honeywell. In the 1970s he joined the Digital Equipment Corporation's Laboratory Data Processing Group and in 1977 moved to Boston, Massachusetts to run its sales training program. He published his first novel, Inherit the Stars, in the same year to win an office bet. He quit DEC in 1979 and began writing full time, moving to Orlando, Florida, for a year where he met his third wife Jackie. They then moved to Sonora, California.
Hogan's style of science fiction is usually hard science fiction. In his earlier works he conveyed a sense of what science and scientists were about. His philosophical view on how science should be done comes through in many of his novels; theories should be formulated based on empirical research, not the other way around. If a theory does not match the facts, it is theory that should be discarded, not the facts. This is very evident in the Giants series, which begins with the discovery of a 50,000 year-old human body on the Moon. This discovery leads to a series of investigations, and as facts are discovered, theories on how the astronaut's body arrived on the Moon 50,000 years ago are elaborated, discarded, and replaced.
Hogan's fiction also reflects anti-authoritarian social views. Many of his novels have strong anarchist or libertarian themes, often promoting the idea that new technological advances render certain social conventions obsolete. For example, the effectively limitless availability of energy that would result from the development of controlled nuclear fusion would make it unnecessary to limit access to energy resources. In essence, energy would become free. This melding of scientific and social speculation is clearly present in the novel Voyage from Yesteryear (strongly influenced by Eric Frank Russell's famous story "And Then There Were None"), which describes the contact between a high-tech anarchist society on a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, with a starship sent from Earth by a dictatorial government. The story uses many elements of civil disobedience.
James Hogan died unexpectedly from a heart attack at his home in Ireland.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
October 12, 2012
I went through a big Jim Hogan kick a few years back. I picked this one up recently in a second-hand bookshop, and I think I can now more clearly see both Hogan's strengths and his weaknesses. He's easy to get addicted to, easy to dislike when you're not addicted.
The premise: the Allies lost the second world war; Britain was conquered, Germany and Japan control the world, and by the 1970s the US is under threat of extinction. So the US forms a crack team of soldiers and scientists, comprised of refugees from all over the planet, and sends them through a time machine to 1938 to change the course of history.
It's WWII fanfic, essentially. There's a fair amount of detail about important political meetings, and battles won or lost, though these are mostly stated rather than shown. Various historical figures get walk-on parts, with almost no attempt at characterization (a real shame in the case of Churchill) other than having Einstein speak English with a tortured Yoda-like grammar. All content and no form.
The science fiction is good, with a nice paradox-free time travel mechanism based on parallel histories. To his credit, Hogan does an excellent job of explaining how the key points differ in each timeline without ever having to explicitly say and this is how it happened in real life!—all the timelines feel about equally plausible. Once you get over the lack of surface sheen, the plot rattles along pretty well, culminating (like almost all his books) in a storming-the-base sequence towards the end. And Hogan storms a good base! Everything is more fun when it involves Nazis getting punched out.
There's a bit of a libertarian, jingoistic edge that gets a little wearing, though not to an excessive degree. I don't disagree that freedom and democracy are awesome, but it seems inaccurate to claim that Nazi Germany was completely intellectually stunted. Okay, they didn't invent the Bomb, but where did all the brains behind the US rocket programme come from?
Overall, the different elements don't quite gel, so the result is a fun potboiler but not a whole lot more. The time travel elements are a bit too neat and tidy: no paradoxes, no weirdness, no ragged holes left for your imagination to fill in.
The premise: the Allies lost the second world war; Britain was conquered, Germany and Japan control the world, and by the 1970s the US is under threat of extinction. So the US forms a crack team of soldiers and scientists, comprised of refugees from all over the planet, and sends them through a time machine to 1938 to change the course of history.
It's WWII fanfic, essentially. There's a fair amount of detail about important political meetings, and battles won or lost, though these are mostly stated rather than shown. Various historical figures get walk-on parts, with almost no attempt at characterization (a real shame in the case of Churchill) other than having Einstein speak English with a tortured Yoda-like grammar. All content and no form.
The science fiction is good, with a nice paradox-free time travel mechanism based on parallel histories. To his credit, Hogan does an excellent job of explaining how the key points differ in each timeline without ever having to explicitly say and this is how it happened in real life!—all the timelines feel about equally plausible. Once you get over the lack of surface sheen, the plot rattles along pretty well, culminating (like almost all his books) in a storming-the-base sequence towards the end. And Hogan storms a good base! Everything is more fun when it involves Nazis getting punched out.
There's a bit of a libertarian, jingoistic edge that gets a little wearing, though not to an excessive degree. I don't disagree that freedom and democracy are awesome, but it seems inaccurate to claim that Nazi Germany was completely intellectually stunted. Okay, they didn't invent the Bomb, but where did all the brains behind the US rocket programme come from?
Overall, the different elements don't quite gel, so the result is a fun potboiler but not a whole lot more. The time travel elements are a bit too neat and tidy: no paradoxes, no weirdness, no ragged holes left for your imagination to fill in.
December 12, 2015
One of the best Time Travel novels ever written. Based on the "Many Worlds" theory of Cosmology and asking the question "What if World War 2 did not end in 1945?", Hogan tells a tale of an American operation to change the course of history. It is both hauntingly strange and familiar at the same time.
November 8, 2018
Overall, I really liked this book. One thing that struck me is that the way the're going with the current Amazon series The Man in the High Castle - which is increasingly deviating from Dick's original novel and into some weird sci-fi premises - would actually work much better if it were based off of this book. It's got a lot of the same themes, and creates a rich universe from which to base an alternate history TV series. I think that the world and general premise are all that would need to be salvaged - Hogan is better with characters than many classic sci-fi writers, but I think they still come off as somewhat stiff and one-dimensional.
Where Hogan really shines is his ability to craft well-thought-out premises. There are many well-worn premises where, with most authors, if you think about it too much the whole plot starts to unravel. One of the hardest of these is the "ancient technological society" trope, and Hogan actually came up with a plausible backstory for that in Inherit the Stars . Now he's taking on one of the other most notorious offenders in this regard - time travel.
With time travel, it's not terribly difficult to come up with mechanics that are consistent and make sense, but generally they tend to be the ones that make for less dramatic stories.
Lots to think about here, and I do think it's a rich world to explore in other media.
Where Hogan really shines is his ability to craft well-thought-out premises. There are many well-worn premises where, with most authors, if you think about it too much the whole plot starts to unravel. One of the hardest of these is the "ancient technological society" trope, and Hogan actually came up with a plausible backstory for that in Inherit the Stars . Now he's taking on one of the other most notorious offenders in this regard - time travel.
With time travel, it's not terribly difficult to come up with mechanics that are consistent and make sense, but generally they tend to be the ones that make for less dramatic stories.
Lots to think about here, and I do think it's a rich world to explore in other media.
December 11, 2023
This makes my fourth James Hogan book now, and he’s still knocking it outta the park!
Historical fiction, sci-fi, thriller and war novel all in one. And, as usual, he manages to maintain a sense of humor through it all, even along side the weird twists.
I swear, I learn something new every time I read a Hogan novel, and this one was no exception. It’s like going on an adventure into physics, quantum mechanics and history and having a grand ole time while you’re there.
Dora the explorer for adults, and I cannot get enough!
Historical fiction, sci-fi, thriller and war novel all in one. And, as usual, he manages to maintain a sense of humor through it all, even along side the weird twists.
I swear, I learn something new every time I read a Hogan novel, and this one was no exception. It’s like going on an adventure into physics, quantum mechanics and history and having a grand ole time while you’re there.
Dora the explorer for adults, and I cannot get enough!
July 17, 2019
This was an exciting read, as are most of Hogan's books. It is full of scientific speculation and time travel. Time travel done to manipulate past events. In this case to influence and change Hitler's rise to power and the event affecting WWII. However any changes to a timeline do not affect the timeline you came from. It can't. This is thanks to Quantum mechanics and the Many Worlds interpretation of events. If this sounds confusing. Read the book and let Einstein explain it. Oh yes, he manages to be in this one as well.
May 17, 2020
The Proteus Operation by James P. Hogan is unlike the other alternate history novel. Hogan takes a path where instead of giving readers another view of what the other history would look like (which he did), he gave readers a look at a few possibilities that led to our current history.
In this novel, the devastating World War I was a wake-up call to humankind. Everyone (surprise, surprise) decided to uphold the “Never Again” spirit and strengthen internationalism. Anything military-related is banned from being discussed, developed, and used. However, no good deed goes unpunished. Some people just want to see the world burn, and these people are the corporates who want the past change. So, they built a time-machine to make Hitler win the war.
If no good deed goes unpunished, what about bad deeds? The group of time-travellers thought helping Hitler would help their future lives, but a rather horrible outcome happened and it was way worse than our real history. Hogan wrote this novel with a smooth transition from that horrific incident to become our current history, in which, despite Hitler won, he was defeated in the end.
It’s no easy feat, but Hogan definitely made it.
In this novel, the devastating World War I was a wake-up call to humankind. Everyone (surprise, surprise) decided to uphold the “Never Again” spirit and strengthen internationalism. Anything military-related is banned from being discussed, developed, and used. However, no good deed goes unpunished. Some people just want to see the world burn, and these people are the corporates who want the past change. So, they built a time-machine to make Hitler win the war.
If no good deed goes unpunished, what about bad deeds? The group of time-travellers thought helping Hitler would help their future lives, but a rather horrible outcome happened and it was way worse than our real history. Hogan wrote this novel with a smooth transition from that horrific incident to become our current history, in which, despite Hitler won, he was defeated in the end.
It’s no easy feat, but Hogan definitely made it.
April 9, 2018
From my booklog: Quantum-mechanics thriller. B+, Schrodinger’s cat, clever, wordy. Read 4-3-89.
December 20, 2016
I remember this being a really exciting and fast-moving alt-history thriller when I first read it. It's still exciting but it's not exactly fast-moving.
It's a great story: a team from 1975 gets sent back to 1939 to try and change history so that WW2 - which is still going on in their world - can be stopped or changed or slowed down. They view it as an irregular but still routine mission and settle into their disguised lives in New York and London. Of course, complications set in...
Historically, this is great: Mr Hogan does a bang-up job of viewing British and U.S. lives from the perspective of someone from the future and how blind everyone is to the coming conflict, even those who believe that it's inevitable. The portrayals of historical figures - Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, Franklin Roosevelt, Albert Einstein and Isaac Asimov, amongst many others - make guest appearances here - feel realistic, although someone with more knowledge in this area may beg to differ. The other characters, straight out of central casting, have little depth, except for the one soldier who is clearly the point-of-view surrogate for the audience. The rest appear to serve only plot purposes: the crafty leader who knows more than he lets on; the smarmy smartarse who has a secret past; the troubled intellectual; the strong-but-silent CO, I could - and frequently do - go on.
But the story saves them. There is a sense of impending HISTORY hanging over the plot as the team compare what happened in their world with what happens in this one and note the deviations, which leads it to the problems that slow it down: the infodumping. There are lengthy paragraphs and conversations scattered throughout the text indicating what's happening and explaining the facts behind the fiction. They're not a problem, more a feature of this sort of story where the reader needs to be kept in the loop (time-travel joke!) about the plot. But more than occasionally we get chapter-long screeds about how important some historical moments were, or how the science of the plot works and it really does take you out of the story when they could have been dealt with far more economically.
That said, it is nice to read an alt-history that I actually finished. It is not my favourite sub-genre as it often feels more like an exercise for the reader to determine just how clever the author has been a choosing the moment where they decided history might deviate rather than an exercise in writing a good book. Alternately (ha!), it can often insult the intelligence of an author because regardless of how different the histories are, we still always wind up with Shakespeare or Napoleon or Austen rather than someone else.
So while this isn't brilliant, it's great fun and keeps you entertained. And there's nothing wrong with that in any world.
January 11, 2024
Solid time traveling sci-fi book in a military setting. The physics and chemistry are described well and are quite sound. That coupled with a supporting cast of historical figures from the WWII era with mostly believable interactions make this an immersive read. The main troupe from the future function almost as a band of outlaws and each chapter glimmers with intrigue and peril. Overall a pretty ambitious story that struggles a bit with weaving in side plots to the main line.
January 8, 2023
English Title: The Proteus Operation
Superb alternative history & time travel story by James P. Hogan! Scientists together with a team of military soldiers from 1975 travel back to 1939 to prevent their own depressing presence where the Nazis rule the world. It’s a must-read!
Superb alternative history & time travel story by James P. Hogan! Scientists together with a team of military soldiers from 1975 travel back to 1939 to prevent their own depressing presence where the Nazis rule the world. It’s a must-read!
October 19, 2010
Proteus Operation is an alternate history time travel novel, or perhaps an alternate-alternate history time travel novel, which isn't as much of a spoiler as it appears, as most of that information is granted to the reader in the first chapter. As a World War II buff it was an interesting read, trying to puzzle out the what I remember happened versus what the author tells me about his worlds' histories.
Overall, I enjoyed reading Proteus, but the timeline jumping got a little tough to keep track of.
There are a couple of cute moments, including the nod to the grand master of science fiction, from the greatest physicist.
Overall, I enjoyed reading Proteus, but the timeline jumping got a little tough to keep track of.
There are a couple of cute moments, including the nod to the grand master of science fiction, from the greatest physicist.
October 19, 2023
Second read – 2 May 2003 - ***. This is an alternate history, in which an Anglo-American team of soldiers and civilians are sent back in time from the Nazi-dominated world of 1975 to prevent an Axis victory in World War II, that had been created by more advanced time travelers from the 21st century. I did not even realize I had previously read the book, when I picked up a copy at a library discard sale. I found it an entertaining adventure, with clearly pre-identified good guys and bad guys.
First read – 2 October 1986 - ***. This was a loan from a coworker who really liked James P. Hogan. I found it interesting, but was not enthusiastic.
First read – 2 October 1986 - ***. This was a loan from a coworker who really liked James P. Hogan. I found it interesting, but was not enthusiastic.
October 21, 2012
"Might I suggest that you begin at the beginning, wherever that may be in this bewildering chronological imbroglio, and proceed from there in whatever comes nearest to logical order?"
This was an incredibly intense novel, though not as thrilling as it might've been because of the practical inevitability of the ending. Nonetheless, the storming of the German stronghold was really good stuff and the whole concept well worth reading.
This was an incredibly intense novel, though not as thrilling as it might've been because of the practical inevitability of the ending. Nonetheless, the storming of the German stronghold was really good stuff and the whole concept well worth reading.
November 24, 2022
In most time travel fiction, the characters are at pains not to change the past due to the space time continuum. In The Proteus Operation, a team is sent back from 1975 to 1939 in order to deliberately influence the dystopian outcome of World War II, where Germany has won and dominates the entire world with the exception of North America and Australia. It seems the Third Reich themselves were helped by a group of power hungry oligarchs, known as the Overlords, from the year 2025.
Hogan takes us on a deep dive of WWII history and politics and the development of the atom bomb. In this novel we meet many fictional as well as historical characters including Winston Churchill, Alfred Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Franklin Roosevelt, Leo Szilard, and Edward Teller. In what seems like a cast of hundreds, we often lose track as to who is who.
Hogan presents us with an interesting premise (a la Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle), and there are some exciting sections. But with so much detail, the novel drones on for almost 500 pages and often loses focus. I often felt that Hogan was being paid by the word.
Hogan takes us on a deep dive of WWII history and politics and the development of the atom bomb. In this novel we meet many fictional as well as historical characters including Winston Churchill, Alfred Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Franklin Roosevelt, Leo Szilard, and Edward Teller. In what seems like a cast of hundreds, we often lose track as to who is who.
Hogan presents us with an interesting premise (a la Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle), and there are some exciting sections. But with so much detail, the novel drones on for almost 500 pages and often loses focus. I often felt that Hogan was being paid by the word.
October 17, 2023
2.5. Didn’t ever hook me. The story wasn’t bad it was just a little too scientific and dry to be entertaining. I would have liked more time travelling shenanigans but the focus was more on espionage and global politics around WWII. The time travel logistics were fairly reasonable.
None of the Proteus team felt distinct except Winslade. Einstein and Hitler however felt true to themselves. Hitler’s brief speech about ingenuity (“the roots of genius lie in the ability to make decisions” [rather than knowledge and expertise]) made him more interesting as a villain than if he was evil just because he’s Hitler.
The justification for what the team achieved was OK even though the big mission at the end wasn’t that thrilling.
“Is kindness pointless because it doesn’t wipe out all the unkindness everywhere? I think not.”
None of the Proteus team felt distinct except Winslade. Einstein and Hitler however felt true to themselves. Hitler’s brief speech about ingenuity (“the roots of genius lie in the ability to make decisions” [rather than knowledge and expertise]) made him more interesting as a villain than if he was evil just because he’s Hitler.
The justification for what the team achieved was OK even though the big mission at the end wasn’t that thrilling.
“Is kindness pointless because it doesn’t wipe out all the unkindness everywhere? I think not.”
March 24, 2020
It's 1974. America is preparing for the inevitable war with Nazi Germany, which over the past three decades has slowly and methodically conquered or taken control of most of the world. The only hope lies in time travel. A mysterious breakthrough in technology will allow a team of agents to be sent back to 1939 and attempt to influence the leaders of the time to take Hitler and his ambitions seriously. It seems like an impossible task, as people and attitudes are not any more malleable in 1939 than they are at any other time. Of course, this being a story with Nazis, there is also intrigue, and gunfire, and blowing stuff up. The plot gets rather convoluted as the story progresses, but all in all it was an entertaining read.
October 15, 2018
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?
October 1, 2020
I first read this book in the late 1980s, and have lost count of the number of times I have re-read it. By a long way my most read book.
The way James Hogan moves the plot back and forth between timelines and alternate realities is seamless. How he managed to keep the interwoven timelines in synch is incredible.
Thought provoking yet action packed at the same time - a difficult blend to achieve. The characters are beautifully developed and make it very easy to be drawn into their version of our world.
I have no doubt I shall read it yet again at some point.
The way James Hogan moves the plot back and forth between timelines and alternate realities is seamless. How he managed to keep the interwoven timelines in synch is incredible.
Thought provoking yet action packed at the same time - a difficult blend to achieve. The characters are beautifully developed and make it very easy to be drawn into their version of our world.
I have no doubt I shall read it yet again at some point.
February 22, 2021
So this was a pretty good book, but for some reason it just didn't grab hold of me and took me AGES to finish. Mostly only read a few pages a day on my walks which was unusual for me.
Granted my reading's taken a hit with COVID and no 45 min commutes to read on but still...I was doing ok reading wise last year 'til I hit this and then WHAM! *shrug*
Cool idea, and tend to like alternate history. But yeah...drug on.
Granted my reading's taken a hit with COVID and no 45 min commutes to read on but still...I was doing ok reading wise last year 'til I hit this and then WHAM! *shrug*
Cool idea, and tend to like alternate history. But yeah...drug on.
July 10, 2023
First problem: the juxtaposition of his vocabulary-rich narrative against the simple vernacular of his characters. Second: formulaic manner of describing physical appearances of characters, like a detective filing a report (always in the same order: hair color, eye color, mouth turned up or down, etc.). There were no lapses of logic to the time dilation concept or unresolved issues in the story, yet the best I can muster for this is two stars. Put it in the donation box.
August 12, 2022
I came to this book completely blind. While it started off slow and has little character development, the plot is good, the ideas interesting and the end packs a lot of intensity and action.
It even has a couple of pages about quantum mechanics and the many-worlds interpretation at the epilogue!
It even has a couple of pages about quantum mechanics and the many-worlds interpretation at the epilogue!
January 19, 2024
Another awesome novel by JP Hogan. Look for a scene in which Einstein finds an unfinished fragment of a story Asimov had been working on in a waste paper basket and gets an idea from it for fixing the Time Machine. Classic stuff and amazingly plausible.
February 18, 2022
One of the best Sci-Fi books I've read.
April 21, 2010
I like the premise. Basically, Hogan gives us three possible timelines. In the original timeline, a utopian future develops in the 21st century--one that never knew the horrors of the second World War and the cold war slowly melted into a "third way." But EVIL oligarchs unhappy losing power in 2025 use a newly developed time travel device to try to swing things their way. They use the limit of their reach--a century in the past, and decide to use an obscure house painter to their ends--Adolf Hitler. This creates a new timeline, one where by 1975 America, along with Australia and New Zealand are the last free outposts in a Fascist world. Except an escaped scientist having let the Americans know how their future has been tampered with, they decide to go back into the year 1939 in a last ditch effort to save liberty and democracy--picking an obscure politician to change things around--Winston Churchill.
The premise reminds me a bit of Harry Turtledove's The Guns of the South, where time-traveling White Supremest Afrikaners try to change the outcome of the American Civil War. Except Turtledove is known as the master of alternate history for a reason. While Hogan spends a lot of time on the physics, the emphasis in Turtledove is on the characters, and his Robert E. Lee is much more memorable--and important to the narrative--than Hogan's Churchill. I am impressed by the research Hogan had to have done into political and scientific history to weave two alternate histories, and it's entertaining enough to read once if you like reading alternate history, but in the end this isn't a memorable, strong enough work I consider it a keeper.
The premise reminds me a bit of Harry Turtledove's The Guns of the South, where time-traveling White Supremest Afrikaners try to change the outcome of the American Civil War. Except Turtledove is known as the master of alternate history for a reason. While Hogan spends a lot of time on the physics, the emphasis in Turtledove is on the characters, and his Robert E. Lee is much more memorable--and important to the narrative--than Hogan's Churchill. I am impressed by the research Hogan had to have done into political and scientific history to weave two alternate histories, and it's entertaining enough to read once if you like reading alternate history, but in the end this isn't a memorable, strong enough work I consider it a keeper.
March 4, 2024
This is an exciting time-travel story with various surprises in store as you progress through it. The plot extends across three different time periods and three different versions of history, but it’s primarily concerned with the early part of the Second World War. However, the story is not about military combat, but about time travel and undercover operations. Despite the Nazi menace that hangs over it all, the book is not a depressing experience, it’s on the whole upbeat, and it has a satisfying ending.
I’ve read only some of Hogan’s books, but this is my clear favourite of the ones I've read. I think he did an impressive job on the alternative history and on the plot, and even a relatively good job on the characterization (not usually one of his strengths).
I’m tempted to give it five stars, as I’ve been rereading it periodically for a long time, and always enjoy it. However, the text is sometimes a bit too heavy with information dumps—about history, about nuclear physics, and about time-travel theory. You can skim over that stuff if you don’t appreciate it, but you should be warned about it. Furthermore, although the characterization is varied and agreeable, it remains rather sketchy.
I’m annoyed that this book is still not available for Kindle, so I have to read it on paper in the old-fashioned way.
I’ve read only some of Hogan’s books, but this is my clear favourite of the ones I've read. I think he did an impressive job on the alternative history and on the plot, and even a relatively good job on the characterization (not usually one of his strengths).
I’m tempted to give it five stars, as I’ve been rereading it periodically for a long time, and always enjoy it. However, the text is sometimes a bit too heavy with information dumps—about history, about nuclear physics, and about time-travel theory. You can skim over that stuff if you don’t appreciate it, but you should be warned about it. Furthermore, although the characterization is varied and agreeable, it remains rather sketchy.
I’m annoyed that this book is still not available for Kindle, so I have to read it on paper in the old-fashioned way.
January 21, 2015
The premise of the book is simple. It's 1975 and US is on the brink of being defeated by combined Axis forces. Yes, Axis won the war through several unprobable events which allowed them to destroy European opposition, leaving US pretty much alone to face the final showdown.
Faced with certain defeat US government decides on ony logical solution, send a team back in time to prevent it. And here is where strength of the book lies. Hogan describes the theory behind time travel and multiverse theory (when it comes to event with multiple outcomes all happen at the same time, creating alternate universes) but does it in easy fashion. Too often authors want to appear smart and dig deep in theory, physics, quantum mechanic and similar complex subjects so nobody can accuse them of being superficious or jsut ignoring the problems altogether.
In order not to give too much of the story let me just say that book deals with several universes where history unfolded differently, croos-universe traffic and paradoxes of such actions.
Overall an interesting book that deals with practical aspect of time travel rather than theory behind it and still manages to be a tense thriller. Worth your time if you are fan of such topics.
Faced with certain defeat US government decides on ony logical solution, send a team back in time to prevent it. And here is where strength of the book lies. Hogan describes the theory behind time travel and multiverse theory (when it comes to event with multiple outcomes all happen at the same time, creating alternate universes) but does it in easy fashion. Too often authors want to appear smart and dig deep in theory, physics, quantum mechanic and similar complex subjects so nobody can accuse them of being superficious or jsut ignoring the problems altogether.
In order not to give too much of the story let me just say that book deals with several universes where history unfolded differently, croos-universe traffic and paradoxes of such actions.
Overall an interesting book that deals with practical aspect of time travel rather than theory behind it and still manages to be a tense thriller. Worth your time if you are fan of such topics.
November 15, 2022
In a world where the Nazis won World War Two thanks to help from malevolent time-travelers, the beleaguered United States sends its own time-travel mission back to 1939 to stop them.
This's one of my two favorites of Hogan's books (along with Inherit the Stars); my dad recommended it to me as a teenager, and when I saw a copy at the local secondhand bookstore recently I was happy to pick it up and reread it. The setting and premise are magnetic, the adventure is fun, and the science and philosophy are introduced without overpowering the narrative. (Also, Hogan keeps his utopian ideas out of the way, unlike with some other novels like Giant's Star or Voyage from Yesteryear.)
What's more, this book is one of the few good narrative treatments I've seen of the Many-Worlds theory of quantum mechanics, which actually does try to grapple with the sheer number of branching universes. I don't think it does a great job, but - it tries, more than any other book I've read.
This's one of my two favorites of Hogan's books (along with Inherit the Stars); my dad recommended it to me as a teenager, and when I saw a copy at the local secondhand bookstore recently I was happy to pick it up and reread it. The setting and premise are magnetic, the adventure is fun, and the science and philosophy are introduced without overpowering the narrative. (Also, Hogan keeps his utopian ideas out of the way, unlike with some other novels like Giant's Star or Voyage from Yesteryear.)
What's more, this book is one of the few good narrative treatments I've seen of the Many-Worlds theory of quantum mechanics, which actually does try to grapple with the sheer number of branching universes. I don't think it does a great job, but - it tries, more than any other book I've read.
February 6, 2015
A nice spy story entirely relying on time travelling with a twist (how it all ends is very good!) 'The Proteus Operation', although a bit confusing at time, remains a very pleasant novel. I found the constant shuffling and reshuffling of events as we know them very well thought and crafted, the author playing knowingly with slight details (the political intricacies that led to WWII) like a painter with small touches on a great historical canvas. I also liked how the characters are nicely and interestingly brought to life, at times in a witty fashion (see for example how Isaac Asimov here inspired Albert Einstein with a stroke of genius!). It's good, entertaining and, for those interested in history (especially that particular period -the geopolitical intricacies culminating in the Second World War) a nice display of 'what if' kind of scenarios. All in all, a good and enjoyable pick.
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