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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 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.
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