Book You May Have Missed (#2)

Making History by Stephen Fry  (pub. 1997)

I have always been a sucker for Alternative History stories (‘The Difference Engine’, ‘11.22.63’, ‘Dominion’, ‘K is for Killing’ etc) and this third novel by the poly-talented Mr Fry is a corker. The genre depends on authors asking the “What if…?” question. “What if the North won the American Civil War?” “What if JFK hadn’t been assassinated?” ”What if Margaret Thatcher hadn’t been in league with the Devil?”

In ‘Making History’ the question is “What if Hitler had never been born?” – not original but intelligently handled. A warning, though, I almost gave up during the first couple of chapters. They didn’t make a lot of sense, although, in retrospect, my lack of knowledge about Hitler’s parents’ lives probably contributed a fair bit to this, then suddenly I turned a page and read a paragraph which made everything clear and I was off and avidly page-turning.

As Hitler/Nazism alternate realities go, this makes a lot more sense than the TV version of Philip K. Dick’s ‘The Man in the High Castle’.

I’d just like to throw in a recommendation for Ben Elton’s book ‘Time and Time Again’- my favourite time travel novel.