Elleander Morning: A Novel

by Jerry Yulsman

An old woman, Elleander Morning, goes back through time to change the past and prevent the two tragedies that shaped her life--the death of her husband in an auto accident and the death of her son at Dunkirk

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Alternate History, Time Travel, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Classics

294 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Jerry Yulsman (born February 8, 1924 - August 6, 1999) was an American novelist and a photographer best known for his photographs of Jack Kerouac, notably the cover illustration on Joyce Johnson's memoir Minor Characters.

Reviews

[Stephan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I've read in the last couple of years! It begins with the portrayal of young Hitler as a struggling artist in Vienna that may be fictional, but is so spot-on and appropriate that it feels historical and inevitably correct. Hitler is not yet the all-powerful dictator, but already an egomaniac asshole and an antisemitic racist. And then he is shot by a young women - Elleander Morning. The rest of the book shows us both cause and effects of this assassination, by providing us with snapshots of different episodes of her and her granddaughter's lives.

I was originally under the impression that this was a recent book (maybe because I associated it with The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, but it was actually published in 1984. I don't think it shows any signs of aging, but it does show that it was written in another time. Few current authors would dare to present "Uncle Lethaby" in such a positive light. But while it's unexpected, it did not really disturb the flow for me. The construction is flawless, the mechanics of "the event" are carefully unexplained, and the whole story comes together nearly perfectly.

I find this an absolute gem of a book - or, to modify a repeated phrase from the book: a diamond wrapped in a pearl inside a gemstone. Absolutely recommended!

[D.L. Thurston · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was an unexpected joy.

With it, Save the Sci-Fi took a turn away from the foundation and pulp ages of science fiction and presents a novel from the 1980s, falling into that perfect period where digital rights weren't yet a thing but no concerted effort is being made to sweep up these old rights. In doing so they give us an alternate history where the Second World War is stopped by the actions of one woman, the eponymous Elleander Morning.

What little alternate history I've read tends to go the opposite direction with the Second World War. Rather than diverting it completely, these stories tend to ask how the Axis could have won the war, and what the results may have been. Or, at least, what if the United States sat on its thumbs just long enough to make things look bleak before sweeping in to save the day (I'm looking at you, The Plot Against America).

Each chapter of the novel is punctuated by a snippet of the alternate history. From subtle developments, like Civil War movies dominating Hollywood in a time that WWII epics reigned supreme, to the broader change of Germany winning the race to the moon and standing as the world's only atomic power. Yulsman robs the United States, and the world, of technologies that came out of the urgency of war and Project Paperclip, but replaces them with peacetime advances in transit.

The narrative never worries with the actual hows and whyfores of time travel, giving them all a wink and a nod by introducing HG Wells as a character, and that's to its benefit. This isn't a technical story, it's a personal story. And it's not about technical people, it's about impulsive people. I'm glad for the little tastes of the world at large offered, but am happier still that we stay with the Morning women with just enough of a look at 1980s Germany preparing for a new Second World War to push the plot along.

So this is my Save the Sci-Fi mood swing, and this is why I love the project. A book I didn't care for is followed by a real gem that I would never have discovered without them. So a thanks to those on the project that picked this book, and Mr. Yulsman's widow for allowing it to reach a new audience.

[Sebastien · Rating 2 out of 5]

This strange, disjointed, nonsensical, reads-like-mediocre-fan-fiction book is a wild literary LSD ride, which is not necessarily a good thing.

"For a brief moment she found herself wishing that he weren't so thoroughly homosexual." This is an actual line from the book, and it's just the tip of the iceberg. This book is a bait-and-switch. It's supposedly a story about going back in time and killing Adolf Hitler, and it is for about 23 pages or so. This part pretty much rules, but unfortunately the rest of the story has barely anything to do with it, save for some very superficial attempts at writing an alternate history novel.

Inexplicably the story focuses on:

1. The love story of an extremely unlikable main character growing up in an alternate 1980s.

2. H.G. Wells being Elleander Morning's friend and confidant, for - wait, what? Why? Really, how was that essential to the story?

3. An old man sexually assaulting, and then adopting two twelve year old twins who love him dearly. Incredibly, part of this book focuses on how he exposes himself to minors in public and gets a kick out of it. How. Does. This. Have. Anything. To. Do. With. Killing. Hitler!

4. Elleanor Morning being a prostitute, but also, somehow, she wasn't one! This should mean something ot us somehow. Again, why I should care about this if it's not her killing Hitler?

5. Pivoting the alternate history theme of the book into a romance/detective novella, within the novel itself. It just doesn't make sense.

6. A time machine that is never really explained. It's a bed shaped like a ship? Or it's her brain or mind? Who knows and again, who cares when it's not Elleander hunting and killing Hitler?

I can't bring myself to give one star because the insane jumping back and forth and the insanity of the book itself is just too novel to pass up. I have never read anything quite like this. What this book's target audience is beats me, but it ain't me.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

What would happen if someone could go back in time and assassinate Hitler?

[Debbie Robson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recently a friend came across a review of Elleander Morning by Jerry Yulsman that pretty much corrupted my memory of the book. There was a lot of attention paid to the fact that Elleander is a prostitute and a madam and she allowed her son to be corrupted by two young twins who were also prostitutes. Yes, she does become a madam after she time travels but no, her son is not corrupted by the twins, at least in my copy of this marvellous book. So, the only thing to do was read this book again after a gap of over twenty years. A warning. I will be outlining quite a few events in the book which some might consider spoilers but it is a fairly complex book so I think the majority will find this review useful.
The book opens with the assassination of a young Hitler in Popples, a café in Vienna. Eleander is arrested. We then switch to a news flash and these news flashes are ingenious. They signal the parallel world that has been created by the death of Hitler in 1913 and appear throughout the book. It is soon obvious that there has been no WWII and of course anyone who died in the war is still alive including Lesley Howard and Glenn Miller. Other people are also alive in this parallel world, such as James Dean, suggesting a sort of butterfly effect.
We then switch to 1983 and Elleander’s granddaughter Lesley Bauman who has just broken up with her husband and is going to visit her mother in New York. She takes a magnitrain – a super fast train that takes only hours to go between Los Angeles and New York. Whilst staying with her mother who is divorced from Lesley’s father Harry, she talks about him, stories Lesley has heard before except one. That her grandmother Elleander killed a man in Europe. She didn’t know much more.
Elleander decides to visit her father in London but he dies before she arrives. Her inheritance is a house in London with a Mrs Green and a younger woman Rose in residence. At her father’s funeral she meets the ancient twins, Fawn and Clara and discovers that the house she has just inherited was once run as a brothel.
She has also been left, among other things, a letter of instruction, a book, The Intimate Diary of a London Gentleman and the Time Life Edition History of the Second World War, which Lesley begins to try and authenticate. As Lesley decides what to do with the Time Life books, we eventually catch up with Elleander as she time travels back to 1907 and meets the twins.
Yulsman’s strengths are his creation of this other 1983 and the attitude of a retired German general Von Seydlitz to the Time Life books. Interleaved with Lesley’s realisation of what she has done is Elleander’s attempts to save her husband and her son. There are some heart stopping passages and amazing twists that ultimately make this is one of the best time travel novels of all time.

[Graceann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once in a while, a book comes along that makes me say "how have I never heard of this before?" Elleander Morning is just such a book.

It is 1983. Lesley is a newly-divorced woman, starting over with no clear goal in mind. Her father, whom she never really knew, leaves her a legacy: It consists of a letter and a few books. One of those books is the Time Life History of the Second World War. The only problem? There never was a Second World War.

Thus unfold two separate timelines and storylines. How is it that the Second World War never occurred? And if it never occurred, how is it that there is a book about it? Throughout Elleander Morning, there are "cameos" from people we never expected to see again. At one point, Lesley is reading the latest Ernie Pyle novel. I thought "what?" and then said "of course! He wasn't killed in the War, so of course he's still writing!"

Back and forth I went between 1910 and Elleander (the titular character of the story), and 1983 with Lesley. As the two lines converge, I fell in love with Elleander, and the twins, and Lesley and so many others. This book is clever, and fast-paced and literate, and far less heard of than it should be. Easily my top read so far this year.

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

SPOILERS ABOUND!

First impression -- just now finished the book. I liked it a lot but I would have liked it better without the romantic sub-plot. But the romantic angle was the crux of the story, so I'll just have to accept it.

I liked the snippets of news and events that hinted at other things that might have been different if there had been no WWII -- Germany with the atomic bomb and first in space, dirigibles in use until the 50's, high speed rail (California to New York in a couple of hours!), and Ernie Pyle writing novels into the 80's. More of that would have been fun.

Something that bugs a lot of readers of time travel novels is that the mechanism isn't explained. I'm okay with that. I'm not reading the book to learn how to build my own time machine, and wonky science (or no science) doesn't bother me.

[Irifev · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5 Sterne. Elleandor Morning ist die Frau, die Hitler erschossen hat. Was natürlich niemanden interessiert, denn: Wer ist das überhaupt? Bis 1983 ihre Enkelin auftritt.

Eine schöne Alternativweltgeschichte, die man durchaus mal lesen kann - angesichts der Sexszenen aber erst ab einem gewissen Alter.

[Joe Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've long been a sucker for alternate history stories. The sheer "what if" factor in a good story is fascinating. If certain events hadn't happened—or had happened—how would the course of lives and nations have changed?

I'd never heard of this story, until Singularity & Co published it as part of their Save the SciFi project. I'm so glad they did. It's a gem of a book and well worth saving.

The story opens as Elleander Morning, an American woman, enters a café in Vienna and shoots an indigent artist named Adolf Hitler. Elleander is quickly arrested and tried for her crime, receiving a swift convicting. Years later, in the 1980s, her granddaughter, Lesley Morning, begins to learn about her mysterious grandmother. And what of these books—the two-volume WW II: Time-Life Books History of the Second World War? There never was a World War II and, yet, the books look so realistic.

The novel explores Elleander's very personal reasons for assassinating Adolf Hitler and the consequences through the next 70 years. There are interstitial quotes, after each chapter. Through them, we learn of Vice President Eleanor Roosevelt and Supreme Court Justice Joseph McCarthy. We hear Winston Churchill's dying words. "It is a matter of pride, and I must add, of comfort to me, that I will go to my reward with the knowledge that the sun will continue to find it impossible to set on the British Empire." It's a world in which Russia is a weak nation, the Cold War never happened, and German is the leading European nation with Europe's highest standard of living.

The historical details feel accurate too. Having just read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, Yulsman's descriptions of Vienna put me right into the same world that Shirer had just put me in. Later, as Lesley's story moved to German, the details about Germany put me right back into the world of the Third Reich. That, in turn, made the alternate history world feel very real.

I like that the novel starts with the assassination of Hitler and then move towards questioning why and whether that would be sufficient to stop World War II. Was it just the actions of one man? Or was it the general attitude of an entire nation? Asked through this story, it's an important question.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, it seems this author didn't write much other fiction besides some erotic period fiction. And having now read this novel it doesn't surprise me that the author had an...interest in that area. Certainly the story has more than its fair share of sex scenes that at times felt gratuitous and I felt uncomfortable with the authors portrayal of prostitution, child prostitution and paedophilia in a somewhat positive light.

But if one is able to look past all that there is an interesting story about someone who managed to go back in time and avert WWII by assassinating Hitler in 1913. The story begins in the (then) contemporary time of 1984 when the grandchild of Elleander Morning begins to discover the truth of what happened (and what was averted) when she inherits the estate of her father in England. The narrative then moves back and forth between then and the past as the story of both Elleander and her grand daughter is told.

Although featuring the well used SF trope of 'time travel' and straying into SF's peculiar sub genre of Alternative History, this is most definitely a fantasy novel since there is no attempt to explain the mechanism of time travel nor consider the potential paradoxes that might arise. Although the author did quite a good job of imagining what the world might have been like had WWII not happened, much of which is revealed in tiny excerpts at the beginning of each chapter.

Anyhow, an interesting read but is definitely not for everyone.

[Jamie Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the spring of 1913 an Englishwoman walks into a coffee shop in Vienna and shoots to death a 24-year-old “indigent Austro-Hungarian artist” named Adolf Hitler.

In 1983, that woman’s granddaughter inherits a house in London where she discovers a book entitled “The Time-Life History of the Second World War”, a war she’s never heard of. When she makes the book public, some people are horrified, some are offended - but others are inspired.

This was a pretty good read. There wasn’t a tremendous amount of detail about the altered political setting, but it was fun to catch little things, such when our 1983 characters go to hear an aging Glenn Miller lead his band.

However, the characterization isn’t great, and the romance element did not work for me. I found the action scene at the end to be implausible: a reenactment of Stauffenberg’s assassination attempt on the new Hitlerian candidate. Also, the side plot about the twin girls and the avuncular pervert who “adopts” them was interesting, but I’m not sure it why it belonged in this book.

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's a decent story in here somewhere but it's hard to see behind all the piss-poor character and story development. What's up with all the under age prostitution and general perversion? So weird.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do love a counterfactual and this is a very entertaining one. The titular Elleander Morning defies both time and death apparently through sheer strength of character and decides to use this power to kill Hitler in 1913. The story subsequently picks up in 1983, in a world where without Hitler the Second World War did not happen. Elleander’s granddaughter inherits a book about said war, which sets off a dangerous chain of events. The alternate 1983 is well thought out - the space race and nuclear weapons have developed much more slowly, but magnetic trains have vastly speeded up travel. My favourite detail was that the bikini is instead called a riviera, as the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests did not take place. Both Elleander and her granddaughter are interesting characters and appealing narrators. I was dubious about the role given to Mr. Letharby the paedophile, though, and found the story of the twins unsettlingly prurient in places.

The most striking parts of the story, however, concerned reaction to reading about the Second World War in a world where it did not take place. The mixture of disbelief and unwilling conviction that it could have occurred is well expressed, across a range of Germans, Brits, and Americans. The Jewish historian’s perspective is especially notable, as well it might be. The fact that Germany still saw an imperialist resurgence without Hitler is also well conveyed. The implications for the rest of the world are hinted at more broadly, in an intriguing fashion. Russia suffers upheaval after Stalin is assassinated, countries of Western Europe retain their colonies, China does not experience a Communist takeover and instead becomes a satellite of Japan. France apparently continues its 19th century tradition of revolutionary upheaval.

In summary, I found ‘Elleander Morning’ a compelling alternate history adventure, in which women knew what was happening and men stumbled about being confused. I’m sure plenty of historians would dispute that simply removing Hitler from the equation would prevent the Second World War, but as a conceit it worked well. The author seems to be tipping their hat to The Man in the High Castle with the house on Highcastle Road. I think the two novels make for interesting counterpoints. Both emphasise the vast geopolitical consequences of WWII, on society, the economy, technology, language, and culture, as well as the strangeness of any awareness that history could have gone differently.

[Michael Hanscom · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best of the Save the Sci Fi selections I've read so far, and one of the first truly interesting variations on the "killing Hitler" idea that I've read.

[John Burt · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the cleverest and most touching of all attempts to violate the Hitler Time Travel Exemption Act,* Elleander Morning shows us an alternate timeline through the eyes of a young woman investigating the mystery of why her great-grandmother had travelled to Vienna in 1913 and murdered an impoverished art student named Adolf Hitler.
In this version of 1983 where the Great War never had any sequel, jet aircraft are still an exotic novelty. People cross oceans in liners like the recently restored Normandie and cross continents in high-speed trains.**
Both Lesley's world of 1983 and Elleander's world of 1913 are lovingly depicted and believable.
It is only now, looking back on this book again, that I notice how much of my own alternate-history novel, The Christmas Mutiny, drew on Yulsman's vision, including the different fates which people might have on different timelines.

*http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php...
**My own imagination provided the explanation for this: in a small industrial laboratory in Poland in 1943, two Jewish chemists stumbled across a room-temperature superconductor. Note that this is strictly my own invention, and no blame for it falls on Yulsman.

[Alisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I am a fan of alternate history and I found this concept an intriguing one, this novel didn't meet my (obviously too high) expectations..

Elleander Morning goes back to the year 1913 to kill Adolf Hitler and thus prevent the Second World War from ever happening. In 1984, Lesley, Elleander's granddaughter, learns about what she did and also finds a book chronicling the History of The Second World War - a war which has never taken place. Her curiosity piqued, Lesley begins to dig further to get to the bottom of the mystery.

The novel shifts from the early 20th century to the 1980s and back to the 1910s again. We see a world in which the Second World War has never existed - interesting indeed! We learn about Elleander and her life and about her granddaughter Lesley. Yet, somehow, I wasn't taken by either woman. Elleander was of course interesting, but she still failed to win me over. Lesley was rather unremarkable.

The book was a slow burner for me and I found it to be rather tedious at times. I also got a bit confused towards the end as we jump from Elleander Morning as an old lady on her deathbed and back to the young Elleander on a mission to change history.

To sum up: a good concept, but it just didn't work for me. 3 stars.

[Ktmholm · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read it years ago, enjoyed it, recommended it, and now I've re-read it (twice!) and enjoyed it still again. I always remembered the part about Elleander Morning assassinating the young Adolf Hitler, and even more so her granddaughter's discovery of the Time Life Book of WWII--and the fact that the war had never taken place. But about other parts I asked myself, "how could I have forgotten this?", particularly the part where history nearly repeated itself (the boyfriend's uncle and a New World Order). Though I found it a bit difficult to keep track of the different years going back and forth, it's not necessary to make sense of it in order to thoroughly enjoy this unusual tale.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new addition to my favourites list! I loved Elleander Morning the character, I could hardly put the book down, and it was so interesting, clever and thought provoking. Very interesting to see the implications of WWII's absence, H.G. Wells as a character, a complex woman being the one to change history...

Not quite without its issues - I didn't care so much for Lesley Morning and the romance/sex - but the pros outweigh the cons for me.

[BJ Haun · Rating 1 out of 5]

Got about 20% of the way through this book before I decided to put it down. None of the characters were doing anything for me, and the plot thus far didn't interest me at all. A shame, considering this seems be one of the highest rated books to come out of Singularity & Co. Ah, well. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not usually fond of alternative history novels, but this one is superb. Intelligent, with well drawn characters. The movements back and forward in time are initially puzzling but never frustrating. It is as much a mystery as it is a time warp story - and sexiness in the mix. A delightful read.

[Alien · Rating 1 out of 5]

A young woman finds out that her grandmother killed Hitler and prevented WW2.

I disliked the style from the beginning. It was a chore to read and I plodded through 50 pages before I gave up

[Rachel (Kalanadi) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full review video: https://youtu.be/CEeYPuULock

[David Raz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Elleander Morning by Jerry Yulsman

This is quite an intriguing piece of alternative history. The results of the allies losing WWII have been written about, but what if the war never happened at all? The way this affects society, science and everything else is intriguing and well treated and the plot is quite satisfactory.

All preventing the war takes, is for Elleander Morning to be transported from her deathbed to the early 20s, where she can, after getting settled in, murder Hitler at a young age. I would not even call it "time-travel", and the means in which it happens are not something with which the book is bothered. Surprisingly, I did not mind it as much as I thought I would. It just happens, and as long as an author plays by the rules they set, it is fair game. What I liked much less is how everything is too conveniently set, most especially that a horse racing results book also travels in time. The manner in which some events change history and some do not also disturbed me.

The second thing I did not especially like is the way selling whoring young girls is depicted in joyful colors, and how "deflowering" them is seen as anything less than horrific rape. Not only did this disturb me, but I did not see how this is especially important to the story, or why it was included. The romance and sex parts in general were less well written than the rest of the book.

Overall, I did enjoy the book, but the lack of consistency and the needless side tracking prevents me from giving it more than 3.5 stars out of five, rounded to three.

[Chris Angelis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps it started as a good, even great idea: what kind of world would we be living in if the Second World War had never happened? Are certain events inevitable? The questions were great, but the attempt to answer them disastrous.

The first third of the narrative works reasonably well: the pace is good, and the descriptions of an alternative 1983 are engaging enough. Still, even then, there is a lot of room for improvement. After this first part, things fall apart rapidly. Elleander Morning becomes too preoccupied with non-pertinent details and subplots, losing track of the main plot. As a result, things seem to move forward with unrealistic rapidity. It all appears as a parody of itself, which is an awful thing for a speculative-fiction novel. Imagine a Romeo and Juliet with swastikas, and you won’t be far off.

[Continue reading on my blog]

[Heiki Eesmaa · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Fantasy Masterworks series is one where you'd expects swords and elves. Well, some of its books are like that but it also has many, probably more books that are fantastic in the broad sense and some have much more literary ambitions than pulpy adventure tales.

So this is clearly one of the former. I began to read this expecting a WWII alternative history tale in the vein of Man in High Castle or perhaps The Pleasure Gardens of Felipe Sagittarius (well scratch that, that one's weird fiction as well). Anyway, it kind of starts out like that and the atmosphere is slightly alien. Then in the middle, things get quite traumatic with what I'd term betrayal and abuse, except that the storytelling showcases it from the angle of showcasing the resourcefulness and inner strength of the characters involved. Major political events play out as well and cameos from historical figures are made. In the end I still don't understand much of what went on but it did leave a strong impression.

[Tammy Buchli · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read and loved this book when it was first published and, rather unusually for me, I have never reread it. I have frequently recommended it to others -- pretty much whenever somebody I'm speaking with is looking for alternate history or time travel books, but never revisited it myself.

With that setup, it wouldn't be surprising to find that the book didn't hold up, would it? Wrong! It was even better than I remembered. In part, this was because I'm older and smarter than the Tammy-In-Her-'20s who first read it -- I caught a lot more of the alternative history subtleties that Yulsman peppered the book with. But mostly, it's just a really, really fast paced and entertaining read!

[Grant Reid · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a curious multi-thread alternative history story, that confronts some dark social attitudes along the way. The key question it asks (from a 1980s point of view) is how different would the world and social attitudes look if the second world war had not happened? Issues such as European imperialism, attitudes to underage sex, anti-semitism and more are all considered, though the tone remains relatively light. Whether it works or not depends on whether you believe in the two incarnations of the lead character.

[Inge VH · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book, though I was left a bit confused in the end. The snippets of alternate history were certainly interesting and entertaining. I could have done without the casual pedophilia storyline, which was disturbing and did not seem at all necessary. I was fine with the time travel method itself not being explained, but would have liked to better follow the details of who was doing what and when as I lost the threads towards the end. Were Elleander and Lesley actually the same person? Clearly Lesley was born and grew up, so how….?

[Amy Bea · Rating 3 out of 5]

The beautiful Elleander Morning does many things no one expects, but there is one act for which she must pay dearly. How will she change the world so drastically in 1913?

[Sinead · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what I was expecting I thought it would explain the world if world war two didnt happen.However it was not was not like that and it was really good