The H-bomb Girl

by Stephen Baxter

Liverpool 1962. A place and time of danger and passion. A thrilling new music is bursting on to the grey streets of the post-war a music that electrifies, a music that promises to change everything. But in Cuba, on the other side of the earth, nuclear tensions are at breaking point. The end of the whole world could be just days away. At the heart of it all is fourteen-year-old Laura Mann. She's on the run, hunted by strange forces fighting over the future of humanity. Laura is the H-Bomb Girl. And Laura is about to discover that her own life is at stake - in ways she could never have imagined . . .

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Young Adult, Speculative Fiction, Time Travel, Alternate History

288 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2007

About the author

Stephen Baxter is a trained engineer with degrees from Cambridge (mathematics) and Southampton Universities (doctorate in aeroengineering research). Baxter is the winner of the British Science Fiction Award and the Locus Award, as well as being a nominee for an Arthur C. Clarke Award, most recently for Manifold: Time. His novel Voyage won the Sidewise Award for Best Alternate History Novel of the Year; he also won the John W. Campbell Award and the Philip K. Dick Award for his novel The Time Ships. He is currently working on his next novel, a collaboration with Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Mr. Baxter lives in Prestwood, England.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has been sitting on my shelf for far too long waiting to be read - sorry Mr Baxter.

Now to me I connect Stephen Baxter to hard science fiction, partly from his heritage (physicist & engineer) and partly from is writing style and content. So when I saw this title I was intrigued - shame it took me so many years to get round to reading it, but i guess thats another one off my TBR list.

But what of the book - well I guess its hard to describe (not that I would dare to try) but I would say you have the terror and fear of a young girl living in the shadow of the 60s Cuban Missile crisis mixed up with a subtle time travel story.

What caught my attention was the narrative, there is extensive use of dairy entries which usually irritates me as it usually feels that the author cannot properly convey what they want so have to use a strange 3rd person to do it for them, but not here. Here you have the main character seeing their confident being subverted with subtle and terrifying results (all I will say is that the "future" entries make for bleak reading).

But also what interested me was how the time travel element came in to play, it was far more underplayed than I would have expected and played in a manner I didn't expect (so tempted to give things away).

The result was for me a story that even though in reality didn't go anywhere (after all we know from the history books how it played out) but there were so many options of what could have happened. So definitely not what I was expecting from Stephen Baxter but in hindsight it has all his hallmarks on it.

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed every minute of this book. Living in Liverpool I knew all the places that they talked about and it was so great to be able to picture them as they were being described. I also loved the references to the 60s bands and musicians who were staring out their journey before becoming famous. Especially the subtle way they were talked about. Historical events aren’t always something that grab my attention but for somehow this book managed to get me interested in the Cuban Missile crisis which until know I didn’t know too much about just that it happened but I enjoyed learning a bit more about it through this book. The sci-fi/time travel element was also interesting but it’s the only element of the book that I wasn’t 100% on but it hasn’t detracted from my over reading experience. Loved it, would read again, recommend to everyone.

[Kamakana · Rating 3 out of 5]

291110: this is a much later reread: well i never gave this book to my niece, did keep it, decided to read it again because it had something to do with 'the beatles' and interested in that right now, the portrait of 1962 liverpool, read it in one sitting so affirm the rating. i am not a baby boomer, was not born in that era- but do remember nuclear armageddon fears from when reagan was elected in 1980... there was even a hollywood movie that seemed to celebrate guerilla war in the us, the movie plot did not frighten me- it was frightening only that somebody decided to make this movie...

first review: much of the pleasure of reading this was qualified by deciding whether to give this to my niece, 12, this christmas. character is 14, it is YA, but it also deals with nuclear war… so maybe next year. because it is fun, it is quick, it is an interesting sf that starts out as a historical novel set in liverpool in 1962, soon to be famous beatles, soon to be terrifying in the october missiles crisis. not what i expected from baxter. i can see why it was short listed for some awards, though it must be difficult for baby boomers to think of the happenings in their lives as ‘history’...

[Edmund Chattoe-Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really unimpressed with his continuation of War of the Worlds which completely lacked the same flavour. This is a case where, on balance, you shouldn't give up on a book too soon. While Baxter doesn't write badly, he doesn't write noticeably well either but in this case he has the subject matter (time travel and the Cold War) well lined up with his style and the whole thing works. I think towards the end the plot involving possible worlds became a bit unmanageable but that could just be me. A good solid bit of work.

[Steven Grimm · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story starts off well enough, with a 13-year-old girl moving to a new town and discovering there are strange events afoot. The first major twist was telegraphed a little too obviously; when it was revealed, I had a feeling of, "Good, that's not going to drag out any longer," rather than, "Wow, didn't see that coming." The cat-and-mouse game that makes up much of the story is enjoyable enough, even if the fawning over the Beatles is laid on a bit thick. Sadly, it kind of goes off the rails toward the end, with a cartoonish set of villains doing everything short of twirling their moustaches and cackling, and a climax that relies on the villains being surprised by an event nearby that would have happened on a regular basis.

One glaring question is left completely unaddressed, which leads to a pretty big hole in the logic of the story: Since the real-world Cuban Missile Crisis ended without any bombs being dropped, what was the initial trigger that changed history and spawned the timelines that ended up sending time travelers back to change the course of the war? In fact, how did those timelines happen in the first place, short of a "many-worlds" model where all possible futures happen, in which case one would expect a near-infinite number of time travelers popping back from their respective timelines to try to change things?

Aside from that major logic question, there was also a minor inconsistency that jumped out at me: If the Hegemony couldn't bring back any computers from 2007, how did Mort have a Macbook hidden in the bookshelf, complete with a wireless network connection to a server? His laptop would have had more computing power than the row of 1962 computers in the underground lair.

My verdict: Fun at times, but probably not worth all the praise it seems to get. Even when I was 13 I probably would have found this a bit unsatisfying; this kind of story needs to be much more airtight in order to really work.

[Chris Hinchley · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute cracking read! As Baxter's second bash at 'teen fiction' I'd never gotten around to this, which doesn't add up because his first, the Mammoth trilogy, was actually very good. Set in Liverpool in the year I was born this is a great confident mix of time-travel, Cold War paranoia and 60's-style teenage angst. There's a bit of Timeslip's 'The Year of the Ice Box' thrown in, and a convincing young cast of varying backgrounds, skin colours and sexualities. The Beatles get a look in, and there's a convincing feel of time and place.

I would have LOVED this if I had read this as a ten year old. It was quite rightly nominated for the Arthur C Clarke Award. And I can't help but think that in the right hands it would make an absolutely great movie.

[S.P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't really like the beginning, but once I got into it, was surprised how much I liked it. Based during the Cuban Missile Crisis, this is a story or one teenagers struggle with family breakdown, a new school and friends, oh, and trying to avoid dying in a geo-thermonuclear war bought on by her future daughter, future self, and mad old bugger in a wheelchair.

Helped along by a great 'sound track', some pretty 'gone with the wind' narrative and social changes of the time, Baxter makes a good stab at an almost alternative history book (most the other stuff of his I have read has been more spacey and futurey).

Think it'd make a fun film!

[Thom · Rating 5 out of 5]

This obscure little book by Stephen Baxter is a fast read and quite a bit of fun. Set in 1962 with a decent cast of youngsters, it also has Dr. No (the movie), the Beatles and the Cavern Club, and a Vulcan nuclear bomber. Humor in appropriate places and suspense in the rest lead to an exciting conclusion.

Target audience seems to be teenaged British readers, and I needed to look up some of the slang. Minor technical quibbles are easily overlooked in favor of the story. Would make a cracking good movie!

[Caitlin Roufa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an engrossing and quick read. It's a young adult sci-fi that follows a 14 year old girl in England during the Cuban missile crisis. What if the worst had happened during the crisis? The book toys with this notion in a very suspenseful way. The reader is left wondering if the apocalypse will come to be or not as events unfold in the book. This is a little different from Baxter's hard sci-fi (I'm thinking Vacuum Diagrams and others from the Xeelee sequence), but I really enjoyed the book and had trouble putting it down. Good read!

[Janet · Rating 2 out of 5]

I never thought I'd say this about, well, anything, but this book got a lot better after they dropped the bomb. The build-up to that turning point felt clumsy both in structure and characterization. I also couldn't figure out why, in a book that makes extensive use of excerpts from the main character's diary, the narrator's voice also sounded so much like it was meant to be from her perspective--it definitely lessened the impact (sorry, no pun intended) of the first-person sections.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is probably the finest time travel (shhh, sorry that's a bit spoiler-ish) I've ever read. Deft characterization of the main character and extremely capable handling of the theoretical complexities of time travel.

My only complaint is that while Laura is a well drawn and interesting character, the rest of the cast were pretty one-dimensional and primarily served as foils rather than actual people themselves.

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was a great book it was a great historic fiction/fantasy. It took me a few minutes to catch up with the time travel but once i did it took on a whole new level. With great charecters and settings though i am glad there is no follow on as i feel as though it wouldn't be as good ,as one of the good things about htis book is the mystery and now that you know what is going on, a second book just wouldn't be as good

[Janet · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried . . .I really did. But I just didn't see why this book has received such good press by the YA lit bloggers. I was a teen in the 60s but I just can't fall into novels written in that decade as historical settings. And the whole time travel/Cuban Missile Crisis/Liverpool/Beatles stuff was just too much. Be gone!

[Jerri Gallagher Clegg · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first I found this book sort of...'oh, it's just going to go on and on about the happenings of how a-bombs and h- bombs occurred in history.' But as I got into it of course I really liked the characters more and more (especially as the twists were thrown in..). Putting the **SPOILERS** Beatles' origins stuff in their was an extra dash of great fun. I enjoyed it very much.

[Liina · Rating 4 out of 5]

this really was excellently dr. who -ish, quite entertaining and well-written.

the diary parts were so lifelike, in fact, that whenever they stopped, i was astonished to notice that the book was not in 1st person perspective.

[Sian Bradshaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn't too sure about this one when I started it but it really picked up and was very readable. Really enjoyed the character the even thought the story had some complexity it was very clearly written. Really liked this one.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much less "hard" SF than a lot of the other Stephen Baxter stuff I've read. Certainly not bad for that. An easy and not unpleasant read.

Alternate history/time-travel hi-jinks aplenty.

[Mieczyslaw Kasprzyk · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a must-read for anyone who lived through the Cuba Crisis. I think it overdoes the Lennon hero-worshipping - but never mind.

[Steve Rippington]

Well considered, well written, concise and creepy as hell. Thoroughly enjoyed it, and am sure I'll remember it for a long long time!

[jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

going to be fair and say i read this years ago, i will reread and come back to update.

turn left (Dr Who) and threads (1984) the book, for teens.

[Steve Clark]

Paperback