Fall of Giants [Apr 10, 2018]

[Scott , Karsa Orlong]

Fall of Giants

[Choko]

Spot!

[Beste]

This book has really bad critics as well as the good ones. I don't know what to do

[Olivia]

I will give it a try since my other half loved it.

[Choko]

Yay! The more the merrier 😀

[Frank]

I read this several years ago, and will do a quick reread of these first two volumes, as I never read the last.
Enjoyable formula historical fiction.

[Scott , Karsa Orlong]

I started last night. I'm having a hard time not thinking of this as Kingbridge #4. No none of it takes place there but the writing style is so distinctively Follett and with the same narrator I'm feeling a bit burnt out on him. I'm glad we are doing a book a month. I don't think I could roll right into the next.

[Scott , Karsa Orlong]

A third of the way done. Series prediction

(view spoiler)[
The children of the marriage and the affair will be born a girl and a boy and it will all come out when they decide to date.
(hide spoiler)]

[Choko]

Hahaha! Let's see if you are right:)

[Choko]

The miners are not having good lives... I feel bad for all those little boys following in their fathers footsteps into a dead-end job and life of misery... This is why I never understood why people are lamenting the mining industry in the US, when the "clean energy" industry is so much healthier and less dangerous... Also, it has much more job creations... I don't understand the romance in it...

[Scott , Karsa Orlong]

I'm into the war parts. Having read a lot of WWI I don't think he gives the horrors justice. It's very oversimplified.

[Choko]

I am not into the war yet, but I once again have issues with the oversimplifying of the characters as well... Why does he do this? He takes on such grand scale themes and then gives us half-animated characters... It doesn't seem right somehow...

[Choko]

Up to Ch 8... Not all priests everywhere are bad, and not only protestants are good... He does tend to paint every social level with one paintbrush... All nobility in Russia was not all bad and all peasants not all good... I hope he gives us some diversification here...

[Choko]

OMG! Religion and politics - the best known devices to destroy a family and turn the members against one another, second only to money... We are soooooo pathetic!

[Choko]

Forgot to say, Fitz and Lev make me sick! Either one is a spineless worm!

[Choko]

I am half way through and I can't help but feel like he researches a historical period of time and then plugs in people and sex drama in order to make it into fiction. Only he really sucks at human interaction! I feel like we have already read all the relationship possibilities in the other trilogy, only this time around we get it during WWI...

[Scott , Karsa Orlong]

Choko wrote: "Forgot to say, Fitz and Lev make me sick! Either one is a spineless worm!"

Two sides of the same coin for certain.

[Scott , Karsa Orlong]

Choko wrote: "I am half way through and I can't help but feel like he researches a historical period of time and then plugs in people and sex drama in order to make it into fiction. Only he really sucks at human..."

Yep thus my Kingsbrige #4 comments. They all read like format fiction like you said where he just plugs in different names, places and events to fit.

[Choko]

Exactly! I keep reading because I do get a different view of the war and the times, but I almost wish he would stick with the history only😀

[Choko]

I am taking a day break from this book. I have about 300 pages left, right after Gregory in Russia is starting to represent the Soviet in the provisional government. I am a bit pissed because KF goes with "all aristocrats are stupid and the people, despite being simple and rapists are always better ", then turns around and goes with exactly the opposite in Germany and the US... I am not even sure if he believes his own ideological picture he is building here... I just need something lighter tonight and will continue tomorrow...

[Olivia]

You’re making me want to put the book to the side and forget about it before I get too far in!

[Scott , Karsa Orlong]

The historical aspects are interesting but I'm less in love with the characters than I was with Kingsbridge.

[Choko]

I just finished it and I did bond with Mod and Gus, but overall it felt like a review of WWI history class... I don't mind that, but I really wish for more spark and more "human" way of characters relating to each-other...

Olivia, don't hurry with this one... Take it slow, because the drama is more manufactured than real and stick with it if you would like to see how he deals with WWI. I am sure the next book will be about the war after, or maybe the depression... I have no idea...

[Scott , Karsa Orlong]

I'm done. Several predictions.

Walter will end up fighting against his son much like he did his father in the lead up to the next world war. Otto already switching from a man of the Kaiser to a man of Hitler seems convenient and not reality.

Gus being a lawyer and looking to work for another president will not only lead him to FDR but to Robert H Jackson and the Nuremberg trials.

Lev being a whiskey runner will put him in contact with both FDR, Joseph Kennedy and if they want to go deeper Wellington Mara and Dan Rooney both of the NFL all of whom had bootlegger ties.

I hope there's more about Ramsey MacDonald and the labor party of GRB. That's a history I'm not overly familiar with.

I also think based on Kingsbridge that we'll see most of the above events through the children of the main characters in book #1. We'll get these back stories from their perspectives.

[Choko]

Scott wrote: "I'm done. Several predictions.

Walter will end up fighting against his son much like he did his father in the lead up to the next world war. Otto already switching from a man of the Kaiser to a m..."

I am almost certain your predictions are right. And yes, that switch for Otto seems very rash...