I absolutely love a good historical fiction epic and I think a found a good one. Fall of Giants is the first book in The Century Trilogy by Ken Follett. He also wrote the Kingsbridge series that I have also talked about previously. This book opens shortly before WWI and covers the events of the next decade. Billy Williams is a young Welshman who works in a coal mine. His sister Ethel works for the local lord Earl Fitzherbert who is the typical English lord. Fitzherbert’s sister Maud is an ardent feminist and suffragette who happens to have fallen for a German. The German in question is Walter Von Ulrich who works as a diplomat and spy in London. In Russia we see Grigori Peshkov, a young Bolshevik, and his brother Lev Peshkov who is constantly getting in trouble. In America there is Gus Dewar, a young man fresh out of law school who works as an aide for President Wilson. As each of their stories intertwine, sometimes in rather surprising ways, we see also see how they affect and are in turn affected by the events of WWI.
I call this an epic and rightly so as the hardcover copy I read was probably about a thousand pages long but only covered barely ten years for the characters. That probably qualifies as an epic. The reason I liked this book is the same reason I liked this author’s other works. You can read the book and feel like you are really there and the characters feel like real people. They are extremely well fleshed out for fictional characters. Each one also feels different, they don’t feel like cookie cutter characters and they aren’t easily categorized. I absolutely love that they are all so unique. It was also interesting how each of them become interconnected even without realizing it. The reason this was so interesting is that the characters cover five different nationalities, if you count the English and the Welsh separately, and yet they all end up being intertwined through the course of the book. Some of the connections are rather minor but they all end up connected. Being able to weave them all together and have it feel believable is a definite gift and one that Follett definitely has. As always I am in awe of his skill with character development. However, I also love the level of detail that is present in his work in regards to other things as well. You can definitely tell how much research he does for his historical fiction as there isn’t really anything that feels out of place. I think this series would be harder than his Kingsbridge series as there is so much more documentation about the real life historical figures that pepper the events being covered. Though this is historical fiction I don’t feel like any of these people are being misrepresented in any way which is a definite bonus for Follett’s work. It was also fascinating how he was able to take his fictional characters and weave them into actual events to help round out the overall story. The scene where two of them saw each other across the trenches during the Christmas ceasefire was kind of surreal to read but definitely added a certain level of authenticity that I enjoyed. Overall, a great book and a fine start to a series, a series that I plan on finishing in the near future. I am happy giving this book a 4.5 out of 5 stars.
This is a great work of historical fiction so if you enjoy that genre than I would recommend you try this book. I would also recommend this book to people who enjoy reading about WWI. It may be historical fiction but it still does a pretty great job of covering the events of the war. However, as I stated previously this book is also extremely long so be prepared for it to take a while to read. If you don’t think you can handle reading something that long than consider working your way up to as it is definitely worth the read if you can handle it. This book is primarily aimed at adult readers which is definitely something I would agree with. The characters are all adults who do all of the typical adult things which does include several mature or semi-mature scenes that would probably not be suitable for younger readers. With it covering the war it also includes several scenes detailing high levels of violence. If you are a reader who is younger than their late teens you should probably wait to read this book. It is a good book though and worth the wait until you are older. As always feel free to share your thoughts about this book in the comments.