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(More customer reviews)In any story about the Pearl Harbor attack, the attack itself is going to be one of the central "characters," and the narrative of the attack is almost inevitably going to be the most dramatic part of the plot. That's just as well in this case, as I found "Pearl Harbor" by Gingrich and Forstchen to be an interesting and mildly thought-provoking novel despite being weighed down by characters to whom the reader develops (or at least this reader developed) very little personal or emotional connection.
This is an "alternative history" novel of sorts, but not the kind that assumes time travel or poses "counterfactuals" like Wendell Willkie winning the election in 1940. In fact, the point at which fiction diverges from fact in "Pearl Harbor" is so subtle that readers unfamiliar with the Pearl Harbor attack run the risk, I imagine, of never noticing where the split happened. The road the authors have taken, though, is a plausible one, and the consequences of that difference flow logically. It's this element I'm looking forward to seeing explored further in later books in the promised series.
What was far less satisfying, however, was the authors' character development and, frankly, their writing. For one thing, this could have used at least one more pass by a good editor to catch spelling errors ("chocks" versus "chokes;" "terra incognito"), anachronisms (would Winston Churchill really have described someone as "outside the loop" [p. 270]?), and repeated descriptions, phrases, or actions -- if I had a drink every time Fuchida "slapped his pilot on the shoulder," I'd be drunk as a senator by the time the bombs started falling.
The fictional characters here are, as I said, not particularly engaging. I realized a good part of the way through the book that I wasn't really interested in them as such, but only as pegs on which to hang the story. One I came to think of as "Captain Cecil Backstory," useful mainly for long discussions with Winston Churchill during which the authors could explain Japanese culture and politics. Real-life characters like Churchill and FDR struck me as very imprecise portraits. (I've read a lot by and about Churchill, and I know Gingrich has as well. I was surprised, therefore, by how non-Churchillian the "Churchill" in this book sounded.) The one person in the book I did find interesting, and about whom I'm looking forward to reading more in later books, was Mitsuo Fuchida, the commander of the Japanese air strikes.
Because I'm a student of the Pearl Harbor attack and have read a fair amount about it, both fiction and nonfiction, I approached this book with a certain eagerness. I'm really sorry the characterization left so much to be desired, but the plausible and interesting premise may be enough to justify it and make me want to pick up later titles.
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