Fall of Giants (Century Trilogy, 1)

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Afterwards, as they leave, Walter asks Maud to marry him, showing her the marriage license he managed to obtain at short notice. He says they should be married the next day as he will most likely have to leave as soon as the German army begins to move. Billy tells Fitz his name, and Fitz realizes he is Ethel’s brother. As the troops advance, Fitz is hit twice, making Billy the highest ranking officer. He leads his men through craters to take out the machine guns. They retreat, and Billy finds to his regret that Fitz is still alive.

Ken Follett is an outstanding author. Yet, I find it very hard to compare one skilled writer's work with other skilled writer's work, even of the same genre, as their styles often differ quite dramatically... and so attempting to compare their work is a bit like debating which is the best type of friut.I can, however, state that there is no better wordsmith for his standard and style of work. The way he keeps your attention from start to finish, never under nor overstating life and it's bare,sometimes brutual, sometimes sensual, but always honest realities. He just weaves you into the lives of his characters and never lets you breath until he's finished. Meanwhile, Ethel is elated to see Billy who sees that Fitz is against peace talks. Fitz is invited by Maud to debate at a meeting. When he does so, Billy counters with the lives lost at Somme and the leadership’s incompetence. Fitz is furious as he takes Ethel to the meeting of the House of Commons, wishing he had not promised to spare any soldiers because of their opinions. As the House of Commons decides to continue the war, Ethel screams the names of the lives lost and is escorted out. Walter goes to his father’s office and shares what he has learned. He then meets Maud at tea at the Duchess of Sussex’s home. Maud manages to get Walter alone in the library, but they are soon interrupted by Lady Hermia, Maud’s aunt. Discuss examples of the disparity between how women and men were treated during this era. Were women regarded better, or worse, than you imagined they'd be? How far have women come since the early 1900s? What inequalities between the sexes still persist today? In late July of 1914, the Balkans are still simmering, so Maud and Walter’s engagement is still secret. Walter attends a meeting with Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, who proposes a conference with Britain, Germany, Italy, and France as mediators. Walter is optimistic, but his father thinks this is a plan to drive a wedge between Germany and Austria.

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Before reading Fall of Giants, what did you know about World War I? Did you learn anything new upon finishing the novel? Walter blames his father and his father’s generation for the prolonged war. The American Expeditionary Force landed in France in June 1917, despite the arrogant assurances of the German leadership that it would not. All now depends on Russia withdrawing from the war.

On April 6, 1917, the United States declares war on Germany. Walter’s only hope now is for the Russian government to collapse so that the anti-war group will take control. Think about the ways the main characters’ lives intersected throughout the book. Were there any characters that didn’t meet over the entirety of the novel that you wished did? Who, and why? Walter details the casualties of the German victory to General Ludendorff. The Russian Second Army (Grigori’s division) effectively has been wiped out in the East, although the Russians have gained the advantage on the Western Front.Ken Follett's World Without End was a global phenomenon, a work of grand historical sweep, beloved by millions of readers and acclaimed by critics as "well-researched, beautifully detailed [with] a terrifically compelling plot" ( The Washington Post) and "wonderful history wrapped around a gripping story" ( St. Louis Post- Dispatch) What did you think of the book's ending? Did the author succeed in wrapping up the many threads and strands in Fall of Giants? Which of the characters in Fall of Giants do you expect to be reading about in books two and three of The Century Trilogy?

Alas I found myself unable to really engage with the characters, finding them rather cardboard cutout. I could not help feeling that each was created purely to act as a vehicle to show key historical moments and most of the conversations they had, tended to give us lengthy history lessons. The fact that they seemed to somehow turn up at key points of world events of the time, I found clunky. Thirteen-year-old Billy Williams enters a man's world in the Welsh mining pits… Gus Dewar, an American law student rejected in love, finds a surprising new career in Woodrow Wilson's White House… two orphaned Russian brothers, Grigori and Lev Peshkov, embark on radically different paths half a world apart when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution… Billy's sister, Ethel, a housekeeper for the aristocratic Fitzherberts, takes a fateful step above her station, while Lady Maud Fitzherbert herself crosses deep into forbidden territory when she falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German embassy in London…From September to December 1914, Fitz works in France as an interpreter to help maintain the peace between the French and British members of the military. He learns that most of the government has fled Paris, leaving a man named Gallieni to defend it. Fitz is angry that the British are choosing to retreat instead of fighting, and he is introduced to French General Lourceau who convinces the British general to keep fighting. However, their advancements are slow and Gallieni uses taxis to move the French men to the front lines. While Britain is slow, the German advance is stopped and they fight until December 24th where the men call an unofficial truce and Walter asks Fitz to tell Maud he was thinking of her. Is it significant that Fall of Giants begins with the stories of Billy and Ethel Williams? Would the novel have been different if other characters' stories opened the book, such as those of Grigori and Lev Peshkov, or Gus Dewar?

Grigori rises in the emerging Bolshevik Party. Katerina is miserable as the birth of her baby draws near. In an attempt to break up the soviets, the government decides to send the Petrograd garrison to the front. Lenin and Trotsky argue over the merits of a coalition government. Walter finds himself attracted to Monika von der Helbard despite his marriage to Maud. He and Monika discuss the new Russian government’s announcement that they will continue to fight. Despite his own attraction and her obvious interest in him, Walter keeps Monika at arm’s length, even though he knows that her feelings are hurt by his distance. Lenin remains in hiding to avoid arrest. The two men begin plans to storm the Winter Palace and arrest the ministers of the provisional government. When the assault is complete and the Winter Palace is in control of the Bolsheviks, Grigori stands on the spot where his mother died and sees the revolution as his own personal revenge against the tsarist government. He is undone when he finds that Lenin has settled for compromise with the moderate Mensheviks, but the agreement falls apart and the Mensheviks walk out, leaving the Bolsheviks in control. The giants that fell were the Austro–Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the German Empire, and the regime of the tsars. Yes, I think a cataclysm of some kind was probably necessary before those obsolete rulers would let go of power. Talk about the historical figures that appear throughout Fall of Giants, such as Woodrow Wilson, King George V, Vladimir Lenin, and others. What did you think of Ken Follett’s depiction of them? Do you like seeing notable people such as these come alive in fiction, or do you prefer reading about them in a strictly historical context?Ethel gathers the widows together and convinces them to write a letter to the king, helping them with the wording. However, they receive no reply, and the villagers of Aberowen watch as the miners and their families are evicted forcibly. There are several key themes linking facets in world history at this point. They include the causes of the First World War, the collapse of the Russian Empire, and Germany's role in the continuance of a bloody war that led to its economic collapse and the postwar rise of Hitler.