When The Devil Flies eBook Michael McGowan
Download As PDF : When The Devil Flies eBook Michael McGowan 
What if . . .
What if you woke up and discovered the year was 1928?
The Story . . .
A cosmic accident transports James, an Afghan War vet, and Marianne, a 12-year old schoolgirl, to 1928 Britain.
Struggling to earn a livelihood as an “inventor”, James sparks an atomic weapons race between Nazi Germany and the Western Allies that will determine the fate of the world.
Praise for When the Devil Flies
"During this fast-paced, suspense-filled journey, McGowan fills the story with intriguingly complex details about WWII, Nazi Germany, and life in the 1920s and '30s. . . . In addition to providing an engrossing history lesson, this thought-provoking tale touches on . . . war crimes, and our ever-evolving outlooks on life." —Kirkus Reviews
Readers’ Comments
“Lots of divergent twists on history. A really great read and one almost everyone can enjoy.”
“For fans of WWII conspiracies, this book takes a totally different but very interesting track.”
“The weaving of factual historical details into the storyline made the telling more gripping”
“hard to put down”
“one of the best science fiction/military books that I have ever read”
“a cross between Stephen King and a World War II novel”
“I have never read a book with so much information on historical events.”
“If one has read WWII prehistory, the venue will be familiar. Either way, the sub plots are full of intrigue.”
“The characters were interesting and the story line was well-developed. A good read.”
“Glad that the author did not whitewash any of the prejudices that were prevalent”
“A thoroughly entertaining book”
“The plot, the editing, the characters were excellent.”
“I really enjoyed reading because this book mixed historical facts with the plot.”
“extremely exciting and quite unique”
“Very fine WWII time travel tale”
“Phenomenal read!”
“a fast moving and suspenseful story”
“well written with great story and character development”
“I just finished this book and was pleasantly surprised and entertained.”
“enough historically accurate data to make it interesting”
“hard to put down. It is well worth your time”
“Sensitive treatment of some current social issues. Very good read.”
“I'm a fan of alternate history novels and this is a good one.”
“The characters were well developed and believable”
“I gave it a chance and not only did it win me over I couldn’t put it down!!”
“I rarely give 5 stars because reading and liking novels are very personal. But this was great.”
When The Devil Flies eBook Michael McGowan
A supernova explodes near Earth, and one (fictional) consequence is that a young girl Marianne and her older ersatz uncle James in Britain are transported a back in time to 1928 with their memories intact. First, the reader is treated to very realistic journey through the period 1928-1930 as Marianne and James cope with their new environment. It is obvious that a tremendous amount of research went into writing this book, not just for this earliest period but through 1942.Regarding time travel and the consequences of changing events in the past, the author, Michael McGowan, draws upon scientific phenomena that are not inordinately far removed from what could be just beyond our present knowledge. Consequently the book is not limited to the genre of "science fiction" per se. This plus the wealth of historical facts keep the reader from finding this book "too far out". Rather, he'll find it fully believable and fully enjoyable.
I personally, being a physicist, would have expected that what is termed "timeline" in the book to be connected to spacetime trajectories. But McGowan probably decided that might have caused more confusion than clarity - everything in the book is in layman's terminology. Also personally, and definitely not PC, I could have done with less homosexuality and a celebration for inventing birth control pills. But on with the body of the book.
By 1930 Marianne and James have established themselves financially by various means and hire a servant, allowing her to bring her son Howard into their home. Howard is a mathematical genius but has cerebral palsy and had been locked away in an asylum as an "idiot" since his speech was difficult to understand.
Using their prior knowledge before being sent back in time, Marianne and James assemble and guide a team of top biochemists to work on growing, separating, and mass producing penicillin and other antibiotics. Some of their other early adventures include an attempt to thwart the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, making plans to kill Hitler, and efforts to speed up the discovery of plutonium.
In 1937 James is assaulted by Nazi agents, and the wheelchair-bound Howard saves his life. Using his preknowledge of WWII, James then helps to guide the development of various technologies useful to Britain's war effort. But James' greatest effort by far is focused on helping British and Canadian scientists to produce a "linear" type of nuclear bomb, first breeding plutonium in a uranium reactor and extracting it. Meanwhile, by 1940, Nazi air raids are obliterating London and other major cities, and German scientists are working on their own nuclear weapon after stealing outlines developed by James. The race is on! The British and Canadian research is eventually merged with that of the U.S., and the Manhattan Project is launched.
But in Marianne's and James' altered timeline, might the British drop the first nuclear weapon on Germany, killing Hitler? Could the Nazis drop one on Britain or even the U.S? And did their altered timeline replace, not just differ from, their original one, becoming uniquely everyone's? (Perhaps McGowan would leave that last question up to the reader's imagination.) And what about Russia and Japan?
I won't spoil these or many other exciting stories for you by saying more about them here. I will, however, say that you will be impressed by the depth and breadth of Michael McGowan's knowledge of history, science, human nature and by his superb writing skills.
Martin Fricke, Ph.D. (nuclear physics)
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When The Devil Flies eBook Michael McGowan Reviews
It is always interesting to think how we might change the past if we could, and how we would do it. What things would we change? The book characters attempt to alter the path of WWII by developing nuclear weapons earlier than they were origninally. The story works out in the end, but I think it also shows how attempts to change history may backfire with Germany and possibly Russia also having nuclear weapons. It was never brought up in the story how mass use of these weapons would destroy the entire planet. I felt the characters in the book were undeveloped, and the few times the story bordered on suspenseful, it fell flat. Overall the book reads like a narrative as if I were telling a friend a story about something that happened. I do have to applaud the huge amount of research and data included in the story. The author asked me to review this book when I finished it, and Michael, I would say keep on writing!
Not sure how to proceed here...I actually got a physical letter, you know, like delivered by the postman, from the author asking if I would review the book. I mean, sure. I'm away, out of the country, working, and reading a lot. I love WW2 stuff, and like time travel books. So I bought (uuhhh....for $0.00) the version. I read it in a day. It was about 400 some pages?
I didn't know what to expect. So here is my take. This is a bipolar book. By that, I mean there were excellent aspects to it and there were....not excellent aspects. It was usually written at a sort of high school level. The chapters were really short in some cases, very to the point, not dramatic or well developed in some cases, in others way overdone. He covers a lot of ground here and sometimes the chapters felt more like outlines than quality writing. Sometimes things happen quickly - there is not a lot of monologuing in this book, I will tell you. There isn't a lot of tension or development...Sometimes the Nazi's break in and in a few lines they're busting knee caps. I don't want to give anything away. Some of the historical stuff is actually very well done, he's done his homework about that. At least from what I know and have read he was firing on all cylinders here as an author. But sometimes - like he takes almost 2 pages to describe the house the "hero" - is "enough already". And there is a lot of retrograde plot here, by which I mean I almost got the feeling he wrote the ending and worked backwards and fit in characters and events to make it work....let's see...i need a pair of twins, preferably one gay...preferably black....and oh- I'll teach one how to fly....and I'll make Churchill an enlightened homophile, and because I'm going to need a deus ex machina here I'm going to teach everyone to shoot a pistol...but especially the autistic kid....but anyway, that is fiction and it isn't the fact that he does that..it is the relative lack of eloquence doing it. My personal issue is that it seemed like the subplot of this book was the "gays' save the day" and I'm not sure if that was deliberate and a personal comment by the author about perceived wrongs being righted (Alan Turing...), or just a plot twist. When you read the book you'll see what I mean. And likewise, the heroine in the book sort of thinly develops into a young woman whom it seems all things progressive - pre marital sex, the pill, "bullying", feminism, etc. - are beyond debate. But that's the author's prerogative. It just bugged me because I wouldn't necessary pay my $$$ to support those views and they seemed far more than incidental.
On the other hand...the time travel stuff always intrigues me, and always will, and Mr. McGowan did a reasonable job of addressing that - you know...if you are sent back in time, and you kill your mother, will you actually ever be born, or will you disappear at that moment....and so forth. This stuff often is attributed to the butterfly effect, which is the supposition that a butterfly beating its wings can affect events on the other side of the world. I suspect in reality it stems from one of the original stories about trivial things in the past affecting the future materially - Ray Bradbury's Sound of Thunder, which, if you haven't read it....you should. The butterfly has an integral role in that story.
BUt in this book, he does a good job, and while it wasn't excellent and wasn't a masterpiece and overall was OK, I would say that the last paragraphs actually were as good as it gets as far as leaving you hanging and seriously thinking...hey...that's clever....does he mean what I think he means? what happens next?
So for a first novel it is sure better than anything I could write....but I think an editor could do wonders for his career.
A supernova explodes near Earth, and one (fictional) consequence is that a young girl Marianne and her older ersatz uncle James in Britain are transported a back in time to 1928 with their memories intact. First, the reader is treated to very realistic journey through the period 1928-1930 as Marianne and James cope with their new environment. It is obvious that a tremendous amount of research went into writing this book, not just for this earliest period but through 1942.
Regarding time travel and the consequences of changing events in the past, the author, Michael McGowan, draws upon scientific phenomena that are not inordinately far removed from what could be just beyond our present knowledge. Consequently the book is not limited to the genre of "science fiction" per se. This plus the wealth of historical facts keep the reader from finding this book "too far out". Rather, he'll find it fully believable and fully enjoyable.
I personally, being a physicist, would have expected that what is termed "timeline" in the book to be connected to spacetime trajectories. But McGowan probably decided that might have caused more confusion than clarity - everything in the book is in layman's terminology. Also personally, and definitely not PC, I could have done with less homosexuality and a celebration for inventing birth control pills. But on with the body of the book.
By 1930 Marianne and James have established themselves financially by various means and hire a servant, allowing her to bring her son Howard into their home. Howard is a mathematical genius but has cerebral palsy and had been locked away in an asylum as an "idiot" since his speech was difficult to understand.
Using their prior knowledge before being sent back in time, Marianne and James assemble and guide a team of top biochemists to work on growing, separating, and mass producing penicillin and other antibiotics. Some of their other early adventures include an attempt to thwart the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, making plans to kill Hitler, and efforts to speed up the discovery of plutonium.
In 1937 James is assaulted by Nazi agents, and the wheelchair-bound Howard saves his life. Using his preknowledge of WWII, James then helps to guide the development of various technologies useful to Britain's war effort. But James' greatest effort by far is focused on helping British and Canadian scientists to produce a "linear" type of nuclear bomb, first breeding plutonium in a uranium reactor and extracting it. Meanwhile, by 1940, Nazi air raids are obliterating London and other major cities, and German scientists are working on their own nuclear weapon after stealing outlines developed by James. The race is on! The British and Canadian research is eventually merged with that of the U.S., and the Manhattan Project is launched.
But in Marianne's and James' altered timeline, might the British drop the first nuclear weapon on Germany, killing Hitler? Could the Nazis drop one on Britain or even the U.S? And did their altered timeline replace, not just differ from, their original one, becoming uniquely everyone's? (Perhaps McGowan would leave that last question up to the reader's imagination.) And what about Russia and Japan?
I won't spoil these or many other exciting stories for you by saying more about them here. I will, however, say that you will be impressed by the depth and breadth of Michael McGowan's knowledge of history, science, human nature and by his superb writing skills.
Martin Fricke, Ph.D. (nuclear physics)
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