Proteus Operation

Hogan, author of the best-selling Code of The Lifemaker, is one of the best science fiction writers around. Most readers will delight in this latest novel, especially if they have a nodding acquaintance with quantum theory. Some, however, may find that the heavy doses of hard science and accurate history impede their enjoyment of a story which, in literary terms, is rather thin. An Anglo-American team of soldiers and civilians is sent back from the Nazi-dominated world of 1975 (England capitulated in 1941; Hitler dropped the first A-bombs on Russia in 1942) to 1939, via a kind of updated Wellsian time machine, in order to bolster American and English resistance to the Nazis and forestall Hitler's victory. Roosevelt, Churchill, Einstein and many other real-life politicians and scientists feature prominently in a plot that makes clever play with multiple futures and the coexistence of older and young versions of the same person. As the Nazis get wise to the time machine and the team finds itself trapped in this earlier world, the narrative hits a high mark in tension. 35,000 first printing; $35,000 ad/promo.October