![]() ![]() The giants of the title, the crowned heads of Europe, are solidly ensconced in their palaces when the story begins in 1911 but all gone (except King George V of Britain) when it ends, in 1924. He prefers to save history’s horrors for the villains, who are frequently humiliated in satisfying ways. ![]() In this huge panorama, empires rise and fall, wars break out and characters of varying social backgrounds live mostly happy or mostly unhappy lives - mostly happy, more often than not, because Follett is an optimist, and firmly on the side of the good guys. His new novel, “Fall of Giants,” is the first volume of a projected trilogy in which the 20th century has replaced the Middle Ages as a stage for life’s grandeurs and miseries, but the book’s narrative structure is the same: multiple plot strands woven through a vast tapestry of times past. The British novelist Ken Follett’s two-part medieval epic, “The Pillars of the Earth” (now a TV miniseries) and “World Without End,” teemed with oppressed peasants, bloodthirsty warlords and lusty wassailers. ![]()
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