The Century Trilogy
The Century Trilogy is, as the name indicates, a trilogy of novels by Ken Follett which tell the history of the 20th century through the eyes of five interrelated families--American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh. The trilogy consists of the following novels:
- Fall of Giants (2010): Covers 1911 to 1923, but most of the novel is set during World War I.
- Winter of the World (2012): Due to be published in September 2012, to focus on the rise of the Nazis and World War Two.
- An upcoming third novel, title TBD.
The five families are:
- The Dewar family--aristocrats with high connections in the American government.
- The Fitzherbert family--ditto, except they're British.
- The von Ulrich family--ditto, except they're German.
- The Peshkov family--two Russian peasants, one who emigrates to American and one who stays behind and gets involved in the Russian Revolution
- The Williams family--Welsh coal miners.
Tropes used in The Century Trilogy include:
- Author Tract: Judging from the first novel, Ken Follett is a Labor Party voter.
- Contrived Coincidence: Was it pushing things too far for Earl Fitzherbert and Walter von Ulrich to meet each other in no-man's-land on the day of the 1914 Christmas Truce?
- Dramatic Irony: At the end of Giants Maud greets news of the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch with a relieved "Thank God that's over."
- Everybody Has Lots of Sex: A Ken Follett trademark.
- Groin Attack: Lev Peshkov kicks a thug in the nuts in Giants.
- Historical Domain Character: Winston Churchill visits the Fitzherbert family in Giants and will no doubt appear again in Winter. Vladimir Lenin plots revolution with Grigory Peshkov in Giants. Gus Dewar works for Woodrow Wilson. And there are many others.
- Law of Inverse Fertility: In Giants Earl Fitzherbert and his wife are struggling to conceive but the earl knocks up maid Ethel Williams pretty quickly.
- Loads and Loads of Characters
- Man On Fire: After the explosion in the Aberowen coal mine in Giants.
- Red October
- Sequel Hook: Fall of Giants ends with some bitter Germans taking interest in a rabble-rousing politician named Adolf Hitler.
- Lev Peshkov ends Giants by starting a new career as a bootlegger.
- Shout-Out: In Giants Fitz sees a church from the year 1000 and wonders why people are interested in old churches.
- This may also be a subtle bit of characterization from cathedral enthusiast Ken Follett, since Earl Fitzherbert is the closest thing to an antagonist that the first book has.
- Spiritual Successor: To The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. After writing thrillers and spy novels for most of his career, Follett told the story of 12th and 14th century England (respectively) through those two novels about the residents of a fictional English town called Kingsbridge. The Century Trilogy is recounting the events of the 20th century through a similar narrative style.
- Switching POV: Giants has eight POV characters--Gus Dewar, Earl Edward Fitzherbert and his sister Maud, Walter von Ulrich, brothers Grigori and Lev Peshkov, and Billy Williams and his sister Ethel.
- Those Wacky Nazis
- World War I
- World War Two