Fall of Giants: Book One of the Century Trilogy

Ken Follett

Aug 2011 · The Century Trilogy Book 1 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

Ken Follett’s magnificent historical epic begins as five interrelated families move through the momentous dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women’s suffrage.

A thirteen-year-old Welsh boy enters a man’s world in the mining pits. . . . An American law student rejected in love finds a surprising new career in Woodrow Wilson’s White House. . . . 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 a German spy. . . . And two orphaned Russian brothers embark on radically different paths when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution. 

From the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty, Fall of Giants takes us into the inextricably entangled fates of five families—and into a century that we thought we knew, but that now will never seem the same again. . . .

Ratings and reviews

Loved this first offering in the trilogy, having read Winter of the World first and become engulfed in the family stories. It did not disappoint but made me eager for the third volume. My understanding of the First World War has now a baseline.

Great historical facts woven with interesting characters. Complex politics lead up to WWI. Fall of Giants helps clear the events and is easy to follow. Hardly believed I finished 900 pages so quickly

The author weaves a good story from several perspectives, rich, poor, aristocrats, labor, into the politics of pre WWI. What I did not like was the verbal porn. One doesn't need the tawdry, graphic details of sexual intercourse in a good story. This alone discourages me from reading the sequels.

About the author

Ken Follett is one of the world’s best-loved authors, selling more than 160 million copies of his thirty books. Follett’s first bestseller was Eye of the Needle, a spy story set in the Second World War. 

In 1989 The Pillars of the Earth was published, and has since become the author’s most successful novel. It reached number one on bestseller lists around the world and was an Oprah’s Book Club pick.
 
Its sequels, World Without End and A Column of Fire, proved equally popular, and the Kingsbridge series has sold 38 million copies worldwide.
 
Follett lives in Hertfordshire, England, with his wife Barbara. Between them they have five children, six grandchildren, and three Labradors.