Product Description

Michael Young is convinced his brilliant history thesis will win him a doctorate, a pleasant academic post, a venerable academic publisher and his beloved girlfriend Jane. A historian should know better than to imagine that he can predict the future. Leo Zuckerman is an ageing physicist obsessed with the darkest period in human history, utterly driven by his fanatical hatred of one man. A lover's childish revenge and the breaking of a rotten clasp cause the two men to meet in a blizzard of swirling pages. Pages of history. When they come together nothing - past, present or future - will ever be the same again.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2422 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Sunday Times
'Stephen Fry at his twinkling best'

About the Author
As well as being the bestselling author of four novels, The Stars' Tennis Balls, Making History, The Hippopotamus, and The Liar, and the first volume of his autobiography, Moab is My Washpot, Fry has played Peter in Peter's Friends, Wilde in the film Wilde, Jeeves in the television series Jeeves & Wooster and (a closely guarded show-business secret, this) Laurie in the television series Fry & Laurie.

Customer Reviews

Highly recommended
A thoroughly thought provoking read. Every aspect was a joy; from his endless fountain of wit to his dark ideas of what life could have been.

Making History changed my life, by far the best book I've ever read.

Sheer Genius
A very, very funny book from a very, very funny man. I challenge you to read this book without hearing Fry's voice in your head throughout. Buy it and enjoy.

Making History

Stephen Fry's 3rd novel finds him entering science fiction territory, as a university student and a physcicist team up to erase Adolf Hitler from history, only to find that the new world they have created may not be an improvement after all. The alternate world storyline is one of the staples of SF, and the idea of a world without Hitler is certainly a well-worn one, but Fry still manages to throw in a couple of good plot twists along the way, while familiar authorial tropes - humour, academia, homosexuality - are prevalent. THe novel is not without it's flaws - the concept is old-hat, the prose occasionally overblown, and the random jumps to screenplay form seem less to do with stylistic choices than Fry trying to wade through expositionary sections at top speed - but what makes this so enjoyable is the vivid characterisation and fluid writing style. Reminiscent of Douglas Adams, 'Making History' is entertaining and hugely readable.