Edge of Eternity: Ken Follett (The Century Trilogy, 3)

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Join now to access our Study Guides library, which offers chapter-by-chapter summaries and comprehensive analysis on more than 5,000 literary works from novels to nonfiction to poetry. At first he had the baffled frown of one who sees a familiar sight in an alien context, such as a turnip in a library. For instance (SPOILERS), a male character digs one of the female POV characters, but she falls for none other Jack Kennedy. He is also active in many Stevenage charities and is President of the Stevenage Community Trust and Patron of Home-Start Hertfordshire. I think Follett missed the space race in his portrayal of US/USSR relations, but including it would have pushed the book well over the 1,098 pages.

Ken’s ability to continue the families stories is amazing and he brings the memories of the past series in this final book. And if I had to read one more time about someone teaching someone about oral sex or some woman accidentally getting pregnant – really? The second books ends with Erik (Carla's brother) being enthusiastic with an East German uniform (similar to how he had joined the Nazi Army before) yet no mention of him, even in passing is made here.

More importantly, I'd say the book suffers because the history is nowhere near as interesting as the first and second world wars. It is an epic book and it does cover some huge and complex history, mainly the Cold War and Civil Rights Movement but I think it lost its way and let some of the strongest elements of the first two books just fizzle out. Let’s get married, Hans,” she had said with a smile, and he had kissed her and replied: “What a wonderful idea.

Maybe as a standalone version it would have been better received, but as the third of what had been a superb trilogy I was let down. The Communists denied that Red Army soldiers had committed rape, even though every woman who had been in East Germany in 1945 knew the horrible truth. The families experience these events differently, and he is able to present events from each of their perspectives.

These include the civil rights movement in the US, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassinations of President John F. At times it felt like a history lesson that was pulling characters along rather than the interweaving of different sides in the first two books. In this final installment, we see the grandchildren of the epic WWI story course through the remnants of WWII, the Cold War, and the civil rights movement of the 1960's. Those are some of the most forced pages in the entire book and of course Follett goes all BABYKILLER for those pages, and no real mention is made of them again. By the very end of the book, the epilogue, all of the first book's characters and quite a lot of the second's, must be dead, but we don't find out what happened to many of them, which is a bit of a let-down.