Scan barcode
jercox's review
2.0
Wraps up the series, but the story feels even more fragmented and disconnected than the others. Even more things that don't make a lot of sense, and it just left me feeling disoriented and not really enjoying it that much.
fivemack's review
3.0
The sort of unsatisfying end of all real spy stories
Across a multiverse somehow sadder and less whimsical than in the previous two novels, the consequences of universe-hopping play out in a collision of lives in Warsaw, Estonian islands, and fantastical Siberian arcologies.
Across a multiverse somehow sadder and less whimsical than in the previous two novels, the consequences of universe-hopping play out in a collision of lives in Warsaw, Estonian islands, and fantastical Siberian arcologies.
laurenla's review
4.0
A convoluted two worlds and many nations spy story. Beautifully written and with Le Carre's ability to sketch spies with humanity, drawing you into their serious games. Leavened with humour and wordplay, reading the story and following the threads is as much fun as seeing where they lead.
A word to the wise - this is the third book in the series. I didn't catch all the references and recurring characters, but I imagine someone new to this would be spinning. Do yourself a favour and read all 3 of Hutchinson's Fractured Europe books. For espionage, sci-fi and political thriller lovers and well as those who just like a good read A favourite discovery of 2015/16.
A word to the wise - this is the third book in the series. I didn't catch all the references and recurring characters, but I imagine someone new to this would be spinning. Do yourself a favour and read all 3 of Hutchinson's Fractured Europe books. For espionage, sci-fi and political thriller lovers and well as those who just like a good read A favourite discovery of 2015/16.
neilsb's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.5
sadie_slater's review
3.0
The third novel in Dave Hutchinson's Fractured Europe sequence pulls together threads from Europe in Autumn and Europe in Winter and weaves them together with the stories of other occupants of Hutchinson's fragmented near-future Europe who are drawn, willingly or unwillingly, into a complex game of spycraft and politics. Like the previous novels, Europe in Winter is structured as a series of vignettes which seem to be only loosely tied together by the often fleeting appearances of Rudi, the sort-of hero of Europe in Autumn, and his associates, but which gradually assemble into a continuation of the story of Rudi's investigation into the Coureurs des Bois, the shadowy organisation that has dominated his life for many years.
Like the earlier books, Europe in Winter is witty, pacy and very much aware of the spy genre it's riffing on, and I was pleased to note that the pattern of killing off female characters to advance the plots of the male characters I was disappointed by in Europe at Midnight wasn't repeated here (and, as in the previous books, the female characters are interested, rounded and feel as much like real people as the male characters do). I enjoyed it, though I felt that the year or so since reading Europe at Midnight put me at something of a disadvantage when it came to recognising characters who appeared in the earlier books and remembering details of their plots, and I'm not entirely sure my brain was always really up to the complex joining-the-dots required to follow Hutchinson's plotting.
Like the earlier books, Europe in Winter is witty, pacy and very much aware of the spy genre it's riffing on, and I was pleased to note that the pattern of killing off female characters to advance the plots of the male characters I was disappointed by in Europe at Midnight wasn't repeated here (and, as in the previous books, the female characters are interested, rounded and feel as much like real people as the male characters do). I enjoyed it, though I felt that the year or so since reading Europe at Midnight put me at something of a disadvantage when it came to recognising characters who appeared in the earlier books and remembering details of their plots, and I'm not entirely sure my brain was always really up to the complex joining-the-dots required to follow Hutchinson's plotting.
thesffreader's review
5.0
Review originally published on The Curious SFF Reader
The Fractured Europe Sequence is one of the most relevant series of all time. I devoured the first two installement of this series at the beginning of the year and I was highly anticipating the continuation (or ending ?) of this series. Europe in Winter did not disappoint. As much as Europe at Midnight was an extremely loose sequel to Europe in Autumn (it did not follow the same characters and the story did not take place in the same countries), Europe in Winter is a perfect balance of the two, we have the pleasure to reacquaint ourselves with Rudy, the main protagonist of the first installment. I didn’t realize how much I missed his perspective until I followed his adventures again.
It’s very difficult to put this series in any genre, it has a bit of sci-fi (with the parallel universe), a bit of a spy thriller novel (the main character Rudy is a Coureur des Bois, a member of an organization which transport mysterious packages across borders) but it’s also very much a commentary on European politics. I mean you could read this only for the enjoyment level and you would still like it but once you start digging a little, you realize that this definitely not a James Bond book. In The Fractured Europe Sequence, espionnage isn’t very sexy, the research is tedious and takes years and our main character is a middle aged and ordinary looking man who walks with a cane.
The whole idea of this series is based on two facts. First of all, because of a disease, the European Union has imploded in a multitude of small countries, new borders are created everyday and power is the ability to travel across them and it is reserved to few people (as power usually is). In this context, being a part of Les Coureurs des Bois is wonderful opportunity for anyone who wish for freedom.
The second fact is that, centuries ago, an English family has managed to slowly build the Community, a kind of alternate Europe where they don’t have to deal with other countries that they consider dangerous. Of course, because of different things explored in the first two books, it doesn’t really work the way they wanted and they are discovered by other countries
As much as the similarities between the Community and England are obvious, Hutchinson manages to quitely craft a Cold War II type of a setting. Indeed the Community is a nuclear power and they don’t want to have any types of relations with the barely hold-together Europe. However, even though no visible power is there to fund European countries, odd structures, such as The Line, a huge railway that allows its citizen to travel all the way across the former Europe, still manage to exist. But who provides the money ?
The first book of this series was published in 2014 when Brexit was only an idea and now that the UK are planning to leave the EU, it’s pretty scary to see how this book managed to create a big “what if” scenario that doesn’t seem to science-fictioney anymore(parallel universe set aside..).
I actually don’t know if this last installment is the end of trilogy or if we are going to be able to read more books set in this universe (as always with Hutchinson, his endings are pretty vague, you could read Europe in Autumn as a standalone ), I could live with Europe in Winter being the end, this could be a frankly genius trilogy as it is but I am definitely on board for more, and, if a sequel is coming, I will read it the second it’s available.
Highly recommended.
The Fractured Europe Sequence is one of the most relevant series of all time. I devoured the first two installement of this series at the beginning of the year and I was highly anticipating the continuation (or ending ?) of this series. Europe in Winter did not disappoint. As much as Europe at Midnight was an extremely loose sequel to Europe in Autumn (it did not follow the same characters and the story did not take place in the same countries), Europe in Winter is a perfect balance of the two, we have the pleasure to reacquaint ourselves with Rudy, the main protagonist of the first installment. I didn’t realize how much I missed his perspective until I followed his adventures again.
It’s very difficult to put this series in any genre, it has a bit of sci-fi (with the parallel universe), a bit of a spy thriller novel (the main character Rudy is a Coureur des Bois, a member of an organization which transport mysterious packages across borders) but it’s also very much a commentary on European politics. I mean you could read this only for the enjoyment level and you would still like it but once you start digging a little, you realize that this definitely not a James Bond book. In The Fractured Europe Sequence, espionnage isn’t very sexy, the research is tedious and takes years and our main character is a middle aged and ordinary looking man who walks with a cane.
The whole idea of this series is based on two facts. First of all, because of a disease, the European Union has imploded in a multitude of small countries, new borders are created everyday and power is the ability to travel across them and it is reserved to few people (as power usually is). In this context, being a part of Les Coureurs des Bois is wonderful opportunity for anyone who wish for freedom.
The second fact is that, centuries ago, an English family has managed to slowly build the Community, a kind of alternate Europe where they don’t have to deal with other countries that they consider dangerous. Of course, because of different things explored in the first two books, it doesn’t really work the way they wanted and they are discovered by other countries
As much as the similarities between the Community and England are obvious, Hutchinson manages to quitely craft a Cold War II type of a setting. Indeed the Community is a nuclear power and they don’t want to have any types of relations with the barely hold-together Europe. However, even though no visible power is there to fund European countries, odd structures, such as The Line, a huge railway that allows its citizen to travel all the way across the former Europe, still manage to exist. But who provides the money ?
The first book of this series was published in 2014 when Brexit was only an idea and now that the UK are planning to leave the EU, it’s pretty scary to see how this book managed to create a big “what if” scenario that doesn’t seem to science-fictioney anymore(parallel universe set aside..).
I actually don’t know if this last installment is the end of trilogy or if we are going to be able to read more books set in this universe (as always with Hutchinson, his endings are pretty vague, you could read Europe in Autumn as a standalone ), I could live with Europe in Winter being the end, this could be a frankly genius trilogy as it is but I am definitely on board for more, and, if a sequel is coming, I will read it the second it’s available.
Highly recommended.
peterseanesq's review
4.0
Please give my review a helpful vote on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/review/RSBEL25I9H85A/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
When I finished this book, I was still not sure that I've read the completed novel.
My review of Europe in Autumn argued that that book was not really a novel but the first part of a longer novel. I pointed out that that book decided to bring in a mind-blowing change of direction without wrapping up the loose threads. Normally, I think that kind of thing is dirty pool. We purchase books as books, rather than as parts of books, but I was so taken with Hutchinson's writing and ideas that I decided not to hold it against him.
Well, he's done it again.
And again I like the story enough to not hold it against him.
This may get spoilery. So, if you don't like that kind of thing, don't read beyond this line.
In the immediate predecessor story - Europe at Midnight - we follow "Rupert" as he discovers that he lives in a pocket universe and that there is a bigger universe out there in which Europe is fragmenting into smaller and smaller polities. This made sense because at the end of the first book, the main character of that book, Rudi, had unraveled the secrets of the pocket universe of the Commonwealth adjacent to that of Europe.
In Book 3, Rupert is reduced to walk-on and supporting character status, as we return to following Rudi as Rudi searches for "Courier Central", which is the legendary central authority of the shadowy organization of smugglers that operates in Europe.
The book opens with a suicide bombing of a tunnel used by the Line - the European-crossing railroad that is also a state. We observe the assassination of Mundt, the former citizen of Dresden who had figured out something about opening breaches in the multiverse. Rudi learns something about his father and a group of French mathematicians who were part of the Versailles Conference in 1919. Rudi gets braced by an agent of the European Community. Characters introduced in prior books - like Seth and Rudi - appear for a moment and walk off stage without contributing much of anything. Pieces of the Community begin to drop into Europe.
I found myself noting the appearance of minor characters who were introduced with the signals and portents that they were going to contribute to the story, who simply disappeared. It appears that this quirk was due to Hutchison introducing them into the story as a reward for their contributions to a charity. That's really nice but made for some confusion and extra work for the reader.
Ultimately, Rudi gets his answers but the reader discovers that there has been a new mysterious player in the game, that his father has had connections with the Community for fifty years, that he is basically Courier Central, that there is a brand new pocket universe under the control of the European Community, and an even more mysterious player in power politics is hinted at.
All in the last twenty pages of the book.
Then the book ends.
Again, this is not really a novel, but the ride is quite enjoyable. I like Hutchinson's characters. I enjoyed seeing Seth and Rupert walk on stage for a turn. I felt as if I was getting information on the structure of this odd reality that Hutchison has invented. I tried to work out the mystery as the plot developed.
Obviously, this story is not over.
When I finished this book, I was still not sure that I've read the completed novel.
My review of Europe in Autumn argued that that book was not really a novel but the first part of a longer novel. I pointed out that that book decided to bring in a mind-blowing change of direction without wrapping up the loose threads. Normally, I think that kind of thing is dirty pool. We purchase books as books, rather than as parts of books, but I was so taken with Hutchinson's writing and ideas that I decided not to hold it against him.
Well, he's done it again.
And again I like the story enough to not hold it against him.
This may get spoilery. So, if you don't like that kind of thing, don't read beyond this line.
In the immediate predecessor story - Europe at Midnight - we follow "Rupert" as he discovers that he lives in a pocket universe and that there is a bigger universe out there in which Europe is fragmenting into smaller and smaller polities. This made sense because at the end of the first book, the main character of that book, Rudi, had unraveled the secrets of the pocket universe of the Commonwealth adjacent to that of Europe.
In Book 3, Rupert is reduced to walk-on and supporting character status, as we return to following Rudi as Rudi searches for "Courier Central", which is the legendary central authority of the shadowy organization of smugglers that operates in Europe.
The book opens with a suicide bombing of a tunnel used by the Line - the European-crossing railroad that is also a state. We observe the assassination of Mundt, the former citizen of Dresden who had figured out something about opening breaches in the multiverse. Rudi learns something about his father and a group of French mathematicians who were part of the Versailles Conference in 1919. Rudi gets braced by an agent of the European Community. Characters introduced in prior books - like Seth and Rudi - appear for a moment and walk off stage without contributing much of anything. Pieces of the Community begin to drop into Europe.
I found myself noting the appearance of minor characters who were introduced with the signals and portents that they were going to contribute to the story, who simply disappeared. It appears that this quirk was due to Hutchison introducing them into the story as a reward for their contributions to a charity. That's really nice but made for some confusion and extra work for the reader.
Ultimately, Rudi gets his answers but the reader discovers that there has been a new mysterious player in the game, that his father has had connections with the Community for fifty years, that he is basically Courier Central, that there is a brand new pocket universe under the control of the European Community, and an even more mysterious player in power politics is hinted at.
All in the last twenty pages of the book.
Then the book ends.
Again, this is not really a novel, but the ride is quite enjoyable. I like Hutchinson's characters. I enjoyed seeing Seth and Rupert walk on stage for a turn. I felt as if I was getting information on the structure of this odd reality that Hutchison has invented. I tried to work out the mystery as the plot developed.
Obviously, this story is not over.
gerhard's review
5.0
There is a wonderful moment towards the end where a character muses about the chain of events that has propelled the trajectory of his life, which Hutchinson uses as a kind of meta-commentary on his overall narrative: “It never tied things up neatly; no one ever got to see the whole story, and anyway the stories never ended, just branched off into infinity.”
And so it is with the Fractured Europe sequence. I was delighted to learn that #4 is on the cards, Europe at Dawn, which motivated me to catch up with what is (supposedly) the end of the trilogy. A lot has happened since the first volume, both in terms of the story, and the real-world geopolitics. But the particular achievement of these books is how timeless and topical they feel at the same time.
Well until 200 pages in, I was unsure even if Hutchinson would deign to give the reader something as mundane as a plot. But then all the disparate pieces fall together so seamlessly, and at the same time so effortlessly opens up the story into even bigger possibilities, that it is quite breathtaking.
There is a wonderful SF sensibility here that takes the warts-and-all cultural melting pot of Europe – with jokes and jibes at everybody from the Brits to the Poles – and turns it into something so much greater that talks about the fractured, divided world we currently find ourselves in, to something new and made whole again.
And so it is with the Fractured Europe sequence. I was delighted to learn that #4 is on the cards, Europe at Dawn, which motivated me to catch up with what is (supposedly) the end of the trilogy. A lot has happened since the first volume, both in terms of the story, and the real-world geopolitics. But the particular achievement of these books is how timeless and topical they feel at the same time.
Well until 200 pages in, I was unsure even if Hutchinson would deign to give the reader something as mundane as a plot. But then all the disparate pieces fall together so seamlessly, and at the same time so effortlessly opens up the story into even bigger possibilities, that it is quite breathtaking.
There is a wonderful SF sensibility here that takes the warts-and-all cultural melting pot of Europe – with jokes and jibes at everybody from the Brits to the Poles – and turns it into something so much greater that talks about the fractured, divided world we currently find ourselves in, to something new and made whole again.
expendablemudge's review
5.0
Rating: all 5 stars
My review's live at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud. Hint: no book report, so don't go looking for one or you'll be disappointed.
My review's live at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud. Hint: no book report, so don't go looking for one or you'll be disappointed.