Weaver (Baxter novel)
Final novel in Baxter's Time's Tapestry alternate history quartet.
The fourth and final book in Stephen Baxter's Time's Tapestry series, Weaver is an alternate history and science fiction novel. The quartet features psionic broadcasts that alter history within trans-temporal lucid dreams.
Quick Facts
- Author
- Stephen Baxter
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Language
- English
- Series
- Time's Tapestry
- Genre
- Alternate history, science fiction
- Publisher
- Gollancz
- Released
- February 2008
- Format
- Print (Hardcover Paperback)
Facts from the source article.
Plot
In the alternate timeline of Weaver, Adolf Hitler launched Operation Sea Lion in 1940 after a more devastating Dunkirk evacuation reduced British Army numbers. Winston Churchill lobbied President Franklin Roosevelt and Congress, securing some U.S. military assistance. The Nazis partially occupied South East England, establishing a Protectorate of Albion similar to Vichy France, with a puppet regime in Canterbury led by Lord Haw Haw. The occupied zone stretched from Portsmouth through Tunbridge Wells, Horsham, Hastings, Pevensey, Dover, Folkestone and Gravesend. London remained unoccupied, but senior government personnel, politicians, King George VI and the royal family evacuated to Northern England. The novel follows Ben Kamen, a Jewish, gay latent telepath; Mary Wooler, her son Gary, and daughter-in-law Hilda, who work on covert projects to dislodge the Nazis. Ernst Keiser, a relatively kindly officer, lodges with a rural family whose women collaborate; Alfie is forced into a labour unit. Hitler still launched Operation Barbarossa, and Japan invaded Australia.
Historical, scientific and metaphysical basis
In an afterword, Baxter cited influences including Niall Ferguson's Virtual History, Heinz Guderian's Panzer Leader, Derek Robinson's Invasion 1940, and Martin Marix Evans' Invasion! Operation Sea Lion 1940. He used Heather Pringle's The Master Plan, Julia Gardner's Wartime Britain 1939-1945, and Richard Vinen's The Unfree French for occupation details. Kurt Gödel's theories on time and parallel universes, Albert Einstein's work, and J. W. Dunne's concepts of metaphysical time travel through dreams informed the novel. References to fledgeling calculating engines, whose construction began in Manchester in 1934, also appear.
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