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thebooklender's review against another edition
4.0
The third and final installment in the Small Change trilogy. I really enjoyed the series, although this last book was probably my least favourite.
Set ten years or so after the first two books, [b:Farthing|20621936|Farthing|Jo Walton|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1390478460s/20621936.jpg|1884104] and [b:Ha'penny|21014253|Ha'penny|Jo Walton|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1394368471s/21014253.jpg|422656], the Small Change series is set in an alternate history in which England and Germany signed a peace deal in 1941 which ended the war and left Britain independent from, but on good terms with, the Nazis and Hitler whose Empire covered most of Europe. The first two books chronicle the start of Britain's descent into fascism, while in Half A Crown, fascism is in full force.
The Watch (a kind of British Gestapo) is headed by the series' protagonist, Carmichael (Inspector in the first two books, and Watch Commander in this one). He has been blackmailed into the position by the Prime Minister, who threatens to reveal Carmichael's homosexuality if he doesn't play ball. To alleviate his guilt, Carmichael establishes the secret 'Inner Watch' to help smuggle out Jews and as many other victims as it can get away with.
Half A Crown adopts the same 'alternating narrator' chapter structure as its predecessors. All three books feature a first person female narrator - a different upper class outsider in each one - and a third person narrator focusing on Carmichael. The female narrator in this book is the daughter of a dead police officer - one of Carmichael's former colleagues - who Carmichael adopts as his ward and brought up in sharp contrast to her cockney roots.
The earlier books took the tone and structure of a cosy whodunit, with a background of political thriller and an alternate history setting - kind of Agatha Christie writing a John le Carré story in a Philip K. Dick world. This final book ramps up the political thriller aspect, and plays down the whodunit.
I missed the whodunit element in this book, and was also not as interested in the more fictionalised world presented here, compared to the only slightly fictionalised world of the first two books - I found the earlier ones much more believable and scary. But it's still a great read, full of tension, drama, rival fascist groups, assassination plots, blackmail, coups, exiled kings, Nazis, peace conferences, protests, political rallies... and is that a cameo from John Lennon?!
Set ten years or so after the first two books, [b:Farthing|20621936|Farthing|Jo Walton|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1390478460s/20621936.jpg|1884104] and [b:Ha'penny|21014253|Ha'penny|Jo Walton|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1394368471s/21014253.jpg|422656], the Small Change series is set in an alternate history in which England and Germany signed a peace deal in 1941 which ended the war and left Britain independent from, but on good terms with, the Nazis and Hitler whose Empire covered most of Europe. The first two books chronicle the start of Britain's descent into fascism, while in Half A Crown, fascism is in full force.
The Watch (a kind of British Gestapo) is headed by the series' protagonist, Carmichael (Inspector in the first two books, and Watch Commander in this one). He has been blackmailed into the position by the Prime Minister, who threatens to reveal Carmichael's homosexuality if he doesn't play ball. To alleviate his guilt, Carmichael establishes the secret 'Inner Watch' to help smuggle out Jews and as many other victims as it can get away with.
Half A Crown adopts the same 'alternating narrator' chapter structure as its predecessors. All three books feature a first person female narrator - a different upper class outsider in each one - and a third person narrator focusing on Carmichael. The female narrator in this book is the daughter of a dead police officer - one of Carmichael's former colleagues - who Carmichael adopts as his ward and brought up in sharp contrast to her cockney roots.
The earlier books took the tone and structure of a cosy whodunit, with a background of political thriller and an alternate history setting - kind of Agatha Christie writing a John le Carré story in a Philip K. Dick world. This final book ramps up the political thriller aspect, and plays down the whodunit.
I missed the whodunit element in this book, and was also not as interested in the more fictionalised world presented here, compared to the only slightly fictionalised world of the first two books - I found the earlier ones much more believable and scary. But it's still a great read, full of tension, drama, rival fascist groups, assassination plots, blackmail, coups, exiled kings, Nazis, peace conferences, protests, political rallies... and is that a cameo from John Lennon?!
liketheday's review
3.0
I didn't like this series ender as much as the previous entries, but it was still a quick and interesting read. The story was rather simpler and the ending more forced than the others, and the B plot fairly insipid although I suppose it was meant to be. I'll just keep cherishing Farthing in my heart.
cimorene1558's review
4.0
And after a lot of death, facism and heartbreak, they all lived happily ever after. The transition from misery to happily ever after is a bit abrupt, but I'm a sucker for a positive ending, so I'll allow that. Don't read this trilogy if you're feeling down, as it is very depressing, but do read it, because it's very fine.
evelikesbooks's review
4.0
Overall, I'd say I didn't enjoy this series quite as much as some of Jo Walton's other books. It's still good and interesting, but dark. England is fascist and very anti-Semitic, and for the reader no one feels safe. Not something to read when you're already stressed out. But there is some excellent imagery and they are rather good.
quietdomino's review
3.0
This trilogy was the perfect example of reading the right book at the right time. I keep thinking over the details of the rise to a population complicit in horrific acts of fascism and marveling over Walton's capacity to get it seemingly so right in advance. Sorely needed the slightly happy ending of this book as well.
reluctantheroine's review
3.0
I think the resolution of the series was rushed and didn't really seem realistic. However, I think the depiction of a young person who grew up in a fascist country and didn't really remember what their country was like before fascism was very good.
maria_pulver's review
4.0
Though the book is a good wrap up for the series and it brings the hero to his deepest moral low while leaving most of his high in between the lines, I was a bit disappointed by its ending. I believe it to be to easy a resolution and to optimistic turn of events. Apart from this, the book, and the series in general, is very good.
jhouses's review
4.0
El Inspector Carmichael es el jefe de La Guardia, la nueva policía secreta de una Inglaterra fascista. En un ambiente de irritación social intenta mantenerse a salvo mientras colabora poniendo a salvo a los judios en peligro de ser deportados al continente.
tracey_stewart's review against another edition
1.0
It's 1960, and fascism has settled comfortably over England – and much of the world, apparently – like a pea–souper. And – being a completist at times – I listened to this third book despite not being thrilled with the second one. Looking at my notes, I see a lot of all-caps sentences. Not good.
In fact, I hated this book with a passion that still simmers a little.
Oh, this is not a good narration … Terry Donnelly gives a very deliberate, measured, extraordinarily prissy performance for the Elvira portions of the book. I was so hoping there would be a brush of the Cockney now and then, but instead she sounds a very young teenager trying to be Maggie Smith. It's excruciating. (I've listened to samples of other books she's read – and they're fine. Lots of Irish–accented books, a couple of American, a couple of English, all listen–to–able. This…) The upper class is painful – the lower class is … *shudder* I also made note of one part in which someone is supposed to be shouting "Police!", which ought to have been an urgent, probably harsh call, as it was some members of a rioting crowd warning others. Instead, it was a languid, drawled sort of a word, more like Bertie Wooster hailing a cab, and in fact not deserving of the exclamation point. Nearly all audiobooks have moments where the narrator's intonation does not match the tone of the narrative – things like "Is he ever!" being read as "Is he ever?" But there seem to be more in this book, and some that were less understandable and … just odd. "Ogilvie realized this too", which should have had "Ogilvie" emphasized, came out as "Ogilvie realized this too".
Those Elvira portions of the book were altogether unpleasant. Even aside from the narration, I hated the character so much that she is largely responsible for my hatred of the book. Her mother left when she was six, and her father died when she was eight. Know how I know? BECAUSE I WAS TOLD SO, SEVERAL TIMES. (See what I mean about the caps...?) In fact, if I wasn't told so in every Elvira chapter for the first two hours, it certainly felt like it. So that was exasperating. Then there was the simple fact that the girl herself was a nasty, ungrateful little wretch, and apparently completely self-centered. Her attitude toward Carmichael (and Jack), who took her in out of the goodness of his heart (and guilt) after her father was shot, was appalling. The fact that even though she lived with them in a less-than-palatial flat she had no idea the two of them were lovers was, I feel, more due to her egocentricity than the façade of clandestineness on the men's part. "Could they have any lives outside this room, the only place he ever saw them?" It was kind of hilarious when someone asked her, "You haven't observed anything that made you suspicious?" No, she hasn't, because she's an idiot eighteen-year-old girl. The Cinderella nonsense surrounding her wore thin very fast; at one point she complains about having to wear a polyester dress, in circumstances that rendered the whining offensively silly. Oh, good, I took down one quote regarding a coat, given her to cover the paper prison dress: "It was much too big in the shoulders, of course, and I'd never normally wear a beige coat, but the height was just right to be fashionable." My God.
The treatment she receives at the hands of the authorities loses any power to trouble me, because it simply isn't realistic that even a militant fascist state would suspect this bubbleheaded irritant of a girl of terrorism.
Carmichael was all right, I suppose; at least, I don't have any notes expressing hatred for him. Except for one note after he forgot to ask her about something vital ("Whatever else it was [Elvira] might have known, which he'd forgotten to ask her about" – OH MY GOD YOU MORON). But his lover/valet Jack was a paradox. Far be it from me to disbelief an autodidact – but I did. He came off as not very bright, but there were carefully added details about his extensive studies or whatever that made little sense. And he was used in one of the tropes which annoys me the most: I'm always disgusted by fictional spouses of cops (and doctors and other professionals who have wildly erratic hours) who become petulant over those erratic hours. Look – for the most part you knew what you were getting into; it's not the spouse's fault; shut up. In real life I'm sure it's extraordinarily difficult, and I sympathize. In fiction, it's intensely boring.
The alternate universe – in which AXIS won WWII – was not badly done; there's talk of airships instead of airplanes, and "Britain and Japan should divide America between them" (Oy. You try it, mate.) However, shouldn't Edward VIII have been a little higher up or something, cozy as he and Mrs. Simpson were with the Reich? And, as with the preceding books, there simply wasn't enough attention given to the differences between this world and that. It would at least have been a distraction from despising Elvira if I'd been kept off-kilter by the alien reality of a fascist, Hitler-led England. (My fingers ache just typing that.)
However.
Attention all British authors, past, present, and future, who try their hand at American characters: We do NOT all sound like Foghorn bleeding Leghorn. (I'm looking at you too, Conan Doyle.) We do NOT say "mighty" in every other sentence, and it's astonishingly irritating – and offensive – in a character whose American accent and dialect was formed at Princeton. Which is in New Jersey. Which is not a place you would hear "The countryside is mighty pretty…and London sure is entertaining." I was born and raised in Connecticut. I have never in my life heard anyone who was not pretending to be a cowboy say "mighty". And then there was "In his American accent". So… in almost 94 thousand square miles, the UK has more accents than I can count, but in America's THREE POINT EIGHT MILLION square miles we supposedly have … one? Get a clue. Now.
In fact, I hated this book with a passion that still simmers a little.
Oh, this is not a good narration … Terry Donnelly gives a very deliberate, measured, extraordinarily prissy performance for the Elvira portions of the book. I was so hoping there would be a brush of the Cockney now and then, but instead she sounds a very young teenager trying to be Maggie Smith. It's excruciating. (I've listened to samples of other books she's read – and they're fine. Lots of Irish–accented books, a couple of American, a couple of English, all listen–to–able. This…) The upper class is painful – the lower class is … *shudder* I also made note of one part in which someone is supposed to be shouting "Police!", which ought to have been an urgent, probably harsh call, as it was some members of a rioting crowd warning others. Instead, it was a languid, drawled sort of a word, more like Bertie Wooster hailing a cab, and in fact not deserving of the exclamation point. Nearly all audiobooks have moments where the narrator's intonation does not match the tone of the narrative – things like "Is he ever!" being read as "Is he ever?" But there seem to be more in this book, and some that were less understandable and … just odd. "Ogilvie realized this too", which should have had "Ogilvie" emphasized, came out as "Ogilvie realized this too".
Those Elvira portions of the book were altogether unpleasant. Even aside from the narration, I hated the character so much that she is largely responsible for my hatred of the book. Her mother left when she was six, and her father died when she was eight. Know how I know? BECAUSE I WAS TOLD SO, SEVERAL TIMES. (See what I mean about the caps...?) In fact, if I wasn't told so in every Elvira chapter for the first two hours, it certainly felt like it. So that was exasperating. Then there was the simple fact that the girl herself was a nasty, ungrateful little wretch, and apparently completely self-centered. Her attitude toward Carmichael (and Jack), who took her in out of the goodness of his heart (and guilt) after her father was shot, was appalling. The fact that even though she lived with them in a less-than-palatial flat she had no idea the two of them were lovers was, I feel, more due to her egocentricity than the façade of clandestineness on the men's part. "Could they have any lives outside this room, the only place he ever saw them?" It was kind of hilarious when someone asked her, "You haven't observed anything that made you suspicious?" No, she hasn't, because she's an idiot eighteen-year-old girl. The Cinderella nonsense surrounding her wore thin very fast; at one point she complains about having to wear a polyester dress, in circumstances that rendered the whining offensively silly. Oh, good, I took down one quote regarding a coat, given her to cover the paper prison dress: "It was much too big in the shoulders, of course, and I'd never normally wear a beige coat, but the height was just right to be fashionable." My God.
The treatment she receives at the hands of the authorities loses any power to trouble me, because it simply isn't realistic that even a militant fascist state would suspect this bubbleheaded irritant of a girl of terrorism.
Carmichael was all right, I suppose; at least, I don't have any notes expressing hatred for him. Except for one note after he forgot to ask her about something vital ("Whatever else it was [Elvira] might have known, which he'd forgotten to ask her about" – OH MY GOD YOU MORON). But his lover/valet Jack was a paradox. Far be it from me to disbelief an autodidact – but I did. He came off as not very bright, but there were carefully added details about his extensive studies or whatever that made little sense. And he was used in one of the tropes which annoys me the most: I'm always disgusted by fictional spouses of cops (and doctors and other professionals who have wildly erratic hours) who become petulant over those erratic hours. Look – for the most part you knew what you were getting into; it's not the spouse's fault; shut up. In real life I'm sure it's extraordinarily difficult, and I sympathize. In fiction, it's intensely boring.
The alternate universe – in which AXIS won WWII – was not badly done; there's talk of airships instead of airplanes, and "Britain and Japan should divide America between them" (Oy. You try it, mate.) However, shouldn't Edward VIII have been a little higher up or something, cozy as he and Mrs. Simpson were with the Reich? And, as with the preceding books, there simply wasn't enough attention given to the differences between this world and that. It would at least have been a distraction from despising Elvira if I'd been kept off-kilter by the alien reality of a fascist, Hitler-led England. (My fingers ache just typing that.)
However.
Attention all British authors, past, present, and future, who try their hand at American characters: We do NOT all sound like Foghorn bleeding Leghorn. (I'm looking at you too, Conan Doyle.) We do NOT say "mighty" in every other sentence, and it's astonishingly irritating – and offensive – in a character whose American accent and dialect was formed at Princeton. Which is in New Jersey. Which is not a place you would hear "The countryside is mighty pretty…and London sure is entertaining." I was born and raised in Connecticut. I have never in my life heard anyone who was not pretending to be a cowboy say "mighty". And then there was "In his American accent". So… in almost 94 thousand square miles, the UK has more accents than I can count, but in America's THREE POINT EIGHT MILLION square miles we supposedly have … one? Get a clue. Now.