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Pacific Nightmare : How Japan Starts World War III
The world hurtles toward World War III with the collapse of Hong Kong, the Chinese civil war and attempt to reclaim Taiwan, the rise of a Korean dictator, and Japanese imperialist aggression
- GenresFictionAlternate History
324 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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About the author
Simon Winchester
90 books2,300 followersSimon Winchester, OBE, is a British writer, journalist and broadcaster who resides in the United States. Through his career at The Guardian, Winchester covered numerous significant events including Bloody Sunday and the Watergate Scandal. As an author, Simon Winchester has written or contributed to over a dozen nonfiction books and authored one novel, and his articles appear in several travel publications including Condé Nast Traveler, Smithsonian Magazine, and National Geographic.
In 1969, Winchester joined The Guardian, first as regional correspondent based in Newcastle upon Tyne, but was later assigned to be the Northern Ireland Correspondent. Winchester's time in Northern Ireland placed him around several events of The Troubles, including the events of Bloody Sunday and the Belfast Hour of Terror.
After leaving Northern Ireland in 1972, Winchester was briefly assigned to Calcutta before becoming The Guardian's American correspondent in Washington, D.C., where Winchester covered news ranging from the end of Richard Nixon's administration to the start of Jimmy Carter's presidency. In 1982, while working as the Chief Foreign Feature Writer for The Sunday Times, Winchester was on location for the invasion of the Falklands Islands by Argentine forces. Suspected of being a spy, Winchester was held as a prisoner in Tierra del Fuego for three months.
Winchester's first book, In Holy Terror, was published by Faber and Faber in 1975. The book drew heavily on his first-hand experiences during the turmoils in Ulster. In 1976, Winchester published his second book, American Heartbeat, which dealt with his personal travels through the American heartland. Winchester's third book, Prison Diary, was a recounting of his imprisonment at Tierra del Fuego during the Falklands War and, as noted by Dr Jules Smith, is responsible for his rise to prominence in the United Kingdom. Throughout the 1980s and most of the 1990s, Winchester produced several travel books, most of which dealt with Asian and Pacific locations including Korea, Hong Kong, and the Yangtze River.
Winchester's first truly successful book was The Professor and the Madman (1998), published by Penguin UK as The Surgeon of Crowthorne. Telling the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, the book was a New York Times Best Seller, and Mel Gibson optioned the rights to a film version, likely to be directed by John Boorman.
Though Winchester still writes travel books, he has repeated the narrative non-fiction form he used in The Professor and the Madman several times, many of which ended in books placed on best sellers lists. His 2001 book, The Map that Changed the World, focused on geologist William Smith and was Whichester's second New York Times best seller. The year 2003 saw Winchester release another book on the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, The Meaning of Everything, as well as the best-selling Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded. Winchester followed Krakatoa's volcano with San Francisco's 1906 earthquake in A Crack in the Edge of the World. The Man Who Loved China (2008) retells the life of eccentric Cambridge scholar Joseph Needham, who helped to expose China to the western world. Winchester's latest book, The Alice Behind Wonderland, was released March 11, 2011.
- source Wikipedia
In 1969, Winchester joined The Guardian, first as regional correspondent based in Newcastle upon Tyne, but was later assigned to be the Northern Ireland Correspondent. Winchester's time in Northern Ireland placed him around several events of The Troubles, including the events of Bloody Sunday and the Belfast Hour of Terror.
After leaving Northern Ireland in 1972, Winchester was briefly assigned to Calcutta before becoming The Guardian's American correspondent in Washington, D.C., where Winchester covered news ranging from the end of Richard Nixon's administration to the start of Jimmy Carter's presidency. In 1982, while working as the Chief Foreign Feature Writer for The Sunday Times, Winchester was on location for the invasion of the Falklands Islands by Argentine forces. Suspected of being a spy, Winchester was held as a prisoner in Tierra del Fuego for three months.
Winchester's first book, In Holy Terror, was published by Faber and Faber in 1975. The book drew heavily on his first-hand experiences during the turmoils in Ulster. In 1976, Winchester published his second book, American Heartbeat, which dealt with his personal travels through the American heartland. Winchester's third book, Prison Diary, was a recounting of his imprisonment at Tierra del Fuego during the Falklands War and, as noted by Dr Jules Smith, is responsible for his rise to prominence in the United Kingdom. Throughout the 1980s and most of the 1990s, Winchester produced several travel books, most of which dealt with Asian and Pacific locations including Korea, Hong Kong, and the Yangtze River.
Winchester's first truly successful book was The Professor and the Madman (1998), published by Penguin UK as The Surgeon of Crowthorne. Telling the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, the book was a New York Times Best Seller, and Mel Gibson optioned the rights to a film version, likely to be directed by John Boorman.
Though Winchester still writes travel books, he has repeated the narrative non-fiction form he used in The Professor and the Madman several times, many of which ended in books placed on best sellers lists. His 2001 book, The Map that Changed the World, focused on geologist William Smith and was Whichester's second New York Times best seller. The year 2003 saw Winchester release another book on the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, The Meaning of Everything, as well as the best-selling Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded. Winchester followed Krakatoa's volcano with San Francisco's 1906 earthquake in A Crack in the Edge of the World. The Man Who Loved China (2008) retells the life of eccentric Cambridge scholar Joseph Needham, who helped to expose China to the western world. Winchester's latest book, The Alice Behind Wonderland, was released March 11, 2011.
- source Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 11, 2016
This review is from 1993 -A fascinating future-history about the Chinese Civil War that results from Hong Kong's return to Communist China in 1997. Densely woven with detail, the characters are secondary; in this instance that does not hurt the narrative. The ending, however, wherein the US nukes Tokyo, is silly.
Present day - The book has not aged well.
Present day - The book has not aged well.
November 5, 2023
In 1992, Winchester imagined what would happen after Hong Kong returned to China in 1997. Not close in so many ways. Still, this is a story well-grounded in the physical where it occurs. It's treatment of the deterioration of U.S.-Japanese relations seems pretty far fetched.
June 2, 2019
Interesting read. Alternative history but based on real world politic in the 90s. Somewhat dated now. The book reads like history and is somewhat dry. Not recommended for today’s audience.
July 2, 2009
Another oldie but goodie. Written in 1992, this tells the story of the takeover of Hong Kong from Great Britain by the Chinese govt. Of course this doesn't occur in real life until 1997. What?
This is a fictional history that looks forward, not backward like many what/if novels. And actually, it reads much more like a history textbook than a novel, which is part of its charm. Dialog is at a minimum.
It kept me interested and engaged although, of course, it never happened. But I am a bit of a history freak, so I liked the way it was written. It appears that the author did his homework as it is well researched...as a history book, that is. Its kind of confusing since I am looking at it so many years in the future after the actual event...when it should have been read prior to 1997.
Whatever! It was a good read, but the end is so very improbably, almost like fairy tale (and we all lived happily ever after). On the cover it says as a teaser "How Japan starts WWIII." Japan isn't even mentioned as a player until about 7/8 of the way through the book.
Whatever the case, I enjoyed it up to the end, when it really let me down.
This is a fictional history that looks forward, not backward like many what/if novels. And actually, it reads much more like a history textbook than a novel, which is part of its charm. Dialog is at a minimum.
It kept me interested and engaged although, of course, it never happened. But I am a bit of a history freak, so I liked the way it was written. It appears that the author did his homework as it is well researched...as a history book, that is. Its kind of confusing since I am looking at it so many years in the future after the actual event...when it should have been read prior to 1997.
Whatever! It was a good read, but the end is so very improbably, almost like fairy tale (and we all lived happily ever after). On the cover it says as a teaser "How Japan starts WWIII." Japan isn't even mentioned as a player until about 7/8 of the way through the book.
Whatever the case, I enjoyed it up to the end, when it really let me down.
December 13, 2012
It's a nightmare all right. Boring, pseudo-historian's/bureaucratic reportage of future unrest. Do tags work in this thing? #IcantBelieveIreadThewholething.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews