Fata Morgana

By: Steven R. Boyett, Ken Mitchroney

Narrated by: Macleod Andrews

Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

An epic novel of love and duty at war across the reach of time.

At the height of the air war in Europe, Captain Joe Farley and the baseball-loving, wisecracking crew of the B-17 Flying Fortress Fata Morgana are in the middle of a harrowing bombing mission over eastern Germany when everything goes sideways. The bombs are still falling and flak is still exploding all around the 20-ton bomber as it is knocked like a bathtub duck into another world.

Suddenly stranded with the final outcasts of a desolated world, Captain Farley navigates a maze of treachery and wonder—and finds a love seemingly decreed by fate—as his bomber becomes a pawn in a centuries-old conflict between remnants of advanced but decaying civilizations. Caught among these bitter enemies, a vast power that has brought them here for its own purposes, and a terrifying living weapon bent on their destruction, the crew must use every bit of their formidable inventiveness and courage to survive.

Fata Morgana—the epic novel of love and duty at war across the reach of time.

©2017 Steven R. Boyett & Ken Mitchroney (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

The Time Mirage

A brand-new B-17 bomber rises into the sky for a bombing run over Nazi Germany, and flies through a storm of anti-aircraft fire to land in another world: a ruined and desolate place that is gradually revealed to be not another planet, but the future of our own. It has the ring of a long-ago “Twilight Zone” episode, but with a more elaborate plot and plenty of surprises.

The plane is named the Fata Morgana, for a complex kind of mirage that is sometimes seen just above the horizon. Its tightly-knit crew struggles to return home from this strange new world, while battling twisted fantasies about time itself. There are some mind-bending concepts that only grow more fantastic as the story moves on.

Just as the crew returns against impossible odds--or thinks it has--something is still not quite right. Captain Joe Farley, the pilot, sums it up: “Time’s not an arrow. It’s a shock wave. It spreads out in all directions at once, from every possible past, to every possible future… There is out there a hub around which all times turn.”

The book has a fairly large cast of characters, and at times I felt it was difficult to keep them all straight, despite Macleod Andrews’ excellent used of regional accents and voices. It merits attentive listening. (This could also be a case for reading the book in print.)

A love song to a bomber crew

The very best part of this book are the guys who make up the flight crew. Snappy comebacks, 1940s style, gallows humor, smoke 'em if you got 'em young men who put their lives on the line every day in the name of freedom.

The story itself is too talky, with too much technical detail and description in the part about the future. The culture that survives there is nothing original and the 'big bad' is slightly ridiculous. The time travel mechanism is pretty interesting, though.

But, oh those boys! Brave, intrepid, creative as only Yanks could be, and as lovable as a basket full of puppies. Get this book to meet these young men...they're worth every minute of listening. The authors have captured an era in these characters, they have written a love song to the real-life American service personnel around the world who saved us from a conflagration...and did it with a wise crack and a Lucky Strike.

So, take a moment to thank them for your freedom....then read this book and lose yourself in the bravado, sass, and the work ethic of this bomber crew.

Simply an amazing experience beautifully crafted

This is an amazing book- and perfectly executed. A very fine example of what Audible can be.

I am in awe of the beauty and skill in which it was crafted and presented. Very rarely am I moved anymore with fiction at my age, but this title did exactly that. It’s a love letter to days gone by, who we were as a people, why we fought so hard and what we lost individually for having done so. It’s an adventure story, it’s an alternate history, it’s so many threads in space and time and a masterful weave of all of them.

The presentation narrator was great. The intermingling of eras, sexes, and accents was spot on and very engaging.
I don’t review often, but I do consume Audible titles at a considerable rate and to be honest this is in my top two or three I’ve ever had the pleasure of being exposed to. I felt that THIS story needs to be known and heard and appreciated and so I write this.

If you are a fan of WW2 history, of detailed and lovingly crafted stories, of POSSIBILITY and duty above all this is for you.

Thank you for this work Mr. Boyett, Mr. Mitchroney and Mr. Andrews. It was truly a unique honor. To whomever is reading this- It is my belief this is VERY MUCH worth your time and attention.

MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED- I cannot rank it higher than 5 stars, but I’d give it 20 if I could.

Epilog

Listen to the whole book, but pay attention to the epilog! This book seems to be a good picture of what it must have been like in WWII.!

Great

Good book. I really had a good time listening.
I thought the nose art would de solve at the end. But it was a happy end.

Fantastic & entertaining read.

Absolutely enthralling and intriguing story, superbly performed. It draws you in and keeps you engaged from cover to cover.

Be prepared to experience your own Fata Morgana!

Fata Morgana is a term to describe a mirage phenomenon. In a Fata Morgana sailors on the ocean would see images that seemed to float in the air above the ocean. Disorienting and often terrifying, light reflecting from a distant object such as a ship is bent downward as it passes through the colder, denser air near the surface of the ocean. But the brain places the object where it would be if the light came to you in a straight path—higher than it actually is so that images can actually be refracted images of cities and ships from beyond the horizon. Fata morgana takes its name from Morgan le Fay, the fairy enchantress half-sister of King Arthur. According to legend, Morgan or Morgana was able to lure sailors to an undersea palace with visions of castles in the air.

This story lives up to its namesake. Beyond the horizon the distant object is the future and the sailors are the crew of a World War II bomber. The book is interwoven with stories of love, duty, and honor. Sometimes, the twists and turns had me doing a rewind to figure out what just happened. My own brain experienced the Fata Morgana confusion. The authors did a fantastic job of pulling the tale all-together in the end, but… sigh, was the Fata Morgana real or imagined? This cleverly written story left me wondering.

The character development was very good for a story having so many characters. It gives enough detail for you to identify with the characters but still leaves the imagination filling in some of the details. The narrative is interesting and appropriate. I do wish the authors had left out some of the blood and gore which was a overdone especially later in the book. That drawback takes the story down to 4.5 stars but I’ll give it a 5 based on the clever use of the Fata Morgana. Read it and you will see what I mean.

The narration by Macleod Andrews was very, very good. The narrator was able to use tone and inflection to develop individual recognizable characters. His pace was good for the story even in it’s length.

This is an excellent book to listen to. I highly recommend using a credit on this one.

Good Book

This book took me by surprise!
I wasn't sure what it would read like because I like war stories
And this was not that! What this was a look into the future
And what would happen if men did't wise

Different Time Travel Adventure

The premise for this time travel adventure is interesting: A WWII bomber is swept through a portal into 200 years in the future; Captain Farley and the crew must find their way back against futuristic "people" and weapons; they are helped by the "good" faction who live inside a dome and fight the "evil" faction who have the superior weapons and robots.

The writing is excellent. However, having said that, I found that the authors tend to over elaborate on describing some of the settings. This is especially true for the account of Farley's escape from the crater, which seems to go on and on with elaborate details and dream sequences that really add very little to the plot.

The characters are vivid and the one thing that the book excels at is the dialog of the crew, which contains virtually every 1940's colloquialism.

Macleod Andrews does a fabulous job with the narration, giving each character a unique voice. He adds just a slight nuance to the "dome" characters making them instantly recognizable. Although I find I have to listen to many books at 1.25 speed, this is not the case for this book as Andrews reads at a perfect pace.

Definitely a recommendation for this audio book.

Loved it, wish I could find more like it.

Loved it, wish I could find more like it. Loved it, wish I could find more like it. Loved it, wish I could find more like it.