#6Degrees of Separation – A book chain from Orbital by Samantha Harvey to False Lights by K. J. Whittaker

It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation.

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own #6Degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on X using the hashtag #6Degrees.

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This month’s starting book is the Booker Prize-winning Orbital by Samantha Harvey set on a spacecraft in which six astronauts are orbiting the Earth. For once it’s a novel I’ve read and reviewed on my blog.

Links from each title in the chain will take you to my review or the book description on Goodreads.

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Fairly predictably my first link is to another book set in space, Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfar, in which a Czech astronaut – the country’s first – is launched into space to investigate a mysterious dust cloud covering Venus.

Another book set in what is now the Czech Republic is HHhH by Laurence Binet. It’s the fictionalised account of Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of high-ranking SS officer Reinhard Heydrich by two members of the Czech resistance in 1942.

An attempt to assassinate a prominent figure, in this case French President Charles de Gaulle, forms the plot of The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth. (President de Gaulle survived an actual assassination attempt in 1962.)

The assassin in The Day of the Jackal is unnamed as is the narrator of Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household in which an Englishman attempts to assassinate the dictator of a European country. The dictator is not named but since the book was published in 1939 his identity is fairly obvious.

Fatherland by Robert Harris is set in an alternate world in which Hitler won the Second World War and has lived long enough to celebrate his 75th birthday.

False Lights by K. J. Whittaker (republished in 2021 under the title Game of Hearts) imagines a scenario in which Napoleon triumphed at the Battle of Waterloo and England is under French occupation and presided over by the Empress Josephine.

My chain has taken me from outer space to a reimagined Europe. Where did your chain take you?