by Graham Moore, 20167, Kindle Version, Random House LLC

This is an interesting book as it depicts the war between George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison over the future distribution of electricity.  We all know that Westinghouse’s system won in the end and we use alternating current instead of Edison’s direct current plan.  This book is a fictional account of how the war was fought and the central character is a young lawyer that Westinghouse hired to defend him against Edison’s lawsuits.

The story is interesting and the book is well-written.  At the end of the book, however, there are voluminous nn otes that describe every deviation in the novel from what actually occurred.  I was amazed at how much Moore altered the facts, even to the extent of altering the timeline when various things occurred.  There didn’t seem to be a reason for many of the alterations other than fitting the events into the timeline of his story.  It seems to me that an equally interesting story could easily have been told without nearly as much alteration from true historical facts.  After I put down the novel I wondered a bit if I had read either a gigantic conspiracy theory or an outright hoax.

Another questionable aspect of the novel was the totally negative portrayal of Edison.  I have visited the Edison Museum in Fort Meyers twice and walked away with the impression that Edison was a pretty amazing individual.  This book portrayed him pretty much as a greedy, low-down thief.  While the Edison Museum might stretch a bit far on putting Edison on a pedestal, I still think my opinion leans toward their portrayal versus what I read in the novel.