Chronospace – Allen Steele

chronospace
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[starreview]

Classification: Past Time Travel

 

Chronospace was one of the novels I really couldn’t wait to read. In fact, I dedicated an entire day to just sit at home and read it, something I haven’t done in years!

 

Imagine: UFOs are really not extraterrestrial vehicles but are actually time machines used by historians from the future who want to study the past. Sounds good, even if somewhat unoriginal, no? Well, the entire book was a mixture of good ideas, but the end product was bad. It’s as if the author couldn’t make up his mind what he wanted to write about. Time Travel, aliens, paradoxes: these all sound like fine ingredients for a good story, but somehow the author has managed to get it very, very wrong.

 

The plot: Franc Lu, a 24th century historian, is being sent back in time to view what happened on the Hindenburg: witness first hand the destruction and what caused it. But somehow, he makes some changes, causing history to diverge and a paradox to be created. A parallel storyline follows David Zachary Murphy, a scientist working for NASA at the end of the 20th century. David comes up with the (correct) theory that UFOs are really time machines. How do both these threads join together? Just barely, and not in an interesting way. Read the book if you want to find out.

 

In summary: Very, Very Disappointing. I don’t recommend this book. There are far better time travel stories, which cover very similar ideas in a superior way. (check out Joshua Dann’s Timeshare novels if you want a glimpse). The reason I’m not giving this book one star is because it did capture my attention for about a third of it – until this point I was still convinced it might turn out to be a decent novel. But sadly this hope shattered.

 


Link to the book on Amazon.com

 

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