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[starreview]
Classification: Anthology
One of the things that always appealed to me with science fiction novels is the ‘sense of wonder’ one gets when the book is really good. I’m not sure why, but modern science fiction isn’t able to achieve this often. It’s something I really miss. Consequently, I was (very) pleasantly surprised when Cronos was able to capture this long lost feeling – and not only once, but three times!
Letters from Atlantis
Ranking: 4 Stars
The first story introduces the reader to Roy, who is sent 20,000 years back in time. However, Roy does not travel physically – only his mind makes the journey. Upon getting to the past he finds himself inside the mind of the prince of Atlantis (which hasn’t been destroyed yet) – and what he sees greatly surprises him… I’m not going to reveal any of the plot, just that it’s a good story – even though it’s my least favorite of the three.
Project Pendulum
Ranking: 5 Stars
The second story is definitely my favorite. It tells the story of twin brothers who are sent to a journey through time. But there’s a caveat: since matter has to be preserved, whenever one is in the future, the other must be exactly in the same ‘temporal distance’ away in the past (So, for example, when the first brother is 50 years in the future, the other brother is 50 years in the past). Furthermore, as a result of time travel physics, each time they travel, the length of their journey increases tenfold. Meaning, the first brother is sent 5 minutes forward, when the second brother is sent 5 minutes backward, and then the first brother goes 50 minutes forward, and so on: 500 minutes, 5000 minutes, 50,000 minutes, etc. This interval reaches 90 million years in the future and in the past, which is when their journey ends.
As you can imagine, since the brothers explore a wide variety of timelines, every jump is a story of its own. Robert Silverberg really managed to do this well – he kept every jump interesting while still not repeating himself. Fantastic story.
The Time Hoppers
Ranking: 5 Stars
The third story has a distinct Asimovian feel to it. If you liked Isaac Asimov’s “The End of Enternity” you will definitely love this story. The story introduces Quellen – a lowly crime investigator living in the 25th century. Apparently, the 25th century turns into quite a dystopia. Too many people and too few jobs cause most people to live unemployed and in quite bad conditions. Many have found that the best way to escape this is to jump into the past. However, the government isn’t all too happy about this, so assigns Quellen to investigate how this is accomplished and put a stop to this.
To summarize: Three excellent stories which capture the wonder of Sci-Fi. All quite different, but all good – I recommend this book to all time travel lovers, and even if you’re not really a fan of this sub-genre, you will still probably like these stories.
Link to the book on Amazon.com
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