The Forest on the Edge of Time

The Forest on the Edge of Time by Jasmin Kirkbride

Some time travelers are sent to different points in time to save the world from ecological destruction. Unfortunately, once of them damages the time machine. One is back in ancient Greek. There she struggles with the culture that includes slavery, but also realizes there are advantages to being back here. The book also explores some time travel paradoxes. Can you really complete your mission if you know all about the past and future? It reminded me a bit of Brandon Sanderson's time travel novella.

The Unmaking of June Farrow: A Novel

The Unmaking of June Farrow: A Novel by Adrienne Young

The Farrow women seem to go crazy later in life. June does some research and tries to find out more about her family history. She discovers people with similar names that lived at different times in the past. She even discovers somebody with her name. Then she goes through the door. The Farrow women can go through the door to different time periods. They have three chances to do this, and then they are stuck. June ends up back in the 1950s in a time period almost a year after a different version of her had lived before. She was involved with the murder of a priest in the small North Carolina town. Others are trying to catch her, especially after she mysteriously disappeared shortly after the crime. Gradually some memories come back and others leave. She does something to unravel time that would thus end the curse of time travel in her family. This unraveling part is quite confusing, but so is just about any attempt to explain time travel. Somehow she overlaps history with a loop and things stop or something like that. There is still some weirdness with generations where younger generations raise older ones due to time travel and age differences. How does this work out with the unravelling? This is not very clear. While time travel is confusing, the challenges of "outsiders" in small southern towns is accurately portrayed.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

I was tempted to knock this one down a notch due to the narrator's voice, but I stuck with an 8. This is a reread from one I read a long time ago. Somebody finds himself in the land of King Arthur. He is able to utilize some of his knowledge of events (such as an eclipse) as well as technology to his advantage. However, it is a struggle for the people to adopt what is good for them. He sees people convicted on supposition without a chance of defence. Nobles see nobility as more important than qualification. The yankee uses some subterfuge to work around people's ingrown behaviors for what he sees as their good. He eventually becomes involved in a duel with nights. He uses his lasso to capture a few knights. Then after it is taken, he shoots others with his gun. This leads towards the people to more willingly adopt his technology. However, a few years later, the church has come in to assert its power. 

The book is part a time travel tale of "modern" technology in the past. However, it is primarily a cultural critique. Even if societies have access to knowledge and technology that can improve them, they still have cultural inertia. This inertia can lead to them clinging to past behaviors that impede them from living in a modern society that would benefit them.

The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England (Secret Projects 2)

(Audiobook on Google Play) - Brandon Sanderson is not making his audiobooks available on Audible. I typically use Amazon for my links, but listen via the local library. I'd much rather have the audiobook available for listening at the library even if it means not being able to link to the Amazon version. It is nice to get some push on limiting the Audible exclusives.

As for the book, this one looked like it was a lot of fun to write, even if there are no talking bananas. The book centers around a person that does not know where he is or why he was there. However, he does have a handbook. He gradually remembers more about himself and works through his adventure.

He is in an "alternate time path". It is very similar to time travel, except it isn't really time travel. Companies sell the opportunity to travel to alternate dimensions that are similar to past periods of earth. This company focuses on sending people to places like Medieval England where people speak a language similar to modern English. The book contains many vary humorous bits of promotional materials and other guide information from this company.

As the man slowly learns more about himself, he is able to complete his journey and avoid catastrophe. He also discovers some of the challenges of living as a "modern person" in the a place like the past. He thought it be able to display the "magic" of modern science. Alas, without the internet, he is not able to demonstrate the details of modern science. However, when he draws an accurate drawing a person's face, the people are wowed. This perspective drawing is magical to them. (Writing is a different story, with some real magic implied.)

Brandon Sanderson says that he came up with the title first, and then wrote the book. He probably had a lot of fun doing it. The book was a lot of fun to listen to.

Fyre: Septimus Heap, Book Seven

In the final Septimus Heap book, there is some back and forth time travel, where Septimus sees himself. Before that, there are some weird experiences with the bumbling Heap brothers. They end up stealing a special ring. However, it turns out that it was the ring that "stole" them and was using them as a vessel for mischievousness. And speaking of vessels, we learn that Gin can occupy various bodies of animals and humans, with some being worse than others. The book concludes with some reverse alchemy where gold is turned in to lead.

Very few of the characters in this series take themselves seriously. The few that do stick out and contribute to the light tone.

Queste: Septimus Heap, Book Four

More action. More misplaced time. More family conflicts. An interesting twist about being about to travel to a different place in time as long as something is left behind.

Physik: Septimus Heap, Book Three

Dragons, shape-shifting cats, time travel and female Hanseatic traders all play a role in this third Septimus Heap book. There are also ghosts walking around and a rats that barely escape certain death by escaping on a dragon. There are also alchemist apprentices and other challenges.

And these are just the sideshows.

The main plot centers around Queen Etheldredda and her diabolical plot for immortality. That requires some harm to the main characters. But, of course they are not going to go down so easily.

Sea of Tranquility: A Novel

Sea of Tranquility starts out with a few seemingly unrelated chapters spanning widely different places and time. Time ranges from a century in the past until centuries in the future. In the future, time travel is a possibility, but it is heavily controlled. A bureaucracy exists to prevent negative impacts of time travel. However, like a good bureaucracy, it defines "negative impacts" as things that negatively impact the organization itself. It them becomes clear how these various episodes are tied together. The book gets better the more you get into it.

This Time Tomorrow: A Novel

A girl's father is dying on her 40th birthday. Her mother had abandoned her when she was young, leaving her to be permissively raised by her father. She has not had much to do with other people in her life (other than her best friend), and has even turned down a marriage proposal. Her father was a science fiction writer, known for his time travel book.

She is saddened by the passing of her father and finds herself revisiting her past. She inhabits her teenage self in this odd way of reliving life with some future experiences intact. She knows that she is a future self, but still has the feelings (such as being attracted to teenage boys) of her youth. The novel goes through a "groundhog day" cycle, with her reliving the same time period over and over, and seeing what changes it causes in her future life. She finds herself married with kids and her dad quits smoking, yet he still dies. 

Finally she accepts the past and goes on with her life. Time travel plays a key role in the store, yet it does not feel like a science fiction book.

Wakers

Laz has the ability to "side-step" to a different time stream. This enables him to change the stream of life to choose the best outcome. He can do things such as find the combinations for locks. He simply goes to the time stream where he guessed the proper combination. He can also do this to correct "mistakes" he made. He may needs to check multiple to find the time stream where the correction doesn't make things worse.

Laz wakes up in a mysterious area. He doesn't see any people around. He does find the remnants of a civilization. Eventually, he befriends some dogs and manages to subsist on old canned food from an abandoned supermarket. He realizes he is a clone and that there is one more clone that can be wakened, Ivy.  She has the ability to see different time streams. The original versions of them were important scientists that had helped create a portal to evacuate the earth. (The planet is destined to be destroyed due to celestial object that disrupts the solar system.)

Most of the book is conversations among the characters as they try to figure out how the side stepping works and what their mission is. Are they the only hope to save the earth?  This could almost be a scientific book exploring how "time travel" without traveling in time could work. There are character relationships and a whole "saving the world" thing going on. However, it all plays second-fiddle to the "science". What happens if somebody moves to a time stream where they were not present? How can people "change" outcomes by knowing the possible results of their actions. The book presents an interesting situation with plenty of questions and some possible solutions.

The Free Lunch

Humanity in the distant future is in a bad state. Some people travel back in time to try to fix things. They seek to give a "free lunch" to people. The people in the dreamland amusement park are dealing with them. 

This may be a better book for people who are already familiar with some of the characters.

A Mutiny in Time: Infinity Ring, Book 1

Three kids must try to fight "Bad guys" to fix broken history. They live in an alternate world where Columbus was overthrown by a mutiny and a two brothers discovered America. There are also many other parts that are just a little bit different from our current world. One of the kids helps complete work on a ring that allows them to travel in time. They go back and try to fix problems in history. There are both "good guys" that help them as well as "bad guys" that are trying to take their advantage. It is a fun story with an interesting take on alternative history.

Time Travel: A History

Time Travel is a rambling exploration of the history of time travel. It bounces around from treatments of time travel in literature to scientific papers on theoretical physics. Treating time as a 4th dimension came in vogue. However, in our world, we have only been able to move forward. Being able to move backwards seems like a logical possibility. However, why haven't we seen changes in our history? Perhaps the world is in our "best possible world". Or maybe it is just not possible to travel in time. Or perhaps it is just too hard for us to comprehend. Science Fiction stories have explored a number of possible paradoxes that could result from time travel. (What would happen if somebody went back and met themselves? Or what if they killed their ancestors or prevented them from meeting?) The book rambles around to include a history of science fiction with some significant authors (such as H.G. Wells and Heinlein.) It also looks at the treatments by physicists such as Einstein as well as the philosophy of time travel. We also explore the history of "time". (Does the consideration of the "past" separate man from other animals?) There are many interesting parts. However, there is little overwhelming thesis other than "this all has to do with movement through time."

The Future of Us

A girl (Emma) in 1996 gets a new computer. Josh, her next-door neighbor friend brings over an AOL CD and they go on the internet. However, instead of the AOL of that day, they end up seeing her facebook page - 15 years in the future. Every small thing they do can impact their future.

In spite of all the changes she makes, Emma still finds herself in rotten relationships in the future. She attempts to "change" her life to avoid one loser husband or situation, but then simply ends up with another one that is bad in a different way.

Josh, on the other hand, is shown to be married to one of the super-hot girls at school who was thought to be way out of his league. His changes seem to change some of the details of their life together (number of kids, vacation spots, etc.) However, they seem to remain together. With this knowledge in the background, he actually speaks up to defend her in one of their classes. This leads to them actually going out together.

I was hoping that Josh would actually stay with his "future bride". It would make a great story of a boy overcoming his feelings of inferiority to reach his dream situation. The prodding of the future event helps him to accomplish what he may have otherwise thought was impossible.

However, this is a teen book, more likely targeted towards the female audience. So, Josh has to end up with Emma at the end. Sigh. Sappy and not quite as interesting. However, this doesn't happen until the very end. Skip the last chapter and you can picture this better type of ending.

The ending we get is Emma realizing that she must live in the day, rather than trying to needlessly try to optimize some imagined future. The depressed her of the future eventually exits facebook altogether, leaving the her of the present to go on with her life. Some of their friends bring Josh and Emma together to have fun. They realize that they are really meant for each other. (The end of their "relationship" 6 months ago was a mistake. They have had the friendship thing down since grade school. The relationship thing will work out with some more work.)

The concept reminds me of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. If you know a little about the future, that may give you the strength to do what you need to do to make it happen. The book also did a nice job of capturing the spirit of the mid 90s and contrasting that with today. It was a fun read, in spite of the sappy ending.

The Door Into Summer

The Door Into Summer was written in 1957 and set in 1970 and 2000. As such, it provides an interesting view of how much was predicted "wrong". About the future. We don't have zero-gravity entertainment, self lighting cigarettes, or widespread robot servants. We also haven't licked the common cold or had a large "cold war" holocaust. However, we do have newspapers that can be read electronically on a tablet (alas, those were more 2010 than 2000.) Computer Aided Design was somewhat foreshadowed, though it was more advanced than what was predicted in the novel. Changes in retail, telecommunications and computers were all significantly underestimated.

The story centers around Dan, a genius engineer who builds all sorts of great household gadgets in 1970. Alas, he does not pay attention to business, and his partners manage to swindle him out of the company. He initial decides to undergo a 30 years "deep sleep" to escape the problems, but then changes his mind and decides to visit his old partners. Things go sour, and they decide to dispose of him in a different facility - causing him to lose most of his money. Down on his luck, he takes odd jobs, brushes up on engineering, and eventually goes back to the company he originally founded. He also discovers that some of the patents for a competitor were filed by him and that a professor in Denver knows something about time travel. He travels back to 1970, fixes things up, and then returns to a happier 2001, marrying the girl of his dreams and living happily ever after. The story is fun and fast moving. The time travel part, while key to the ultimate resolution is not the centerpiece of the novel. (Though it does spend some time trying to go through the paradoxes of time travel.)

End of Eternity

"Eternity" is a monastic-like organization that whose members bounce around through time. They have complex computer formulas to calculate the impact of changes. With that, they attempt to make the minimum possible change that will make the desired alteration in the world. If some great leader is about to destroy the world, they might move his briefcase, causing him to get agitated and miss a key meeting that lead to him getting in power. New members are men recruited from various time periods who can never marry, but have great power to affect changes.

One technician falls in love with a girl and is willing to throw all of eternity to the kabosh to get her back. It turns out he is a man who was supposed to train the guy that actual invents eternity. The guy is supposed to go back in time to "invent" the time travel. So, out protagonist alters the controls sending him back too early. Only, he has a change of heart after he is promised his girl, and searches magazine adds for the appropriate time period to find the guy. He gets the girl first, then goes back with her to the ancient past. Only, then he discovers she is a double agent. She came from a future that developed an even better time travel where they can see all possible outcomes. "Eternity"'s meddling has eliminated major conflicts, but because of this they have also eliminated major achievements, and led to the gradual extinction of man. He felt he had been used by eternity to bond with her and set up eternity. Then he discovered he had been used by her to kill eternity. But, in the end, she loves him, so who cares about the rest of the world? They then decide to live happily ever after, killing "eternity" they can improve the world. And as a bonus, they live happily ever after.

Ok. That is quite a jumble. This book tells a fairly compelling story, and has all sorts of ideas. Some are well executed, while others are not quite fully flushed out. (Computers can really calculate such detailed changes?) And how is it that people in the future can send things back to the past in order to invent the future? (Reminds me of how "Shakespeare" was invented in a Jasper Fforde book.)

Politically, the novel presents a strong indictment of central planning. Here it is amplified to an extreme of planning things over time. Sure, the central planning does alleviate some human wants. But the lack of these wants is often what drives the very innovation that improves society as a whole. Here Big Brother isn't just watching. Big Brother is actually changing - only it does it so well you don't even know. Freewill on the individual and societal level is very important here. Libertarians rule!

Time travel is presented in a couple, somewhat confusing, ways. With eternity, time travel an cause changes. But these changes are then "always" in place. If you change something in the past that should eliminate you, but you are still there, then the change didn't eliminate you. There is also a separate concept of "time" by those living in eternity. Somehow this time continues linearly while the "real" time is going on. Thus, they may not have "reached" their elimination yet in the linear time, even though they are in a vastly different time frame than the person sent back to invent them. Alas, this extra time doesn't quite jell. But, just set back and enjoy the flight, and try to worry about the world later.

Something Rotten

This Thursday Next book provides more back-story and could "stand alone" better than some of the earlier novels. The narrator takes time to give us her background and briefly explain why she is in certain situations.

Thursday Next continues on her time-traveling, alternative history, literary detective work, all while taking care of her two-year old son (who was born in spite of his father being eradicated.) Eventually she gets the husband back, though he flickers in and out of existence for a bit before he is fully restored. And she also discovers that her "granny" is actually herself far in the future, living out the terms of a punishment. And a 13th century saint appears to cash in a bet for accurate predictions, including a seemingly impossible croquet match victory. Neither the author nor the characters understand how or why some of these things happen, they just happen. (Can you really call this science fiction? I dunno, but avoiding the explanation does keep things interesting.)

Ffforde also takes plenty of stabs at politicians and business. There are shows where the political figures earn points for evading questions, answering with half truths, and doing all the things that they are so good at doing. (Does this make it a post-modern world where people are fully aware of their idiocy? Or does the fact that they still vote based on the perceptions mean that they are not self aware? Or are they so self aware that they feel obligated to vote that way? Does it even matter?)

One politician (Kaine) is attempting to proclaim himself dictator. In attempt to whip up support, who has made the Danish in to enemy number one. Atrocities committed a millennium ago by the Vikings are used as means of building up anti-Danish sentiment. The people all fall in line with the propaganda stream. Soon they are all willing to burn books by Danish authors and restrict rights of anyone Danish. Could xenophobia run this rampant in the real world? (It does seem that most successful empires have had a multitude of ethnicities. If an enemy has a hope of joining you, then he may be less willing to fight. However, if your people have no hope of becoming one of the enemy, they have even more incentive to demonize and destroy.)

Kaine is actually a fictional character from a self-published romance novel written by a Danish author. Thus, by destroying all the books, he also has a means of preventing people from "discovering" him and sending him back to literature. Do two wrongs make a right?

Kaine is also partnering with the Goliath Corporation to obtain power. They both use a proximity mind-control device in order to control the masses. (Hmm... we could call this charisma.) Kaine readily awards no-bid contracts to Goliath. The big corporation, however, is undone by the return of the old saint. After Swindon wins the croquet cup, the saint wins his bet, and ends up with majority ownership of the company. However, he had been hit by a bus, so the ownership ended up going to the toast marketing board, and Armageddon was avoided. And there was also the Minotaur infected with slapstick who ends up accidentally saving the heroine, and "limbo" which is a rest area off a motorway, and plenty of other goodness.

The book is a product of an imagination gone wild. Many of the bizarre premises seem to follow quite logically from the other bizarre situations. There are a few serious messages in there, but those could even by seen as accidental in the face of the very British form of humor.

And with the title and Danish demonizing, do I have to mention that a self-doubting Hamlet plays an important role in the book?

Lost in a Good Book

This novel has a plot - something about saving the world from destruction and finding a kidnapped husband. But as with other Jasper Fforde books, that is only of minor importance. What matters is all the tidbits and sideplots that flow in and out. Thursday Next is a special agent that inhabits an alternate world, similar, but different to our own. In the previous book, she was married. Now she is pregnant. But, the Goliath corporation does not like some things that she has done so they had some time travelers erradicate her husband. She also finds herself constantly in trouble at work and with the law. However, she has also apprenticed herself with Great Expectations Miss Haveshim and is getting better at traveling in and out of books. She also runs in to other coincidences, does some time traveling and even traps a supreme bad being. She does not manage to find her husband. However, she can have conversations with him in her thoughts. Unfortunately, she also sees an olf bad guy (Hades) that she destroyed there also. Hades sister had plotted to destroy the world by letting a nanotech sweetmaker get lose. This thing will, alas, consume all organic matter to produce the sugary topping, thus destroying the world. Luckily, Thursday's father comes in to take it away to the beginning of the earth where it helps start life. And there are also bits about the restoration of a lost Shakespeare manuscript and the Chesire cat, a Kafka-esque court, and plenty of other bizarre goodness. Each scene could stand on its own. However, there is plenty of "glue" and continued experiences that add to the entertainment value.

Time Travelers Never Die

Time travel books all have to fight with the "believability" problem. If time travel works, why haven't we seen a bunch of them? The explanation this author uses is that time travelers can't "change" events. An attempt to go back and change a known past event will result in the death or displacement of the person attempting it.

However, this doesn't mean that time travelers can't have an impact on history - just that their impact has already been registered in history. (However, what happens if a time traveler decides not to perform an already past intervention? Or does it just require a Calvanistic predestination?)

Also, time travel seem to be limited. The father of the protagonist has discovered it. His research partner died in an attempted meddling, leaving only his son and friends with possession of the devices. Some asides seem to imply that the possibility of public time travel is acknowledged. However, it does not seem to have spread through society. (And the travelers don't seem to run in to others.)

Beyond the premise, the story is of two "historical voyeurs" - a version of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure played straight. This two guys love to go to historical events and hobknob with historical figures. This comes across as even less believable than the time travel. Would Ben Franklin even be able to understand their English, much less be taken aback by their dress and mannerisms? And the ancient Greeks and Renaissance Italians? Sure they have studied the classical languages and gone to costume shops, but would that really get them the full access they seek? And how many of these events really occurred as we "know them"? (To his credit, he does hint at a few things occurring on different days.)

On one spontaneous trip, he goes tens of thousands of years to the future and is enchanted to hear an orchestra playing. It seems humanity has survived the big scares of the modern days. (Though, I wonder what somebody from 30,000 years ago would think if they came to our day? Humanity as they know it may not be recognizable.)

One interesting side project they do perform is the restoration of lost Greek plays. They send them anonymously to a scholar, who disregards them, but then comes to believe they are authentic. Others, almost universally believe they are forgeries. However, when performed, they are positively received, and acknowledged as being either authentic, or the work of a great modern playwright. How would we accept new knowledge that is given to us?

The book has a few interesting points, but it is bogged down with excessive visits to historical events.