2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining Time Travel, August 23, 2007
This review is from: A Century of Progress (Paperback)
Enjoyable time travel novel with interesting insights into the reaction of the characters to 1930's and 1980's America. A lot of fun to read, well written, with a pretty good plot. It easy to see other authors have been influenced by Saberhagen's work here and none have duplicated his style, wit, and characterizations.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing, January 20, 2012
As a Saberhagen fan, I wanted to like this novel, but the further I got in the novel, the less I liked it.
The story opens in 1983 with an old man named Alan Norlund contemplating the slow death by cancer of his granddaughter. He has a cryptic conversation with a mysterious woman who vaguely promises that the granddaughter will be cured if he agrees to sign on for a mysterious job with a mysterious organization. After some developments in the grandaughter's cure and relapse when he refuses the offer, he agrees and is - Hey! Presto! - sent back to the Chicago of his youth to post mysterious devices around the Chicago area. The reason for planting the devices is never explained, and it's never explained why he is the necessary man for the job, apart from the fact that he was pre-adolescent in 1933.
The story involves either time-travel or parallel time lines; Saberhagen never explains. Initially, it looks like the story is about time travel because the mysterious organization manages to snatch out of the air a character that Norlund had shoved out of a Flying Fortess back in 1943 in order to demonstrate that Norlund can and will be sent back to the past. On the other hand, there are vague references to timelines and to the emergence of a new timeline. Also, it turns out that the chief aim of the mysterious organization is to kill Adolph Hitler in 1934 during his visit to the Chicago's World Fair, an event that never happened in our history.
In fact, after a hundred pages of planting devices and hanging out in 1933 New York, the whole "mcguffin" of the story turn out to be that the chief aim of the mysterious organization is to kill Hitler in ever timeline it can find. It also turns out that there is a parallel organization headed by the "Lawgiver" which wants to protect Hitler for no explained reason; in fact, the characters in the good mysterious organization point out that they don't know why the other organization wants to save Hitler, except, maybe, to bring him to the "future" to take over their "future" society.
The chief frustration of the book is that nothing is explained. Apparently, Norlund gets briefed about "timelines" because he suddenly gets rejuvenated and starts operating a "time-traveling" or "parallel time traveling" armored personnel carrier, but we don't share in his briefing. Who the mysterious organization is, or what there relationship is to a future society - which looks to be around 2033 - or who is underwriting the, or, even, how many there members of the organization there are - it looks to be a couple of dozen or so - is never explained. Likewise, where the evil mysterious organization comes from or who the "Lawgiver" is - who actually makes a cameo appearance in 1934 - is never explained.
Another frustration is that things happen because they just have to happen for the book. Norlund's friend from 1943 is introduced, inducted into the good mysterious organization, does nothing in particular, and then is summarily dispatched by a stray death ray without ever having done anything. Norlund is rejuvenated by amazing and mysterious medical techniques from 2033. Why? Obviously, so he can be "age appropriate" for the female character introduced in the middle part of the book. The female character's estranged husband is killed in a plane crash just before the rejuvenated Norlund returns to her time. Why? Obviously, in order to resolve that plot complication, because, apart from being absent, the husband never plays a role in the book. The Lawgiver travels to 1934. Why? So he can shake Hitler's hand, not that the Hitler whose hand he shakes is his timeline's Hitler, or our timeline's Hitler, but, rather, is just one of many Hitlers in one of many parallel lines, all of who seem to be different people, if the fact our Hitler never traveled to Chicago in 1934 has any significance.
Ultimately, we learn that the mysterious organization was sucessful and that Norlund's granddaughter and her children grew up in a history that never knew Hitler.
Huh?
But weren't we told that this wasn't time travel? Weren't we told that there were parallel timelines? If that was the case, and if the point of Norlund's adventure was to "split off" a "new timeline," then how did they grow up in a changed history?
Ultimately, this book is a confusing mess.
*Sigh*
I had hoped for better.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting... 'Vee haff vays of making you read...', February 17, 2004
'A Century of Progress' snared me with its cover. How often do you see Adolf Hitler and a dinosaur sharing picture space? (Well, if you're a SciFi/AltHist fan, maybe more than most people, but still...)
The premise is simple: In 1984, an aging man, his granddaughter dying of cancer, is approached by a mysterious woman who offers to cure the girl if he will do a bit of work for her and her organization... no more than a day or two, really...
The catch is that the job is in 1933, and that the job entails planting 'listening' devices in and around the Chicago World's Fair to pre-empt a Nazi-descended timeline from taking over this Earth as well.
Sub-par for Saberhagen, but still a decent read.
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