Customer Reviews

Chronospace

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I generally avoid stories with the physical time travel concepts and altering the past, but on occasion, an author can make me forget my hang-ups about the concepts. As promised by a friend, Chronospace was intelligently written, and I was able to let go and become immersed in an interestingly hypothetical, suspenseful stage of events. The concept of "aliens" being from the future is not entirely new, but perhaps equally plausible to being from distant galaxies light years away. In my opinion, conceptually this novel's premise cannot be entirely dismissed, and therein lies part of the pleasure of getting lost in this story. As I did initially, don't let the time travel sci-fi keep you from reading this one. This was well handled here. This was actually my first Steele novel, but certainly won't be my last!

I am pleased to be the first one to review the new book of fellow New Englander Allen Steele. I enjoy time travel stories immensly, especially those that make sense. This is a magnificent experiment in taking two parallel time streams and crashing them together in a creative, intriguing way. Steele has essentially expanded upon his award-winning short story "Where Angels Fear To Tread" and given it a new beginning and a new ending. It's not often that I read a book that has a cameo appearance...in this case it's the well reknowned writer/scientist Gregory Benford. And fans of sci-fi magazines will like the many references to Analog Science Fiction/Fact magazine. But you MUST read this book from cover to cover to get all of your answers. I was reading along for the first 100 or so pages and enjoying the story that was building. Then suddenly the main character, David Zack Murphy, seems to develop all new characteristics. At first I was shouting "What the...?" But it was resolved in the end in a splendid fashion. "Chronospace" is gripping and tough to put down. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is because Mr. Steele needs to scold his editor over a couple of missing words and at least one punctuation mistake. But if that's all I'm nit-picking about, that says a lot for the book and its story.

Being a time-travel stories fanatic (just check out my previous reviews if you doubt that), I was really intrigued when I heard about Chronospace. In fact, I dedicated an entire day to just sit at home and read it (I haven't done this 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 good ingredients, but SOMEHOW Mr. Steele 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 tells about David Zachary Murphy, a scientist working for NASA at the end of the 20th century. David came up with the (correct) theory that UFOs are really time machine. How do both these threads join together? Just barely, and not in an interesting way. Read the book if you want to find out.
To summarize: 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 books 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 the book, I was still convinced it might turn out to be a decent one, until this hope shattered.

When a time ship crew inadvertently changes the past, they find their future in jeopardy and a newfound understanding of time lines challenges in this fast-paced, absorbing novel. Parallel universes and the dilemmas of a time-lost crew keep Chronospace fast-paced and hard to put down.

This is an effort to write a time travel novel with causal paradoxes as a prominent part of the story. This book is an expansion of an award winning novella and the stretch marks are obvious. The quality of writing and characterization are pedestrian. Books like this can be saved by a clever plot and application of causal paradoxes but the paradoxes are predictable and the plot is marked by the sudden appearance of super powerful aliens defending the structure of space-time. This type of Deus ex Machina device is poor. The author has also a rather poor grasp of 20th century history. In this book, a key event is the destruction of the dirigible Hindenberg with the circumstances of that event influencing the survival of the Nazi regime. This is a laughable idea and a very shaky foundation for the generation of an alternative pattern of history.

A really bad "Sliders" episode -- no, worse: really bad "Sliders" fanfiction. The present-day protagonist is a dweeb scientist whose nerdy predilections, presumably shared by the author, we have to hear far too much about. The obtrusively pan-ethnic time travelers are boring ciphers whose language, interactions and perspective give no indication that they're from 300 years in the future. They're also crazy-dumb: When they realize they've created an alternate timeline and then go into that timeline's future to get back to their century, they're shocked to see it drastically changed until someone says, "Wait a minute -- this is the alternate timeline's future!" And their missions seem completely lame and pointless -- checking out the Anasazi people for no important reason, traveling on the Hindenberg to investigate just what happened when it turned out to be just what they thought had happened. Everybody's in high-ranking, prestigious positions -- astrophysicists, NASA brass, military men, chrononauts -- yet they come off as staggeringly underqualified, ham-handed know-nothings. I won't even talk about the didactic lizard-angels.

I've read many time travel novels over the years and this one is amongst the best.
In a genre that has been gone over so many times it's hard not to be cliched but Steele pulls it off.
The action is fairly fast paced and the book is hard to put down. There are enough questions and bits of mystery to keep the reader tantilized.
The story shifts gears many times and with little confusion considering the topic and the numerous timelines and settings.
This is what I refer to as clasic modern science fiction. Not quite hard science but close enough and without the pitfalls so
many other stories fall prey to. The end may be a bit disapointing but not by much. Not in reference to the rest of the story. It basically all ties together something which several other stories I've read recently fail to do.
I've been a fan of Steele since his debut and have yet to be displeased with any of his work. He is a modern master of sf and I look forward to his future pieces.

This is the first thing I've read by Steele and I was attracted to it by the time-travel theme. He does a pretty good job, but the style is somehow reminiscent of ANALOG of the 1950s and `60s -- which is fair enough, I guess, since the protagonist, NASA bureaucrat/physicist David Z. Murphy, is a lifelong fan of the magazine and now writes science articles for it. He doesn't know it, but his counterpart on another worldline is about to devote his life to the development of a working time machine, all because a research expedition from three centuries in the future has gone back to visit the zeppelin HINDENBURG just before its fiery demise at Lakehurst. Only it doesn't explode until a half-hour *after* everyone has disembarked. And in their bewildered flight back to their own time, the timeship crew manages to crash-land in 1998 Tennessee. Yes, it's all about as confusing as it sounds, but Steele manages to keep everything straight -- usually. He could have done with improved copyediting, though, especially in his chapter headings, which consist of dates -- and several of which are totally impossible.

I, like many other lovers of the sci-fi genre, thoroughly enjoy time travel stories. Maybe it's the idea of visiting the future or (more likely) returning to the past to witness/change the course of history.

Kage Baker, in her "Company" books, solved the problem inherent in all time travel novels - how to handle changes in the past as they affect the future. She posited that one could not change RECORDED history but could affect else (neat trick). Apparently Mr. Steele does not follow that approach and in a way this is the logical path. There are really two tales here. The first involves the Hindenberg and how its success (or failure) affected world events. The second, more realized line, involves the creation of time travel.

Parts of the tale were excellent - particularly the parts that occurred in Tennessee, my home state. I have been to the very lake described in the book and those awkward meetings between future and present folks are the stuff of time travel novels. What the story lacked was polish. It dragged at times, read clumsily at others, and character development was stillborn. All that aside, the author has created a good yarn that was worth the price.

A fast-paced time travel novel, you will not be dissapointed ! one of the better novels written by the author in recent years.