Corrupting Dr. Nice [Hardcover]

John Kessel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1997

When they meet at the transtemporal stage at the Jerusalem 42 C.E. Hilton, con artist Genevieve attempts to take advantage of the rich Dr. Vannice but instead finds herself falling in love with the famed ""Dr. Nice.""

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In John Kessel's world, time travel has given humanity a great gift: the ability to exploit an almost infinite number of alternate pasts. And exploit it they have. Sightseeing tours to the crucifixion and front row seats at Caesar's assassination are just the beginning. But nice-guy Dr. Owen Vannice just wants to bring a dinosaur named Wilma forward for study. Then he meets August and Genevieve, a father-and-daughter con artist team, and together they land in the middle of a past revolt. "Entertaining, funny, and, best of all, highly serious," according to author Connie Willis.

From Publishers Weekly

In the mid-21st century, time travel is as common as air travel is today, and so is the wholesale looting of the past for people and artifacts. The eponymous Owen Vannice, a billionaire paleontologist trying to smuggle a dinosaur from the Cretaceous period, becomes the target of Genevieve Faison, a professional confidence woman. He also becomes the focus, A.D. 40, of a Zealot uprising in Jerusalem, which has been virtually colonized by the time-travel corporations. Surviving kidnapping by terrorists and betrayal by Genevieve, Owen proceeds to marry the woman when she reappears under the name of Emma Zume. It all works out happily in the end, even for one Simon the Zealot, driven to terrorism after time-travelers steal away one Yeshu, whom he followed. The character of Simon and the portrait of a Jerusalem under time-traveling occupation are superlatively well done. Most everything else here, however, suffers from an earnestness that clashes with the urge to romp. Kessel (Good News from Outer Space) dedicates the novel to a slew of film directors (Capra, Wilder, Sturges, etc.) who mixed comedy and drama in their work. The mix here isn't nearly as magical as theirs, but the story remains intelligent and entertaining throughout.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 316 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (February 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312861168
• ISBN-13: 978-0312861162
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,276,261 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Storytelling at its best, June 11, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Corrupting Dr. Nice (Hardcover)

John Kessel knows how to tell a story. Countless science fiction books make it into the bookstores only because of some cool idea, or because they tie in to a popular TV series or movie, or because the author's name guarantees sales, or because some big dinosaur is ripping across the cover.

Not so with _Corrupting Doctor Nice_. The best fiction--and this novel is surely some of the best fiction--tells a _story_, one which engages the reader's interest; delights with plot complications, humor, and tension; and satisfies with a resolution that fulfills all the promises made by the developing plot.

Kessel's book does just that, and does it with dinosaurs and time travel, too. The "coolness factor" which makes good science fiction good science fiction is intimately blended with the brilliant storytelling which makes good fiction good fiction.

Buy the book, read it, and remember why you came to love fiction in the first place.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dino's for Dinner, May 15, 2000

By 

Nicholas Noyes (New York, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Corrupting Dr. Nice (Paperback)

If travel through different ages and parallel dimensions were a possibility would we hesitate to exploit them? John Kessel's imaginative and plain old funny "Corrupting Dr. Nice" depicts a world (well, several) in which cars are driven with gas pumped from other dimensions, messiahs are plucked from 1st century Jerusalem to appear on talk shows, tourists from the 21st Century swarm around ancient Rome, and dinosaurs are cloned to provide the ultimate steak dinner. With Doctor Nice, the earnest but naive palentologist, his security software which keeps making him preform acts of heroism, and any number of rouges and con-artists, this book is engaging and thought-provoking. In a Sci-Fi tradition which includes Douglas Adams and Kurt Vonnegut.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a good time-travel story, September 3, 2000

By 

C. Piersol "buzzbo" (California USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Corrupting Dr. Nice (Paperback)

The story surrounds the scientific realization of time travel in the 21st century. Humans can travel to the past in any number of "unburned" parallel universes during historical periods where the "historicals" have not yet been exposed to the "futurians." Alternatively, travelers can go back to a well-established moment universe where the historicals have gotten used to the futurians coming and going. A revolt occurs during a well-established universe, 40 C.E. A good story follows and mostly takes place back in the future.

The main plot is a common thread with a new twist. A grifter and her father travel to various times and scam clueless tourists from the futre. Soon, she falls for one of the men she intends to scam, a naive, almost perfect paleontologist who has taken a young dinosaur from the past for study. This part of the story is somewhat obvious. It reminds me of a movie. I can see this going to the big screen easily. The bigger story in the background surrounds the ethics of time-travel.

There is a parallel between the unethical behavior of the scam-artists, the paleontologist's removing the dinosaur from the past, and the corporation who owns the time-travel machines.

I kept wondering how this story would end. Any book that makes me guess what's going to happen in the last few pages gets 4 stars from me.