Customer Reviews

Future Times Three

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Read it many many years ago and I loved it ... Great work from René Barjavel, French sci-fi author.

I had previously read another Barjavel book, The Ice People, and really liked it. The description and other review of this novel tempted me to purchase a used copy. It was easy to read, well written and the translation was good, not perfect English particularly because in context certain synonyms would have been better than the ones used.

After reading the whole book, it seems that Barjavel does not appear to understand or dismisses some basic laws of science, such as basic biology and physics. The simple method by which the time travel occurs is beyond belief; even in HG Wells The Time Machine, that method makes more sense than Barjavel's method of time travel.

Also, Barjavel is blatantly sexist in that in parts of this book he denigrates women (e.g., women are less capable mentally than men). It could be because of the time he wrote it; however, I have read other authors writing during this time period who were more accepting of women's abilities.

Finally, his ideas about the future are really bizarre and make little sense when comparing to the natural world; again he may be biased because of factors that I am unaware of (ignorance of biology; deeply religious, etc.).

Anyway, The Ice People is much better a novel than Future Times Three. I do not recommend buying this book; read it first from a library (if there are copies anywhere).