Customer Reviews

The Iron Bridge

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you like excellent writing and an intriguing plot with a socially conscious (NOT BORING) message, please read this book. Don't just read it -- buy it if you can and help support and encourage this author. This first novel should be on the mainstream bestseller list. This is history, science fiction, fantasy, social commentary and ecology all bundled into one.

In 2043, an American woman makes a one way trip into the Shopshire, England of the 1700's, to alter the building of a bridge. Doing so may save us all. The story gives several views. There is that of the woman, Maggie Foster, as she lands naked in the middle of an earthquake, then must find a place to live and learn the culture of the times. There is the viewpoint of John Wilkerson, swordsmaker and local entrepreneur who is trying to enforce the building of the bridge in iron, to further his own profits. The person Maggie must persuade to alter his construction of the bridge is a Quaker, Abraham Darby, who is torn between a wish to do what is right or what he'd like.

There is a lot of detail about iron and bridge building that some may find interesting -- we skipped over that to read about life in the 1700's, to follow Maggie's romances, to see her struggle to persuade the gentlemen of that period that her opinions count, and to watch her try NOT to make any changes in people's lives -- for if you change one thing in the past, no matter how small, you can alter the future in strange ways.

More of a romance and period piece than science fiction, it is well-written and fascinating to read. Some Friends should be advised that John Wilkerson's lifestyle is less than pure, and given in some detail, and that some of Maggie's experiences are less than conventional, and given in some detail, including her romance with Darby's sister.

Will she be able to alter history without changing people's lives in 1790? Will that be enough to delay the Industrial Revolution? And if so, will a delay really make a difference in saving the environment for the future?

Read and find out. Quaker author David Morse has crafted a beautiful story.

I enjoyed this book and it engaged my interest from beginning to end.

First off, anyone with a special interest in industrial history, civil engineering, or Quakerism will LOVE it. Know any engineering students? Now you know what to give them for their next birthday gift...

Now come the quibbles, but before I start, let me just say that I gave the writer a break and went along for the ride and wasn't disappointed.

Whatever happened to illustrations in novels? Yes, I know they haven't done them since around World War I, but why not? I had hoped Jack Finney's "Time and Again" would change that, but no. The lack of illustrations is the biggest single flaw in this novel. Pictures of the historical Iron Bridge are easy to find on the Web, and the author, has a nice collection of them on his Web site. But we really need a picture, and a good one, of Samuel's alternate design.So much of the plot turns on Samuel's bridge:

"The arch was heightened !from a semicircle to a parabolic curve; and instead of making the tress members straight, as in timber constructions, Samuel had curved them fancifully, calling attention to the uniquess of cast iron as a building material. The arch rose from either side of the roadway like wings. 'It looks like a butterfly!' Maggie exclaimed."

The story depends on our believing that this design is aeshetically brilliant, and also that it contains an engineering flaw that Maggie is aware of. For those of us with inadequate visual imaginations, it is frustrating not to be able to see Samuel's design.

Now for the real nitpicks. The novel is full of small awkwardnesses. David E. Morse has not completely succeeded in immersing himself in the eighteenth century, and one has a mental image of him visiting historical sites, doing library research, and making notes (ah... the servant lived under the stairway, I can USE that...). At times I was reminded of "The Keeper of the Gelded Unicor!n," Ira Wallach's parody of bodice-ripping historical novels: "Two public letter-writers whispered in a corner. Outside, the cry of the fishwives could be heard over the shouts of the children laughing and clapping as the dancing bear performed in the streets thick with cutpurses."

I thought there was some gratuitous sex ("See, we Quakers are not prudes"), and Maggie is too busy with a complex role in a complicated plot--like an actor still trying to learn her lines--to come alive for me as a real character.


There are the usual problems with time-travel novels. There were two, however, which I thought were handled quite well. Dropped four centuries into the past, Maggie is constantly encountering language and cultural problems, and passes them off by saying she is from the United States. I thought this was all handled convincingly, without descending into situation comedy or passing the bounds of belief.

Second, the plot is based on the idea of attempt!ing to change history--to redirect the Industrial Revolution into less destructive channels--by interfering with a single, critical event. Will she succeed? Will she fail? That's all a little stale and tedious, but the way he finally resolves this question is nice--even if the story has a Moral.

Wow, this book drove home the idea of everyone's place in history. Maggie Foster a young woman from the not so distant future is chosen by her fellow Ecosophians, because of her sympathetic abilities to go back in time to change history. The Ecosophians have determined that a single bridge an Iron Bridge's success propelled man into the industrial age, and caused the economic and social disasters that befell their world.

Maggie was transported into the world of 1773, with nothing but her wits, with the task to change the building of this bridge, so that the future would be altered. Along the way the reader is transported to that time, of ironmakers and Quakers. You are given glimpses into the poverty and the manipulations of politics that shaped that time. If you think about it, continue to shape our time. You also get a sense of what shapes each character and why they do what they do.You get into the skin not only of Maggie Foster, but of that of Abraham Darby III and John Wilkinson. You are shocked by the character of all.

Getting into the character's skin brings you into the sense of how you would fit into the that time, the practices, the home life. You really begin to understand how different some things were then. Ironically, you can also see how similar some were, when it comes to family relationships and the manipulations that go into building the bridge.

The entire book is a surprise, there are some elements, I was unprepared for of a sexual nature, but provide an interesting counterpoint given the sensabilities of the day. The more violent acts would have been accepted in that day and age because of the genders involved,and the ones based in affection would have been reason for an uproar also because of the genders involved. The counterpoint of these two, was not lost on me. All in all, this is the first science fiction book I have read, that was truly set in the past.

I'm sure our salvation as a species is not in our technology, but what we do with it in good conscience. This book drives this idea home.

Great job!

One of the two best books I've read in the past year if not longer. Morse brings two historical periods to life -- the world of the 2040s and especially that of the 1770s. The story is full of intrigue and suspense, and the characters are the most lifelike I have encountered in a long time. The main character is compelling, but at least a dozen others are fully drawn. Most of the main characters are Quakers, and the author, who is a Quaker, draws a thoroughly informed and not always complimentary picture of this small, historically influential movement. Just about the only feature that didn't ring true was that Maggie spoke using the pronouns and vernacular of the 20th century, which made her more of a stranger than she needed to be. Perhaps David Morse wanted to keep her as one of "us" instead of making her seem somewhat remote. The book made me think about how we live our lives against the background of history.

Many of my thoughts on this book have been expressed already by the reviewers above. I would only add how pleased I was by the ending. So many of today's books, movies, tv shows, etc., feel obliged to solve problems through violent, cathartic endings. This book went from a potentially violent ending to an affirmation of peaceful methods for change. I found this ending inspiring and life-affirming. My only criticism is that I found the book slow moving at times.

What will the world look like 50 years from now? The prospect is grim, particularly in comparison to what was imagined 50 years ago when technology promised greater prosperity, health and happiness. The view that David Morse presents in his novel The Iron Bridge is so bleak that one woman from the year 2043 agrees to venture back in time, her mission being to alter the course of the Industrial Revolution. The plot is so imaginatively constructed that the reader is left wondering whether the heroine, Maggie Foster, was successful in her mission. Maggie's grandmother, one of the baby boomers, is the link to our age. Her philosophy is summed up in the advice that she gives Maggie: "Believe in yourself." The novel tests the truth and limits of such a stance. A stranger in a 1773 Shropshire village, Maggie must work alone on her mission and yet discover who she is through interaction with the people she meets. The Iron Bridge is both a first-rate novel of ideas and an absorbing narrative because of the finely drawn characters and the fully realized historical setting. While I was reading it, I could hardly put the book down; since finishing it, I keep thinking about the questions it raises. It's the kind of book that makes you want to have your friends read it so you can talk with them about it.

This book grabbed me right from the start! I loved how it began in the future in a community of survivors (the planet was not a pretty or habitable place and in the year 2043), and then focused on life in the 1700's. By the time I got to about the middle of the book, I was so curious about what would happen next that I spent an entire Saturday at home reading because I couldn't put it down! I will say that in the beginning of the book, I struggled with some of the vocabulary, but was captivated enough with the plot that I hung in there with it. I discovered that I could skim the words or sections that I didn't really understand and it didn't seem to interfere with my overall comprehension.

I thought the ending was very well done (won't reveal it here!) and I liked it even more days later as I continued to think about the book and the characters. I found myself really missing Maggie, the main character, and thinking a lot about the message - or what I felt was th! e message: we need to take care of our planet, and each other, and do it as a whole community.

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a book reading by the author, David Morse, right after I'd finished the book, and it increased my awe of the book even more. I found out that he had done YEARS of research to do the novel, and much of what was written was actual historical fact. I especially found it fascinating that he had read the journals of one of the "characters" in the book and had used what he'd learned in the book.

I really hope that Morse will write a sequel!

If a butterfly flaps it's wings in china, and a hurricane rages in the Caribean, then an iron bridge built in 1700's Shropshire may cause the downfall of society in the 2100's. If only the past can be altered, just a little bit, then maybe the future disaster can be prevented. Maggie Foster, a woman of the future, travels to the past where she attempts to influence the world's destiny by changing a bridge and hence the course of history. Maggie becomes embroiled in the lives of the Darbys, a wealthy Quaker family, ironmakers destined to shape the future. Although she comes to love the individual members of the Darbys, her motives around the bridge are ultimately at odds with theirs. As she carefully endears herself to the family while ensuring that the bridge will be a failure, she finds herself coming to care as much about the Darbys as she does about the future.

I enjoyed "The Iron Bridge" as a glimpse into history, particularly Quakerism. I think that I learned something about historic attitudes toward sex and came to appreciate the role of iron in the formation of our present society. I highly recommend "The Iron Bridge."

I have always enjoyed reading books about history and I wasn't disappointed when I read The Iron Bridge by David Morse.

After picturing the bridge and its construction in my mind, I then went to the internet and found pictures and additional information at the author's website.

Although I would not classify this as a hardcore science fiction book, other than maybe the first chapter it makes for great reading.

It does make one wonder what impact the development of iron and ultimately steel has had on our environment today (obviously a major one) - and what would have possibly happened if that development had not occurred, or happened in another part of the world, such as Japan. Is there such a thing as pre-destiny?