Customer Reviews

The Kingdom of Ohio

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I love debut novels and I love time travel stories. I love trying something new and potentially finding a favorite new author. Alas, that's not how it worked out this time. The simple truth is that The Kingdom of Ohio was a real slog to get through. More bluntly, it was the most boring time travel story I've ever read.

I'm not going to go into great detail with regard to the plot, but the novel is set in New York in 1900, at the time that the subway is being excavated. Our hero is Peter Force, one of the subway workers. One day, while looking out the window, Peter sees a woman collapse and rushes out to help her. She's tattered, but beautiful. She tells him that her name is Cherie-Ann Toledo, and that she has traveled somewhat inexplicably seven years into the future, and from Ohio to New York. The basic questions of the novel are, is she mad, and if not, how did this happen and what does it mean?

The story is stranded in a morass of superfluous detail. For instance, the world of this novel is exactly like our past (complete with starring roles for some of the preeminent figures of the time: J.P. Morgan, Thomas Edison, and Nicola Tesla), except for one major thing: In the novel, there was once a "Kingdom of Ohio," all but forgotten now. It was literally a piece of land sold to a French family during the early part of America's history, and ruled within this county's borders as its own kingdom (complete with King) for more than a century. It is this Kingdom that Cheri-Anne claims to be from, but really, what's the point?

What, too, is the point of the copious and extremely tedious footnotes scattered throughout the book? Presumably the author was trying to blur the line between reality and fiction. This was simply a very bad idea. Additionally, the author used the device of a present day narrator telling the story in retrospect. Flaming obscures the identity of this narrator, but it's so obvious from the start who it is, that this, in itself, telegraphs the novel's ending.

Flaming has attempted to write a time travel story in the tradition of Time and Again or The Time Traveler's Wife. In other words, a story strong on romance and weak on science, but again he fails, as I never grew to care about these characters or their relationship. Honestly, I didn't even like them very much.

Again and again and again as I read this novel, I searched for redeeming qualities, but here I failed. The prose exhibits the clunkiness of a first-time novelist and the story bored me more than anything else. I'm sorry, but I can't recommend reading The Kingdom of Ohio.

Many others have outlined the plot and characters of _The Kingdom of Ohio_, so this review does not cover those basics. Instead, I'd like to point out why this book epitomizes what is wrong with the publishing industry.

At its core, _The Kingdom of Ohio_ is a short story. But short stories don't sell. Worse, this book is speculative fiction, meaning that the literari who do read short fiction and still buy it are less likely to touch it. Despite the rich history of short speculative fiction (especially within the subgenre of science fiction), that market is as dead as dead can be.

To counter this, we have a move among authors, in collusion with publishers, to take what would be excellent short stories and pump them up to novel length. And that's a growing problem.

_The Kingdom of Ohio_ suffers as a full-length novel. There's just not enough to the basic premise. Instead of getting 80 tightly written pages, we get 336 filled with material hammered so thinly that it fails to stand up.

And this is a shame, because _The Kingdom of Ohio_ would have great merit as a short story. Instead, the characters and backstory linger too long for the power of the finale. This leaves readers wondering if the time spent reading _The Kingdom of Ohio_ was worth the payoff. For a short story? Absolutely. But not as a 336-page novel.

I wrote in another review about five years ago that contemporary novels were typically 20 percent too long. If what I'm reading now is any indication, many are approaching the 50 percent mark. Some, like this one, are fattened far beyond that.

One cannot place all the blame on publishers and authors. Short fiction has merit, especially in a busy age such as ours. Yet it is still a hard sell to readers. Perhaps we need to be willing to read and buy shorter works. Then I suspect our time spent reading will be more full, productive, and satisfying.

This is an unusual genre-buster of a book. At the outset, it is historical fiction-- the story of a subway worker, Peter Force, who is hired to help dig the first transit tunnels in Manhattan, circa 1900. Interspersed with Peter's story is a fable about a pioneer family from France that ruled their own "Free Estate" in Ohio during the latter part of the eighteenth century. The Latoledan family *kingdom* was separate from the rest of the United States and the boundaries drawn by the Treaty of Paris. For almost a century, the rulers enjoy a pastoral and aristocratic life.

The story soon proceeds into speculative fiction, as elements of time travel are introduced. A beautiful and mysterious woman named Cheri-Ann Toledo, descendant of the Ohio kingdom family, sharply enters the narrative and upsets Peter's life. A frayed polymath, she claims to be a time-traveler, and is targeted by both the police and the scientific community. Additionally, the battle between Nikola Tesla, the trenchant inventor of alternating current electricity, and Thomas Edison, (with his backing by financier J.P. Morgan), is a parable and a fuse for the chasms between realms of reality and the riddle of time. Cheri-Ann and Peter are ensnared at the center of the enigma.

The narrator of this tale is an elderly owner of an antiques store who currently lives in Los Angeles. He finds an old but familiar photograph during one of his business-related treasure hunts, which leads him to a life-changing decision and the unfolding of this story. As we follow him to his final destination, he braids all of these elements into one epic tale.

Flaming's use of non-linear narration epitomizes the philosophies embedded in this novel--the lacunae of memories and the distance of time. However, the novel becomes a bit long-winded and cumbersome as the story progresses. He tends to declare these conceptual mysteries rather than weave them delicately into the tale. I was frequently removed from the story into the author's dialectical pondering. It was an engrossing novel, but it was too cerebral. The story never evoked a tone; instead, it felt like a vehicle for a tract on the conundrum of existence. The flow was dry and distant and clumsy. The narrative perspective was not well controlled, either--the unnamed narrator was sometimes buried in these musings (or it awkwardly shifted to Cheri-Ann's or Peter's point of view).

And yet...and yet--I really liked this novel. Despite its flaws (which is evident with many debut authors), I connected with Flaming's fable of ideas. If I hadn't been smitten by his philosophy, I would have assigned a three-star rating. But within the scope of this very ambitious and blemished book was a winning and exuberant saga. If you seek a polished piece of literature, you won't be satisfied. But you may be surprised and engaged by his recondite mind.

If you enjoy themes of time-travel and want to get further into the mind of Nikola Tesla, I recommend the haunting and sensuous The Invention of Everything Else, by Samantha Hunt.

This fabulous, creative and heartwarming time travel is an intriguing, mysterious, and intimate read. Realistic fantasy, with deep, fleshed out characters. Beautiful. It may not be some people's idea of Steampunk but to me it is the very essence of the genre. Love it. I highly recommend The Kingdom of Ohio by Matthew Flaming, one of my favorite books.

This is a story of lost love or love remembered, but even though almost a hundred years have passed, it seems to have just happened a few months or years ago.(Many of us non-time-travelers can relate to this feeling.) The past scenes share an atmosphere with A Winter's Tale by Peter Helprin. You could imagine Peter Lake living just down the street from Peter Force, although that is about the only similarity.

I no longer read science fiction much and that is not what drew me to this book. The title and the concept was what did it. And I liked the main character a lot and how he thought and reminisced.

To me the story was a compelling page turner and the plot twisted in a way that kept me believing. Maybe it's not the fast, action-packed thriller some reviewers here were expecting. Maybe that was a marketing problem.

It worked for me and I hope for a sequel.

"It's a story about conspiracies and struggles to reshape the world; about secret wars between men like J. P. Morgan, Thomas Edison, and Nikola Tesla. It is about one of the strangest and least-known mysteries of American history: the existence and disappearance of the Lost Kingdom of Ohio. It is about science and faith, and the distance between the two.

Most of all, it's a story about a man and a woman, and about love."

If it sounds like The Kingdom of Ohio by Matthew Flaming has it all - alternative history, time-travel, and a love story - it does! .

When an old antiques dealer in modern-day Los Angeles comes across a photograph from the turn of the century depicting three people, he realizes that a past he thought he had imagined was actually real. The photograph depicts Peter Force, a young man who came to New York to work on the subway tunnels, and Cheri-Ann Toledo, a female mathematician who claims to have accidentally traveled across time, from an America in which her family ruled the Kingdom of Ohio.

"So you do not believe in fate?...Not mythic fate, but real, actual fate. The machinery of the universe, the laws of cause and effect, tell us that the shape of the future is written in the past. As the movements of a clockwork are visible in the design of its gears."

One narrative is told from the antique dealer's point of view and the other tells the story of Peter and Cheri-Ann. Peter, not quite believing Cheri-Ann's story, feels compelled to help her, nevertheless. Together, they try to find out what how Cheri-Ann traveled seven years into the future and what happened to the Kingdom she swears once existed.

The book, because it began with the antique dealer's weary voice, started a little slow for me, but picked up great momentum once it switched to Peter and Cheri-Ann's story.

Flaming put footnotes within the story referencing sources - which are probably a mixture of truth and pseudo-history. I could not tell which was genuine and which wasn't. I began wondering if there really was a Kingdom of Ohio.

Giants of industry and science become real people and their stories so well told that I now want to read their biographies. I loved the historical details of life at the turn of the century, especially about how the underground subway tunnels were built and how dangerous it was.

"...all at once she feels a hidden thronging in the air around her. A sense of presence, somewhere overhead. Her scalp tingles, a shiver running through her body.

Back. This word whispered into her ear, and she wheels to find its source---only underground gloom, jumping lantern shadows on the rough walls. A moment later though, she hears another whisper, this time farther down the tunnel, almost inaudible, then another---...

Something is down there, in the tunnels: she knows this with a sick certainty. Something without shape but infinitely hungry, a swarming multiplicity. A part of her brain is screaming at her to turn and leave now, before it is too late---"

There is a sense of inescapable fate and impending doom running throughout the book; the dual narratives of the old man and Peter and Cheri-Ann hurtle fast towards an intersecting, heart-wrenching end. The Kingdom of Ohio by Matthew Flaming is a satisfying and inventive debut!

Historical mysteries and science fiction are a particular favorite genre of mine so I was excited to jump into Kingdom of Ohio. Unfortunately the novel was a mediocre example of the genre. The main characters are bland and the plot doesn't seem to go anywhere. But the book is filled with some real gems. The meta-fictional aspects shines up the otherwise prosaic plot but doesn't seem to go anywhere. The chapters featuring Tesla, Edison and Morgan are great. The author's use of these real people overshadows his boring fictional characters. This author shows lots of promise writing wise but needs a few nudges in the story and character department. I would read something else of his to give it a shot but the genre is filled with better examples of sci-fi and historical fiction.
I would suggest the Alienist by Caleb Carr

Mr. Flaming's debut novel is complex, highly imaginative and very different from stock science fiction/fantasy. While not without flaws, it's a book worth reading for its sheer ambition. To have invented an alternative history for a part of the Midwest that is so plausible, I found myself researching, is amazing, and if the rest of the story doesn't quite live up to it, it is a page count issue. Mr. Flaming more than demonstrates he has the imagination and the words to tell whatever story he wishes.

Though The Kingdom of Ohio promises time travel, this book is not about the dilemmas of modern characters plunged into a different century. Rather, it's about time travel's implications, commercial and history-changing, and it interests J. P. Morgan, Nikola Tesla, and Thomas Edison very much. Cheri-Anne Toledo is a bone-fide time traveller who has travelled seven years into her future and becomes a person of interest to this powerful triumvirate. Cheri-Anne and Peter, who'd like to do some history changing of his own, come under their scrutiny. Ultimately, Cheri-Anne and Peter free themselves of the malevolent money-makers, discover the possible fate of the lost colony of Roanoke and well...

The grim and gritty realities of turn of the last century New York are well-drawn and Peter Force and Cheri-Anne Toledo are appealing characters. Perhaps this book's fault is that it is too ambitious. It seemed to me that an entire book could have been written for each plot line. Mr. Flaming is to be applauded for his ambition and his skill and should be encouraged to write more. His is a serious talent.

You know you're in trouble when you're 153 pages into a 336 page novel and you're still waiting for assurance that there will be a pay-off for reading the next 183 pages.

I'm not talking about immediate gratification. Books that present a mystery that unfolds slowly, that draws the reader in and creates a burning craving for resolution; books that lay down the small hints and clues at a liesurely pace; books that weave a lengthy and complex situation are rare treasures.

Alas, The Kingdom of Ohio is none of these. It contains interesting trophes, a host of interesting historical tidbits (like JP Morgan's backing of Edison), but it fails to create a coherent environment where the reader is willing to suspend disbelief. And the book's central mystery, well it's just not that compelling.

All we're left with, then, is a patchwork of interesting ideas, quasi-interesting characters and no strong thread to hold it all together.

([...])

Another work of historical fiction I would not hesitate to suggest. With vague suggestions of the magical realism and New York focus found in Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale, Matthew Flaming has crafted a novel of time-travel within the facts of history, a story of urban and mechanic power within the struggle for order, and a tale of love, passion and identity within the tangled mess of past, present and future. If you don't mind a bit of suspension of disbelief, and you appreciate the kind of story that weaves over and back into itself, you will certainly enjoy Flaming's debut.