Customer Reviews

Out of Time

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Out of Time by Lynn Abbey is one of the best new fantasy novels that I have read in a long time.

Emma Merrigan, is a Librarian with a comfortable if slightly lonely and predictable life. Until she decided to help a terrified young woman who is haunted by both what we can see and what we can't. That is when Emma begins having her childhood nightmares again. Only her nightmares are manifesting themselves physically and she is losing time and waking up bloody.

It really is quite a good book, it meanders a bit in a couple of places which may be off putting to some but well worth the read. The world she has created is engrossing, fresh and just believable enough (well sort of this is a fantasy novel after all) for the suspension of disbelief to occur. I eagerly await the next book.

Fifty-year-old librarian Emma Merrigan lives alone in a Bower, Michigan townhouse. Emma enjoys her quiet solitude, especially after two failed marriages. When Emma was one, her mother mysteriously disappeared. For decades afterward Emma suffered from severe night traumas that have eased up in recent years.

However, Emma's quiet lifestyle changes when she meets badly beaten law school student Jennifer. She provides Jennifer with a temporary home while she recovers from her injuries. The meeting sets in motion a chain of events that leads to the return of Emma's night traumas. Only this time when she awakens she sees evidence that indicate she traveled somewhere. Emma found a hidden cache of letters from her mother that tells her how to remove curses and that she has the innate ability to travel through time. When Jennifer,s boyfriend arrives, Emma believes he suffers from an ancient curse. Emma goes back in time and changes the past but she botches the job and it looks like Jennifer's boyfriend will die. To correct her error, Emma needs the help of a fellow time traveler, a person she does not trust.

Imagine a contemporary drama sprinkled with a few horror and fantasy elements. This is the essence of OUT OF TIME, a very good tale. Emma is a fabulous heroine while the support charcaters augment the plot with depth. This novel appears to be the first installment of a new modern day fantasy series in which the audience remains clueless as to the overall direction Lynn Abbey plans to take in what is an enjoyable opening act.

Harriet Klausner

Emma Merrigan is a 50 year old woman, living a rather dull life. But bumping into an abused teenager, and inviting her to stay with her draws her into a strange world, where curses exist, and time travel (sort off) is possible. This book is not really a time travel novel (as I thought when I bought it), it's more of a fantasy book. But I never read any other book like it. Lynn Abbey, the author, creates a believable fantasy world. It reminded me a bit of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere - a fantasy world superimposed on our modern reality. I really loved the book - and am eagerly looking for a sequel.

Lynn Abbey makes a departure from her usual style to write a very comfortable fantasy that is based in the current time. Her characters are believable and Emma, the primary focus of this novel, is quite real in her actions and thoughts.

Time travel isn't really the topic, in spite of the title. This fantasy is more about one woman's wyrd, her ignorance of it until later in life, and how learning of that wyrd impacts her and some people near her. She deals with strange teenagers who are apparently afflicted with a curse (maybe more than one), a life that seems to be going in very odd directions and, right at the end, the reappearance of her mother. Interestingly enough, her mother should have been in her seventies but appeared to be much, much younger. That conundrum is wrapped up very tightly with the teenagers' curse and her role in trying to lift the curse.

The book ends abruptly and quite obviously paves the way for a sequel. This is a very good read!

Having wrapped up the '90's with such indefensible misfires as Siege of Shadows and Jerlayne, it seemed as if the only thing that was "out of time" where Lynn Abbey was concerned was her career. But lo and behold, Abbey's first novel of the new century (depending on how you count) is one of the nicest and most unexpected surprises I've come across. It reads almost as if Abbey herself is a new person. Her prose--heretofore pretentious, obtuse, dreary, not unlike wading through four feet of Mississippi river mud while carrying a knapsack full of bowling balls--is in this book clean, brisk, and accessible. Characterizations are warm, sympathetic, very real. And though it might seem a disservice to Abbey to suggest that after 20-odd years of trying she's finally gotten it right, it might be more diplomatic to suggest that maybe she's finally found the right type of story to let her talents bloom. In the past, with some exceptions, Abbey has directed her creative attentions towards high mythic fantasy--in most cases with stupefyingly disastrous results. Out of Time, on the other hand, is a contemporary fantasy reminiscent of 1982's The Guardians, and it's in a modern day setting that Abbey seems to feel most at home (the bizarreness of Jerlayne notwithstanding). So it's no surprise that this is Abbey's best book since The Guardians, and I welcome her return to fables set in the here-and-now. Granted, it's not exactly filled to the brim with lightning-paced action and edge of your seat suspense. It's a subdued, nuanced little tale, not hurriedly paced but not boring either. It all begins when 50-year-old Emma Merrigan, who works at a university library in Michigan and lives an otherwise drearily ordinary life with her two cats, discovers a frightened and apparently battered young girl sleeping deep within the labyrinthine library stacks. Jennifer Hodden's situation seems all too typical; in denial about an abusive boyfriend and indecisive about what to do with herself. Yet Jennifer's arrival seems to have triggered a return of the "night terrors," strange and inexplicable recurring nightmares that occasionally haunted Emma's childhood following the equally inexplicable disappearance of Emma's mother. As Emma gets more and more caught up in the turmoil of Jennifer and her boyfriend Bran's odd dilemma, she discovers and old box in her house that she's never seen before, though it has clearly been bequeathed her by her long lost and enigmatic mother. An examination of the box reveals that Emma's mom was either certifiably nuts or dealt in honest-to-goodness witchcraft, with a predisposition for curses and how to stop them. Soon Emma finds herself drawn into the realm of her night terrors more and more frequently, and an increasing series of frightening encounters leads her to the conclusion that what must be plaguing Jennifer and Bran is an actual curse, though where it originated and how to erase it are other problems entirely. An interesting touch of Abbey's is her concept of curses: malevolent sources of power brought about by tragic events, that can then become "persistent," travelling through time affecting new hosts like a virus or parasite, unless someone with the paranormal abilities of Emma's mother (or now, as it seems, Emma herself) can trace the curse to its temporal root and squash it before it has a chance to be freed. Nice. Other aspects of Out of Time are more mundane. Anyone who's even a slight veteran of stories of magic and what-have-you will easily predict that the mere mention of a long-lost, mysterious parent means that the story's finale will see that parent pop back up in our herione's life to help her solve the problem. (And so I don't feel guilty of a spoiler by revealing it here.) But though Abbey cannot avoid resorting to the obvious in that instance, her story thankfully isn't robbed of its intrigue because of it. When Emma finally does root out the source of the curse, it's both compelling and sad in classic tragic tradition. But Abbey's biggest coup here is the character of Emma herself, the most real heroine Abbey has ever created, and one whom it is easy to surmise may be something of an alter-ego. Even the most intricately conceived plot and sumptuous prose cannot save a story if you don't have a protagonist who transcends the status of "character on a page" to become a real person the readers feel they truly know at the end. Emma is Abbey's triumph (particularly compared to such gratingly loathsome characters as Jerlayne or Berika of The Wooden Sword), and I hope to see this kind of heart in future Abbey stories now that she's getting this good at it. Out of Time is no fantasy masterpiece, and it would be unrealistic to expect Abbey to produce one all at once after a decade's worth of clunkers. The tale loses steam as it wraps up, with all loose ends sort of falling together too neatly, culminating in an ending that is much too abrupt even while managing to leave room open for a sequel should sales justify one. Yet it is a good book to curl up with on a wintry night with a fire blazing and your cat on your lap. And it bodes well that this decade might be considerably less accursed than the last one was, where Lynn Abbey's novels are concerned.

Out of Time (2000) is the first fantasy novel in the Time series. It is set in the near future within the Midwestern town of Bower, Michigan.

Merle Acacia Merrigan is the acquisition librarian at the university. She had never liked her name and now everyone knows her as Emma. She has been married -- and divorced -- twice. She still relates well with her two step-children.

Eleanor Merrigan is Emma's mother. She had disappeared when Emma was five. At first, Emma thought that she had died, but later Emma learned that she had fled to New York city.

Jennifer Hodden is a senior at the university. She has recently moved into the Blue House -- a student co-op -- where she met her boyfriend.

Bran Mongomery is a graduate student at the university. He has recently moved from an Eastern school and in living at the Blue House. He met Jennifer there and is now her boyfriend.

Matt Strabo is the official System Administrator for the university library. He knows Emma because she is the unofficial SA for the library. She has been performing that additional duty since the computer was using punched cards.

In this story, it is the first week of November. Emma is now living alone. Her Dad had passed away the previous February and her two stepchildren -- Lori and Jeff -- are living elsewhere. She arrives at her desk to find that the library director has again locked himself out of his files.

After Emma helps Matt to discover the cause of the problem, she starts working on her current acquisition difficulties. At the end of her day, Emma checks to see if any additional bodies are lying within her assigned area of the stacks (her reasons are too long for this review).

Toward the end of her route, Emma discovers somebody slumped over a table with blood spills on the notebooks and table top. Fortunately, the body is still alive, with only a split lip. Jennifer prefers not to explain how she got the lip and black eye, so Emma takes her out to supper and gets most of the story.

Jennifer and Bran have fallen into love with not only passion, but also inevitability. As Bran later states, Jennifer filled a hole within him. But Jennifer had poked him in the ribs and stated that he would have been dead if she had a knife. So Bran beat her to drive the demons away.

Emma takes Jennifer home and puts her into the spare bedroom. Then she starts having terrors -- panic attacks -- and dreams that seem very real. Emma tries to drive away her anxieties by work and cleans up the boxes in her basement. There she finds a box that she has never seen before that has her full name written on the outside.

Inside the cardboard box are newspapers wrapped around a wooden box with a lock and key. Inside the wooden box is an envelope with a note to Emma from her mother. Below the envelope is a black bound book with onion skin papers. Below that are other objects, including two bowls, a bell, a silver dish, another book, and a tray of bottled potions. Under that are the remains of melted candles and a candle stand.

The note spooks Emma. It speaks of a wyrd and of walking through time. The black book contains passages about persistent curses and potions for effective dreaming. Emma starts to believe that her mother had been deranged.

This tale leads Emma into a place outside time which she calls the Wasteland. It starts to interfere with her sleep, for she wakes up in that place. Emma starts to hear dogs and see red masses. Then she finds that her anger can drive them away.

Emma decides that the things that are harassing her are curses. Or maybe they are just delusions. But they hurt her and she starts to find evidence of their reality.

This novel clears up the problems of Bran and Jennifer, but leaves Emma with other problems. The next volume is Behind Time. Read and enjoy!

Recommended for Abbey fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of time travel, interdimensional places, and befuddled magic users.

-Arthur W. Jordin

Emma, a 50 year-old university librarian, has led a fairly normal existence until the day she stumbles upon a strange box in her basement. Her real name, Merle Acalia, is written across the yellowed cardboard. Inside she finds a book of charms and spells and old letters, all left to her by Eleanor, the mother who abandoned her when she was very young. To her distress Emma becomes involved in a world of dimensions she had never imagined, a frightening world where curses take on form and must be hunted through time and destroyed lest they cause terrible suffering for those who live in the here-and-now. With reluctance Emma takes up the mantel of hunter-witch. Out of Time has a brilliant plot and intricate, believable characters. There is a proper ending, but with one part of the plot left unresolved, leaving it obvious that there is a sequel. I searched Amazon.com to discover the title - Behind Time. I can't wait to read it!

Others have gone over the plot. I just wanted to say that the prose style here is the best I have seen in years. Abbey has painted in the background of her word picture. There are authors who just barely show you the surrounding of a character; the forground is all that counts to them. Abbey has filled in the sky, the trees and all the petty personal problems that show up in day to day life. Abbey has made a credible entry in the "dull person has an insanely dangerous adventure and survives" category of books. I literally bought the book at 11am on Sunday and read it until 1am Monday.

The story becomes somewhat more interesting as the plot shifts from the mundane life of a middle-aged woman to a supernatural connection linking contemporary characters and events to historical characters and events. I was hoping for more sci-fi to go with the supernatural theme, but didn't find it.

Sadly, when the story runs its course, much of the mystery is unsolved and the roles of some seemingly important characters remain unclear. Even worse, last minute plots are introduced in a "stay tuned for next week's episode" way.

Overall, this book introduces an imaginative idea for a story but it fails to support it with interesting details. Rather than telling a complete story, it seems that the author is setting you up to buy a sequel. I'm okay with serials and sequels, but prefer to have it disclosed on the cover.

I thoroughly enjoyed Lynn's unique ability to blend the modern world with a fantasy world. She evens mixes in a little real ancient history for good measure. Emma travels from being a librarian to a rogue hunter and meets all kinds of interesting curses along the way.