Patton's Spaceship (Timeline Wars) [Mass Market Paperback]

John Barnes (Author)

Book Description

Series: Timeline Wars | Publication Date: December 11, 1996

Combining the suspense of the detective thriller with the awesome wonder of space/time adventure. Crux of Battle begins an epic tale of a war across one million alternate Earths.

"One of the most able and impressive of SF's rising stars!" The Washington PostAn exciting blend of time travel, alien invasion, and chase/action from the critically hailed author of Mother of Storms, Kaleidoscope Century, and other novels published by Tor.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Harper Voyager (December 11, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061056596
• ISBN-13: 978-0061056598
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,813,086 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

My thirtieth commercially published novel will be coming out in spring 2012. I've published about 4 million words that I got paid for. So I'm an abundantly published very obscure writer.

I used to teach in the Communication and Theatre program at Western State College. I got my PhD at Pitt in the early 90s, masters degrees at U of Montana in the mid 80s, bachelors at Washington University in the 70s; worked for Middle South Services in New Orleans in the early 80s. I do paid blogging mostly about the math of marketing analysis at TheCMOSite and All Analytics. If any of that is familiar to you, then yes, I am THAT John Barnes.

There are also many Johns Barneses I am not. I am not the British footballer, the Australian rules footballer, the former Red Sox pitcher, the Tory MP, the expert on ADA programming, the biographer of Eva Peron, the authority on Dante, the mycologist, the travel writer, the guy who does some form of massage healing that I don't really understand at all, the oil executive, the film historian, or that guy that Mom said was my father. I do wish I'd written that book on titmice, though.

I used to think I was the only paid consulting statistical semiotician for business and industry in the world, but I now know four of them. So now I have a large market share of a growing field.

Semiotics is pretty much what Louis Armstrong said about jazz, except jazz paid a lot better for him than semiotics does for me. If you're trying to place me in the semiosphere, I am a Peircean (the sign is three parts, ), a Lotmanian (art, culture, and mind are all populations of those tripartite signs) and a statistician (the mathematical structures and forms that can be found within those populations of signs are the source of meaning). The branch in which I do consulting work is the mathematics and statistics of large populations of signs, which has applications in marketing, poll analysis, and annoying the literary theorists who want to keep semiotics all to themselves.

I have been married three times, and divorced twice, and I believe that's quite enough in both categories. I'm a hobby cook, sometime theatre artist, and still going through the motions after many years in martial arts.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great alternate-history and time-travel start, March 22, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Patton's Spaceship (Timeline Wars) (Mass Market Paperback)

I admit it. I'm a sucker for time-travel and especially alternate-history novels. I thought that Harry Turtledove was the master at this, until I saw his "Worldwar" series collapse like a deflating balloon with continuing characters losing their appeal and a conclusion lost to a future series. Yes, the protagonist here is thown into meetings with an unlikely series of highly placed people. Yes, he possesses skills that most people don't have. But the story is superbly internally consistent with the premises, and it is a great read. This isn't Shakespeare by any means. But unlike Shakespeare you don't need a dictionary to understand most of the words. You will find that your $5.99 will bring you several hours of enjoyable reading. And you will meet a protagonist you will be happy to revisit in the future. Highly recommended

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Time slip novel, January 12, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Patton's Spaceship (Timeline Wars) (Mass Market Paperback)

The title is a bit misleading, but Patton IS in the book! :-) The book starts out fast with a History student moonlighting as a body guard service. He's good, and has reason to get better! Nothing like revenge to keep the reader interested. This book has a Big Plate! Terrorist that are supplied from another Earth. Good guys fron a mirror Earths past ( 2000 years ago ) that WON a war that was lost on our Earth. Bad guys that help Germany of 1938 win the war on other earths, it's up to our body guard hero to stop them. Koool weapons in this book, but not too far out. Occupied America and the bad things that happen, Jews, gassed, blacks are turned back into slaves, but they get to have some fun when America is freed, by..........Patton! :-)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Less gritty than Drake, more focused than Turtledove. Wow., March 16, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Patton's Spaceship (Timeline Wars) (Mass Market Paperback)

A bit of a cross between Heinlein and Laumer. The science may seem implausible in the Patton reality, but the science was based on mathmatical equations from a book from the distant future. Taken in its entirety the escapes might seem implausible, but individually believable. Isn't that what makes a hero in epic novels? I look forward to future episodes, but hope the main character doesn't learn too much about the weapons that he is using. Makes it more suspenceful. I'm a picky reader. So, I am starting to read the author's other books. I find it very rare to find a writer of this caliber. Try it. The cover is iffy, but the content is marvelous