A Scientific Romance [Hardcover]

Ronald Wright (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1998

It is 1999, and David Lambert, jilted lover and reluctant museum curator, is about to discover the startling news of the return of H. G. Well's time machine to London. Motivated by a host of unanswered questions and innate curiosity, he propels himself deep into the next millennium: an England ruined by mysterious civil war, now returned to wilderness. As he sets foot in a luxuriant but menacing new landscape, he also explores the ruins of his life, a labyrinth of erotic obsession and remorse involving his old friend Bird - jazz musician, classicist, and small-time crook - and Anita, the beautiful, eccentric Egyptologist they both loved, mysteriously dead at 32. For readers of H. G. Wells, J. G. Ballard, and Aldous Huxley, this novel is an odyssey through human error, an evocation of beloved books and authors, and an unforgettable vision of the end - and renewal - of civilization.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In London at the turn of the 20th century, H. G. Wells's time machine mysteriously appears--empty--in a squatter's flat. Whence did it come, and for what purpose was it sent? The answers to these questions--though not to an even greater mystery connected with the machine's appearance--are contained in a letter written by Wells on May 2, 1946, which falls into the hands of one David Lambert on the eve of the millennium. Lambert, an industrial archeologist, reads the letter foretelling the arrival of the machine and, half convinced the whole thing is a hoax, goes to the address Wells provides, where, at the appointed hour, the time machine materializes. Thus begins Ronald Wright's fine and fantastical novel A Scientific Romance.

Romance can refer to an affair of the heart; it can also describe a heroic tale of extraordinary events. In A Scientific Romance, Wright plays on both possible meanings as he weaves a tragic story of betrayal and lost love into a larger narrative of time travel. Lambert, having lost the woman he loved, is reckless enough to test Wells's machine himself, catapulting 500 years into the future, where he finds London--indeed, all of England--a deserted, semitropical landscape. As David explores the future, he also sifts through his own past, creating in this Möbius strip of time and relationship a chilling cautionary tale about the limits of science and human ambition.

From Publishers Weekly

English-born historian Wright, who lives in Canada, is the author of several celebrated works of nonfiction, including Time Among the Maya and Stolen Continents, but his first novel is such a triumph that it's a wonder he didn't get around to writing one earlier. The plot is something of a curiosity: English archeologist David Lambert stumbles upon a Victorian time machine?the very one, it turns out, that H.G. Wells described in his famous novel. When Lambert discovers that he may have the same disease that killed his lover, he lights out for the future: A.D. 2500, to be exact. There Wright creates for him a vivid, compelling world, a depopulated, tropical dream of what had once been England. The book's central drama is Lambert's struggle to excavate and uncover the exact nature of the calamity that erased London. At the same time, he sifts through the shards of his own unhappy personal history?which he is, of course, tempted to touch up a little with the help of the time machine. The narrative bristles with fascinating characters, both fictional and historical, and Wright furnishes it with a rich store of enthralling scientific Victoriana. His writing is charming, unpretentious and wonderfully literate. J.G. Ballard explored this same territory in his disaster novels of the 1970s, but never with Wright's psychological insight or pathos.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Picador USA; 1st Picador USA ed edition (March 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312181728
• ISBN-13: 978-0312181727
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,694,341 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A TRUE Scientific Romance..., December 2, 2005

By 

Michael Valdivielso (Alexandria, VA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: A Scientific Romance: A Novel (Paperback)

David Lambert, museum curator and lonely man, finds out that H.G. Wells's novel about a Time Machine was based on a real machine. He finds the machine and throws himself 500 years into the future. Why? Well, he has his reasons.
What does he find? Mostly he seems to find pieces of his own past as he explores the ruins of mankind's future. Yes, ruins. Something went wrong, very wrong. And now David tries to find out what went wrong as at the same time he tries to find answers to his own ruined life.
For a first time novel this is a GREAT first. I hope to see more novels from this author.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fine science fiction with an ecological twist, October 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Scientific Romance (Hardcover)

If I was being uncharitable I would label this book "science fiction". Like HG Wells, however, the author effortlessly transcends the boundaries of genre. This is a book about humankind, *now*, and about how we are on the verge of sending our world spiralling into ecological destruction. It is also a moving love story, an ironic elegy for the human race, a brilliant adventure yarn and a rigorous and thoughtful read. I have re-read it several times: every time I return to it I get out of it something fresh and new. The closing quotation from Tennyson embodies the sweetly elegiac tone of the book:

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,/ The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,/ Man comes and tills the fields and lies beneath,/ And after many a summer dies the swan./ Me only cruel immortality / Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms,/ Here at the quiet limit of the world.

Highly recommended for all eco-warriors, romantics and lovers of excellent modern literature!!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars exquisite time travel romance for readers of all genres..., August 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Scientific Romance: A Novel (Paperback)

I stumbled on this small masterpiece quite by accident & found it to be a rare find. It is truly a romance per both definitions proffered by the amazon review. The author is masterful in drawing the reader into the book. I felt as if I had travelled in time myself & felt vague unrest when i washed up "back" in the 20th century. I hope the author will loose his time machine again(soon). If you're looking for the usual time travel clap-trap look elsewhere... marvelous meditions on humankind & the milk of human kindness... imagine my surprise when I read that a group was mass distibuting a "jesus video" in which all the actors were native people except for a caucasian actor playing the lead... life imitates art once again... it's all in this wonderful book...highly reommended.