Customer Reviews

A Scientific Romance

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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!!

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.

I was fascinated by this re-casting of The Time Machine. Wright's vision of a tropical England, devoid of humanity, is the most arresting part of the story; the characters themselves are less developed, both in the 20th century and 500 years in the future. I found the ongoing ruminations upon a past friendship and lost love distracting, if literate. Tracking the future, searching in the ruins, the protagonist revisits sites associated with his own story. Scientific Romance projects present trends of overpopulation, disease, and global warming to describe an overgrown, and tragic, outcome. The protagonist uncovers fragmentary evidence as he treks north from London. Ultimately, he encounters human survivors in a remote area of Scotland, poor and unlettered, but still capable of violence.

Ronald Wright's first work of fiction tells the story of David Lambert, a London museum curator who has a terminal illness. Fortunately, he has a time machine (described by H.G. Wells) which he can use to seek a cure. Unfortunately, the London of A.D. 2500 is a steaming wreck, with crocodiles in the Thames and strangler figs on most of the landmarks. David explores the ruins and concludes that no one has lived in London since the early 21st century. He goes to Scotland, where he finds a group of dark-skinned people, and becomes their 'guest'.

"A Scientific Romance" is a very eloquent eco-catastrophe novel. Wright's prose is florid but never pompous; his characters, although stereotypical, are sensibly developed. David Lambert is a flawed, tragic, completely engrossing hero who must deal with the knowledge that he and the Earth are victims of unchecked "Industrial Man". This book deservedly appeared on best-seller lists in Canada and should be sold in other parts of the world without delay.

This is an enthralling read, beautifully written, and the story has stayed with me since I read it last year. A haunting story of an apocolyptical world that seems all too real and possible. The chill bump factor is very high. I could not put the book down.

This is an extraordinary book, combining past and present, love and loneliness and fact and fantasy into a gripping story. The reader is taken on a journey past recognisable landmarks in a new and savage but beautiful environment. With twenty/twenty vision on our generation's socio-ecological suicide, a frustrating romance and a new twist on time-travel, it is the perfect guidebook for the last year of the millennium.

For those wanting only wild science fictional action - avoid this book. For those wanting a meditation on life, literature, humanity - this is it. Wright's book starts slowly, and it's main character seems a bit of a whiner. But it quietly grows on you. It's a NY Times Notable Book - although curiously, not a notable science fiction book. One of the year's better novels.

This novel is one of the most evocative and gripping things I've read in a long time. Wright combines a vivid writing style with a great futuristic vision. Very hard to put down.

A fascinating book. Wright has a marvelous way with words and his main character is bright and witty if not completely charming. This brings science fiction and literature together in a way that holds the reader on edge until the last page. The writing style remind me much of Arturo Perez-Revertes first two novels and that is praise indeed.