Customer Reviews

Serving in Time (Laser Books, No. 6)

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...if you enjoy pulp science fiction from the time, and *about* time, complete with all the usual paradoxes and puzzlements that seem to crop up in any time travel adventure.

This story revolves around a young man, leading an idealistic rural life some time and place in the future, who is suddenly whisked away to become part of an organization known as the "Time Corps". His placement there seems a puzzlemet as most of his fellow trainees seem to have been groomed for this mission from their birth. Once in the field and part of a team, he learns his mission is to merely "observe" events in history first hand...or is it? Events begin to lead him to question the true motives of the Time Corps and the members of his team, as well as the nature of time and history itself.

There are a lot of interesting ideas in this book, though some may leave you uncomfortable in the end by the supposition that certain moments in our history that we would consider good things would in fact lead to a terrible future. Would we be in better place in the future if George Washington had NOT succeeded in leading the Revolutionary War efforts, for instance? If the cotton gin had never been invented?

There are a lot of questions raised but, in the end, not developed to a truly satisfying extent in the book's short length. Characters are not particularly well-developed and the one female protagonist is fairly stereotypical in her emotionalism and "bitchiness" which must eventually be cut down by the hero. Nevertheless, it made for a quick and reasonably entertaining read, and should prove interesting for most fans of alternative reality stories.