Customer Reviews

Time Pressure

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The best thing about this book for me is how it twists around. For the first half you see everything strictly from the narrator's point of view, and everything he says seems rational and correct. Then you start to have a few doubts, and just as it occurs to you that in fact he's sort of a jerk, the plot twists, you (both) find out that some things weren't at all what they seemed (and others were exactly), and when the dust settles both you and the narrator are seeing things very differently.

As SF, this is good and solid (if slightly oldfashioned, being from the 80s), with nice treatments of telepathy, time travel, and the future of humanity. In general setting, I liked the whole Canadian Hippie Commune treatment; it's done convincingly, not as the easy stereotype it could have been.

I've seen a couple of people complain about the erotic parts of the book, and I have to admit I don't really understand it; the love scenes aren't particularly pornographic, and they *are* important to the plot. And why would anyone dislike love scenes anyway? But maybe that's just me. *8)

This was the first Spider Robinson book I ever read, and it drove me to acquire all the rest! I loved the plot turns, I was utterly surprised by the truth behind it, and I'm one of those people who always knows the plot after 5 minutes into a movie or tv show. I don't want to give anything away, but this book is intelligent, witty, sexy, and made laugh and cry, at different times. (For that matter the line, "From what year" will make me giggle whenever I hear it, just in recollection.) A few of the main chracters are living on a commune, so adult situations. There's a wide variety of character types, and an excellent portrayl of different people with different backgrounds living in a small community.
Spider writes very much in the style of Heinlein's adult work, and the same cautions apply. If plain speaking or sex bothers you, don't read it. For adults, this book is a delight.

"Time Pressure" by Spider Robinson was a HUGE disappointment. The dust cover states, ".."the New Robert Heinlein...Gerald Jonas" but does not warn us which period in Heinlein's career. If you are looking for good writing like "Starship Troopers" or "Tunnel in the Sky" then that Heinlein is totally absent from the writing of "Time Pressure."

But if you are looking for cardboard stereotypes, glorification of drug use, and giant elements of misogyny then you will find that in "Time Pressure" like in Heinlein's later books which were usually junk.

The basic story is about a guy in the woods who abuses drugs so much he can not tell reality. He encounters a time traveler who appears in a snow storm and of course is a naked woman without any hair. Robinson spends lost of ink describing her features in ways that would fit into a lap dance establishment. I found it all boring in the extreme. And of course the woman is immediately available for sexual encounters with the druggie while his friend watches. A letter to a "men's magazine" has about as much quality writing. The story degenerates from there on with further nonsense.

I have never read a worse book on time travel than "Time Pressure" by Spider Robinson.

This book gave me hope. It gave me renewed faith in humanity. It's deliberate pacing may take some adjusting to, but the narrative strenghtens as it unfolds. Great characters with warmth and earthy humor. A truly erotic and life loving, hippie-sci-fi odyssey.

Hello, I don't think this is a review so much as me venting, so consider yourselves warned. I read the first half of the book in a single sitting, saying, ah, a good book, at last... attractive plot, charming characters, wit, passages that make you go, now why didn't I think of that before?... Then I hit the four-way love scene and waded through it for a while. No, it really doesn't have all that much to do with the story line. And it's boring. And it's long. Maybe later it will turn out to be terribly relevant, but I haven't got the patience tonight. Maybe I'll come back to it when I'm in the mood for erotica. Maybe the actual book will pull me back later and I'll skip forward and read on. With thousands of books to choose from, right here in this room, maybe not. This is the first book of its quality that I've stopped reading in the middle, and it's such a shame. Live long and prosper.