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34 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Weakest entry in a great series, June 5, 2008
This review is from: Time Spike (Hardcover)
I've enjoyed the "Ring of Fire" series from the very first. I've given copies of _1632_ as gifts many, many times. Eric Flint is a creative person, and a great writer. Unfortunately, Marilyn Kosmatka is not in Eric's league. It takes a really seriously anti-talent to screw up an Eric Flint story. To do this amount of damage to an Eric Flint story beggars the imagination.
_Time Spike_ has done something I would have thought was impossible. For the first time in a long and varied reading lifetime, I could not find one single character I actually cared about.
There are so many amaturish mistakes, I can only presume _Time Spike_ was rushed into print to meet a hard deadline. Perhaps its true title should be "The Contractual Obligation Book"?
At the very least, _Time Spike_ could have been improved with even rudimentary proof-reading/editing. *Two* major characters named Geoffrey? Two *other* major and semi-major characters named Leffers and Luff? A baby born and not given the planned on name because "it's too important" and then is *never* named? Black characters whose 'homeboy' speech can't be sustained for three sentences in a row? These are mistakes high school students make in remedial writing classes.
Then there is the painfully bad subplot taking place "uptime" (in the present day). The few bits of "scientific" information presented in them could have been handled in a two-page or less prologue, as was done earlier in the series. As it stands, the uptime scenes detract from the action, and serve no purpose whatsoever other than allowing Kosmatka (presumably) to vent childishly petty remarks about the government. She even invents a ludicrous accusation of the government blaming Grantsville (_1632_)on "terrorists." If that's what floats your boat, go ahead and giggle along. But take it some place other than a book about the Ring of Fire. It serves no purpose and diminishes a really fine body of other people's works.
If I were Eric Flint, I'd ask to have my name removed from this book or sue Kosmatka. Preferably both.
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27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good to Read...., May 4, 2008
This review is from: Time Spike (Hardcover)
I have the feeling that Flint has run into troubles with the complexity of changes cascading into alternate history in the Ring of Fire - it becomes more and more complex extrapolating the new history that resulted from the arrival of Grantville.
This book is set onto a smaller stage - it is more about the interaction of a small set of cultures being transposed into virgin time. 20th century knowledge does not have the devastating effect is had in middle age Germany.
The cultures - modern prisoners and prison guards, 1800's Cherokees, 1500's Conquistadores, and early (very early) American Indians are dropped way back in time before familiar plants and animals had evolved.
The book was a good page turner, well written. Much faster paced than "Bavarian Crisis". Flint seems to have found a good co-author.
The book though has the feel of the beginning of a series - I can almost taste the sequel that has already been written in draft form. This sense of incompleteness got it the four - rather than the five - stars from me. (Besides - to needs to keep authors humble.)
But go buy it - it is good.
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24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining, June 7, 2008
This review is from: Time Spike (Hardcover)
If you want a fast paced, well-written book with an interesting (if familiar) concept about time travel, you won't be disappointed with this book. The authors do a good job of postulating what would happen if people from four divergent time periods in southern Illinois were moved back in time to the age of the dinosaurs. One group is from the present, and are the guards and inmates of a maximum security prison. Another group are Cherokee Indians and their U.S. Army escorts from the Trail of Tears, in the mid-1800s. The third group are Spanish Conquistadors under Hernando deSoto. The last group are early aboriginal Indians, the Mounds Indians. The book is entertaining, and there are discussions by physicists who are trying to get to the bottom of what happened that provide enough basic science and physics to make a plausible explanation.
The book rated only thee stars for a variety of reasons. The editing was surprisingly bad. Misspellings were rampant, as were wrong words, omitted words, etc. Love at first sight was also rampant. This got rather tedious, and is more than a bit of a stretch. The cold-blooded murderer/arsonist/armed robber with the heart of gold was also overdone.
These were annoyances more than anything. There were two things that really intruded on the story, and hurt it significantly. The first was the ease and speed with which everyone accepted what happened to them and took it in stride. I found it literally incredible that a group of soldiers and Indians from the 1800s would not be bothered by being thrust back in time 150 million years. Their main concern seemed to be finding a replacement for beef fat in their pemmican. I might have had a few bigger concerns than that.
Finally, the authors should really stop preaching about the evils of "the current administration." Flint is a labor organizer and clearly a staunch Democrat. The authors hate Bush. We get it. Say it once and move on; don't rub our faces in it. What the evils of "the current administration" (the single most used phrase in the book) have to do with people sent back in time 150 million years is a bigger mystery than how they got there. The authors couldn't decide if they wanted to write a science fiction story or a political diatribe. They opted to do mostly the former, with a hefty dose of the latter. It didn't work. I sincerely hope they knock that off in the inevitable sequels. I'll read them, but they will be much better without the political preaching.
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