Customer Reviews

Time's Eye

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Because of the many similarities of the premise of this book to 2001, many readers will pick the book up expecting something quite similar and stimulating in the same ways. That expectation would be wrong. Although on the surface the books have similar elements, Time's Eye uses a story-telling technique that focuses much more on bringing incongruities from different periods of history together to imaginatively describe "what if?" You have famous authors (Rudyard Kipling), famous conquerors (Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan), and famous places (Babylon in its prime) brought together in unexpected collisions. It's like running a particle accelerator to collide with something to see what might happen.

The book lives or dies by how compelling you find the historical juxtapositions. I personally found them to be mildly interesting . . . but not compelling. The story itself was a little clunky in its plot elements, and I found myself disbelieving the ending.

The 2001-like element in the book mostly recedes into the background. Had it been more in the foreground, the book could have been a four-star effort.

I loved the idea of including the CD with bonus book and other material. Nice!

Perhaps the series will improve in the rest of the book . . . I hope so. The potential for a good story is certainly there.

The Earth has been carved up into a giant temporal jig-saw puzzle and put back together randomly by aliens called the Firstborns. These aliens were unknown to humanity until their watchdogs (or are they?) in the form of little silver orbs floating quietly above humanity.

This forms the fascinating and promising premise of Arthur Clarke and Stephen Baxter's Time's Eye which is subtitled A Time Odyssey. While only time (pardon the pun) will tell if this is as important or thought provoking as Clarke's other Odyssey novels, this makes for a fascinating start. Clarke has finally found another collaborator up to the task of working with him. The only other novelist that would have been capable and could flesh out Clarke's characters was the late Mike McQuay.

Baxter's a well known sf novelist and award winner in his own write (all these nasty puns just keep wanting to pop in for time). His novels Manifold: Time is an essential modern science fiction classic (and included in CD-ROM form with the book). The characters are pretty well developed (a problem for even Clarke's best novels)and the writing is about as sound from a science point of view as a tale like this could be. We'll have to wait for the other two novels in this series to be published before finding out what the real motives are behind the Firstborn.

With Clarke and Baxter's well developed idea along with the deft characterizations make Time's Eye an important sf book from two of the best writers around.

This novel mixes themes from both Clarke's and Baxter's prior work - ancient intelligences, harvesting mind, pre-humans. The device in this novel is the creation of an earth composed of a patchwork of different timelines spanning 2 million years of history, culminating in 2037.

This sets up a world that allows exploration of the novelty of intersecting pieces from different timelines. The main plot centers around the events that lead to a battle between the armies Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan, aided by a small group of 21st century people and a contingent of a 19th century British army.

The main characters were well drawn, and I was felt that this world was real and interesting, mainly from the little details that are Baxter's trademark, especially the sense of smell.

Despite my being a huge Clarke and Baxter fan, I came away feeling this was not the best collaboration, certainly weaker than the "light of other days", and the ending had a definite Deux ex Machina problem. Baxter seems to be writing so much these days that maybe he is being stretched a little thin.

Overall this is an interesting read, but not up to the best that either author has written, with regards to theme and content.

(I used to be a little cynical that Baxter collaborated with Clarke to get a career boost from such a distinguished author. But his talent as an author is now so obvious that I have to wonder whether it isn't Clarke who is getting most of the benefit now.)

The only reason this book got more than 1 star was that I loved the premise. A race powerful beyond the comprehension of homo sapiens manipulates time and space to salvage (or loot depending on one's beliefs) the laboratory its inhabitants call Earth. Unfortunately, the development of the First Ones, as they are called, is non-existent. Just too much of the book is devoted to historical characters. If I wanted to learn more about Genghis Khan and the Mongol culture or how Alexander the Great moved his army from place to place, I would pick up the appropriate historical book. It was almost as though the authors did not want to address the sci-fi premise in this the first book of a series.

In fact, with the exception of a few scattered paragraphs devoted to the speculations of the "moderns" about the super race that transformed Earth into Mir, the entire sci-fi element of the book is left to the reader's imagination - or should it be the reader's supernatural beliefs?

Unlike the other reviewers, I couldn't help but focus on the religious overtones in the book. If I were conspiracy-minded I might wonder if this was Clarke and Baxter's way of questioning Darwinian Evolution. For starters, there is the end of the world as seen through the eyes of three travelers shortly after 2000 AD, the belief of the main characters that the temporal changes were wrought by an intelligence beyond their comprehension, and Bisesa Dutt's six month-plus vigil to The Eye in the Temple of Marduk.

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* Spoiler Alert

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* The rest of this review lays the foundation of the end

* of the book though it doesn't directly give it away.

* But, then, one can easily infer the end of this book by

* reading the synopsis of the sequel.

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The vigil leads to her belief that the First Ones were communicating with her; her sojourn, imagined or otherwise, to a place that one might easily call Helll; and the First Ones response to both her desperate prayer for her lover's life and her ardent desire to be reunited with her daughter.

As the editorial reviewer of amazon.com wrote this was a three hundred page digression. If the goal was to convince me, the reader, to buy the sequel it failed -- spectacularly.

I read books and see movies to be entertained, and so I'm pretty willing to forgive that which strains credibility or which has been seen or written before as long as it's interesting. For the most part, "Time's Eye" delivers. Yes, there's a lot of copying from past ideas (another series of novels which hasn't yet been mentioned in the "pirated from" category is Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series, which was similar in feel at times). However, it's still an entertaining read.

I do have some issues with it, however. Ironically - or perhaps appropriately - it would seem as though paragraphs, pages, and perhaps even entire chapters were lost on their way to the printer. For example, at the top of page 183 [hardcover first printing], there's talk of leaving markers for another party, but there seems to be knowledge about that party - in particular, someone no longer being a part of it - that, as far as I remember, isn't something that should be known. Was there a paragraph somewhere in which the two parties communicated? If so, I must have missed it.

Also, while some of the character development is very well executed, other characters - in particular Sable, one of the cosmonauts - are given large parts without much development or motivation for their actions. While I understand that not all characters can be fully developed, I'd at least like a decent explanation for why major characters might do seemingly extreme things that would appear to be out of (expected) character.

Finally, the final meeting of the armies (mentioned on the cover, so no extra spoiler here) is very well discussed, with lots of detail, up until... the end. As in, "um, is it over now?". Seems like another chapter was left out here. Sort of like watching Star Wars (which, I'd imagine, anyone reading these reviews has seen), getting to the point where Darth Vader has started shooting at Luke's X-wing, and then cutting to the awards ceremony at the end, maybe with one of the characters saying "well, now, isn't it great that we destroyed the Death Star?". Seems to me like, between the two authors, someone might have written at least a page or two more, especially given that there was so much detail up to that point.

And, yes, the ending is weak, but that's expected in a series.

On the PLUS side, however, the historical perspective is very well done and makes me feel like I'm there. The scenery is painted with a fine brush (but only the foreground - the background is like a blurry matte painting). Character interactions (for the "good" guys) are entertaining. There isn't too much science (I love science, I'm a technical person, etc., but I hate having it shoved at me in a book because then I feel the need to analyze it). The superstrings explanation of things is good enough and vague enough that I don't try to pick it apart. The consequences of piecing together parts of Earth from different times - strange weather, etc. - are well described.

All in all, I was very entertained, and, since that's why I read books, it worked for me. After finishing (a few hours ago), though, I'm left wondering if perhaps a dozen or so pages, in the right places, might have made it a much better read. I do look forward to the sequels. I hope they're a bit more solid. I understand that, in a series, the first book can't answer all questions. But, in this one, some things were left undescribed that, as far as I can tell, SHOULD have been described/explained in that they don't seem to be something to leave for sequels. To go back to the Star Wars analogy, it's OK to leave Darth Vader spinning out of control and out of the picture - will he be back? - but you sort of need to see the Death Star explode. It's something which the first movie SHOULD show. Likewise, in this book, some things weren't explained well enough.

The CD seems to be very interesting, but honestly I haven't looked at it yet.

Fundamentally, this is a good read and one which goes down gently. Yes, there are issues with it, but it's still worth reading unless you are opposed to hearing about ancient armies and their practices and hygiene. Otherwise, it's a fun ride.

This isn't the best Arthur C. Clarke book that you could pick up. For all you ACC fans, you know what one of his books feels like - he manages to inspire you with his imagination that usually calms you down with his perfect illustration of wondrous, near magical events.

This book is not that.

With the exception of a few notable interesting events, this book is completely unrealistic and dead boring, even for a sci-fi book with an incredible plot (space-time on earth rearranged like a jigsaw puzzle). I doubt how much effort ACC put into this book. It has nothing like the beautiful descriptions he gives in his other short and long stories. There is one event in the book where the main female character looks through her binoculars at a glacier in Northern India / Pakistan and sees two nearly-human creatures in the distance slowly looking back and the glint off the binocs and she feels a deep subconscious connection with them from some point deep in time - this is one of the few better real ACC 'moments' in the book. I'd recommend you look at other ACC books and not this one.

The authors manage to make the Mongolians (one of the main groups in the book, the other being the troops of Alexander) look completely uncivilized, little removed from animals - their description of the Mongolians across the book is just plain disgusting, made especially so by the contrast with the description of the 'noble' Macedonian/Greek hordes of Alexander, who have a better sense of morality. No idea why they ruined this. This is my biggest issue with the book. It started off fairly well - then got down to something frustratingly annoying - one of those books where you could skip a dozen pages and not have missed a thing.

Never really liked my favorite authors collaborating with others - the outcome typically tends not to be that great - this book is like the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew working together - less than captivating, quite average.

Btw, I picked up this book after really wanting to finish all of ACC's books after he passed away recently.

I would strongly recommend that you read his other books like Rama, 2001 (the book) and other short stories before you read this.

In the tradition of Clarke's 2001 series, this is the first book of a new odyssey, only this one is based in time rather than in space. It's Earth-time 2037 and suddenly, for a few small groups of people, there is a huge upheaval in time, with the result being that people from all segments of Earth's history are thrown together in a crazy quilt patchwork made up of different time periods. Early hominids find themselves captured by 19th Century English colonialists in India. Space travelers splash down to learn that they're in 13th Century Afghanistan. The armies of Alexander the Great and Ghengis Khan, separated in original Earth time by four centuries, come face to face in a bloody and brutal war instigated by one of the astronauts from 2037, who has a sort of "Man Who Would Be King" complex. Ultimately, one of the "good guys," a woman with a UN peacekeeping force from 2037, makes it back home to her own time, but only at the price of losing her 19th Century lover, who remains stranded in ancient Babylon.

While it may sound confusing, this cleverly imagined novel is all you would expect of the great Arthur C. Clarke and his writing partner, the brilliant hard sci-fi master, Stephen Baxter. By the time I got to the last page -- which was not very long after I started this book -- I was wishing I had waited until the next volume was out so that I could go on reading and immediately find out what had happened to my favorite characters. And the bonus is that, in addition to an intriguing plot and lots of interesting historical factoids and science tidbits, this novel raises some provocative questions about the human soul and our destiny among the stars. Altogether, an excellent top-of-the-line sci-fi read that will probably become a classic.

So why haven't I given it 5 stars? Well, the novel itself deserves 5 stars. This edition of the book gets only 4 stars, however, because the publishers, who included what looks like a good CD-ROM in the book, chose to use an e-book format that can only be downloaded onto a handheld running the Windows operating system. Those of us who prefer Palm OS are out of luck, unable to access two bonus novels and interviews with the authors. What a chintzy decision, especially for a novel by authors of the stature of Clarke and Baxter.

First, let me just say that I'm a avid reader of Clarke. His Rama and Oddysey series were just fantastic.

Second, I'll go with what I liked about this book, which you may enjoy too. I basically read this book in one day. It was quick, easy to follow and truly exhilarating. It's built in such a way that even from the beginning you don't want to let it go. As a typical Clarke book, it not only excites you, but provides you with great descriptions of the "alternate reality" of the book. These descriptions always challenge your mind and allow you to visualize the story. I will also add that, even though the idea (as stated in the back of the book) of mixing people from different ages in one time slot (Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, some man-apes from 2 million years ago, and UN troops and astronauts from 2037) seems a little bit odd, Clarke and Baxter were able to develop many angles in the story, and create a lot of action and drama. I expected less and was positively surprised.

On the other hand, and after finishing the book, I was left with the impression that using historical characters brought some challenges for the authors. I feel as if these characters were not portrayed with the required depth that they should. They had the typical depth of a Clarke (with or without Baxter) book. Which is good when the character is a complete product of a sci-fi author's imagination. But maybe it's not enough when the reader knows its a historical character.

However, and besides these apparent weaknesses, I strongly suggest other Clarke's readers to buy and read this book, too. You will not be disappointed.

Great idea! But very empty. Imagine your accounting professor trying to bring life to characters and events. Poor character development. Missed opportunities to build suspense and use what's known about the tactics and strategies of two great conquerors. Instead of transporting you into an epic battle, it's like watching a chess game. Pass on this one if you value your time.

For the best of Clarke and Baxter's collaborations, look to "The Light of Other Days." THAT is a great read.

I've always been a huge Arthur C. Clarke fan. Any time I walk into a book store, one of the shelves on which I look is the SciFi shelf to see if there's any new Clarke available, even though he said "3001: The Final Odyssey" would be his last. This time I was in luck. Not only a book--co-written like his last few--but also including a CD with two complete volumes by his co-author, interviews, etc.

To start, it's harder in this text than in some others to discern what Clarke wrote and what portions Baxter wrote. That's good actually. The book starts with a sort of rationalization, that they're not remaking the "odyssey" series, but going off on a tangent perpendicular thereto.

The book starts suspiciously like "2001: A Space Odyssey": We're located on pre-homo sapiens earth. Our pre-human ancestor--this time a female--encounters a sphere (as opposed to a monolith) and some suspicious creatures who seem to abduct her young daughter. The story proceeds to various other times in all of which there is an interesting aberration in the expected weather. As the dust jacket already describes, the world, overseen by the sphere "eyes," has been broken apart and reassembled, like a jigsaw puzzle, with a whole series of times all assembled in one time. The cosmonauts, traveling in the year 2037, apparently the upper limit of the included eras, decide to call this world conglomeration of historical epochs "Mir."

There were some notable anomalies with the "eyes." For instance, where you and I would calculate dimensions of the eyes and come up with pi (3.1417...), that number in the calculation continued to come up with an even 3, something not possible in everyday physical reality. What's more, while the character saw the eye as being stationary, the radio waves being emitted by the eye indicated a Doppler shift. In other words, the eye was moving away from her at a considerable velocity.

By the way, Rudyard Kipling is one character in the story. "Ruddy" they call him. Quaint.

While reading the book, I thought of the old television series "The Time Tunnel." Even though I was young while that series was on, I found the script to be preadolescent because the time travelers never ended up, say, in someone's backyard during a boring barbecue. They always ended up at, say, Lincoln's assassination, or Marie Antoinette's execution, something highly dramatic and historically significant. That got old quickly, challenged the viability of the story. I had the same struggle with this as the characters ended up on Alexander the Great's army fighting the others in Ghengis Khan's army.

And there were some accurate observations almost over- emphasized-though were I to live with the people of the eras described, I suspect I too would notice. Like, when the 21st century figures are with Khan's army--or that of Alexander--they noticed, my God, those people stank! (When one fantasizes time travel, say, dating some 18th century debutante, one doesn't anticipate she didn't have much roll-on deodorant to mask her human traits!)

The text dabbled in some string theory which, if I understand correctly, is not even really up the level of "theory" yet in real life. Perhaps if I were better acquainted with that theory, I might consider that the whole story revolved around that. We'll see...

Truth be told I almost reduced the book to three stars because of the end. It was too close to the realm of fantasy, a little too "ideal" for my tastes.

I end up giving the book four stars--despite the rip off from the original "Odyssey" themes, despite the "Time Tunnel" resemblance--because I have enough faith in the authors that the next segment(s) will lead to a more sensible story, something far more original and imaginative.

Oh, and, lest I forget, while I still haven't adjusted to reading "books" from CDs, the two Baxter books on the disk seem worth reading so I may convert to a screen-reader. The interviews in such on the disk weren't of any particular substance, but I'm hoping the books will be.

Then I'll wait for Episode Two. Gentlemen, don't let me down.