Customer Reviews

In War Times

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

At the outbreak of World War II, Sam Dance's mysterious physics teacher gives him detailed instructions for building a "quantum machine" that can affect human behavior and possibly change the course of history. The next day, he finds out that his brother has been killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. This event sets his resolve to work on this device that may change the timeline and allow him to alter reality.

Throughout his WWII experiences he and his friend Wink try to build the device in their spare time, sometimes secretly receiving updated instructions. Their first finished device doesn't seem to do anything, but they continue in their attempts to make a better one. After the war, Sam begins to notice some curious anomalies.

This book was well-written, the characters likeable, and many scenes interesting, but I wasn't really able to really get into it or find it a page-turner. The characters seemed a little distant. I believe this might be because they have no agency - they are not controlling the flow of the story but reacting, having no idea whether their device will work and what it should do. When it appears changes may finally be occurring, they are still in the dark and so is the reader (one could argue that this is at least realistic - what character could get their head around everything?). History is finally presented as having nexus points at which it may be altered, but I found the choice of event the book focused on at the end to be a bit predictable.

Goonan used to do more hard science fiction -- nano- and bio-tech. This is much more alternate history, and damn it, but it's good. Part of it is how well she's researched it (I read a review somewhere that said she used her own father's diary from the war), but a lot of it is how well she integrated what she's learned into the story. It's complex, and rich, and it rewards people who re-read books in a way I haven't seen since Tim Powers' The Anubis Gates.

In War Times (2007) is a standalone SF novel. It follows the main character around the world and through time.

In this novel, Sam Dance has almost three year schooling in chemical engineering at the University of Dayton. Sam plays jazz music on the sax. He has an older brother who is serving within the US Navy.

Elani Hadntz is part Magyar Gypsy. She had trained as a physician, but later became a physicist. She has been studying the quantum nature of the brain.

Bette Elegante is a member of the OSS organization. She also knows Hadntz.

Al Winklemeyer is from upstate New York. Wink also plays jazz music on the cornet.

In this story, Sam had tried to volunteer in 1940, but was rejected because of his poor eyesight. A year later, he finds an aspiring recruiter and is accepted into the US Army. He is pulled out of Camp Sutton and sent to Washington, DC, for special training.

The course meets in a hastily erected structure on the roof of a War Department building and covers a range of esoteric subjects. The fourth instructor is Dr. Hadntz, an exile from Budapest.

On December 6, 1941, Hadntz seduces Sam so that she can give him the plans for an exotic device. According to her, the apparatus will promote world peace. It communicates with human brains to change attitudes, but it obviously is not yet perfected. Hadntz also tells him that it is a time machine of sorts.

The next day, Sam spends his time drinking alcohol and listening to the radio reports on Pearl Harbor. His brother Keenan is serving on the Arizona. Eventually, Sam learns that Keenan is entombed within his ship.

Later, two men in black suits interview Sam about his encounter with Hadntz. The seduction diverts security's attention from other aspects of the meeting. Elegante takes notes during the interview.

Then the Army sends Sam to generator school. He quickly learns that the class is really about the M-9 Director. The device incorporates a new radar device feeding a computer and is much more accurate than the M-7 and earlier models.

Sam travels to Britain by ship to set up the new anti-aircraft guns. After some tweaks, the M-9 becomes very effective. It becomes the main defense against V-1 flying bombs.

Sam meets Hadntz again in England. Afterward, Sam returns to the place where Hadntz had taken him and finds it deserted. From her comments, Sam figures that Hadntz had taken him sideways in time.

This tale takes Sam and his unit to France and then Germany. He meets others who have encountered Hadntz. One such person is Elegante, now a Major in the OSS.

This story is based on current thinking about consciousness. Yet it introduces such theory through very early works on DNA, the brain and quantum mechanics. It talks about some very heavy mathematics, but does not show the formulas.

The story also discusses modern jazz. Sam and Wink hang out at jazz clubs and start a jazz band within their unit. Sam thinks of Hadntz's theories in terms of the music of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

Sam also has experiences of traveling sideways in time. He and his mother briefly see his dead brother in their attic. He also encounters Wink after his death in his current timeline.

Highly recommended for Goonan fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of time travel, alternate timelines, and persons of good will. Read and enjoy!

-Arthur W. Jordin

Sam Dance is an enlisted soldier in 1941 when news comes to him that his older brother, Keenan, was killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Keenan was on the Arizona when it was hit; the loss hits Sam pretty hard. While he is going through his training, Sam shows an affinity for science and engineering, so the Army pulls him out of the normal training routine and places him in classes on code breaking, electronics, and physics. He isn't really sure about physics but it seems to come him easily, which surprises him. Seduced by an enigmatic female physicist after a particularly interesting/strange physics session, he is given her plans for a device that she says will end war. Not only that, but through DNA, it may change the human "gene" for war, ending it at a biological level.

Following his training, he is sent to Europe to resolve theoretical and practical problems for the Allies. One stop is England, where he helps to resolve targeting issues with air defense systems. As the Allies make headway in Europe, Sam and his company move forward with the Army. As the war in Europe winds down, he is sent to the Pacific, where he finds himself on the Enola Gay.

In his free time, he and the other members of his company play jazz. Sam and his best friend, Wink, prefer the more modern type, known as be-bop, but they will play any variety of jazz. It is in jazz that he and Wink make great strides with the design for the mysterious device. It takes more than a year, but they are able to build the device and start it. However, something happens, which hard to determine exactly what, and then the device melts into a solid block of metal.

Later, Sam is able to determine that the device did work. He, and the others exposed to its power, are able to move among different versions of reality and also back in time. It is this knowledge, and improvements to the device, that could change history.

In War Times, by Kathleen Ann Goonan, is one of the more unique science fiction novels I've read. The characters are well defined, the dialog believable, and the scenes are based on historical fact. The plot moves slowly, building toward an excellent climax, which uses more historical references but in a science fiction bent. Readers looking for action should look elsewhere. Readers looking for a thoughtful, engaging novel, will be very pleased with In War Times. Much like the music that drives Sam Dance and his Army buddies, it flows extremely well. While we have a basic understanding of the device, it's purpose doesn't become clear until the last third of the novel. The buildup to this recognition is carefully paced, which adds to the overall feel of the novel. From there, the story moves at a much faster pace, ending at a well known place and time in US history. It is a very fulfilling climax. The connection between jazz and the device is fascinating, engrossing; In War Times is a compelling read. I must thank my local library for recommending this novel to me, it was a great choice in a genre I very rarely read by an excellent author.

Disclosure:
Obtained from: Library
Payment: Borrowed

Since following all of Goonan's books, I was thrilled to find she took a new turn toward combining a historical reference with a SF base. The book moved smoothly yet introduced many suprising twists and turns that kept me hooked. Her father, a WWII vet now 85 years old, helped lay the foundation and story line for the book through his experiences in Europe during the war. They have written a winning combination of SF and historical information intertwined with musical descriptions that is sure to be enjoyed by all science fiction readers.

Every once in a while I come across a novel with characters and images so vivid that they haunt me even when I'm not reading and linger even after I finish the last page.

"In War Times" is that kind of novel.

This is a book that works on many levels--as a science fiction thriller and a beautifully written, metaphysical literary novel. It is also a time travel story and a World War II novel (with wonderful details of the London Blitz, the development of radar, and the Occupation after the war). Sam's quest to complete a working Hadnz device and create a world in which his brother Keenan could still be alive is gripping; scope and urgency grow when he travels to Europe and experiences the horrors of war and genocide, which with the device might be prevented. Of course there's always a price for altering the time stream... this is my favorite kind of novel, the kind that moves me emotionally, but also makes me think.

A brilliant and powerful book.

I had high hopes for this book, as I am a big fan of alternate history, historical fiction, time travel, and female SF authors. Everything seemed to line up perfectly.

I thought that the historical detail shown in the wartime settings was really well done. I enjoyed the Jazz music stuff as well, although it was a little too much for someone who is not a musician.

Sam was a well written, believable character. The main problem with this book is the premise - the story proceeds along without much real development for some time, and the end goal of a "war free world" seems completely elusive throughout. Because it was unclear what was really going on, I just couldn't get excited about the book.

This book had a few neat ideas. I loved the idea that we can program war out of people. This book definitely shared my political views but the execution of those idea was so poorly handled that the book was difficult to finish. The main device that moved the plot was ridiculous in nature and the end of the book seemed tacked on too boot. Worst of all the book was cut in half, the first being a fairly interesting wwII novel, the second half a poorly executed magical quantum computer creates a real utopian society. The split in the novel made this one hard to swallow.

What you need to know about Kathleen Ann Goonan's IN WAR TIMES is the following: It's not an action/adventure and it's not military SF. It's a book of ideas and moods; it's not going to get your heart racing. The central characters are engineers and scientists, some of whom also happen to be jazz musicians and anti-war visionaries. It's not a polemic directed against Bush/Cheney and their supporters, like Ken MacLeod's THE EXECUTION CHANNEL. More than half of the book takes place during World War II, and the global horrors of that war were clearly more of an inspiration than America's ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The historical detail is heavy, and the book's pace is slow. Still, it's not so much an alternate history tale as much as it is a parallel universes tale.

What you need to know about Kathleen Ann Goonan is the following: She's talented, thoughtful, and one of the most humanistic writers currently in the SF field. Her QUEEN CITY JAZZ was one of the best and most exciting books of the nanotech fiction boom of the early 1990s. This book, however, is much closer in content and spirit to her 1996 novel THE BONES OF TIME. In her humanism and in her unhurried narratives, she reminds me of Maureen F. McHugh, and in her fluid writing style and intellectual seriousness, she reminds me of Robert Charles Wilson. On the minus side, I've never finished one of her books without feeling that it didn't quite deliver on its initial promise, but that's not something peculiar to Goonan.

A note on politics: Although IN WAR TIMES is not a politically partisan book, its vision is liberal-to-social democratic. Conservatives are unlikely to concede that a world in which the state ensures that everyone's basic needs are met is better than this one, and Leftists are unlikely to accept that a bigger supply of human compassion will overcome the conflicting interests that lead to violence and civil and foreign wars. Most readers, however, will be able to put their own political convictions aside and take what the book has to offer.

I enjoyed this story very much. I appreciated the character development. This an interesting mix of theoretical physics, jazz and alternate realities set in the late 1930's to late 1960's. Having just read The New Time Travelers I really enjoyed how Goonan incorporated theoretical physics into the story. This is on a level with Brin and Benford, but the story is more accessible as are the characters.