Whispers (The Gates of Time , No 1) [Mass Market Paperback]

Dan Parkinson (Author)

Book Description

Series: The Gates of Time , No 1

"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once."
--Edwin Limmer

It is a fateful day when Lucas Hawthorn awakes in his own home to find Edwin Limmer standing before him. Lucas first met old man Limmer back in 1952. Only now Limmer is much younger--and the idea that someone can actually age backward in time is almost too much for Lucas and his wife, Maude, to handle.

But Limmer is here to turn the Hawthorns' Kansas home into a time-travel depot for the Whispers, mysterious beings from the future.  The Whispers mission? To find the beginning of time.

So the Hawthorns land smack-dab in the middle of a drama that spans history, past and future: from ancient Troy to colonial Kentucky to a Camelot of the next millennium, where a murderous tyrant thirsts for immortality.

He just needs time . . .

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

This is an engaging and provocative science fiction series where the theories of time travel are revealed through the adventures of a Kansas farm couple, their friends, and bioengineered humans from the distant future searching for the answers to their origins.

From the Inside Flap

"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once."
--Edwin Limmer

It is a fateful day when Lucas Hawthorn awakes in his own home to find Edwin Limmer standing before him. Lucas first met old man Limmer back in 1952. Only now Limmer is much younger--and the idea that someone can actually age backward in time is almost too much for Lucas and his wife, Maude, to handle.

But Limmer is here to turn the Hawthorns' Kansas home into a time-travel depot for the Whispers, mysterious beings from the future. The Whispers mission? To find the beginning of time.

So the Hawthorns land smack-dab in the middle of a drama that spans history, past and future: from ancient Troy to colonial Kentucky to a Camelot of the next millennium, where a murderous tyrant thirsts for immortality.

He just needs time . . .

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 275 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey; First Edition edition (February 28, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345413806
• ISBN-13: 978-0345413802
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,648,131 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Master of story telling best living author, July 27, 2001

By 

Jeffery W Bybee (Clearfield, Ut USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Whispers (The Gates of Time , No 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

Having read all of Mr Parkinson's westens and navel fiction I finally came to this series.. It was magic absolute magic. sceens were painted in a few words and the humor is gut busting. the science theory behind the story is perfictly logical and I had no trouble following the plot as I read the book in bits and pieces on a trip to yellowstone over a week.

Mr Parkinson does not describe every blade of grass and building in a sceen. he lets the readers mind fill in the details with wonderfully chosen strokes of his pen. and the dialog! the word ring true , exactly as some one in the position in the story should say the sly humor of what happenes when people get what they ask for. I wish I were as good a writer as Mr parkinson

4.0 out of 5 stars 4 dimensional story with 2 dimensional characters, July 17, 2000

By 

DPWally "dpwally" (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Whispers (The Gates of Time , No 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

My first impression of The Whispers is that it's hard to follow. Plot fragments skip from place to place and time to time, while characters skip through those fragments, not always in a consistent temporal direction. When the story introduced and described its theory of time, space, light, and gravity and the various modifications and corruptions involved, I had surprisingly little trouble understanding.

Why? Because the early narrative led me through time travel from a first person perspective. I don't mean that the reader follows a character through time travel, but that the reader follows *himself* through time travel while working to comprehend the first few chapters. This is either masterful writing or a bizarre accident.

That accomplished, the methods of time travel, their results, and their odd and occasionally hysterical interactions make a fascinating plot and send the reader into extended "what if" musings that often replace the book for a while.

No doubt the science behind this is pure fiction, but I'm willing to allow poetic license for a work of fiction that keeps its pseudo-science internally consistent. An earlier customer reviewer criticized the book's historical accuracy, but that's not necessarily a problem in a story where the past is a fluid concept. "History" at the end of the book doesn't match "history" at the beginning of the book, why should either match the real world?

The characters in The Whispers are, unfortunately, 2-dimensional. They often seem to be placeholders and reference points rather than actual individuals. The book has occasional insights into human behavior, a few of them brilliant, but they don't illuminate the characters.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!, June 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Whispers (The Gates of Time , No 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

If you like science fiction, you'll really like this book. I'm only 15, so I didn't really understand it all, but it's a really good book! I highly recommend it to science-fiction fans.