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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
The Wrong End of Time -- the wrong Brunner to read,
By
This review is from: The Wrong End of Time (Mass Market Paperback)
I've had John Brunner's The Wrong End of Time (1971) for five years sitting in the to read pile -- I've managed to get through around thirty pages the four times I've tried to read it over the years. However, I've finally got around to finishing it. And, well, The Wrong End of Time falls woefully short any sort of greatness -- especially considering the novel was published only two years after Brunner's acknowledged masterpiece (and my favorite sci-fi book of all time), Stand on Zanzibar.That is not to say that some of the world building skills so aptly shown in Stand on Zanzibar are not present. The Wrong End of Time occurs in a credible if painfully dated world -- however, the forced plot which bears its head every now and then -- which is ostensibly the main thrust of the book -- is so utterly contrived that all the interesting elements of the world fall by the wayside. Brief Plot Summary (limited spoilers) The Communists have taken over most of the world and other nations are more interested in maintaining contacts with Russia instead of the United States. The US has withdrawn into almost complete isolation behind a massive defense network -- the oceans are lined with fences and bomb bunkers and the border with Canada is strewn with mines. The Russians have discovered an alien spaceship near Pluto which has transmitted a series of images suggesting the imminent destruction of the human race. Sheklov, a Russian spy, is sent with rather nebulous (and nonsensical) orders to meet up with another spy in the United States, Turpin, to alert him to the aliens and find someone who might be able to sort out the pictures or a come up with a way dealing with the aliens. Instead of developing this story line further, Sheklov hops around various parties with Turpin which show the dark and decadent side of American life. Eventually, he meets Turpin's rebellious promiscuous daughter, Lora and her African American lover, Danty. Danty, who has some unusual mental power, had seen Sheklov emerge from the submarine and climb through the defense barrier. Danty's a reb -- a hippie who refuses to engage in regular American life. Eventually, all meet up, and with Danty's older tarrot card reading Magda, uncover the real reason for the aliens -- well, Lora, she sleeps through the "interesting" part. Final Thoughts The plot is predictable and boring. Danty is a somewhat interesting character and Brunner uses him to explore the racial tensions of the future isolated America. An America which becomes so intensely anti-Communist and xenophobic that educated African Americans engaged in a mass exodus to other countries. However, interesting events like these are only mentioned briefly. Instead, the pointless predictable plot meanders about and the end is pseudo-cryptic and unsurprising. For a science fiction book written in the early 70s with an African American main character and a sympathetic Russian secret agent this is a startlingly unimaginative work. The injection of a social sci-fi element into what is on the surface an action novel is admirable and usually welcome, but here it fails in ever conceivable way. Brunner must have gotten bored about 1/3rd of the way through. Avoid at all costs unless you are a Brunner completest like me... Although, a few more of these and I won't try to finish the ones I'm missing. Read his masterpieces...
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Clancy-like spy novel with stupid alien twist,
By M-I-K-E 2theD "2theD" (The Big Mango, Thailand) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Wrong End of Time (Mass Market Paperback)
`The time is the future. The place, an America so isolated by fear that it is cut off from the rest of the world by a massive defense system. Into this armed, barricaded state comes a young Russian scientist bearing a strange- and almost unbelievable story:Superior, intelligent life- of a far higher order than any on earth- has been detected near the planet Pluto. Immune themselves by virtue of their far greater intelligence, these Aliens are about to destroy the planet Earth.' Only being 160 pages, the book is very short but don't expect a story which dabbles half-and-half of the above synopsis. The first 90% of the book merely mentions aliens beyond Pluto and only in the last remaining pages is there an explanation about what the aliens are about. There are no space scenes, no descriptions of the spaceship or the aliens (except that that are made of anti-matter) and it seems the fact is moot if were not for the Russian secret and its affect on the American government. To give credit where credit is due, I enjoy many of Brunner's old paperback novels, but this wasn't one of them. Brunner wrote a number of sci-fi novels which are taken place in space, which one would gather that The Wrong End of Time is one of those novels (picture big spaceship on the cover). Written in 1971, Brunner has an accurate description of future America. He wrote of soy burgers, carbon fiber, sulfur dioxide and skin-bond- all of which have become predominant in our society. One major & one minor problem with the book: 1) The character Danty is a man at the `wrong end of time' but this trait is never explored fully. Is it simply luck which drives him to correct decisions or is he an alien agent on planet Earth? 2) The following line rambles and make very little sense to me: `...a newspaper cutting... from the Chinese official paper Red Banner and it showed a North Vietnamese official press photo of a captured American pilot... being led through the streets of Hanoi... because this man had committed the crime of bombing Angkor Wat.' Angkor Wat is in Cambodia, which borders Vietnam. The ending? Yea, kinda hokey and wholly predictable.
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