The Iron Bridge (Hardcover)

~ David Morse (Author) "With a bit more sophistication, Maggie might have been able to avoid the earthquake..." (more)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An exciting debut novel, David Morse's The Iron Bridge bears more than a passing resemblance in premise to Connie Willis's award-winning time-travel tales, Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog. The common idea: a young, slightly confused person tries to get a seemingly simple task accomplished in the distant past, only to find out that life then was easily as chaotic as life now, and that her task won't be so simple. Morse departs from Willis's path in that his heroine, Maggie Foster, is beamed back to 1773 England from a decidedly dystopian future in which rampant industrial growth has resulted in ecological collapse. If Maggie can spoil the success of the world's first iron bridge, then the industrial revolution--and humanity's ecological record of shame--may be prevented. The Iron Bridge is melancholy and thoughtful, focusing on the worries and passions of Maggie and the ironworking Quaker family she becomes attached to. Maggie's dilemma is tough--everyone wants the bridge built well, including the people she comes to care about. If she fails, the course of history will lead to ecological disaster; if she succeeds, her loved ones in the future will cease to have existed, and her adopted family will be ruined. --Therese Littleton

From Publishers Weekly

The sooty hardships of 18th-century England and the ecological horrors of 21st-century civilization are vividly rendered and imaginatively entwined in this intriguing, if occasionally preposterous, hybrid of historical romance and SF dystopia. Feisty, cunning heroine Maggie Foster travels back in time from her American commune of 2043 to the provincial town of Coalbrookdale, England, 1773, where the world's first iron bridge is to be built, a symbol of the burgeoning Industrial Age. Maggie's mission: to set in motion an alternate chain of events without changing the delicate course of history too much. Masquerading as a widow from the colonies, she schemes to sabotage the bridge while introducing her futuristic brand of feminism, political correctness and t'ai chi to the bemused Quakers of rural England. Lecherous entrepreneur John Wilkinson, dashing bridge financier Abraham Darby and his brother, visionary architect Samuel Darby, all fall for this anachronistically independent woman, yet Maggie prefers the amorous company of a sassy chambermaid before finding a partner who best appreciates her progressive ideals. First-time novelist Morse has drawn on his experience as a journalist and restorer of old houses to construct a solid, thoroughly researched historical saga buttressed with suspenseful plotting and a winning protagonist. His skillful shifts between past and future compensate for stretches of hackneyed prose and didactic moralizing that sometimes slow the pace of this otherwise engaging time-travel tale.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1st edition (July 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151002592
• ISBN-13: 978-0151002597
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #607,470 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Unusual Situation...., November 29, 2000

By	Quaker Annie "reader" - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

If you like excellent writing and an intriguing plot with a socially conscious (NOT BORING) message, please read this book. Don't just read it -- buy it if you can and help support and encourage this author. This first novel should be on the mainstream bestseller list. This is history, science fiction, fantasy, social commentary and ecology all bundled into one.

In 2043, an American woman makes a one way trip into the Shopshire, England of the 1700's, to alter the building of a bridge. Doing so may save us all. The story gives several views. There is that of the woman, Maggie Foster, as she lands naked in the middle of an earthquake, then must find a place to live and learn the culture of the times. There is the viewpoint of John Wilkerson, swordsmaker and local entrepreneur who is trying to enforce the building of the bridge in iron, to further his own profits. The person Maggie must persuade to alter his construction of the bridge is a Quaker, Abraham Darby, who is torn between a wish to do what is right or what he'd like.

There is a lot of detail about iron and bridge building that some may find interesting -- we skipped over that to read about life in the 1700's, to follow Maggie's romances, to see her struggle to persuade the gentlemen of that period that her opinions count, and to watch her try NOT to make any changes in people's lives -- for if you change one thing in the past, no matter how small, you can alter the future in strange ways.

More of a romance and period piece than science fiction, it is well-written and fascinating to read. Some Friends should be advised that John Wilkerson's lifestyle is less than pure, and given in some detail, and that some of Maggie's experiences are less than conventional, and given in some detail, including her romance with Darby's sister.

Will she be able to alter history without changing people's lives in 1790? Will that be enough to delay the Industrial Revolution? And if so, will a delay really make a difference in saving the environment for the future?

Read and find out. Quaker author David Morse has crafted a beautiful story.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Original, brilliant, readable... sometimes awkward, June 23, 2001

By	Daniel P. Smith "Daniel P. B. Smith" (Massachusetts, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

I enjoyed this book and it engaged my interest from beginning to end.

First off, anyone with a special interest in industrial history, civil engineering, or Quakerism will LOVE it. Know any engineering students? Now you know what to give them for their next birthday gift...

Now come the quibbles, but before I start, let me just say that I gave the writer a break and went along for the ride and wasn't disappointed.

Whatever happened to illustrations in novels? Yes, I know they haven't done them since around World War I, but why not? I had hoped Jack Finney's "Time and Again" would change that, but no. The lack of illustrations is the biggest single flaw in this novel. Pictures of the historical Iron Bridge are easy to find on the Web, and the author, has a nice collection of them on his Web site. But we really need a picture, and a good one, of Samuel's alternate design.So much of the plot turns on Samuel's bridge:

"The arch was heightened !from a semicircle to a parabolic curve; and instead of making the tress members straight, as in timber constructions, Samuel had curved them fancifully, calling attention to the uniquess of cast iron as a building material. The arch rose from either side of the roadway like wings. 'It looks like a butterfly!' Maggie exclaimed."

The story depends on our believing that this design is aeshetically brilliant, and also that it contains an engineering flaw that Maggie is aware of. For those of us with inadequate visual imaginations, it is frustrating not to be able to see Samuel's design.

Now for the real nitpicks. The novel is full of small awkwardnesses. David E. Morse has not completely succeeded in immersing himself in the eighteenth century, and one has a mental image of him visiting historical sites, doing library research, and making notes (ah... the servant lived under the stairway, I can USE that...). At times I was reminded of "The Keeper of the Gelded Unicor!n," Ira Wallach's parody of bodice-ripping historical novels: "Two public letter-writers whispered in a corner. Outside, the cry of the fishwives could be heard over the shouts of the children laughing and clapping as the dancing bear performed in the streets thick with cutpurses."

I thought there was some gratuitous sex ("See, we Quakers are not prudes"), and Maggie is too busy with a complex role in a complicated plot--like an actor still trying to learn her lines--to come alive for me as a real character.


There are the usual problems with time-travel novels. There were two, however, which I thought were handled quite well. Dropped four centuries into the past, Maggie is constantly encountering language and cultural problems, and passes them off by saying she is from the United States. I thought this was all handled convincingly, without descending into situation comedy or passing the bounds of belief.

Second, the plot is based on the idea of attempt!ing to change history--to redirect the Industrial Revolution into less destructive channels--by interfering with a single, critical event. Will she succeed? Will she fail? That's all a little stale and tedious, but the way he finally resolves this question is nice--even if the story has a Moral.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating read, March 27, 2001

By	atmj (Rochester, NY USA) - See all my reviews

Wow, this book drove home the idea of everyone's place in history. Maggie Foster a young woman from the not so distant future is chosen by her fellow Ecosophians, because of her sympathetic abilities to go back in time to change history. The Ecosophians have determined that a single bridge an Iron Bridge's success propelled man into the industrial age, and caused the economic and social disasters that befell their world.

Maggie was transported into the world of 1773, with nothing but her wits, with the task to change the building of this bridge, so that the future would be altered. Along the way the reader is transported to that time, of ironmakers and Quakers. You are given glimpses into the poverty and the manipulations of politics that shaped that time. If you think about it, continue to shape our time. You also get a sense of what shapes each character and why they do what they do.You get into the skin not only of Maggie Foster, but of that of Abraham Darby III and John Wilkinson. You are shocked by the character of all.

Getting into the character's skin brings you into the sense of how you would fit into the that time, the practices, the home life. You really begin to understand how different some things were then. Ironically, you can also see how similar some were, when it comes to family relationships and the manipulations that go into building the bridge.

The entire book is a surprise, there are some elements, I was unprepared for of a sexual nature, but provide an interesting counterpoint given the sensabilities of the day. The more violent acts would have been accepted in that day and age because of the genders involved,and the ones based in affection would have been reason for an uproar also because of the genders involved. The counterpoint of these two, was not lost on me. All in all, this is the first science fiction book I have read, that was truly set in the past.

I'm sure our salvation as a species is not in our technology, but what we do with it in good conscience. This book drives this idea home.

Great job!