Kim Miller
A physicist in 1963 noticed 'static' on an experiment involving particle physics. He works out it's a message coming from somewhere outside of Earth. Cue here a lot of stuff about academic arguing in his university, nobody really likes anybody else. The look at academia continues for the whole trip.
Now we go to 1998 and scientists are worrying about oceanic algal blooms caused by agriculture off Brazil. They are spreading rapidly. Another physicist discovers a new particle, a tachyon, that can go faster than light. He works out he can push it into the past, so if he aims it at where the Earth was in space in 1963 he can send a message to stop high levels of fertilizer use and hope somebody picks it up. The algal blooms cause big problems and govt gets involved. Cue lots of arguing between govt funding people etc. Once again, these conflicts continue through the book.
The story swaps back and forth. 1998 keeps sending messages but not knowing if they are received/understood. 1963 keeps picking up parts of the messages but don't know where they are coming from. Eventually the messages become more conversational and less coded and 1963 knows there is some problem up ahead but is unclear what it is. They decode some of the climate crisis info and start to get it. Will they take action to avert climate change influences?
Until the final run down the straight, the scifi portion of the book is about 5%, the rest is the personal lives of the scientists and govt people etc. It's like two TV soapies running off each other, Dallas meets East Enders but set in a university. This got tiring given the level of misogyny that was common at the time of writing and which appears through the book. Prince Andrew gets a few mentions for his womanising. The science content increases sharply towards the end, the soap opera stuff fades a bit.
The final chapters show the world of 1998 shutting down and that of 1963 moving on with life, complete with re-written JFK assassination attempt and aftermath. What seemed to be a refreshing examination of the grandfather paradox never quite got there, although the paradox is mentioned in the final pages. The ending aims to be profound but gets cloudy instead of clear.
A physicist in 1963 noticed 'static' on an experiment involving particle physics. He works out it's a message coming from somewhere outside of Earth. Cue here a lot of stuff about academic arguing in his university, nobody really likes anybody else. The look at academia continues for the whole trip.
Now we go to 1998 and scientists are worrying about oceanic algal blooms caused by agriculture off Brazil. They are spreading rapidly. Another physicist discovers a new particle, a tachyon, that can go faster than light. He works out he can push it into the past, so if he aims it at where the Earth was in space in 1963 he can send a message to stop high levels of fertilizer use and hope somebody picks it up. The algal blooms cause big problems and govt gets involved. Cue lots of arguing between govt funding people etc. Once again, these conflicts continue through the book.
The story swaps back and forth. 1998 keeps sending messages but not knowing if they are received/understood. 1963 keeps picking up parts of the messages but don't know where they are coming from. Eventually the messages become more conversational and less coded and 1963 knows there is some problem up ahead but is unclear what it is. They decode some of the climate crisis info and start to get it. Will they take action to avert climate change influences?
Until the final run down the straight, the scifi portion of the book is about 5%, the rest is the personal lives of the scientists and govt people etc. It's like two TV soapies running off each other, Dallas meets East Enders but set in a university. This got tiring given the level of misogyny that was common at the time of writing and which appears through the book. Prince Andrew gets a few mentions for his womanising. The science content increases sharply towards the end, the soap opera stuff fades a bit.
The final chapters show the world of 1998 shutting down and that of 1963 moving on with life, complete with re-written JFK assassination attempt and aftermath. What seemed to be a refreshing examination of the grandfather paradox never quite got there, although the paradox is mentioned in the final pages. The ending aims to be profound but gets cloudy instead of clear.