Kim Miller
Back in 1951 a strange building appears in a city street. It's a weapons shop. Two men approach, for one the door won't open, for the other it will. He enters and soon after the shop and the man disappears.
This is a story of time swinging between events that are forced increasingly apart. The reason for the swing has something to do with the disappeared man. But the narrative centers on a far future empire rife with corruption, and in which the weapon shops are the focus of resistance.
We follow the life of a young man who leaves home and hopes to become significant in the government. He doesn't realise how deep the corruption runs but as he becomes more aware he uses it to his advantage. And still the weird time swings keep happening.
van Vogt works through the question, "What would happen if a time traveler met himself in the past?" It's an interesting solution he finds, and one in which the young man gains extraordinary power and influence. In one conversation we get the sentence, "He was here with his twin brother."
The political forces battle it out until both sides are forced to admit the damage being done to the disappeared man and that the time swings need to be stopped. The book ends by giving us a look into his mind, and the final sentence, in just a few words, breaks my mind as van Vogt drops his most powerful bomb into the story.
Back in 1951 a strange building appears in a city street. It's a weapons shop. Two men approach, for one the door won't open, for the other it will. He enters and soon after the shop and the man disappears.
This is a story of time swinging between events that are forced increasingly apart. The reason for the swing has something to do with the disappeared man. But the narrative centers on a far future empire rife with corruption, and in which the weapon shops are the focus of resistance.
We follow the life of a young man who leaves home and hopes to become significant in the government. He doesn't realise how deep the corruption runs but as he becomes more aware he uses it to his advantage. And still the weird time swings keep happening.
van Vogt works through the question, "What would happen if a time traveler met himself in the past?" It's an interesting solution he finds, and one in which the young man gains extraordinary power and influence. In one conversation we get the sentence, "He was here with his twin brother."
The political forces battle it out until both sides are forced to admit the damage being done to the disappeared man and that the time swings need to be stopped. The book ends by giving us a look into his mind, and the final sentence, in just a few words, breaks my mind as van Vogt drops his most powerful bomb into the story.
Back in 1951 a strange building appears in a city street. It's a weapons shop. Two men approach, for one the door won't open, for the other it will. He enters and soon after the shop and the man disappears.
This is a story of time swinging between events that are forced increasingly apart. The reason for the swing has something to do with the disappeared man. But the narrative centers on a far future empire rife with corruption, and in which the weapon shops are the focus of resistance.
We follow the life of a young man who leaves home and hopes to become significant in the government. He doesn't realise how deep the corruption runs but as he becomes more aware he uses it to his advantage. And still the weird time swings keep happening.
van Vogt works through the question, "What would happen if a time traveler met himself in the past?" It's an interesting solution he finds, and one in which the young man gains extraordinary power and influence. In one conversation we get the sentence, "He was here with his twin brother."
The political forces battle it out until both sides are forced to admit the damage being done to the disappeared man and that the time swings need to be stopped. The book ends by giving us a look into his mind, and the final sentence, in just a few words, breaks my mind as van Vogt drops his most powerful bomb into the story.
Back in 1951 a strange building appears in a city street. It's a weapons shop. Two men approach, for one the door won't open, for the other it will. He enters and soon after the shop and the man disappears.
This is a story of time swinging between events that are forced increasingly apart. The reason for the swing has something to do with the disappeared man. But the narrative centers on a far future empire rife with corruption, and in which the weapon shops are the focus of resistance.
We follow the life of a young man who leaves home and hopes to become significant in the government. He doesn't realise how deep the corruption runs but as he becomes more aware he uses it to his advantage. And still the weird time swings keep happening.
van Vogt works through the question, "What would happen if a time traveler met himself in the past?" It's an interesting solution he finds, and one in which the young man gains extraordinary power and influence. In one conversation we get the sentence, "He was here with his twin brother."
The political forces battle it out until both sides are forced to admit the damage being done to the disappeared man and that the time swings need to be stopped. The book ends by giving us a look into his mind, and the final sentence, in just a few words, breaks my mind as van Vogt drops his most powerful bomb into the story.
On the planet of Indigo people are genetically designed and born through IVF. But sometimes a woman conceives naturally, and the baby can be far from the perfection expected. Ugly, that's her nickname, real name Magdala, is such a person. Misshapen and unattractive she lives a secluded life, ignored by coworkers and desperately lonely. But one day a strange man appears in her life.
Claudio effectively kidnaps her and promises to make her beautiful. He puts her through a process of consciousness swapping whereby her whole sense of self is transferred to a perfectly formed android. Her original body is kept in a stasis chamber and has to be maintained. Magdala is now beautiful but totally in the power of Claudio. And he turns out to be a psychopath.
Tanith Lee writes him with surgical precision as he keeps Magdala under micromanaged abusive control. Magdala soon realises that he is following some plan of his own, a plan of hatred and revenge upon the woman her new body is designed to mimic.
The plot expands to include that woman, named Christophine, sometimes Christa, and we come to an awkward linking of names echoing Christ and Mary Magdalene, and of the unlovely being granted a new life. It might be a metaphor Lee is working towards but the novel is better served by being about the abusive relationship under Claudio than some sort of reach towards redemption.
The central part of the book brings us to the scientific conflict between those seeking to make consciousness transfer a reality and the three central characters reach an inevitable crisis.
But then Lee shifts into reverse gear and resets the whole thing. The final ten pages is either a monumental plot twist (if so if fails in my mind) or a low effort in ending the story because it was all headed to catastrophe. I was looking forward to catastrophe.
The character Claudio is so finely written that I was captivated by Lee's skill. His treatment of Magda is constantly and relentlessly undermining, such that although he's elevated her physical beauty he's also intent on keeping her locked into her original body image. The weird ending was almost like an apology for writing Claudio in such surgical detail.
On the planet of Indigo people are genetically designed and born through IVF. But sometimes a woman conceives naturally, and the baby can be far from the perfection expected. Ugly, that's her nickname, real name Magdala, is such a person. Misshapen and unattractive she lives a secluded life, ignored by coworkers and desperately lonely. But one day a strange man appears in her life.
Claudio effectively kidnaps her and promises to make her beautiful. He puts her through a process of consciousness swapping whereby her whole sense of self is transferred to a perfectly formed android. Her original body is kept in a stasis chamber and has to be maintained. Magdala is now beautiful but totally in the power of Claudio. And he turns out to be a psychopath.
Tanith Lee writes him with surgical precision as he keeps Magdala under micromanaged abusive control. Magdala soon realises that he is following some plan of his own, a plan of hatred and revenge upon the woman her new body is designed to mimic.
The plot expands to include that woman, named Christophine, sometimes Christa, and we come to an awkward linking of names echoing Christ and Mary Magdalene, and of the unlovely being granted a new life. It might be a metaphor Lee is working towards but the novel is better served by being about the abusive relationship under Claudio than some sort of reach towards redemption.
The central part of the book brings us to the scientific conflict between those seeking to make consciousness transfer a reality and the three central characters reach an inevitable crisis.
But then Lee shifts into reverse gear and resets the whole thing. The final ten pages is either a monumental plot twist (if so if fails in my mind) or a low effort in ending the story because it was all headed to catastrophe. I was looking forward to catastrophe.
The character Claudio is so finely written that I was captivated by Lee's skill. His treatment of Magda is constantly and relentlessly undermining, such that although he's elevated her physical beauty he's also intent on keeping her locked into her original body image. The weird ending was almost like an apology for writing Claudio in such surgical detail.
On a distant planet the men sit making intricate carpets from the hair of their wives and daughters. Each carpet takes a lifetime to make and each man makes only one. His son follows in the same traditional art, designing and making his single carpet. The empire's space ships pick up the carpets and they are sent to decorate the palace of the Emperor.
Rumours start to circulate that the Emperor is dead and the empire is no more. But still the carpet makers continue their work. When a space ship lands on the planet the ship's crew knows nothing of the carpet makers or the carpets. People who have been to the palace say they have never seen such a carpet there.
Eschbach has given us a series of what seems like interlinked short stories, each one centering on a single character, but each one also adding to the narrative. He steadily builds his story through a sense of mystery towards the final revelation. There are so many possibilities for metaphor here, of weaving a story, of pulling together the loose threads, of only seeing a hint of the story (carpet) because we are looking at the back of it, and I will not fall into the metaphor trap.
The prose is easy to read and without the clumsiness that can sometimes happen with a translated work. Eschbach's imagination carries us through the occasional weirdness of the story, and through our times of wondering what happened to a character or two who seems to have disappeared from the story. His final revelation is one of total insanity and I was left wondering how this situation could even have been reasonable or possible. However, Eschbach made it sound very believable.
On a distant planet the men sit making intricate carpets from the hair of their wives and daughters. Each carpet takes a lifetime to make and each man makes only one. His son follows in the same traditional art, designing and making his single carpet. The empire's space ships pick up the carpets and they are sent to decorate the palace of the Emperor.
Rumours start to circulate that the Emperor is dead and the empire is no more. But still the carpet makers continue their work. When a space ship lands on the planet the ship's crew knows nothing of the carpet makers or the carpets. People who have been to the palace say they have never seen such a carpet there.
Eschbach has given us a series of what seems like interlinked short stories, each one centering on a single character, but each one also adding to the narrative. He steadily builds his story through a sense of mystery towards the final revelation. There are so many possibilities for metaphor here, of weaving a story, of pulling together the loose threads, of only seeing a hint of the story (carpet) because we are looking at the back of it, and I will not fall into the metaphor trap.
The prose is easy to read and without the clumsiness that can sometimes happen with a translated work. Eschbach's imagination carries us through the occasional weirdness of the story, and through our times of wondering what happened to a character or two who seems to have disappeared from the story. His final revelation is one of total insanity and I was left wondering how this situation could even have been reasonable or possible. However, Eschbach made it sound very believable.
Andrew Harlan is a 'Eternal', effectively a time traveling policeman. When history takes a bad turn the Eternals work out when the best intervention would be to prevent it. Harlan was one of those who go back in time and effect a minor change to avert disaster.
He's a totally unlikable character, but the book is filled with Asimov's cardboard cutout characters who are all totally without charisma. The plot and plot development are the thing here. Couple that with some cool tech, considering the book was written in the 1950s, and an increasing element of philosophizing about time travel, and it gets its stars.
The alternate time zone of the Eternals is filled with men only. Harlan meets a woman, the only one in the whole book, they make love, he is infatuated, he moves to get her out of her time zone and into his world. Things don't go as planned. The middle of the book is taken up with 'everything that can go wrong does go wrong' and their whole existence is threatened. With his supervisor they cobble together a plan to save everything. There is a longish episodic crisis that issues in a final showdown as Harlan is forced into a drastic decision
The book has all the 1950s expectations that men run the world, women get in the way if they venture into the man's world, and their only purpose is for men to get laid. Male interactions are purely functional and the characters here spend more time being suspicious of each other than working together. The only person with character is the sole female, Noÿs.
Andrew Harlan is a 'Eternal', effectively a time traveling policeman. When history takes a bad turn the Eternals work out when the best intervention would be to prevent it. Harlan was one of those who go back in time and effect a minor change to avert disaster.
He's a totally unlikable character, but the book is filled with Asimov's cardboard cutout characters who are all totally without charisma. The plot and plot development are the thing here. Couple that with some cool tech, considering the book was written in the 1950s, and an increasing element of philosophizing about time travel, and it gets its stars.
The alternate time zone of the Eternals is filled with men only. Harlan meets a woman, the only one in the whole book, they make love, he is infatuated, he moves to get her out of her time zone and into his world. Things don't go as planned. The middle of the book is taken up with 'everything that can go wrong does go wrong' and their whole existence is threatened. With his supervisor they cobble together a plan to save everything. There is a longish episodic crisis that issues in a final showdown as Harlan is forced into a drastic decision
The book has all the 1950s expectations that men run the world, women get in the way if they venture into the man's world, and their only purpose is for men to get laid. Male interactions are purely functional and the characters here spend more time being suspicious of each other than working together. The only person with character is the sole female, Noÿs.