Time Travel
Time Travel, as the name would suggest deals with the idea of travelling forward into the future or backwards into the past, this can be either the central theme or merely a plot device.
Books Reviewed
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![Lost in TimeA G Riddle]()
Science FictionTime travel is fascinating, it is also some of the most fictional science fiction you will ever get. What has happened must have happened, lest you rip apart your universe in a paradox. The scientists in A. G. Riddle’s Lost in Time seem to have found a workaround as they send the worst criminals int...
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![The Unmaking of June FarrowAdrienne Young]()
Science FictionI love time travel stories, but the entire concept is a paradox. It just cannot happen. What happens to the version of you that was in the past/present once you have travelled? It can be hard to even think about it, but what happens if you live this paradox? The Farrow woman have all been cursed wit...
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![The Beautiful LandAlan Averill]()
Science FictionThe Beautiful Land makes excellent use of the parallel dimensions theory as it relates to time travel. Here you don't directly travel in time but to a different point in a parallel world which could be almost like our own or vastly different depending on the changes that have taken place. Here thoug...
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![The Time Travellers AlmanacAnn Vandermeer]()
Science FictionBack in November 2011 Jeff and Ann VanderMeer published "The Weird", the ultimate collection of weird tales of the last 100 years. This November they turn their attentions to Time Travel in another landmark Tome. This is without a doubt the most definitive collection of stories featuring time travel...
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![Ascending SpiralBob Rich]()
Science FictionA unique twist on the time-travel tradition! A mix of genres amalgamated into something unforgettable. This is a read to be experienced with your brain’s switch flipped on. From the book’s synopsis: Dr. Pip Lipkin has lived for 12,000 years, incarnated many times as man, woman, and even as species b...
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![Frankenstein UnboundBrian Aldiss]()
Science FictionFrankenstein Unbound is a science fiction novel by the British author Brian Aldiss. Time is starting to break up, when Joseph Bodenland, a citizen of the year 2020, gets thrown back through time and space to Lake Geneva around the time when Mary Shelly was writing the original Frankenstein story. To...
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![The First Fifteen Lives of Harry AugustClaire North]()
Science FictionI often stay clear of books recommended by Richard and Judy, I find their "recommendations" largely restricted to wishy washy "popular" and "literary" fiction. However, like a thousand Monkeys at a thousand typewriters random chance dictates that they "should" occasionally strike gold and The First...
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![Primeval: Extinction EventDan Abnett]()
FantasyPrimeval: Extinction Event is an original story set within the Primeval universe and featuring the cast of the hit TV series, written by Dan Abnett and published by Titan Books. Strange anomalies are ripping holes in the very fabric of time, creating rifts that allow creatures from the distant past...
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![Once Upon a Time LordDan Slott]()
Science FictionAny Doctor Who fan knows that this year is a big anniversary for the series and there is so much content coming that even the wider community may be aware that the Doc is turning 60. How do you stand out from the new books, audio series and episodes all incoming around the festive period? Perhaps a...
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![SpoonbendersDaryl Gregory]()
FantasySpoonbenders by Daryl Gregory hasn't even been released at the time of writing and it's already been picked up by Paramount TV. It's the authors first foray into literary speculative fiction and follows the Amazing Telemachus Family. Back in the 1970's they acheived widespread fame for their magic a...
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![The Androids of TaraDavid Fisher]()
Science FictionThe Doctor can travel anywhere in the Universe and at any time. He can witness the last days of existence or visit a planet of peace. Or he could visit Tara, a planet that seems like our own feudal era Britain, but with added androids. And some odd feeling 70s chauvinism. Target Books have adapted D...
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![The Stones of BloodDavid Fisher]()
Science FictionThe Target imprint of Doctor Who novels is like nectar to any fan as they offer a punchy adaptation of almost every episode of the series up to the mid-90s, but there were a few missing. Fear not, as BBC Books are not only releasing adaptations of newer episodes but are also looking to fill in the g...
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![Some Desperate GloryEmily Tesh]()
Science FictionStories are often told from the side of good, the plucky underdog who fights against the armies of evil only to be victorious, but what about a book told from the side of the agitators, the terrorists the anarchists? These are all labels and Emily Tesh sets out to prove in Some Desperate Glory that...
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![The Principle MomentsEsmie Jikiemi-Pearson]()
Science FictionYou see it more often in fantasy than science fiction, but there are stories about young people living a life of drudgery only to be plucked into being exceptional as if fate is playing with them. It is a comfortable coming of age trope that has worked so well, so many times, but what if fate did co...
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![EntangledGraham Hancock]()
FantasyEntangled is a time-spanning fantasy novel from the best-selling author, Graham Hancock. Leoni is a troubled teenager, living in modern day Los Angeles and after an accidental drug overdose causes her to have a "near-death" experience, she experiences her soul being lifted from her body and thrown b...
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![RestorationGuy Adams]()
FantasyRestoration is the second part of the duology that began with the quite brilliant The World House , written by Guy Adams. None who enter the World House leave it unchanged. The purpose behind the reality bending dimension has finally become clear but in the same way that you can't observe an event w...
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![The First Bright ThingJ R Dawson]()
FantasyCircuses are magical places; they are also mysterious and occasionally a bit murderous. All the elements that make them perfect for romantic visions of running away and visiting new places each week, are also perfect for someone who likes to snatch victims and not be around when the police start to...
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![FluxJinwoo Chong]()
Science FictionTime travel is one of the most complex and difficult concepts to write in fiction. On the screen you can use visuals as shorthand to try and explain what on Earth is going on, but in fiction you are required to explain it all, or not. There is a choice. Do you go down the route of hard science and t...
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![Hard TimeJodi Taylor]()
Science FictionThe timeline is fragile. Stand on a butterfly in the Jurassic Era and you may end up returning to a world in which we all have seven arms – useful for multi-tasking. If time travel were available not everybody wou ld respect the past and therefore, it needs to be policed. A subtle and intelligent te...
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![MyriadJoshua David Bellin]()
Science FictionI love time travel stories as you can tie yourself in knots figuring out what is going on. A writer can choose to do one of two things about the complexity of it all. Explore in great depth and try to make the inherent paradox work, or just go with the flow. Joshua David Bellin’s Myriad feels like a...
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![In the Garden of IdenKage Baker]()
Science FictionNobody knows her name, not even her. Thus, she's called Mendoza. She's the latest operative to be recruited away from horrible circumstances (in Mendoza's case, she was imprisoned by the Spanish Inquisition) to serve Dr. Zeus Incorporated in its eternal quest to make money and preserve some semblanc...
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![Sky CoyoteKage Baker]()
Science FictionSky Coyote is the second volume in The Company series of novels by Kage Baker, following on from the events of the novel "In the Garden of Eden". This time, the viewpoint changes from Mendoza, child of the Spanish Inquisition, to Joseph, her rescuer and recruiter. Unfortunately, Baker is hit with a...
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![Planet of the OodKeith Temple]()
Science FictionIt can be hard for the casual Doctor Who viewer to see the character as alien. They may have two hearts, regenerate once in a while, but fundamentally the Doctor looks human. It does not help that they are obsessed with human culture and like to hang around on Earth a lot (cheap sets). But fundament...
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![A View from the StarsLiu Cixin]()
Science FictionLike many science fiction fans, I have been swept away by the recent influx of Chinese writers that have been translated. Many of these writers are only new to us but have established careers back in China. The most prominent is the Hugo Award winning Cixin Liu. I have enjoyed the style of stories f...
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![Shoestring TheoryMariana Costa]()
HorrorThe creation of a new subgenre comes fraught with danger, there may be a good reason it did not arise before. I am seeing an increase in what can be called Cosy Fantasy, novels that have many of the tropes of the genre but concentrate on character interaction over the action. The threat is that Fant...
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![ColonyMarkus Heitz]()
Science FictionOver the next three days, three reviews will stand before you. Read them in any order, some elements will be the same, others quite different . If you would like to go straight to the segment unique to this review , please start with paragraph 4. Drafting a book must be like standing in fro...
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![Field of BloodMarkus Heitz]()
Science FictionOver the next three days, three reviews will stand before you. Read them in any order, some elements will be the same, others quite different. If you would like to go straight to the segment unique to this review, please start with paragraph 4. Drafting a book must be like standing in front of a s...
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![Jerry Cornelius: His Life and TimesMichael Moorcock]()
Science FictionI discovered Michael Moorcock’s work fairly late in life. I’d just started teaching in Higher Education and was pointed towards both Elric of Melibone and his academic text – Wizardry and Wild Romance. The latter I found disagreeable, but deeply insightful and the former a read I could begin but not...
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![Fictional AlignmentMike French]()
Science FictionMike French returns to the world of An Android Awakes with this initially more conventionally presented sequel. Fictional Alignment is not the same animal as its predecessor – an oversized picture story book anthology of the attempts of Android PD121928 to create fiction that can be accepted by its...
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![DissolutionNicholas Binge]()
Science FictionHave you ever walked into a room and forgotten why you went in there in the first place? Could just be a good old fashioned brain burp, but perhaps it is something more sinister. In Nicholas Binge’s Dissolution there is a character who knows too much, so much that their mind is being wiped to preven...
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![Echo CyclePatrick Edwards]()
Science FictionAbove all genres, science fiction is my favourite. Why? Because anything can happen. You can have epic space battles between alien races you cannot pronounce or go in the other direction and create a subtle alternative reality where words have the power to kill. Ideas run the entire gamete and they...
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![The Waters of MarsPhil Ford]()
Science FictionI am a massive fan of the Target imprint of Doctor Who books. Recently they have been filling in the gaps from the older series and producing new adaptations based on the past few Doctors. Taking stories out of any given season is a risky business. It could be a standalone monster of the week story,...
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![Time's Last GiftPhilip Jose Farmer]()
Science FictionA journey into the past that can never be repeated, travelling from 2070 AD all the way back to 12000 BC; a chance for the four passengers of the "time ship" to study the primitive man as no-one could ever do before or will be able to since. None were prepared for what they would discover, or indeed...
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![The Corridors of timePoul Anderson]()
Science FictionThe Corridors of time is a science fiction novel by the author Poul Anderson. Reading almost exclusively in english, very few of the stories that I read take place in my home country of Denmark, in fact I think that this is the first one, that I've read, which takes place mostly in Denmark. Well, ex...
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![Under Fortunate StarsRen Hutchings]()
Science FictionI have a love hate relationship with time travel stories. I love the mind-bending physics and puzzles that they create but hate the fact that most of them just could not work. How can people from the past learn what they need to from those in the future if they have not lived their own futures yet?...
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![The TouristRobert Dickinson]()
Science FictionThe Tourist (not to be confused with the book and film of the same name by Olen Steinhauer) is a story of time travel, imagining a future where people can take holidays to the past and experience the genuine 21st century in all it's glory. There are three main tour operators offering holidays to the...
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![The Eaters of LightRona Munro]()
Science FictionDoctor Who is the same, but also different, in each iteration and that is what makes the characters so interesting. The Twelfth Doctor is one of the latest incarnations and one that reflected on the Doctor’s past as much as the present. The humour was still there, but also more of the historic grump...
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![EdenvilleSam Rebelein]()
HorrorIt is important to choose the place of Higher Education that suits you. You may want to go to one of the old Universities of learning, taking with you high grades and a love of academia. You may want to go somewhere more relaxed or vocational. Where do you go if you are interested in creative writin...
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![11.22.63Stephen King]()
Science FictionWhen asked to review this book I can honestly say I did so with some trepidation. Although few would doubt King is as his name suggests, his later period of novels, Dark Tower aside, would, I’m sorry to say argue the case against him. But this is King you say, and I know many Constant Readers out th...
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![The GunslingerStephen King]()
FantasySometimes when I've read a really bad book it's hard for me to write a review about it - I just want to leave it at "this book is bad - stay away from it" and then forget about the book as fast as possible. With Stephen King's The Gunslinger it's the other way around. A short "Go buy this book at on...
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![The Seven Deaths of Evelyn HardcastleStuart Turton]()
Science FictionI am not an argumentative fellow and the only two full on blowouts I can remember are well within the geek sphere. Who was the actor alongside Harrison Ford at the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark and how does time travel work? I may have been wrong about Alfred Molina but I am right about time...
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![Before the coffee gets coldToshikazu Kawaguchi]()
Science FictionThere seems to be a bit of an explosion of time travel novels in the last few years, some even flying under the radar of being labelled "science fiction" - so that people who only read "serious fiction" can be entertained too I guess. Before the coffee gets cold , the first in a series, initially se...
Book of the month
