Cryptozoic

by Brian W. Aldiss

Bush materialised in the prehistoric shore... and the drama began.
For Bush was a mind-traveller, moving through time like a phantom... and haunted by a phantom, The Dark Woman. Was she a ghost from his future, or the product of a mind strained beyond endurance? Bush had other problems: emerging from the Devonian past into a totalitarian future he was trained to kill, sent back in time to assassinate a man who threatened the future.
This brilliant examination of the relationship between men and time is simultaneously a serious novel on that fascinating subject and a tense psychosexual thriller.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Time Travel, Adventure, Science Fiction Fantasy, Fantasy, Classics

187 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Pseudonyms: Jael Cracken, Peter Pica, John Runciman, C.C. Shackleton, Arch Mendicant, & "Doc" Peristyle.

Brian Wilson Aldiss was one of the most important voices in science fiction writing today. He wrote his first novel while working as a bookseller in Oxford. Shortly afterwards he wrote his first work of science fiction and soon gained international recognition. Adored for his innovative literary techniques, evocative plots and irresistible characters, he became a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 1999.
Brian Aldiss died on August 19, 2017, just after celebrating his 92nd birthday with his family and closest friends.

Brian W. Aldiss Group on Good Reads

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 2 out of 5]

SF Masterworks (2010- series) #100: Towards the end of the 21st century humankind has sort of run adrift as most of its greatest minds, smartest people and anyone looking for adventure, are off and away… travelling in time! Artist Edward Bush returns after almost three years of time travelling to find democracy has been replaced with a authoritarian regime (in the UK) and thence is entrusted to return to time travelling in a mission to assassinate the primary scientific foe of the regime. Being an artist though, Bush has a few questions...

In the UK this book was called An Age. Despite being one of the greatest and most conceivable ideas of how time travel could work that I've ever read, I feel adding in a dystopia and indeed an entirely new way of looking at humankind's existence, may show off Aldiss's intelligence and creativity, but at the expense of story? And don't get me started on the cop-out / ambiguous ending! A strong 3.5 Stars, 5 out of 12 for this Masterwork :)

2022 read

[Manny · Rating 3 out of 5]

As everyone knows, there are two main families of time-travel stories. There are the ones like Back to the Future, where it's possible to change the past, and there are ones like Hitchhiker's Guide, where everything fits together like a jigsaw.

And then there's Cryptozoic, which doesn't slot into any normal classification. I won't even try to explain how it works, but it's different all right. The book has an interesting, haunted atmosphere, though it doesn't make much sense.

[Jersy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating ideas, great discriptions of both past and future, but insufferable characters.
Despite some frustration, I couldnt put it down. There is a lot in this tiny book, still I'm not sure I could endure Ed and Ann's encounters again.

[Sequoyah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this novel. Actually, I had never anticipated reading any book as much as this one, for some strange reason (Most likely the description that other reviewers had). Also, I have never been more let down by any novel.

This novel is completely unintelligible, and there are many parts that annoy me completely.
The main character has the record for mind traveling the closest to any human age, but still hasn't reached humans yet. Yet, after he goes back to do his "assigned job" he travels to the 20th century,and better yet, apparently everyone can now mind travel to the 18th century with the ease of breathing.
Also, the backward time philosophy is complete asininity, and the novel was very boring and preachy. It took a bit of nerves to be able to finish this disappointment.

I wouldn't recommend this book to any one, except for those who like terrible philosophies of time that have not one logical thread of thought in them.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have enjoyed most of the short stories by British science-fiction author Brian Aldiss I have read so far, ergo I decided to read one of his full length novels: ”Cryptozoic” from 1967. The overall reading experience reminds me of what Philip K. Dick could have written around then had he grown up on the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean, not surprisingly I enjoyed it for similar reasons. The big difference being Aldiss' fascination with Freudian psychoanalysis taking the place of Dick's fascination with Gnostic Christianity as central to the novel's philosophical themes, as well as the tone being more melancholic and less whimsical than most of PKD's novels.

The plot of ”Cryptozoic” follows Edward Bush, a time-travelling artist who visits the Devonian and Jurassic eras to escape the overpolluted overpopulated surveillance state of 21st century Britain (boy howdy does that sound way too familiar), as well as to find inspiration for his paintings. At first he encounters a mysterious dark-haired woman, who seems to stalk him wherever he goes on his time travels. Note that dark-haired women with ambiguous agendas are a common character type in PKD novels, see Rachel from ”Electric Sheep” and Donna from ”A Scanner Darkly” for examples. Then, Edward gets into a fight with a hostile time-travelling tribe of nomadic motorcyclists. After a stop-over in the Jurassic, where he visits a restaurant and art gallery targeting a clientele of temporal tourists, Bush returns to the year 2093. There he learns that the British government has been overthrown by a military junta enjoying popular support as a consequence of... the previous government spending too much taxpayer money on time travel research!

This is approximately the point where ”Cryptozoic” goes from just eccentric to highly weird. The new government drafts our hero into a taskforce of time-travelling assassins, giving them the mission of asssassinating a scientist with unorthodox theories about how time travel really functions... but their assignment's real purpose turns out to be quite different. From thereon, the plot becomes unpredictable in exactly the same way Philip K. Dick's novels were: Every time the reader has roughly figured out where the plot is going, the narrative throws another plot twist at them - either undoing a basic premise about how the fictional universe functions, or revealing at least one character to have a completely unexpected hidden agenda. Most of these frequent plot twists happen every 50 pages (or so), and are in turn used to explore whatever unorthodox philosophical or psychological theory the author was entertaining at that particular time. ”Cryptozoic” can sometimes feel haphazard and randomly thrown together, but it's absolutely bursting with mad ideas that constantly make me think about what I already know in new contexts.

Central to all these mad ideas explored in ”Cryptozoic” is its conception of how time travel works: A new psychedelic drug that activates a primordial layer of the unconscious mind, originating so far back in evolutionary history that humans for the most part have no active access to it. This is where Freudian and Jungian systems of psychoanalysis become integral to the book's themes, and I guess where many present day readers opt out. Note that Jungian analytical psychology was as fashionable in late-1960's alternative culture as use of psychedelic drugs for philosophical and spiritual exploration were. As a matter of fact several characters in "Cryptozoic" compare Dr. Silverstone, the heretical time travel researcher whom Edward Bush is tasked with assassinating, with C. G. Jung.

Where Aldiss really got me hooked was where he used all this as a springboard to explore an idea I also currently entertain: Namely that the universe we experience is a representation constructed by the human nervous system from sensory data, as a problem-solving tool whose purpose is to conceptualise different possible evolutionary survival strategies in a language that is easier to understand intuitively. This process can then in turn be reprogrammed in certain directions through human cultural and social conditioning. Inherent to Aldiss' ”using psychedelic drugs to travel in time” concept is the theory that the linear passage of time is just how the human brain has evolved to reconstruct reality, a premise Aldiss later takes in some very trippy directions I don't want to spoil. (I can gather that neuroscientist John C. Lilly developed similar ideas at the same time this book was written, so I guess Aldiss was familiar with his work)

At any rate I enjoy reading trippy science-fiction novels that constantly throw unexpected radical plot twists and mad ideas at the reader across a relatively short page count. The topics ”Cryptozoic” revolves around I also happen to find interesting. Ergo, I ended up really liking it. If ”psychedelic Freudian-Jungian dystopian time-travelling spy thriller with an air of typically British pessimism hanging over everything” sounds like something you might like, I would recommend it. For anyone else, your mileage may vary.

[BridgeBurger Spoony · Rating 3 out of 5]

In typical Aldiss fashion the ideas are really out there, this time with a super unique take on time travel. Some of the later chapters about the mechanics behind it are wonderful despite making zero sense. It’s a real shame the narrative used to explore this is a jumbled almost senseless mess that feels like two different novels.

[Norman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have grown very fond of Aldiss' writing and looked forward to this read. The premise is set up well as we follow Edward Bush as he 'mind-travels' in time back to eras when no humans inhabited the planet. We soon learn he is situated in 2093 but 'floats' in the Cryptozoic age watching what goes on. He can also see his contemporaries who might cross his path as more material. On returning to a seedily-drawn Britain we soon learn that we now live under a dictatorship and there is a danger for Bush. His father lives in a state of drunkenness, perhaps mourning his late wife, and the world is crumbling around him. Bush can't feel settled and takes the opportunity to grab an offer by the government to go back again.
The story that ensues is almost metaphysical in its scope. It will set you thinking about how time flows and Aldiss is damn good at seeding imaginations, but with this book I felt he must have been depressed or miserable as his other books I've read were not as dark in nature

[Dmadden · Rating 2 out of 5]

Can the disenchanted artist protagonist find happiness with a dirty slut who doesn't bathe enough? Can he overcome the relationship problems caused by falsely calling her a traitor and gunning her down with a laser pistol? Can he overcome his Freudian distrust of all women caused by his mother locking him out in the garden in his boyhood? And do we have time to care when the sophomoric proposition the time is actually flowing backwards becomes chillingly TRUE!?? And the only reason we haven't noticed this is because our talents at precognition are a lot better than our memory? Or is all of this the deranged imagining of a psychotic? Aldiss doesn't seem to be sure, and is hence a little ambiguous in his use of ambiguity. Weirdozoic! Ultimately this one falls down on the number of dinosaurs. In spite of the cover, there are hardly any. Don't judge a book by it's...

[Jonathan Norton · Rating 1 out of 5]

The "mind travel" idea doesn't make sense or seem to be applied consistently, and there's an awful lot of sub-Jungian junk delivered in a boring way. Also the male attitudes to women are very much of its time and don't travel well to ours.

[Ralph Carlson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back in the 1970s Aldiss was one of my favorite writers but it has be many years since I have read one of his books. It was a great treat to read one again.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

Eddie Bush is an artist and an employee of the Wenlock Institute, founded by the psychologist who realized, around 2090, that the only thing constraining us within the flow of time is our mind -- more accurately, our perception. It seems we have an undermind that's usually under complete control of our overmind, which governs such things as our perceptions of the reality around us. By use of various mental disciplines (effectively, a mantra) and a magic potion, people can prise their undermind free of the clenched iron fist of their overmind and thereby travel through all of past time, although the task becomes more difficult the closer the traveler comes to the present of 2090. Travelers who encounter each other in the past can interact directly with each other -- can punch each other on the nose or make love (Eddie tries both) -- but cannot influence or in any way be detected by the denizens of the visited era; when they walk there, it's not on the actual ground but on a sort of averaged out version that may be above or below the one the ancient critters around them tread.

This seems the first of many major scientific problems the tale has, because the difference between the ground level of where you are now and what it must have been in the Devonian, which is where we first encounter Eddie, is likely to have been very considerable, not just a matter of inches. (There's a brief acknowledgement of this later in the book, but it's glossed over fast.) Besides, there'll have been continental drift . . .

Whatever, Eddie has various adventures before deciding he should return to his own time; he has stayed away for far longer than his mission decreed. When he wakes up in the Wenlock Institute he discovers that there have been many changes. His old boss has been shot; his new one has a certain smack of O'Brien, in George Orwell's 1984. Wenlock has been discredited and locked up in an institution. The military regime ruling the UK has become ever more dictatorial; shortly after Eddie's return it's overthrown, and an even harsher one put in its place. By then Eddie has been given a new commission: to go back in time and try to hunt down and assassinate Silverstone, the sidekick of and rival to Wenlock (the Jung to Wenlock's Freud) who is perceived as an even bigger threat to the regime than Wenlock himself. Eddie has in fact already encountered an incognito Silverstone, back in the Devonian; although the two men were antagonistic then, Eddie's self-imposed mission becomes to save Silverstone from any other of the regime's murderous minions that might have been sent after him. After a diversion to a northern English town in what's at a guess the 1950s and much shenaniganning in Queen Victoria's Buckingham Palace, Eddie, his girlfriend Ann, Silverstone and various other players take refuge in the deep past, where Silverstone expounds on his whizz-bang new theory of time.

Which is that it's going backwards. At some point farther into what we'd call the future than 2090, the folk of the almost infinitely ancient human species, who saw time the right way round, were traumatized to discover the planet had just a few billion years to go and humanity itself far less than that, just a few million years, before it devolved into lesser primates, its final destiny being as an indistinguishable ingredient in the primordial soup. So shocking was this discovery that it triggered a psychological defense, a sort of mental block whereby thereafter (or therebefore?) everyone perceived time as flowing from past to future rather than from future to past. There's quite a lot of discussion -- far too much, in fact -- of the consequences of this new understanding, such as what defecation really involves, and then we're into the closing sections, which are filled with a sort of Stapledonian flamboyance to make sure we all understand this ain't just, like, Buck Rogers we've been reading.

There are some visionary bits earlier on, too; one neat passage [pp38-40] reminded me in its intensity and vividness of William Hope Hodgson's excellent visionary novel The House on the Borderland (1908). That comes in the first half of the novel, which, although shortish, is divided into two almost equal halves: Book One and Book Two. There's a marked difference in the standard of writing between the two "books", almost as if Book One were a work of juvenilia dragged out and dusted off once Aldiss had (deservedly) made his name for other work. That's not to say Book Two doesn't have its own mighty problems; it's just that it's a lot better written.

At the opening of Book Two, Chapter 7, Silverstone is expounding on the true nature of the cosmos as revealed once we accept his time-running-backwards explanation: "Not being a physical scientist," he says, "I cannot go too technically into this side of the matter . . . which I imagine will be a relief to all four of you. Nor have I or my associates had the chance as yet to begin any research into this side of the matter." [p189] In other words, folks, there's a huge copout: we're not going to get any proper explanation of how backward-running physics could possibly work, or of why it should run backwards to the way we plebs believe it to be running. There's a fair amount of flim-flam to try to distract from this great hole at the novel's core --

"The celebrated second law of thermodynamics, for example -- we now begin to see that heat in fact passes from cooler bodies to hotter: suns are collectors of heat, rather than disseminators." [p190]

-- but nothing that offers any explanation of how a physics could work in which, for example, you can backwardly combust noxious wastes to produce a lump of coal or a gallon of gasoline, derivatives of organisms that won't be backwardly born for tens of millions of years yet. Waffling about entropy operating in a different direction, from less toward greater organization, doesn't really cover this. I'm not sure if the problem the novel faces here is that Aldiss wasn't up to working out properly the implications of his sciencefictional idea or if the notion of backward-running time is just inherently a silly one; I'm inclined toward the latter explanation, since none of the few authors who've tried backward-running-time stories has yet managed to make much of a fist of it. However that might be, by the time Silverstone, having supposedly boggled us all with his first theory, suddenly announces he's next going to describe his "new concept of animal and human existence" [194], it's hard not to burst out laughing.

Aldiss has become something of a literary giant. I can remember being riveted by others of his early works, back when his reputation was confined to the genre ghetto -- Hothouse, for example, and Greybeard. I can also remember being bored rigid by items like Report on Probability A, but that was in the day when it was a mark of sf distinction to bore your readers rigid. Cryptozoic! -- or An Age, to give it its original, and better, UK title -- seems to lie in a sort of no-man's-land, lacking the narrative drive of his earlier and later non-experimental work, while also not bringing a great deal of conceptual meat to the table. A disappointment.

[Emma Alice Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Could Use More Dinosaurs, But...

Aldiss is one of the more underrated sci-fi authors out there. His stuff is consistently smart and entertaining. But I mainly picked this one up because it has dinosaurs on the cover. There are not many dinosaurs in it. That's okay, because it's still a pretty rad tale of time travel via mind power that turns into this weird governmental/art conspiracy to take down the very concept of time.

Page 26 in the paperback has a line about a sweet hole that is my favorite time travel sex line ever in any time travel book.

[Timothy · Rating 2 out of 5]

a shame ... for much of the novel Aldiss performs a credibly entertaining imitation of second rate Philip K. Dick (drugs, mental instability, time instability, reality instability, dystopia, paranoia) ... it's not bad until the professor starts lecturing and we are subjected to pages and pages of tedious what-if-time-ran-backwards scenarios ... then I was left to entertain myself by imagining how Robert Sheckley could have distilled this too-full-of-itself material into the amusingly absurd 15 page tossed off short story it deserved ...

[Charles Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in the 1960s and set in the 2090s, I was most struck by how limited the author's imagination was about how society might have altered. His picture of life in 2093 sounded drearily familiar, military coup to one side.

However, his descriptions of mind travelling to the past are intriguing, and the continuity problem that seemed to have crept into part 2 is cleverly resolved at the end, with a final, ambiguous twist.

[Tomislav · Rating 3 out of 5]

second read -4 February 1991 *** This time, with the expectation that this book dealt primarily with psychology and British politics, I set out to read it again. I still found it pretty dry, with only a little bit of time travel adventure to spice things up. Mediocre.

first read - January 1973 ** I read this book in high school, but was disappointed that it was not a straight-forward time travel story to the era of dinosaurs.

[Miranda · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the beginning I thought it was kindda of slowpace. In the middle I thought: where is this going? At the end... well I am not going to spoil anything but I am really happy I read this book 😊

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

First 3/4 were definitely enjoyable and I loved the concept, the final 1/4...ohh boy. Definitely one to try and get your head around, and I'm not entirely sure that I even managed that myself.

[Ebenmaessiger · Rating 3 out of 5]

In many ways, the psi-fixations of mid-century sf read as inordinately more “dated” than the schlockiest of space opera pulp schlock. This Aldiss is not the worst offender, but the winking sincerity of its reliance upon these mental netherworlds goes a long way to explaining the failures of the novel. The central novum — “mind-travel” — is too shoddily fleshed out to be anything truly different than just general time travel, in which case Aldiss needs to gussy up this well-worn concept with some shiny accoutrements. And he doesn’t quite succeed here — and what he does toss in (Freudian incest taboo, psychological mother hang ups, etc) are such artifacts of its late 60s creation, and so clumsily jammed into the narrative, as to be more distracting than defining. There are, otherwise, invigorating sections, and a nicely realized little time-voyeur vignette from 1930, but otherwise Aldiss does little to differentiate CRYPTOZOIC from any number of time-travel exercises, absent, as always, his ever-consistent down-the-middle reliability.

[Marijn Schafer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ik hou erg van science fiction, en Brian Aldiss is een bekende schrijver van science fiction klassiekers. Helaas vond ik dit boek niet veel aan. In het (goede) voorwoord schrijft Adam Roberts dat science fiction vooral de periode weergeeft waarin het boek geschreven is. 
Dit boek uit 1967 voelt als een LSD-trip. Tijdreizen door het nemen van drugs. Uiteindelijk wordt de theorie beschreven dat de tijd terugloopt, zodat sterven nieuw leven betekent en uiteindelijk de aarde toeleeft naar de oertijd (wat dus eigenlijk de toekomst is).
Pff. Was niet leuk geschreven, geen hoofdpersonen waar je mee kan leven en was verder ook echt te wazig.

[rafolas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Se me ha hecho realmente difícil no abandonarlo. No puedo recomendarlo y no me ha gustado nada. Espero olvidarlo pronto

[Jake W · Rating 2 out of 5]

Come for the time travel, stay to be confused by Freud, incest and general hatred of women

[Robert Whelan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not very good, a bit bonkers towards the end with an ambivalent ending.

[Neil · Rating 2 out of 5]

About the best thing I can say for this book is that it was a relatively fast read for me. It is split into two parts, but I am not quite sure why (unless it was supposed to somehow indicate or imply the changes in Edward Bush’s life?). The author did have an interesting idea about time travel, though, that seemed fairly unique and inventive. The character development was so-so in that not very many of the characters stood out to me. There is a lot of dialogue in this book, which makes it surprising to me that took so little time to read it. I guess it is just over two hundred pages, so it is not a very thick book, which probably helped in that regard. It is funny, though; while it was easy for me to put down to do other things, I found myself wondering how things were going to work out for the “hero,” Edward Bush. So, I guess that is something else in the story’s favor. There were two surprises for me, and the ending was pretty crazy (and not at all what I was expecting!).

Edward Bush is the ‘main character’ and a piss-poor hero. He meets a woman right away named Ann (no last name given) and they begin an odd relationship. He is now a struggling artist, trying to make ends meet and come up with one final ‘masterpiece’ to create before he gives up his craft completely. There are other characters who populate the book; a motorcycle gang that cruises around the ancient past, two friends of his who are married and run an eating establishment in the Jurassic period, his father and his father’s quasi-girlfriend/lover, Annivale (Edward’s father claims to remain true to his mother’s memory, but the neighbor implies the two of them have been sexually active). Some other ‘main secondary characters’ would be Silverstone (Stein) who has alternate theories about time travel, Howes (who is Edward’s “commanding officer” and a double-agent), and a mysterious “Dark Woman” who follows Edward around when he travels through time.

Although I thought the idea behind the time traveling in this book was pretty unique and interesting, I do think the author had quite the task set before him to make an interesting story revolve around this method of time travel. He never really explains how the process was developed, how it came about; the reader is supposed to just accept that it exists and move along with the story. There are some vague explanations on how people go about time traveling, but that is about it. Oddly enough, this time traveling thing has become ‘the new drug’ for British culture. So many people are engaging in time travel that the economy has been wrecked as people have become addicted to this process. Even though the process is expensive, there are black markets set up to sell the necessary products to allow people to time travel from their own homes or wherever they can set themselves up for the process to take place.

This method of time travel involves being set up so that blood still circulates through the body via some kind of machine, and a culture is taken of one’s skin and ‘grown’ in a glass environment of sorts. The blood and skin culture become biological lodestones that allows a person to home back in on their body and return to ‘the present.’ Somehow, the body is kept alive despite not being able to eat, and it never really says how the body is supposed to receive nourishment. The time traveler takes some kind of drug that allows their mind to travel back to the past. Most people end up going to the time of the dinosaurs or earlier; some people have the ability to travel to the point when humans appear. Most people are said to not have the ability to travel back to the point when history really begins hopping for mankind (a la the Egyptians and whatnot). That being the case, most people go back to the time of the dinosaurs and wander aimlessly about.

Now, I say the author had quite the task, because nothing really happens when people go into the past. They wander around, observe what is going on around them, and engage with other time travelers from time-to-time. Nothing they say or do can affect what has already happened. So, it is not like the past can be changed in any way. Well, theoretically not. They are “ghosts, images, phantoms,” who wander about the landscape.

Then, the author allows things to happen that really do not make any kind of sense. Somehow, the time travelers are able to take things back in time with them. They are able to take back some kind of food concentrates to be able to eat to survive. Not only that, but they can take back tents, camping equipment, clothing, and even MOTORCYCLES with them into the distant past. They can also take back weapons with them. In fact, even though it is a ‘mental trip’ in which only their minds are supposedly going back to some distant era, they can take back anything they want.

Not only that, but the people from ‘the future’ may or may not be able to interact with each other, depending on the author’s whimsy. There are people from the ‘distant future’ who cannot speak to Edward Bush, and, yet, there are other characters from ‘the not too distant future’ who can apparently speak and interact with Edward Bush. It must have something to do with how near or far a person is from their body in ‘the present,’ because in the Jurassic period and later (earlier?) time periods, the travelers can walk through objects and animals whereas in the 1850s and 1930s, the time travelers are unable to pass through walls when trying to enter a building. Also, it was frustrating that the author was so inconsistent with how time travelers are either able or unable to interact with each other. I could never quite figure out what the difference was, as there were times the time travelers were quite substantial with each other and able to ‘physically interact’ with each other (a la Edward’s copulating with Ann in the beginning of the novel or Stein’s knocking Edward out because Stein recognized Edward but did not realize Edward was not trying to kill him, yet) and other times when it is said that Edward is able to pass through the other time travelers around him.

Now, I say the author appeared to have things set up so that people could not change the past, but Stein was from a ‘future time period’ than Edward when they first meet. Stein was from a future a few years ahead of Edward. Edward could have potentially taken the information Stein could have provided and returned to his (Edward’s) present and tried to change the future with that information. It probably would not have worked, though (as the government in charge when Edward left had been replaced with a military dictatorship by the time Edward returned after being ‘gone’ for nearly three years).

The book has some really stupid, dark undertones to it, though. Well, I considered them ‘dark’ as it was pretty creepy and nasty (and totally unnecessary). The author is constantly making references to incest and incestuous relationships, about how Edward saw his relationship with his mother as being somehow incestuous, or how if he (Edward) were to copulate with Annivale (who freely tells Edward she wants to copulate with him) would be incestuous because of his father’s “non-relationship” with the woman. It was really stupid and unnecessary and kept ruining the flow of the narrative, as far as I was concerned. Perhaps the author was trying to show how broken and messed up Edward Bush truly was; if so, he did a bang-up job of it! The guy was truly sick in the head!

After Edward is supposedly brainwashed into becoming an assassin, he jumps back 160 years to the 1930s and watches some of his namesakes over an extensive period of time. Not only that, but he claims he has watched one of his distant relatives, Joan, for a long period of time, including when she was in the bath (126). So, how many times has he watched this young girl while she is aging and maturing as she is taking a bath? It seems pretty darn creepy, to me, that he is behaving this way. He has already admitted to himself (and the reader, indirectly) several times throughout the book that he struggles with lust AND with incestuous thoughts (or, he claims his actions and emotions result from some kind of incestual urge or some such nonsense like that). It ‘hit me’ a couple of chapters later what the author had written about this guy, how he had been watching a young, teenage girl over the years, including when she was bathing. Her age ranges at least from around fifteen to nineteen years of age, possibly into her early twenties. So, yeah, he chose to be ‘stuck’ in that time period as he watched his distant relatives trying to live their lives and this young woman age from mid-teens into early adulthood. Really disturbing, if you stop to think about it! The author also has Joan’s father hitting on her, trying to seduce her several times and actually beginning to force himself upon his own flesh-and-blood by kissing her intensely. I know it happens “in real life,” but that does not mean I enjoy reading about it. Plus, I do not know how it really helped move the story along or ‘changed’ Edward’s life as he observed the trials and tribulations of his “distant” relatives.

I felt the book took a second turn ‘for the stupid’ in terms of the theory about time travel. Silverstone (alias Stein) has this idiotic theory that will ‘shake tyrants to their core and destroy dictatorships! Ruin empires! Change the world as we know it!’ Because of the ‘mental time travel’ that has taken place and in which he has engaged, he believes that time actually moves BACKWARDS even though each person experiences it moving forward. A person sees himself or herself as being young, aging, and dying. In Silverstone’s theory, a person actually begins life as a corpse, ages backwards (from old to young) back to the point of becoming a baby that returns to his or her mother’s womb and is eventually absorbed into said woman’s body. A person who is shot and killed actually, somehow, goes from dying to being ‘born alive’ as the projective leaves his or her body and returns to the weapon from which it ‘appeared to be fired.’ It’s really stupid and mind-boggling and makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever. It takes two or three chapters towards the end of the book for this nonsense to be spouted, and it really ruined the book for me. There are four men (Borrow [a friend of Edward Bush and fellow artist], Edward Bush, Silverstone, and Howe) and one woman (Ann). The men claim they need Ann with them each time she wants to leave because they need her to keep them grounded and she clearly believes they are all bat-spit crazy. I really ‘hated’ this part of the book, as the other three men are oohing and aahing over Silverstone’s theories whereas Ann is calling “BS!” (so good for her!).

It was weird how Edward went back to Buckingham Palace in 1850 and encountered so many other time travelers. Supposedly, he was the only one who could even come close to any time period involving “modern humans” (as opposed to any prehistoric cousins), and yet here he runs into numerous time travelers during a time period in which nobody else should have been able to reach. It was ‘necessary’ to move the story forward, I guess, but it still made zero sense to me.

The ending, though! Holy cow! I had to reread that last chapter! It was nuts! Edward’s father is trying to visit him in some kind of insane asylum and is being rebuffed. He is worried about his son and wants to reach out to him, but the guy in charge says it is too dangerous for Edward to see his dad and that Edward believes his father is dead, that Edward killed him with a bottle of especially strong alcohol. Early in the meeting, James Bush is told that Edward is under sedation (216) by the attendant-in-charge, but then, after James asks to merely be able to look in on his son, James is told that Edward is in the midst of working on some art project and it would be a mistake if Edward were able to see his father (222); James catches the misspeak but is told that he misunderstood what was said. As James stumbles outside to return home, he passes a woman who may or may not have been Ann, waiting for a chance to free Edward from captivity (224). And, the book ends. It was not the ending I was expecting, but it really fits the story in my opinion. Throughout the book, the author keeps referencing how a certain period of artists tried to capture what came to be called “a moment in time.” It is a moment with no explanation about ‘what comes next,’ about ‘what happened next’? It is up to the viewer to decide ‘what happens next’? (One of the examples given was a statue of an Amazonian princess-warrior in the midst of getting ready to spear a tiger as the tiger is climbing up the side of her horse to attack her. Who survives? Who wins the battle? Does the tiger? Does the Amazon? It is up to the view to decide ‘what happens next.’) So, in my opinion, the ending was appropriate, considering the content of the book.

Overall, I think I liked the book. It did remind me of some other books I read, but those involved alternate dimensions and changing timelines whereas this book involved changes occurring while the person was time traveling. The ‘dark sexual undertones’ probably ruined it for me, though, as did a two-chapter long ‘dialogue’ on some guy’s theories that made absolutely zero sense. It was an interesting concept and clearly tough to write about, and the author did a nice job attempting it (overall). All in all, I am glad that I took a chance and read the book.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

And what were they all saying, so long ago, so hopelessly embedded in time? He knew her life through and through, had watched her in her bath, had seen her asleep, had spied on her fist kiss. She had nothing to talk about, nothing worth recording even on such a dead afternoon. What was it all about?

Brian Aldiss's Cryptozoic! is a 1960's SF novel about people who travel back in time mentally. They are able to witness but not hear history. The novel doesn't make a terrible amount of sense. It's full of potential plots that, by the concluding page, never gel. I enjoyed the ride, but it's a musty one that lacks the wit and creativity of contemporary science fiction. Its age shows and, frankly, this isn't a classic that warrants reading.

[Neil Thomson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cryptozoic as a novel has some interesting ideas but ultimately this one falls down.

The central concept is that humankind has discovered how to travel in time but only a select few have the ability to travel very close to their own 'real time'. The science and technology is controlled by a future fascist government that has been overtaken by a military coup and seeks to control the populace.

The central protagonist is one Edward Bush and he is beginning to feel the adverse effects of long term time travel. One element of this ability is that the image of that past time is somewhat overlaid or slightly visible in the background, which creates a sense of distortion. Bush begins to see an image of a Dark Woman in numerous places in time and he is lead to question whether she is real or whether she is a figment of his strung-out mindset.

Bush is soon made aware of the nature of the current state of the world in his own time, a time he hardly bothers residing in anymore. A movement against the status-quo appears and tries to enlist Bush's help, whilst at the same time he is pressed into service and indoctrinated as an assassin in order to take out rebel factions and maintain the current totalitarian regime's grip on power. One of the more impressive elements of Aldiss' future view is that he paints a 'present-world' in which resources have been exhausted and humanity has more or less lead itself to disaster. Not bad for 1967.

Before the novel is out one last truth is revealed, one that throws not only Bush's mind into chaos but the reader's concept of what and how time travel could be possible.

It all sounds rather fantastical but for me this feel well short of the promise. At times the travel's of Bush seem overwrought and without a real purpose. The explanation of Bush's environment when he travels back in time can be hard to visualise at times and the central plot is not as compelling as it might have been.

For me, 2 out of 5 stars...can't really recommend.

[Karol Urbanski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book, it was the final entrie in a deep dive in to timetheamed sci-fi from the late sixties, and sort of its crowning achievement in that it alters your perception of time and causality, furthermore it is a lovely companion book to the new Christopher Nolan movie Tenet, with similar premises about time and is much easyer to follow.
The other Books are: Philip K. Dick's Counterclock world (which was probably the least perfect one of the lot), Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhous Five (which is totaly amazing and also alters your perception of time and especially that of death, Stanislaw Lem's The Futorological Congress (which is less about time but more about a rush of dark comical insanity.

[Michael Rumney · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very disappointing. It starts with an interesting idea that with the aid of drugs an individual is able to mind travel through time. Inconsistent with so many plot holes. For example if you want to assassinate some one who has mind travelled why do you have to mind travel back in time to do it? Find them in your present, in this case 2093 and do it whilst they are in their drugged state.
I didn't care about any of the characters and I was sick of them for ever banging on about how time can flow in more than one direction. How you die and move back into the womb etc. The book does touch on the big crunch theory, however this isn't enough to save a boring book.

[Eric Stodolnik · Rating 5 out of 5]

To be honest I never really heard about this author, let alone this book. I just got it at half price simply because it was in the “SF Classics” series, and none of those I’ve read yet has disappointed me... and this one surely didn’t disappoint me at all. The whole concept is a mad trip... he definitely took a tab or 2 of some good Owsley Acid before writing this book. And it’s all the better for it. It was a pleasant surprise and quick and easy read since it was so enjoyable... maybe it could have used more Jung and less Freud in there, but at least it had its themes and stuck to them. Lol. Great book.

[Chris B · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slightly strange blend of 1984 and The Time Machine through a glass darkly. I'd not discovered this novel until now, but it reminds me of the time that we gave Aldiss a lift from the centre of Oxford to his home in Old Headington - towards the end, or perhaps the beginning, of his life

[Santiago · Rating 2 out of 5]

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