Emerald Eyes

The Continuing Time #1

by Daniel Keys Moran

A secret government project develops an army of 250 telepaths, but no one is prepared for their demands to live as free and equal human beings

Genres: Science Fiction, Cyberpunk, Fiction, Fantasy, Ebooks, Science Fiction Fantasy, Speculative Fiction

243 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published June 1, 1988

Reviews

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. The narrative takes several unexpected turns, often dark and violent, just when you think the story arc is starting to settle in a particular direction. The same goes for genres. There are elements here of time travel, genetic engineering, ESP and cyberpunk that coalesce in unexpected ways that make it difficult to pigeonhole the story as primarily about any one of these. Cyberpunk elements aside (which I found the most compelling and original), it has the feel of a 50's era novel from the likes of Sturgeon or Heinlein, focusing on a group of young ESP'ers being exploited at the hands of government and persecuted and feared by the population. Definitely recommended to cyberpunk fans in particular.

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grade A cyberpunk from Moran, and the first book of the Continuing Time series. Emerald Eyes not only tells a compelling story, Moran decided to forego 'standard' novel format in lieu of thematically linked snippets that loosely fall into chapters. I love experimental prose as long as I can follow it!

Continuing Time fits as time travel makes its appearance here in oblique ways from the very beginning. Around 2015 (this was first published in 1988), the UN, using orbital platforms, succeeded in uniting Earth under its leadership. Unfortunately, this involved nuking Japan once again, along with the USSR and USA (although tactical nukes in the two latter cases were used). The US was the last state to fold and it was bloody to say the least.

In any case, after the war, the UN started a series of gene experiments, seemingly looking for super soldiers. One set of experiments produced jaguar/human hybrids and another telepaths, which are the focus of this tale. Since the telepaths were created, they were not given human rights and basically utilized by the UN 'peaceforcers' as intelligence agents from the get go. While we get the back story in fits and starts, the main story takes place just after an amendment was passed that did indeed give the telepaths (and other gene experiments) legal status as humans. The UN is pissed, but the telepaths are pleased and immediately start contracts in the private sector. Now, the 'gift' the telepaths have goes way beyond telepathy but Moran only teases us here in this first installment about their abilities. There are only a few hundred telepaths and most of them are still children.

Moran manages to keep several plates in the air here regarding story arcs and he did so very adroitly. On the one hand, we have a political conflict between the heads of the UN versus the telepaths, involving all kinds of lawsuits and such. On another hand, we have someone doing some travelling in the past to aid and assist the telepaths at very odd and important times (like, for example, helping ensure the first successful telepath embryo) and Moran hints that some future conflict is being waged in the 'now'. We also have a struggle going on between the 'outer planets' and Earth and lots of tension in the US about the UN 'occupation' Finally, Moran tosses in hackers and the 'data net' along with some AIs.

All in all, quite a story for such a short book. This one took some getting into given the unorthodox narrative style and the immersion into a near future world without much guidance (e.g., no big infodumps). Yet, it manages to work quite well for all that and the story really drew me in big time. I was/am not a huge cyberpunk fan, but when it is done well, it rocks! Also, while obviously dated in some aspects (the UN ruling the world in 2014 for example), this still feels fresh; perhaps because Moran did not obsess with the computer technology. Fun stuff and looking forward to more of Moran's work!! 4 cyberstars!!

[spikeINflorida · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing read! Where this story may lack character development it makes up for with an amazing mix of telepathy, time travel, cyborgs, cyber space (cyberpunk!), high tech, dystopia, and nuclear holocaust. Movie scenes invoked included The Matrix, The Fifth Element, Harry Potter, James Bond, and Terminator. I heard echoes of Philip K Dick, Robert Silverberg, Dan Simmons, Joe Haldeman, and LE Modesitt Jr. The book contains the Internet, tablets, and cell phones 10 to 15 years before their arrival. Shit there's even badass flying cars! Strongly recommend this book to all SF fans. Can't wait to read book 2 The Long Run.

[Ric · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is decidedly geek SF, requiring a warning sticker for "high geek coefficient". For one, the story jumps around in small episodes of as little as two paragraphs long among multiple POVs. Like watching a stop motion vid with the parallel story lines interspersed. Truly dyslexia inducing. For another, it deals with some of the most difficult SF topics to depict in written form --- telepaths, time travel, artificial intelligence --- all in one volume. Add to this a large cast of characters and we have the formula for a challenging read.

What's going for this book? Snazzy action sequences. An epic battle that reads like the script for an X-men movie. Cool gosh-wow tech toys sprinkled throughout. Considering this was written in the 80s, it does not feel dated at all. In particular, the cyber aspects read remarkably like these were written recently. The author states in a postscript that "the first published description of internet addiction occurs in this novel." Quite a feat. I'm certainly glad I came across this book.

I had real difficulty with the author's style for the first half of the book, then relaxed into a comfortable reading progress once the jumping around finally settled down. So maybe I'm not that much of a geek; i.e., I cannot read multiple storylines shuffled together like a deck of cards. On the other hand, I did finish the book.

The book is available online at this site: Immunity, ostensibly with the author's permission.

The titular Emerald Eyes refers to the optics of the first "genegineered" telepath, Carl Castanaveras. The book opens as the small army of man-made telepaths achieve their freedom from their military/governmental masters. It closes with a glimpse of the lives of the later generation of natural-born telepaths. Along the way, the author brings in time travelers, cyber life, cyborgs, and more geek candy. I would have been happy if the book ended with the battle of the telepaths and the enhanced Peacekeepers, but the book does one more interesting step with the story of the ultimate thief. This latter is basically a hook for the next book of the series.

I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series and more from this author.

[Liviu · Rating 5 out of 5]

awesome classic

[Jesse Fennig · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is complex, challenging, and occasionally hard to follow. I didn't figure out what was actually going on until my second read-through of the series. What you have to understand is that, despite the criminally inaccurate portrayal by the publisher, this isn't pulp SF. It's a mature example of the genre, an intricate and well-thought-out story which asks complex questions about the nature of humanity, where you draw the line between human and not, and the place of the individual in the universe.

The cosmology is nigh incomprehensible, but feels as though you're grasping at the edge of something when you begin to understand the way the characters refer to time and to reality. To me, this adds an element of verisimilitude and certainly a touch of the mystical.

Don't expect hard SF going into this - the views of the internet and communication are dated, and a sense of mysticism and magic pervades throughout the series.

As an entry into a complicated world, Moran could have done a lot worse - I read other reviews which referred to this book being thrown into the deep end, but by the time you read the other three books in the series, you'll discover that he started as gently as he could, given the constraints of the material.

[Jim S. · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's very unusual for me to abandon a book a third of a way through, but I just couldn't get into Emerald Eyes. A friend recommended it because it was an old favorite of his, but it's one of those stories that just hasn't aged well.

It opens with what seems like an irreconcilable time-travel paradox, and goes from there to a vision of a near future world where the U.N. has conquered the USA and flying cars abound. This futuristic world probably seemed fascinatingly plausible 30 years ago, but now seems merely unrealistic.

That wouldn't be a problem if there were good character development. But that happens to be Moran's weakest point. I actually had a hard time keeping the characters straight, since there was nothing to distinguish them. Watching these two-dimensional cutouts play out a slow-moving plot designed to support a four-book series was not at all entertaining.

I likely would have enjoyed this book had I read it upon publication, as I really enjoy a compelling and creative view of the future. But there's a reason why this book is now out of print.

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Set in the near-ish future. This book starts out as a story about a race of telepaths and their conflict with a horribly dysfunctional government. Then it transitions rather abruptly to a story about a thief, a few years later.

Review of the telepath story: The author was so excited by his future-history that he didn't do much in the way of character, and the plot was uniformly grim.

Review of the thief story: Also pretty grim, but mercifully short.

[Ryan McCormack · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has been sitting in my queue for quite some time, but I had held off reading it until I was prepared for another four-book commitment (this being the first of the Continuing Time series). I also held off partly because I had heard from a few people that this was a "difficult" book, but a necessary entry point into the series.

I would have to say I agree with what I was told: Emerald Eyes is a fascinating, frustrating, entertaining and occasionally confusing book that I enjoyed, with reservation (hence the three stars).

Keys-Moran does what some authors of world-building series do: he throws you into the deep end to see if you can swim, and writes the story the way he wants. Multiple stories and voices are interlaced, in often hallucinatory fashion, and the reader is left wondering just what the hell is going on at several points. Iain Banks was guilty of this with several of his sci-fi novels (e.g., Feersum Endjinn or Inversions), though the comparison ends there; I don't have an obvious reference point for this novel, which is good. Keys-Moran has a lot of interesting ideas, and hints at a far grander vision that will presumably be laid out in subsequent works.

The thing I found most challenging about the book was its narrative structure. It's almost three books in one, which is not entirely a good thing; each of these "novellas" had different main characters, a different pace, and varying tone. I found this especially problematic when it came to the ending, which fell flat for me. Despite these flaws, I enjoyed Keys-Moran's world-building and central characters....I'm reading the second novel in this series now, so we'll see how it pans out.

[Lloyd Earickson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oftentimes it seems that science fiction can be one of two things, but not both.  It can have compelling story and character without as much technical rigor, detail, and imagination, or it can have fascinating, rigorous technical detail without interesting characters or a significant, engaging plot.  Emerald Eyes is a rare science fiction novel that manages to provide a high-stakes, enormously intricate plot, complex characters, and a breadth of realistically speculative technologies and concepts that is truly remarkable.  The closest comparison I can think of that combines rigorous science fiction elements with high-stakes plot and significant character development is probably Orson Scott Card’s Ender series (to include the Shadow books).

Moran manages to evoke such a richly imagined science fiction setting by an expositional method that I prefer but which some find unapproachable – the sink or swim method.  There’s almost no real explanation of anything, no context provided; instead, the reader is thrown into the world and the story as if they were contemporaneous with the characters, and expected to pick up the salient details as they go.  Nor does Moran limit himself to just a handful of speculative elements.  Emerald Eyes is compelling in part because it examines everything.  Where most science fiction will pick one concept to explore in detail, Emerald Eyes features rigorous, scientific speculation in fields ranging from genetic engineering, to materials science, to network communications, to photonics, to transportation, to space travel, to infrastructure and civic planning, to computer technology and programming…and all of this is made even more remarkable when you consider when the book was written.

You might never guess, from the contents, that the book was written in the 80s.  Aside from the fact that Moran clearly overestimated our pace of technological progress, the technology, society, and concepts featured and explored manage to feel nearly as speculative now as they must have then.  Read today, you will note some elements that have come to fruition since the book’s publication are depicted with startling accuracy, like a character who becomes addicted to the book’s version of the internet (and yes, this book has a version of the internet when the internet was barely past the stage of being a highly classified military experiment), or a “digital assistant”-like tool to manage homes.  Other elements remain as futuristic as ever, like a wall created from a single molecule, commonplace fusion energy generation, widespread asteroid mining, and orbital colonies in geosynchronous orbit.

It's the political changes that seem the most far-fetched, but one gets the impression that they would have seemed equally far-fetched at the time of publication, at least in the details – France becoming the main power in a UN that has brought the whole world under its auspices by force?  The details, though, aren’t that important.  It doesn’t really matter whether it’s the French, the Spanish, or the Madagascarians, so long as the main elements remain constant: the world forced into unification through a massive war that happened about a generation past.  That sets the stage for the events in the story and the machinations that will take place, and the stimuli that will incite certain key decisions.

Like, for instance, the decision to create genetically engineered telepaths and leopard people to serve as unpaid super soldiers, who of course no one could have predicted would eventually demand rights and freedoms like everyone else.  Those elements of the plot are rather pat, and overtrodden in other treatments; Emerald Eyes manages to keep that core concept from reading stale by introducing far more nuance and complexity to them than they usually receive.  The genetically engineering people seeking their rights are not depicted merely as an exploited, vulnerable underclass.  Instead, they are dynamic, varied, and don’t always behave like the “good guys.”  In fact, they behave quite humanly, which is a very different matter from behaving humanely.

It would not be wrong to say that there aren’t a lot of new elements in this book, especially reading it today where it seems like every new science fiction novel is about some dystopian society with artificial intelligence running amok and some scientifically derived variant of humanity in need of rights.  Instead, what makes Emerald Eyes strong and what kept me engaged throughout is the combination of so many disparate elements that make for a truly immersive science fiction worldbuilding experience, and the terse, almost erratic writing style.  It takes some adjustment, but Moran’s style of extremely short, rarely repeating viewpoints worked for me.  I don’t know that it would work so well in a fantasy novel, but for the story Emerald Eyes seeks to tell it seems perfectly suited – I can’t imagine the story reading as well were it structed more traditionally.

Hard science fiction has always been niche, especially the kind that practically has an entire scientific research paper appended at the end, and there are plenty of people who will say that it doesn’t have enough plot, or character, to be considered “good writing.”  That doesn’t mean that science fiction must become some other genre with science fiction elements, though, and Emerald Eyes represents how to do that.  It is hard science fiction, but with a tense, tight, intricate plot, and complex characters.  Yes, it’s a steep learning curve, but it is worth the effort.  My only real complaint is that there’s a sequel that now I must decide if I’m going to read at some point.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Emerald Eyes" by Daniel Keyes Moran, is the first book of his Continuing Time Series. I originally read this book when I was in Dallas, sometime during 1988-1990. Funny thing is...I don't remember enjoying it as much the first time I read it. Sure, I liked it well enough to read the two sequels ("The Long Run" and "The Last Dancer") but this time I mainly re-read it because I wanted to re-read book 2..."The Long Run"...a book I remember as being non-stop action. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself unable to switch books while I was reading "Emerald Eyes" (I normally bounced back and forth between 2-3 books). In fact, it only took me a week and a half to finish it (pretty darn fast for me, as my average is finishing 1 book per month). If you like early cyberpunk with telepathy/thievery, give the first two books of this series a shot. Avoid "The Last Dancer" as it sucks IMHO. I remember being mightily disappointed in that book...

EE and LR can be hard to find in paperback, so I was pleased to find them at the fsand.com in EBook format.

***Update***
Book 4 is now out! The title is "The A.I. War, Book One: The Big Boost". Once I re-read "The Long Run" I may have to re-read "The Last Dancer" so that I can properly enjoy this brand new addition to the series. :(

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book tells the tale of the Castanaveras telepaths. They were created by a unified world government that was dipping its toes in genetic engineering in order to create super soldiers. What they got was not what they bargained for.

The book is notable for being an early example of the cyberpunk genre with all of its attendant dystopic subtexts, while still envisioning a future world that was not based upon Asian culture, but Western. It is centered firmly in the United States and many of its threads deal with nationalism and how democracies can sometimes so simply become dictatorships, both large and small.

This is a book that I return to every few years to read again to inspire myself, to celebrate all of its tragic heroes and to remember that the world is not so dark a place.

[Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend loaned me this many, many years ago and I've had a hankering to reread it (and the following volumes) but it and the others are out of print and very hard to find. I recently discovered that Moran has made a number of his books, including this one, available as editions on his blog. I downloaded them immediately and enjoyed my reread of what is actually quite a bleak book about the genetic engineering of a line of telepaths and what happens to them.

[Will Wesson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series is (or was) pretty impossible to find, and it's wild stuff. I remember reading that the author plotted out the whole series in a spiral notebook in his teens and then went on to actually write it, which seems like a minor miracle to me, and it's good stuff, which seems like a major one.

[Rosalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The formatting lacked much needed breaks. Bouncing around to different people and places without warning gave me whiplash. The story was interesting and held my attention but the ending was lacking.

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

Stupendously bad writing. I first noticed at, "WITH A SHOWER of gamma rays I came into existence at the fast end of time." What is the fast end of time? I wrote this off as world building.

Then:
"As he grew older, what would be known, more than a thousand years later, as the Gift of the House of November, grew also."
As I read the book, what would be known, in five minutes, as the Worst Book of the Summer, worsened.

"THERE WERE TIMES when Shana de Nostri did not mind the fact that she was not human, but now was not one of those times."
There were times, when Mike did not mind reading poor writing, but now was not one of those times.

I gave up at:
"Shana was nude except for her fur. Her nipples were clearly visible, and a human who stared – and some had, though not more than once – could have made out the outline of her genitalia through her fur."

Given the high ratings, I bet there's some cool ideas and plots in there, but Mr. Moran needs to work with a prose stylist, aka a ghostwriter.

[Greg O'Byrne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't believe how good this book was. I read this years and years ago but it really has aged so great, the description of a form of the Internet before the internet is really interesting and I think this is one of the three best classic cyberpunk books ever written (With Snowcrash and Neuromancer) and this one has sooooooo much more.

I re-read it because Daniel Keys Moran finally published book 4 of the series, "The AI War". FINALLY after like 20 years and I am re-reading the first three books to get into the fourth.

Book 2, "The Long Run" is one of my favorite books of all time.

Now looking back, after reading a lot more books, for those of you who are fans of The Lies of Locke Lamora you're gonna love Trent the Uncatchable. He is basically Locke, but in a Science Fiction story, even with a rag-tag posse, even with a best friend, even with mysterious girlfriend.

[Jack Fahy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this one more but for some reason it just didnt fully hit. The world, tech, and telepaths as a concept were all very cool, Moran has some unique ideas to add to the cyberpunk genre. The writing just kinda takes it all down a notch. Characters are not super distinguishable, nor particularly likable. Carl and the telepaths constantly do things that leave you scratching your head. It was a bit difficult to read at times, not just the constantly switching POVs (which is actually one of the more interesting things he does) but because Moran cooks up some truly ass sentences. “There were times when Shana de Nostri did not mind the fact that she was not human. Now was not one of those times.” Did he even try?? He also has a tendency to ABUSE commas, you’ll feel like you’re stroking out mid-sentence.
The ending was actually pretty good and unexpected, so I am somewhat interested in continuing the series, if not just to see if Moran improves as a writer.
3.25 stars

[Morro3]

Author created one of the most believable, textured, immersive, and yet fantastic science fiction worlds I have ever encountered in print. His stories, "The Tales of the Continuing Time", are a saga that stretches from 64,000 BC into our distant future covering such diverse topics as the origins of the Human Race, the nature of Artificial Intelligence, Telepathy, Time Travel, the ultimate fate of the Internet, Eugenics, Genetic Engineering, the way that Technology as a whole evolves, as well as philosophical issues such as Environmentalism, the role of Violence in the life of a moral man, the value Humor, the sustainability of ideas such as independent-nations vs world-government, and the limits of Love.

Carl castanaveras from Daniel keys Moran's 'emerald eyes'. Carl has a bit of a rage problem, but he's awesome.

[John Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first glance this book should be a confused mess.
Jumping between NOW the late 21st century in which a brutal totalitarian UN has conquered the United States and the rest of the world in the name of world peace.
AND the far, far, far fucking future. Where humanity was absorbed by an alien culture so different than our own that humans are no longer properly human.
But it is in fact fuck off brilliant.
You instantly fall in love with genetically engineered telepath slaves and immediately hate the UN General who will have peace at any cost. No matter who he has to kill.
Epically gripping space opera written by an overlooked Master.

[Fiona Kirkpatrick · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gave up on this. A secret government project to engineer humans that are genetically crossed with leopards + can read minds comes a cropper when the humanoids wish to live as humans + not as international military machines. Which would be laudable, except that NO-ONE in the ENTIRE book, human or not, has any sort of character - it's like reading a move by move rendition of a game of draughts. Add in the irritating jump-cut constant POV changes + the portentous prose + truly I wanted to fling this across the room.

[mads · Rating 4 out of 5]

one of my dad’s fav books! i actually started it over bc i didn’t remember anything and it was pretty good. lots of good one-liners both funny and prose-y and also dkm predicted the ring doorbell! (not really there is just an ai called ring)

i still think they should’ve let denice kill carson but also carl definitely deserved to do it,,, still think he should’ve mentioned shauna though? at least After he killed him but ig there’s smth to be said for not monologuing and just shooting the guy so i’ll let it slide. carl castanaveras you will always be famous and problematic

[William Leight · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just didn't find this to be particularly interesting. None of the characters really connected, the hints of a larger struggle than the one depicted here failed to intrigue, and Moran doesn't really have any new takes on the whole telepaths (or whatever)-must-face-a-hostile-population thing. Also, it was hard to take the future timeline, in which a French-dominated UN conquers the US, all that seriously.

[Michael Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

First book in the continuing time. This story didn't grab me, and I re-read simply because all my favourite characters are introduced in this book (and there's hints to the future of the continuing time that still haven't yet played out in future books).

It's entirely possible that you could skip this book, and start the series straight from Long Run. If you do, bet you come back to this book :-) But starting at Long Run is probably the better idea.

[Brent Winslow · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the funnest sci fi novels I've read in years. Emerald Eyes tells a believable story of the future of genetic engineering, its impact on war, and a logical extension of current profit first politics. Written in 1988, Moran seemed prescient in his descriptions of the internet, mobile devices and AI.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

In anticipation of reading his newest book (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...) I decided to start at the beginning. As other reviews noted, there is a lot going on in this book and I’m interested to see where it all goes. It holds up well for a SF book written before the Internet existed for most people. Recommend. On the The Long Run next.

[Kurt Werle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Made it 1/3 of the way through. Too many characters. Too much switching between them. Still no idea where things are going - if anywhere. And way too much future prediction from 1987 about the 2020-2040's that is painfully wrong. That last part I'm willing to cut a bunch of slack - because who knew - but the rest of the stuff is making me put this down.

[Kathryn Baron · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's been years, but I can't still remember how frustrating it was not to find the sequel. We're so spoiled now - you can hunt on the internet in the comfort of your home rather than digging through the piles of any used bookstore you could get to.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of my husband's favorite book. I found it interesting but the story jumped around a lot and thre wasn't a lot of character building.

[Cassandra MacKnight · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a good start to the series. Wonder why he hasn't published more after the fourth book?