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Spider Webb #2
Paradox Resolution
Spider Webb fixes time machines for a living, and hates it. The time machine biz has changed: machines are portable, less expensive and even disposable. But one machine, an illegal, radically overclocked, hotrod built by Spider's boss, has been stolen and Spider is the only Time Machine repair man who might be able to find it before the end of time itself. A tale that spans different time zones of the 21st century and beyond.
- GenresScience Fiction
253 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2012
9 people are currently reading
39 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 11, 2018
Mystery wrapped in an enigma, twisted through a time loop paradox.
This story (or series of stories really) can be read alone, but I'm glad I read the first Spider Webb novel before it. Reading this one was like reading the first from several completely different perspectives, and making for a richer, grittier universe.
More Dickhead, more times, more romance, and maybe monsters, but stick with it right to the last page if you want to keep up.
This story (or series of stories really) can be read alone, but I'm glad I read the first Spider Webb novel before it. Reading this one was like reading the first from several completely different perspectives, and making for a richer, grittier universe.
More Dickhead, more times, more romance, and maybe monsters, but stick with it right to the last page if you want to keep up.
February 1, 2021
This is the sequel to Time Machines Repaired While You Wait. I liked both of them. The treatment of time travel was very casual (not causal). It's actually like everyone has a time machine in the garage. Seemed a bit slow at times but overall a good read.
December 4, 2017
Loved it!
Will definitely be looking for more material from this author. He does an amazing job of navigating the timelines that he creates.
Will definitely be looking for more material from this author. He does an amazing job of navigating the timelines that he creates.
February 5, 2020
Loved it!
I'm hoping there is a third Spider Webb book. This one is good. The very worst thing about it is that the chapters are long, sometimes very long.
I'm hoping there is a third Spider Webb book. This one is good. The very worst thing about it is that the chapters are long, sometimes very long.
July 29, 2020
I love this character! Will definitely keep reading more Spider stories!
July 28, 2013
Paraxdox Resolution is K.A Bedfords eagerly awaited sequel to his 2008 Aurealis winning novel Time Machines Repaired While U Wait. The novel continues the adventures of time machine repairer Spider Webb in a near future where time machines are the new luxury car.
Spider is an ex-policeman, a man who quit the force after blowing the whistle on police corruption. He lives in a cheap motel while his wife Molly waits for him to sign divorce papers. He still hopes they will get back together, while she continues to use him as a cheap handyman.
Spider’s mundane existence changes one day when he opens the fridge at work and discovers a head. A head that asks to be saved. Spider is then reunited with a loyal police colleague, Iris, as they investigate the murder.
Life becomes more complicated for Spider when his new boss asks him to investigate the disappearance of his young son and friend in the employer’s supped-up time machine. And thus an adventure begins that takes Spider millions of years into the future.
Like the previous novel, readers will be struck by the Australian-ness of Paradox Resolutions. Anyone who was not aware of the Australian vernacular before reading the novel will be afterwards. This is such a change from the pseudo American English that seems to be the universal language of science fiction.
The novel is written with underlying amusement as its reluctant hero fails to see the truth behind many of his relationships. The story flows between action sequences and a physically and emotionally bruised Spider trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
Paradox Resolutions is for readers who like time-travel novels where a character’s ethics and motives change with each future version of themselves. The sequel is every bit as enjoyable as the original.
Spider is an ex-policeman, a man who quit the force after blowing the whistle on police corruption. He lives in a cheap motel while his wife Molly waits for him to sign divorce papers. He still hopes they will get back together, while she continues to use him as a cheap handyman.
Spider’s mundane existence changes one day when he opens the fridge at work and discovers a head. A head that asks to be saved. Spider is then reunited with a loyal police colleague, Iris, as they investigate the murder.
Life becomes more complicated for Spider when his new boss asks him to investigate the disappearance of his young son and friend in the employer’s supped-up time machine. And thus an adventure begins that takes Spider millions of years into the future.
Like the previous novel, readers will be struck by the Australian-ness of Paradox Resolutions. Anyone who was not aware of the Australian vernacular before reading the novel will be afterwards. This is such a change from the pseudo American English that seems to be the universal language of science fiction.
The novel is written with underlying amusement as its reluctant hero fails to see the truth behind many of his relationships. The story flows between action sequences and a physically and emotionally bruised Spider trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
Paradox Resolutions is for readers who like time-travel novels where a character’s ethics and motives change with each future version of themselves. The sequel is every bit as enjoyable as the original.
August 14, 2012
This is the second novel about Aloysius "Spider" Webb, your average individual just trying to get through the day. Of course, it is not that easy.
A former member of the Western Australia Police, Webb was forced out because he became a whistleblower. In a world where time machines are cheap and portable, Webb is eking out a living as a time machine repairman. Most of his business is caused by people who are too impatient, or too stupid, to read the directions.
Things get weird when, one day, in the breakroom refrigerator, Webb finds the severed head of his much-disliked ex-boss, Dickhead McMahon. Iris Street, the local Police Inspector who deals with time travel matters, and who hates time travel as much as Webb, is called in. Footage from the surveillance camera shows no sign of any intruders.
Meantime, Mr. Patel, Webb's new boss, has a huge problem. His young son, Vijay, and Phoebe, a neighbor's child, have taken Mr. Patel's very tricked-out, and very illegal time machine, and disappeared. There is no time machine equivalent of a GPS system, so they could have gone to the distant past or future. Patel asks for Webb's help in finding them.
Webb hears of a concentration camp for time travellers in the far future. Using Patel's other time machine, a working, exact copy of the machine used in the 1960 film, Webb and Street take a trip to the far future. Do they find Vijay and Phoebe? So they stop the destruction of the universe? Do they survive?
This is a fine piece of writing from start to finish. It does a really good job exploring the societal impact of a huge technology like personal time travel. Things might get a little convoluted toward the end, but this is still highly recommended.
A former member of the Western Australia Police, Webb was forced out because he became a whistleblower. In a world where time machines are cheap and portable, Webb is eking out a living as a time machine repairman. Most of his business is caused by people who are too impatient, or too stupid, to read the directions.
Things get weird when, one day, in the breakroom refrigerator, Webb finds the severed head of his much-disliked ex-boss, Dickhead McMahon. Iris Street, the local Police Inspector who deals with time travel matters, and who hates time travel as much as Webb, is called in. Footage from the surveillance camera shows no sign of any intruders.
Meantime, Mr. Patel, Webb's new boss, has a huge problem. His young son, Vijay, and Phoebe, a neighbor's child, have taken Mr. Patel's very tricked-out, and very illegal time machine, and disappeared. There is no time machine equivalent of a GPS system, so they could have gone to the distant past or future. Patel asks for Webb's help in finding them.
Webb hears of a concentration camp for time travellers in the far future. Using Patel's other time machine, a working, exact copy of the machine used in the 1960 film, Webb and Street take a trip to the far future. Do they find Vijay and Phoebe? So they stop the destruction of the universe? Do they survive?
This is a fine piece of writing from start to finish. It does a really good job exploring the societal impact of a huge technology like personal time travel. Things might get a little convoluted toward the end, but this is still highly recommended.
March 26, 2014
A Review of the Audiobook
Originally published in 2012.
Audiobook version published in 2013 by Post Hypnotic Press
Read by Cameron MacDonald
Duration: 9 hours, 45 minutes.
Time travel science fiction can be tricky. Do you play it straight and have time traveler affecting the time line like Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis? Or, do you play fast and loose with time travel and timelines like the Dr. Who series does?
Personally, I like the stricter interpretation of time travel. I think the loose interpretation is like Robert Frost's famed comparison of free verse poetry to rhyming/metered poetry to "playing tennis without a net." I guess it comes from to many years of playing Role Playing Games as a kid - I tend to put myself in complicated plots and think about how I would get out. Unfortunately (for me at least), this book plays by a set of fast, loose and rather arbitrary rules about time travel and leaves its own plot open to its own internal inconsistencies - the entire story could have been undone with judicious use of any of the thousands of time machines that exist in this story at any point in almost any of the main characters' lives.
I have not read the first book in this series but I think that Bedford does a very good of catching the reader up to the events that transpired in the first book. I was drawn to the book because of the back of the book description of Spider Webb - a down on his luck ex-cop who fixes time machines at an Australian franchise location of the Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait chain. Spider is...
Read more at: http://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/2014/...
Originally published in 2012.
Audiobook version published in 2013 by Post Hypnotic Press
Read by Cameron MacDonald
Duration: 9 hours, 45 minutes.
Time travel science fiction can be tricky. Do you play it straight and have time traveler affecting the time line like Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis? Or, do you play fast and loose with time travel and timelines like the Dr. Who series does?
Personally, I like the stricter interpretation of time travel. I think the loose interpretation is like Robert Frost's famed comparison of free verse poetry to rhyming/metered poetry to "playing tennis without a net." I guess it comes from to many years of playing Role Playing Games as a kid - I tend to put myself in complicated plots and think about how I would get out. Unfortunately (for me at least), this book plays by a set of fast, loose and rather arbitrary rules about time travel and leaves its own plot open to its own internal inconsistencies - the entire story could have been undone with judicious use of any of the thousands of time machines that exist in this story at any point in almost any of the main characters' lives.
I have not read the first book in this series but I think that Bedford does a very good of catching the reader up to the events that transpired in the first book. I was drawn to the book because of the back of the book description of Spider Webb - a down on his luck ex-cop who fixes time machines at an Australian franchise location of the Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait chain. Spider is...
Read more at: http://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/2014/...
September 27, 2012
This is a another story featuring Spider Webb from Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait. I think you need to have read that to understand this book, but even then its confusing. I have read it and I stuggled at times to keep it all straight, that's the trouble with time trvel stories, keeping all the tenses straight.
The plot itself is nothing special, nothing that made me go wow, but nothing too bad. The thing I didn't like was the length of some of the paragraphs which were longer than some short stories I've read. This gave the impression of a rather slow story.
Overall it was okay, nothing outstaanding, but nothing I too bad.
The plot itself is nothing special, nothing that made me go wow, but nothing too bad. The thing I didn't like was the length of some of the paragraphs which were longer than some short stories I've read. This gave the impression of a rather slow story.
Overall it was okay, nothing outstaanding, but nothing I too bad.
October 16, 2012
Paradox Resolution. The followup novel to Time Machines Repaired
While-U-Wait is a very good continuation for the misadventures of our main character Spider. Once again Bedford casts his plot nets far and wide amidst the mystery elements but I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. The character interactions in this book are even better than in the first one and the humor is absolutely great!
Yes the writing tends to be long winded and there's a plethora of commas to go along with those long sentences but if you can adapt yourself to the writing style you must not miss out on this series of books.
While-U-Wait is a very good continuation for the misadventures of our main character Spider. Once again Bedford casts his plot nets far and wide amidst the mystery elements but I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. The character interactions in this book are even better than in the first one and the humor is absolutely great!
Yes the writing tends to be long winded and there's a plethora of commas to go along with those long sentences but if you can adapt yourself to the writing style you must not miss out on this series of books.
December 6, 2016
A fan of Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait and its leading man Spider Webb it was a treat for me to revisit his world via the Paradox Resolution. But not such a walk in the park for Spider, who as usual cannot but help get involved, do it tough... but live to fight another day... then and now. I hope there are more in the works in this series.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews