The Slough of Despond

The Reality War #1

by Tim C. Taylor

In 1992, Radlan Saravanan runs a small business out of a Tudor cottage in the sleepy English village of Elstow. But Radlan was born in 2951, and when he falls in love with a local girl, he has to choose between running from his own people and condemning his lover to die.

He makes the wrong choice.

Travelling into the past, falling in love... it turns out he was meant to do these things. He's been manipulated all along, but now he's slipped his handlers, and Time is no longer following the right script. Other versions of history vie for dominance, and our reality is losing.

In 1992, Radlan Saravanan sparked The Reality War.

The Reality War is a two-novel time travel adventure series loosely inspired by The Pilgrim's Progress. It is both an action-adventure series, and a spiritual journey made by two people, mirror images of each other from rival realities.

Genres: Science Fiction

318 pages, Paperback

First published February 8, 2012

About the author

JOIN THE LEGION! The Human Legion has sold over 200,000 copies, but is still recruiting for new readers. Visit humanlegion.com today and join the Legion for exclusive book downloads to start your journey into the worlds of the Human Legion, The Four Horsemen Universe, Revenge Squad and Sleeping Legion. Or you can sign up directly here.

Tim C. Taylor lives with his family in an ancient village in England. When he was an impressionable boy, between 1977 and 1978, he encountered several mind-altering substances: 2000AD, Star Wars, Blake's 7, and Dungeons & Dragons. Consequently, he now writes science fiction novels for a living.

Reviews

[Lesley McCullough · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great read, I have just finished Book 1 and I will be checking daily to see if Book 2 has been released. An engrossing tale with good solid believable characters, the choices they make (or do they) and subsequent consequences (or realities). The concept of time-travel, paradox and alternate reality has always been mind-blowing and now a mind-blowing novel to live up to it. Hollywood check this out!

I received this novel free in return for an honest review and I have no hesitation in awarding this a well-deserved 5 stars. If you like Sci fi/time travel you will love this.

[Volpot · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got through 50% of this book before I simply got too bored to continue.

The basic story is that in the distant future, there is a civil war going on and the world government (presumably good guys) have used a time machine to hide some witnesses for trials against the (presumably) bad guys in the year 1992. The protagonist is the station keeper from the future who lives in 1992 with the job of looking after these witnesses.

Now that fairly simple setup got me interested, but after that the book, for me, descended into a muddled and boring mess. How so?

-- The political situation in the future is never really explained. Just exactly who are the bad guys and why do they act as they do? That's a fairly basic flaw, because without an understanding of just what is going on in the future, how exactly are we to understand the behavior of all of the characters in the book?
-- We get some kind of mumbo jumbo socialist philosophy that seems to guide everyone's actions as the author keeps stressing, but everyone seems willing to abandon that same philosophy in their interpersonal relations. Again, we really don't get a picture of what is going on outside the protagonist's own thoughts.
-- This philosophy, espoused by the characters from the future and also seemingly held in favor by the author, was forced on humanity by space aliens who destroyed one city on each continent as well as the entire Australian continent (sorry, mates) as a process for allowing humanity to join their galactic nirvana. As is often the case, the purveyors of social harmony are willing to sacrifice millions to achieve their utopia. Sorry Mr. Taylor, maybe the ends justify the means in your book, but not mine.
-- But the real problem is that after 50% of the book, nothing at all had really happened. At least not externally. What we had a great deal of is page after page of the protagonist's angst about his life and equally protracted pages of mental introspection by the other characters. Now that I think of it, you could probably fit all of the actual dialogue from the 50% of the book I read into about 10 pages. The rest of the book consists of mental exposition...though oddly enough we still know almost nothing about the characters after halfway through the book.

Though not enough so to get me to read the last half, the book was exciting in one respect: the pages of soft porn. No, just kidding. About the exciting part, not the soft porn part.

The sex scenes were gratuitous in my opinion, lasting longer than required to convey the emotional attachment the protagonist had with the contemporary female in the story and serving in my opinion as nothing but titillation.

Bottom line, if you like page after page of male angst by the main character and page after page of mental exposition by everyone else, little to no action of any type, little to no character development, and a completely muddled storyline, all while being fed a socialist philosophy that only a clueless college radical would like, then this book is for you. Not for me, though.

Now with that review, why two stars and not one? Well, one of the soft porn scenes were a little hot...

[Armand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tim Taylor's Reality War #1- the Slough of Despond is a tightly scripted puzzler of a novel that follows the lives of two "men" who are destined to change not just history, but fundamental reality. The two "men" in question are Radlan Saravanan, a man from our future, and Karypsic, a member of a race of lizard-like people in a Saurian-reality that is a shadow of our own. Both Radlan and Karypsic play key roles as their two realities become intertwined and jostle for supremacy.
But these two men's struggles are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, as players from far flung futures (the most prominent being the enigmatic joker and general wildcard named Senator Greyhart) show up to influence (and undermine) events.

Taylor does a great job of juggling the technical detail of a quantum fuzziness gone mad, temporal shifts, and a fractal, jigsaw plot line- weaving a smart, complelling storyline. Although I do have to admit that, on a couple of occasions, I found myself a bit sidetracked by some of the side-plots. It could have used a little tightening here and there.

This story also examines the human side of events as both Radlin and Karypsic struggle between love, and their duty to the future of their species. For Radlan in particular, this plays out in stark detail as it soon becomes apparent that he must choose between his love for the lovely Amanda Devonshire and the safety of humanity.

Be warned however that if you prefer heroic leading men , you may be in for a bit of a let down. Radian is a passive guy and duty prone. Karypsic is domineering, possessive, and smug. Both men lean more towards the anti-hero model. If you want to find true heroic presence in Reality War, you will need to look to Jill Smith (Radlan's take-no-BS daughter ) and Kalichee, Karypsic's wise wife. For me, this is where the real heart lays, and I hope there is more of those two characters in the sequel.

All in all, the Slough of Despond is a solid read that examines some complex and smart issues and I recommend it to fans of sci-fi and speculative fiction.

[Sarah-Jayne Briggs · Rating 3 out of 5]

(I received this book for free as part of the 'read...review...repeat' offer by Grey Hart Press).

(This review may contain spoilers).

I liked the look of this book. I do like science fiction stories and I know bits and pieces about the story of Pilgrim's Progress - not enough to recognise if there were any parallels, but enough to know what I was reading.

There were some parts of the book - quite a few, actually - that I found particularly confusing. I do wonder if that was intentional, though - things haven't been entirely solved by the end, even though what happened should have been enough to 'save' the reality.

I would have liked more explanation as to why Amanda was the focal point of the realities and exactly what she'd been infected with. Presumably, it wasn't an infection that could be passed on the same way a flu bug might be, but I wasn't satisfied about just how said infection could manipulate the realities.

The contrast between the humans and the lizard people were fairly interesting to read, even though the constant switching between different time frames was kind of confusing. There were so many different characters - and different versions of the same character - that I found it extremely confusing in places.

The idea of 'gifting' was quite an interesting one and so was the idea of being able to use telepathy. Who knows? Perhaps, some distance in the future, humans will be able to speak telepathically to one another.

There weren't any true 'villains' in the book and I liked that. Characters are more interesting when they have motivations outside of evil or good for the sake of it. I also found most of the characters very interesting - though the different POVs left me confused about the characters, since Jill especially didn't know who some of the people were and I was relying on her descriptions to figure them out.

I wasn't too keen on the ending, which is what made this book three stars instead of two. Still, I liked it well enough and I think I'll be interested in reading book two at some point.

[Melissa Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Reality War Book 1 is about the time travel Radlan Saravanan, and about how his life starts to intermingle with the people in the past he has been assigned to work in. His assignment is protecting inhabitants from the future in the witness protection program. Since the time he is working in is in the past and the assignment lasts for many years he begins to get involved with a woman What will happen if he gets really involved…will it change history? It is a time paradox; will it affect the past or the future? He decides that he can't be that important and goes for it…but what happens if the woman is important? I loved the complexities of this epic novel.
The book flips from different times and planets in space. One chapter you are in the future and on a different planet that is at war with earth. Then you back on earth in the past where you learn that the aliens are here unknown to earthlings. The book made me feel like a true time traveler and I loved it. The only complaint I have…which really isn't a complaint…was that the enemy is too likeable…but perhaps that is what the author is going for? Which side has the right to live?
The story is very smooth and moves along at a good clip. I enjoyed that the book is taking place in England (the author is from England) and how some of the phrases or words that he uses I haven't ever heard before…I feel that it makes the book more interesting.
You can't go wrong with this book and wait until you read Book 2, The Reality War Book 2: The City of Destruction. It just keeps getting better.

[Eric Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is mind bending and fun. It starts slowly and somewhat depressingly, with a man of the future marooned in a dead end job in the 1990s. We soon figure out that the hero (Radlan Smith) is considered a spineless loser by most of his contemporaries. Things begin to pick up when the hero begins to itch for a little excitement, a dangerous thing, since any misstep on his part could cause a ripple effect that could shatter all time and history as he knows it. What's a guy to do when a beautiful, sexy woman steps into his life? Even a loser might throw caution to the wind and take a chance.

One of the nice things about this story is that the hero is not a perfect, true blue sort, with an unerring moral compass--he is wracked with insecurities and self-doubt. Like all time travel novels, this one jumps around, but because it is clearly written, it is still easy to follow. It was a bit jarring when the enemy/alien race was introduced, but I just kept reading until the pieces began to fall into place.

This book is well written and copy edited, with very few typos and errors. I highly recommend it if you like sci-fi stories or romances. Now I've got to find and read "Pilgrim's Progress."

[David Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of you may recognize the “slough of despond” from the classic tale, “Pilgrim’s Progress.” The connection is just one way this time-travel, science fiction novel sets its self apart from the pack. I’m one of those sorts who loves history as well as science fiction. So Taylor’s use of Elstow Abbey as one of the time traveling stations scores points with me.

The main character, Radlan, has been stationed upstream of time (the 1970′s through 90′s) longer than anyone else in the history of the service created to protect the timeline. Possibly too long. Thus begins the tension in the story from page one.

A love interest from the past complicates his assignment to not only protect the timeline but also protect witnesses the future government places in the past for protection. Tension in the 1990′s, tension in the 2900′s. You get the idea. Well, before it’s all done time starts to go sideways and the result is a wild ride well worth reading.

Terse, tense and emotional, the Slough of Despond generates a cool balance between science, history and human relationship. Read it! Review it! Share it!

[Bob Atkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always preferred science fiction that is driven by ideas rather than by action and adventure. Too many SF stories are little more than tales of vampires, or cowboys, or villains transplanted into outer space. Original, intelligent, thought provoking science fiction is much more of a challenge to write, but is so much more rewarding to read.
Tim Taylor’s novel ‘The reality War’ is just that: Original, intelligent and thought provoking. His hero, Radlan Saravanan, has inadvertently set in motion a chain of events which threatens to wipe out his time line and replace it with one where Reptiles are the dominant species.
Tim’s writing is sharp and effortless, and he quickly draws his reader into a bizarre world where alternate realities vie for existence just under the surface of a sleepy English town.
The book ends on quite a cliff hanger. Sometimes this can leave the reader feeling a little cheated. This book doesn’t. Here the reader is simply left wanting more.
Fortunately book two has now been released

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novel of true Science fiction. In contrast to many other stories that classify themselves as science fiction because the author throws in a spaceship or the date is set to a hundred years from now, Tim Taylor offers a true science fiction story. It has it all. Set in a multiverse of time-travellers the characters of different realities have to cope with time paradoxes and fight for the survival of their own reality. While it is very difficult to be unique in this massive genre I did like the Taylor's concept of our distant relatives a thousand years into the future that have chosen to beat the natural evolutionary path and use implanted AI's with nano-bots. As you can tell I did enjoy the book. The book did take a little while to grab hold of me, but once it did I couldn't put it down. I especially enjoyed a couple of surprise twists in the story line. I cannot wait to begin the second book which follows on immediately from this story. Warning: I would classify this as an adult novel as it does contain a couple of sexual encounters and several references of blasphemy.

[Bill Thibadeau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, I have completed The Reality War, Plough of Desmond - BUT it appears that I am not even half way through the entire story. Evidently Part II will be out in late June 2012.

I do not find the esoterical quantum theories entertaining. Yet, I find myself intrigued by Tim Taylor's writings. This is the fourth of his books that I have read. I enjoy the story lines when I strip away the obtuse (to me) theoretical parts. The characters draw me in and I find myself caring about them.

I am looking forward to reading the conclusion of the The Reality War. I recommend Tim's books to all even those who are not enamored with Sci-Fi. He is a good writer that will make your time spent reading very entertaining.

[Alissa Nolan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recieved a First Reads copy of this book. This is to me a new look at the science fiction of time travel, causality, and paradox. The reader is "gifted" with the opportunity to see two competing realities. It was difficult to get into the story initially, I was not really sure where the story was going. Also I found it to be somewhat lacking in giving descriptions that would allow me to picture certain events. But the second half of the book really gets going and by the end I was glad to know I had the second book at the ready.

[Nurture Waratah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting and entertaining book. The characters are well-developed, the plot believable and the prose engaging. Unlike many e-books, this book is very well edited - I did not pick up on any errors. I enjoyed this book very much and will be obtaining the second book as soon as I am able.

[Mariah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book to be interesting and worth the read.
In saying that, there is something about it that doesn't make me grab for the second book.
I did enjoy it!
But for me it didn't have that spark in a book that I love