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Them Bones
Madison Yazoo Leake, of the bombed-out, radiation-ridden twenty-first century, wanted to stop World War Three before it began.
When he stepped through the time portal, he thought he was entering 1930s Louisiana. Instead, he found a world where Arabs explored America, Christianity and the Roman Empire had never existed, and Aztecs performed human sacrifices near the Mississippi as woolly mammoths roamed nearby.
One hundred and forty people, plus equipment, were due to follow him. They didn’t appear. And Leake began to wonder if he could ever go back . . .
When he stepped through the time portal, he thought he was entering 1930s Louisiana. Instead, he found a world where Arabs explored America, Christianity and the Roman Empire had never existed, and Aztecs performed human sacrifices near the Mississippi as woolly mammoths roamed nearby.
One hundred and forty people, plus equipment, were due to follow him. They didn’t appear. And Leake began to wonder if he could ever go back . . .
212 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 1, 1984
339 people are currently reading
736 people want to read
About the author
Howard Waldrop
170 books76 followersHoward Waldrop was an American science fiction author who worked primarily in short fiction, with shorties that combined elements such as alternate history, American popular culture, the American South, old movies, classical mythology, and rock 'n' roll music. He received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2021.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 89 reviews
November 14, 2019
Since Howard Waldrop is the kind of author who stages a “Hitler victorious” alternate-history scenario solely to determine the impact of a Nazi victory on Peter Lorre, and the kind of writer who asks “How would a Texas sheriff who is suspiciously reminiscent of Slim Pickens have responded to an invasion of his town by H.G. Wells's Martians?”, I am inclined to think the pitch for THEM BONES went something like this: “It's a time-travel story with cowboys and Indians, except the Indians are actually Mississippian Mound Builders, and the cowboys are actually Arab traders in an alternate timeline where Columbus never discovered America. Also, there are Aztecs, wooly mammoths, tornadoes, woodpecker gods, and a character I stole from an obscure nineteenth-century novel.”
That's one of the three intertwined narratives in THEM BONES, a story told by the novel's main character, Madison Yazoo Leake. Leake finds himself in this alternate America (Louisiana, to be precise) as a result of an accident with a time machine, which was supposed to send him and a team of well-armed explorers to the 1930s so that they could (eventually) prevent a nuclear war. The explorers have an accident of their own and wind up in the right timeline but much too early, and have to figure out how to survive in pre-Columbian America. They don't do a very good job. Story number three focuses on a small group of archaeologists who find the time-travelers' camp several centuries later, in 1929, and have to figure out what happened to the inhabitants before their diggings are destroyed by a Mississippi River flood.
Waldrop is chiefly a writer of short stories, and this is, as far as I know, the only novel he has ever written by himself. It is enough: a richly atmospheric, deeply affecting story of people on the verge of disaster, and how they dealt with – or buckled under – the stresses of survival. I've read this book a half-dozen times since I first bought it 17 or 18 years ago, and writing this review makes me want to read it again.
That's one of the three intertwined narratives in THEM BONES, a story told by the novel's main character, Madison Yazoo Leake. Leake finds himself in this alternate America (Louisiana, to be precise) as a result of an accident with a time machine, which was supposed to send him and a team of well-armed explorers to the 1930s so that they could (eventually) prevent a nuclear war. The explorers have an accident of their own and wind up in the right timeline but much too early, and have to figure out how to survive in pre-Columbian America. They don't do a very good job. Story number three focuses on a small group of archaeologists who find the time-travelers' camp several centuries later, in 1929, and have to figure out what happened to the inhabitants before their diggings are destroyed by a Mississippi River flood.
Waldrop is chiefly a writer of short stories, and this is, as far as I know, the only novel he has ever written by himself. It is enough: a richly atmospheric, deeply affecting story of people on the verge of disaster, and how they dealt with – or buckled under – the stresses of survival. I've read this book a half-dozen times since I first bought it 17 or 18 years ago, and writing this review makes me want to read it again.
July 31, 2025
The story concerns alternative histories and time travel, but becomes an essay on man's inhumanity to man, or humankind's inhumanity to itself, with even humour delving ever deeper into darkness as destruction blooms. Madison Yazoo Leake and his scientific, military and CIA team-mates come from an Earth suffering its final agonies after the nuclear devastation of World War 3. The team has devised a technology that will transport them forty years or so into the past in Louisiana. Once there they can carry out a mission that will ensure the war did not happen.
Unfortunately things go awry. Everyone does go back the required length of time but not to the same timeline and the device that sent them seems to have broken down in the process. Leake is separated from the rest and arrives in a world in which the Romans had lost the Punic Wars, Christianity did not happen, northern and western Europe remained a primitive backwater, and Old World civilization blossomed in Arabia and the Middle East. America had been visited by the Vikings but it was only in Leake's time that the Arabs had developed steam powered ships to cross the Atlantic for trade with the Mound Builders and the Huastecas (Aztecs to us). The other time travellers land in an America completely isolated from Europe and Asia.
Both Leake and the others have to come to terms with their isolation. However, the end is nigh. Unknowingly the team have brought contagious diseases with them, mild and inconsequential to modern people, deadly to the Americans. The result is warfare and a steady mutual destruction. Leake seems free of disease, however, on his America it's the Arabs and Norsemen who are struggling with illness. That doesn't mean Leake is a complete innocent. He has few qualms about using his automatic rifle, hand grenades and even a phosphorus grenade against the Huastecas. Again, mutual destruction is imminent. And even when the scientists back home resurrect their machine they can only tell Leake, in the words of Private Fraser (that's a UK reference meaningless to everyone else) that “we're all doomed.”
It must have been a difficult story concept to put together as the narrative is divided between Leake, the military team, and a group of archaeologists trying to interpret finding modern skeletons, military artefacts, and the remains of horses in supposedly pre-Columbian mounds. Part of it doesn't quite work: if Leake and the others were in alternative Earths but at a time comparable to ours, why would their remains appear in our timeline? The archaeologists do not mention an impending war: is their timeline different from everybody else's, or have I missed something here? The humour between Leake and the Mound Builders works: why shouldn't the Mound Builders have a comparable sense of humour? I loved the image of Leake riding into battle wearing the costume of the Woodpecker God and then refusing to throw it away when he is retreating through the cypress swamps. In all it's a refreshing piece of SF and well worth reading.
Unfortunately things go awry. Everyone does go back the required length of time but not to the same timeline and the device that sent them seems to have broken down in the process. Leake is separated from the rest and arrives in a world in which the Romans had lost the Punic Wars, Christianity did not happen, northern and western Europe remained a primitive backwater, and Old World civilization blossomed in Arabia and the Middle East. America had been visited by the Vikings but it was only in Leake's time that the Arabs had developed steam powered ships to cross the Atlantic for trade with the Mound Builders and the Huastecas (Aztecs to us). The other time travellers land in an America completely isolated from Europe and Asia.
Both Leake and the others have to come to terms with their isolation. However, the end is nigh. Unknowingly the team have brought contagious diseases with them, mild and inconsequential to modern people, deadly to the Americans. The result is warfare and a steady mutual destruction. Leake seems free of disease, however, on his America it's the Arabs and Norsemen who are struggling with illness. That doesn't mean Leake is a complete innocent. He has few qualms about using his automatic rifle, hand grenades and even a phosphorus grenade against the Huastecas. Again, mutual destruction is imminent. And even when the scientists back home resurrect their machine they can only tell Leake, in the words of Private Fraser (that's a UK reference meaningless to everyone else) that “we're all doomed.”
It must have been a difficult story concept to put together as the narrative is divided between Leake, the military team, and a group of archaeologists trying to interpret finding modern skeletons, military artefacts, and the remains of horses in supposedly pre-Columbian mounds. Part of it doesn't quite work: if Leake and the others were in alternative Earths but at a time comparable to ours, why would their remains appear in our timeline? The archaeologists do not mention an impending war: is their timeline different from everybody else's, or have I missed something here? The humour between Leake and the Mound Builders works: why shouldn't the Mound Builders have a comparable sense of humour? I loved the image of Leake riding into battle wearing the costume of the Woodpecker God and then refusing to throw it away when he is retreating through the cypress swamps. In all it's a refreshing piece of SF and well worth reading.
June 14, 2020
Waldrop is very well known for his excellent short fiction, and this novel from 1984 has become almost forgotten. It's a very interesting and imaginative alternate history/time travel tale told with a trio of alternating viewpoints that eventually merge. He incorporates some of his favorite themes, such as archaeological research and pop-cultural influences of various eras, and it's all told in his distinctive, friendly down-home voice; "Let me tell y'all a good one..." The ending isn't completely satisfying and I would say that in spots he's obviously more at home with short forms, but nonetheless it's a very entertaining and engaging read.
July 24, 2011
The exploration of an alternate America by way of time-travel. A brilliant novel.
November 24, 2017
Characters in time travel novels must not have ever read a time travel novel. If they had, they would know that their efforts at fixing history were doomed to failure.
In Howard Waldrop’s 1978 novel Them Bones, travelers from 2002 go back in time in an effort to prevent the world war that has left earth a radiation-poisoned wasteland. Madison Yazoo Leake is the group’s scout. He quickly figures out that he is not in 1930’s Louisiana. In fact he has not only overshot his time destination by around 500 years, he has also arrived in an alternate universe. A follow-up group has also missed their mark, but seems to be in our world. Then there is the archeological team working in 1929, who try to make sense of horses with bullet holes in their skulls found in 13th century burial mounds.
Walrop does a good job of juggling his various narrative threads, and his characters, whether time travelers, archeologists, or mound-building Indians are believable and even likable.
In Howard Waldrop’s 1978 novel Them Bones, travelers from 2002 go back in time in an effort to prevent the world war that has left earth a radiation-poisoned wasteland. Madison Yazoo Leake is the group’s scout. He quickly figures out that he is not in 1930’s Louisiana. In fact he has not only overshot his time destination by around 500 years, he has also arrived in an alternate universe. A follow-up group has also missed their mark, but seems to be in our world. Then there is the archeological team working in 1929, who try to make sense of horses with bullet holes in their skulls found in 13th century burial mounds.
Walrop does a good job of juggling his various narrative threads, and his characters, whether time travelers, archeologists, or mound-building Indians are believable and even likable.
September 19, 2022
Tinged with a Cold War-era world-weary cynicism about humanity in the mass that still finds room for an easy friendship between two characters widely separated by culture, this is a structurally ambitious novel from a writer better known for his short fiction. Whether the structure really works, and whether it's more complicated than it needs to be, could be debated. Because part of the experience of reading it is figuring out what the heck is going on, and that's a process that isn't completed until late in the book, I'll put some of the discussion of the structure in spoiler tags.
There are three threads, presented in interweaved chapters. Thread 1, with which we open, is an archaeological dig in Louisiana in 1926, where a 14th-century Native American mound yields anachronistic horse (and eventually human) skeletons, some killed with even more anachronistic cartridge rifles. It's told in close third person, following the viewpoint of one of the archaeologists, as they race to uncover the secrets of the mound before rising floodwaters destroy the site forever.
Thread 2, in many ways the main thread, is the first-person account of a scout, Leake, sent ahead of a larger force through a time portal originating in a nuclear-war-ravaged 2002 (in the future at the time the book was written). They were supposed to end up around World War II and to try to change history so that World War III didn't happen (exactly how is never made clear, and nobody demonstrates any skills that would materially help to do so; the plan is more an excuse to kick off the story than it is a fully developed idea in itself). It quickly becomes clear that where Leake is is not World War II Louisiana, but it takes him some time to figure out exactly when he is.
Thread 3 consists of records of the rest of the force, who didn't end up in the same location as Leake. (Here, I have to note that the ebook version which I read does a very poor job of the formatting of the daily military reports on the status of the personnel, so that they are mangled and hard to interpret. There are also a few editing errors, some of which may have been corrected since I first bought the book, judging from the fact that they were correct in my Kindle highlights when transferred to Goodreads.)
From this setup, things proceed as follows:
Overall, the result comes off as an ambitious novel that should maybe have been two novels, where the justification for the way things happen falls apart if you think too hard about it. The two stories themselves are well told, and Leake, in particular, is an engaging character to spend time with, though both stories have downbeat endings. Despite its faults, it does just barely make it to four stars for me on the quality of the writing alone (setting aside the worldbuilding issues and the questionable structural choice, and despite the tone not being my favourite), but it is definitely well below the threshold for my Best of the Year list. I'm probably being a bit generous with the fourth star, but I did like Leake.
There are three threads, presented in interweaved chapters. Thread 1, with which we open, is an archaeological dig in Louisiana in 1926, where a 14th-century Native American mound yields anachronistic horse (and eventually human) skeletons, some killed with even more anachronistic cartridge rifles. It's told in close third person, following the viewpoint of one of the archaeologists, as they race to uncover the secrets of the mound before rising floodwaters destroy the site forever.
Thread 2, in many ways the main thread, is the first-person account of a scout, Leake, sent ahead of a larger force through a time portal originating in a nuclear-war-ravaged 2002 (in the future at the time the book was written). They were supposed to end up around World War II and to try to change history so that World War III didn't happen (exactly how is never made clear, and nobody demonstrates any skills that would materially help to do so; the plan is more an excuse to kick off the story than it is a fully developed idea in itself). It quickly becomes clear that where Leake is is not World War II Louisiana, but it takes him some time to figure out exactly when he is.
Thread 3 consists of records of the rest of the force, who didn't end up in the same location as Leake. (Here, I have to note that the ebook version which I read does a very poor job of the formatting of the daily military reports on the status of the personnel, so that they are mangled and hard to interpret. There are also a few editing errors, some of which may have been corrected since I first bought the book, judging from the fact that they were correct in my Kindle highlights when transferred to Goodreads.)
From this setup, things proceed as follows:
Overall, the result comes off as an ambitious novel that should maybe have been two novels, where the justification for the way things happen falls apart if you think too hard about it. The two stories themselves are well told, and Leake, in particular, is an engaging character to spend time with, though both stories have downbeat endings. Despite its faults, it does just barely make it to four stars for me on the quality of the writing alone (setting aside the worldbuilding issues and the questionable structural choice, and despite the tone not being my favourite), but it is definitely well below the threshold for my Best of the Year list. I'm probably being a bit generous with the fourth star, but I did like Leake.
December 5, 2024
What a great book. Beaming with surprise. Covers time travel and archaeology. I had no idea who Waldron was but he was an incredible writer. His style was perfect for the narrative. I thought I’d be reading just a traditional time travel narrative, but beneath the surface was an ocean of emotion. I legitimately teared up a couple of times, which has only happened a few times in my life from a book. I did not want it to end. Highly recommended.
December 21, 2018
I always enjoy new takes on time travel and this was no exception. (At least it is new to me despite being published before I was born). The only reason I didn't give this a higher rating was because it felt like I was reading two different books: one with Leake in his world, and then another with the Archeologists in 1929 uncovering the remains of the doomed future expedition with flashbacks to their situation.
In the end I didn't feel like the plot threads merged as they should have, though I absolutely found the characters (especially Leake and Bessie) compelling and likable. I also really enjoyed the mystery of trying to figure out where/when Leake was, asking myself could I do any better in the same situation. Without a common history it's nearly impossible to tell when you are.
Again, I feel like I would have enjoyed this more if the two stories hadn't been connected and had just been presented as individual tales.
In the end I didn't feel like the plot threads merged as they should have, though I absolutely found the characters (especially Leake and Bessie) compelling and likable. I also really enjoyed the mystery of trying to figure out where/when Leake was, asking myself could I do any better in the same situation. Without a common history it's nearly impossible to tell when you are.
Again, I feel like I would have enjoyed this more if the two stories hadn't been connected and had just been presented as individual tales.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 4, 2008
Waldrop uses an orthodox time travel plot to launch a detailed alternative history. A three pronged story arc with one intriguing (archeologists finding the remains of the time travelers in 1930’s Lousiana including a cameo from Kingfish), one harrowing ( a doomed expedition of time travelers encountering Native Americans whose besieged state has parallels with the Vietnam War and the Indian Wars/genocide), and one that is both(Madison Yazoo Leake’s adventures in past that that includes mound builders, Mastodons, Manatees in the Mississippi, no Roman Empire/Christianity, Arab traders with steam power and electricity, a spreading Aztec Empire, and his friendship with Took his Time and his tribe.). Clearly written, detailed, funny, perfect voices for the characters, and while in the end this tale is pretty dark it is somehow not quite depressing.
November 26, 2019
The structure of this book contributed to my liking it, but not loving it. I had problems with a time travel mechanism that apparently works differently, from minute to minute. For example, unless I misunderstood things, it worked differently for the initial scout than for the follow-up team.
In the scout's case, it appears to have dumped him in the right place, but at the wrong time period and in an alternate history. The main team seems to have ended up in the direct past, unless they were in a DIFFERENT alternate history. I honestly couldn't tell, which was a bit annoying. I mean, there were two different time tracks at least, neither of them our own, unless we are the result of the alterations in the time track, a thought which just occurred to me and is now making my brain hurt.
My favorite part of the story, oddly enough, was Leake's realization that he was in an alternate history, along with the details of a couple of the changes. The thing is, there were apparently at least three major changes that appear to be unrelated, which is a complicated way to do alternate history.
My problem with the "disease becoming unstoppable plague" sequence in both Native America settings is that it gets really tricky in a world of mostly small villages. Yes, the denser mob of alt-Aztecs might have a dense enough population to support an epidemic, but the others, eh, not so much. There's even a sequence in the story saying that there was no Black Plague in Europe and the Middle East because there were no large cities. Well, if that's true, then how does one of the other diseases become an epidemic in North America?
In any case, the story was interesting, but I think I enjoy the author's short stories better.
In the scout's case, it appears to have dumped him in the right place, but at the wrong time period and in an alternate history. The main team seems to have ended up in the direct past, unless they were in a DIFFERENT alternate history. I honestly couldn't tell, which was a bit annoying. I mean, there were two different time tracks at least, neither of them our own, unless we are the result of the alterations in the time track, a thought which just occurred to me and is now making my brain hurt.
My favorite part of the story, oddly enough, was Leake's realization that he was in an alternate history, along with the details of a couple of the changes. The thing is, there were apparently at least three major changes that appear to be unrelated, which is a complicated way to do alternate history.
My problem with the "disease becoming unstoppable plague" sequence in both Native America settings is that it gets really tricky in a world of mostly small villages. Yes, the denser mob of alt-Aztecs might have a dense enough population to support an epidemic, but the others, eh, not so much. There's even a sequence in the story saying that there was no Black Plague in Europe and the Middle East because there were no large cities. Well, if that's true, then how does one of the other diseases become an epidemic in North America?
In any case, the story was interesting, but I think I enjoy the author's short stories better.
October 31, 2014
The hardback edition of this book is one of my most treasured possessions (purchased, if I remember correctly, at my first Octocon.) Howard Waldrop's short stories blew me away, but this was my first head-wrecking, brain-buzzing encounter with a writer who bends fiction and time and space and history into equally gonzo shapes.
Them Bones has three separate strands of war, archaeology and adventures amongst the Amerindian Moundbuilders of the Mississipi as refugees from a dying world try to save their own future and instead doom another, while a team tries to save the past and preserve the truth against rising floodwaters. This is a slim book, and the prose is polished til it shines, but it still covers epic ground as the slow scale of the tragedy becomes clear. Not quite like anything else you'll ever read. Then find his stories, which are something else again.
Them Bones has three separate strands of war, archaeology and adventures amongst the Amerindian Moundbuilders of the Mississipi as refugees from a dying world try to save their own future and instead doom another, while a team tries to save the past and preserve the truth against rising floodwaters. This is a slim book, and the prose is polished til it shines, but it still covers epic ground as the slow scale of the tragedy becomes clear. Not quite like anything else you'll ever read. Then find his stories, which are something else again.
November 21, 2018
Howard Waldrop has long been one of American science fiction’s most under-appreciated authors. I read this lovely novel shortly after it first appeared, and then I recently stumbled upon it at my favorite used-paperback shop, which made me realize I really needed to read it again. I shouldn’t have waited so long, either. It’s really an alternating collection of three narratives. First, there’s Dr. Bessie Level, a junior archaeologist working an Indian mound in south Louisiana in 1929. Then there’s Madison Yazoo Leake, a sort of advance scout for a time-traveling military expedition from the early 21st century (which is nothing like ours) into what he hopes is the 1930s, but which turns out to be five hundred years earlier. Then there’s the notes and journal kept by a member of the expedition, which also went awry and ended up a couple of generations after Leake.
Bessie’s dig is chugging long just fine until one of the workers uncovers a series of horse skeletons -- in strata far earlier than the first arrival of Spanish horses in the New World. And they were shot with modern rifle cartridges. This upsets her boss, of course, and the state’s head of archaeology, but all three of them intend to get to the bottom of things -- if the heavy rains and impending flood will just hold off long enough.
The future from which Leake comes is hoping to make changes in its own past that might prevent the destruction of most of the population, but now he seems to be stranded all by himself, and with little likelihood of ever being rescued. But he’s a survivor and he manages to get himself taken in by a local village on the Mississippi, where he becomes an apprentice pipemaker and makes friends. The Islamic traders working the river in their steamboat might be able to help, though.
And meanwhile, the expedition that thought it was following its scout also finds itself stranded, and also under threat by the more bloodthirsty descendants of the people Leake befriended. And their days are very much numbered.
Howard is a master of historical minutiae and also of dryly tongue-in-cheek dialogue, and the conversations between Leake and the members of the local tribe are a hoot. He also knows old-tine Louisiana backwards and forwards and Bessie’s chapters really ring true. And on top of it all, the rising waters of the coming flood (which is also historically accurate) ingrains the later chapters with considerable tension. I can’t recommend this one highly enough.
Bessie’s dig is chugging long just fine until one of the workers uncovers a series of horse skeletons -- in strata far earlier than the first arrival of Spanish horses in the New World. And they were shot with modern rifle cartridges. This upsets her boss, of course, and the state’s head of archaeology, but all three of them intend to get to the bottom of things -- if the heavy rains and impending flood will just hold off long enough.
The future from which Leake comes is hoping to make changes in its own past that might prevent the destruction of most of the population, but now he seems to be stranded all by himself, and with little likelihood of ever being rescued. But he’s a survivor and he manages to get himself taken in by a local village on the Mississippi, where he becomes an apprentice pipemaker and makes friends. The Islamic traders working the river in their steamboat might be able to help, though.
And meanwhile, the expedition that thought it was following its scout also finds itself stranded, and also under threat by the more bloodthirsty descendants of the people Leake befriended. And their days are very much numbered.
Howard is a master of historical minutiae and also of dryly tongue-in-cheek dialogue, and the conversations between Leake and the members of the local tribe are a hoot. He also knows old-tine Louisiana backwards and forwards and Bessie’s chapters really ring true. And on top of it all, the rising waters of the coming flood (which is also historically accurate) ingrains the later chapters with considerable tension. I can’t recommend this one highly enough.
December 31, 2024
In the year 2002 the world is being destroyed (World War 3 time folks) and so a group of scientists come up with a plan to send a group of 140 people back to 1930 Louisiana so that they can fix things to prevent the war from happening. Now, as we all know, going back in time to try and prevent something bad from happening is never a good idea. The first man through, Madison Yazoo Leake whose job was to scout things out for the main team, however finds himself in a world that is most definitely not 1930s Louisiana, or anything like the world according to standard history. The chances of stopping WW3 seem very slim.
It's a long time since I read anything by this author and I think that it may only be a collection of short stories that I encountered before. Strange Things in Close Up had a really brilliant cover image but the stories themselves didn't stick in my brain at all. Them Bones is Waldrop's first novel published in 1984 and I am pretty sure it is the only novel of his that I will ever read. It started with a great premise but then lost its way quite badly. There are three different threads. One follows the adventures of Leake, which make up most of the action in the book. Then there are the 1930s archaeologists who discover remains that are anomalous for the period they're digging in and the accounts of the military who pass through the defective time machine. The latter consists of shorter fragments and there aren't any points in the novel where the three elements come together in any
satisfactory manner. Characters are not developed to any degree and the main axis of the plot takes a disappointing nose dive away from the potential that the premise carried. Disappointing.
It's a long time since I read anything by this author and I think that it may only be a collection of short stories that I encountered before. Strange Things in Close Up had a really brilliant cover image but the stories themselves didn't stick in my brain at all. Them Bones is Waldrop's first novel published in 1984 and I am pretty sure it is the only novel of his that I will ever read. It started with a great premise but then lost its way quite badly. There are three different threads. One follows the adventures of Leake, which make up most of the action in the book. Then there are the 1930s archaeologists who discover remains that are anomalous for the period they're digging in and the accounts of the military who pass through the defective time machine. The latter consists of shorter fragments and there aren't any points in the novel where the three elements come together in any
satisfactory manner. Characters are not developed to any degree and the main axis of the plot takes a disappointing nose dive away from the potential that the premise carried. Disappointing.
November 29, 2018
This is a totally bizarre little story. My favorite part of it is Leake’s journey through his new world. He meets up with some natives, one of whom speaks Greek (which Leake also knows), and ends up settling down with them. He makes friends with Took-His-Time and Sunflower, and learns pipe-making from Took. The narrative totally breaks the stereotypical image we have of Native Americans, which is delightful. For example, no stilted, unnatural speech. Took in particular is deadpan hilarious, but the others are interesting as well.
The real oddity lies in trying to figure out when and where Leake and the other folks from the future have found themselves, and how those threads wrap into the archaeological dig. But much of the book follows Leake’s acceptance into the village of natives, adventures looking for pipe stone, wars with the neighboring tribes, and evenings spent feasting with traders (who are finally able to tell Leake of the rest of the world). It’s… odd, and kind of meanders a bit, but in interesting ways. I think it just depends on your preferences as a reader as to whether you’ll enjoy it or not. It wasn’t long enough to start bugging me, and while the tale of the group of time travelers didn’t interest me as much as did Leake’s tale, it was still worth reading. I wanted things a little more explicit with respect to when and where everyone was, but the ending was pleasing. Alternate history tales aren’t usually my thing, but this one concentrated enough on the entertaining aspects of it that it didn’t lose me.
Consider my rating a 4.5
Original review posted on my blog: http://www.errantdreams.com/2018/11/r...
The real oddity lies in trying to figure out when and where Leake and the other folks from the future have found themselves, and how those threads wrap into the archaeological dig. But much of the book follows Leake’s acceptance into the village of natives, adventures looking for pipe stone, wars with the neighboring tribes, and evenings spent feasting with traders (who are finally able to tell Leake of the rest of the world). It’s… odd, and kind of meanders a bit, but in interesting ways. I think it just depends on your preferences as a reader as to whether you’ll enjoy it or not. It wasn’t long enough to start bugging me, and while the tale of the group of time travelers didn’t interest me as much as did Leake’s tale, it was still worth reading. I wanted things a little more explicit with respect to when and where everyone was, but the ending was pleasing. Alternate history tales aren’t usually my thing, but this one concentrated enough on the entertaining aspects of it that it didn’t lose me.
Consider my rating a 4.5
Original review posted on my blog: http://www.errantdreams.com/2018/11/r...
September 14, 2019
1929: Archaeologists digging in a Louisana mound discover impossible things: skeletons of horses, brass rifle cartridge casings...
(Offstage, but in 2002: In the deadly aftermath of World War III, scientists send a team back in time, hoping to prevent the war.)
Some indeterminate date in the past: Leake, the advance scout for the team, finds himself much farther back in time than was intended...
...the archaeologists fight against time as the nearby bayou starts to rise in the rain. They try to build a coffer dam...
...Leake, in the indeterminate past, becomes an adopted member of a native mound-building culture...
...the rest of the time team eventually arrives. Finding Leake missing they begin to build a fort...
...the archaeologists find what appear to be soldiers' dog tags, gathered into a necklace. They call upon Governor Huey P. Long for help against the rising water...
...Leake discovers that he is not in his own past...
...and then things get _really_ weird.
This is Howard Waldrop, after all. The guy who gave us "The Ugly Chickens", "Save a Place in the Lifeboat for Me", "Ike at the Mike", and "...the World as We Know't". Weirdness - and especially weird time-fuckery - is what you pay for, and what you get, from Waldrop.
This is very entertaining weirdness, too, but I can see why Waldrop is happier working at short lengths. The story gets a little strained at times, as if the joke were being carried on just a little too long. Fortunately for the reader, that's about when another bizarre twist appears.
I regret, truly, missing this one back in the '80s, and I'm really glad it's available for Kindle.
(Offstage, but in 2002: In the deadly aftermath of World War III, scientists send a team back in time, hoping to prevent the war.)
Some indeterminate date in the past: Leake, the advance scout for the team, finds himself much farther back in time than was intended...
...the archaeologists fight against time as the nearby bayou starts to rise in the rain. They try to build a coffer dam...
...Leake, in the indeterminate past, becomes an adopted member of a native mound-building culture...
...the rest of the time team eventually arrives. Finding Leake missing they begin to build a fort...
...the archaeologists find what appear to be soldiers' dog tags, gathered into a necklace. They call upon Governor Huey P. Long for help against the rising water...
...Leake discovers that he is not in his own past...
...and then things get _really_ weird.
This is Howard Waldrop, after all. The guy who gave us "The Ugly Chickens", "Save a Place in the Lifeboat for Me", "Ike at the Mike", and "...the World as We Know't". Weirdness - and especially weird time-fuckery - is what you pay for, and what you get, from Waldrop.
This is very entertaining weirdness, too, but I can see why Waldrop is happier working at short lengths. The story gets a little strained at times, as if the joke were being carried on just a little too long. Fortunately for the reader, that's about when another bizarre twist appears.
I regret, truly, missing this one back in the '80s, and I'm really glad it's available for Kindle.
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July 20, 2024A book I read for my book club, and I didn't enjoy it all that much. Without going into spoiler territory, this is a time-travel book with three parallel storylines: two are time travellers from the late 20th century who travel back in time and find themselves in pre-Columbus North America (but separate from each other) and need to figure out how to survive. The third is an archaeologist in the early 20th century uncovering artifacts from pre-Columbus North America that really shouldn’t be there (like horses) and is trying to figure out what’s going on. For a writer in the 1980s, I think Waldrop was doing his best to be respectful of Native cultures and to do his research into what life would have been like in pre-contact America. From the perspective of someone in the 2020s, there are definitely parts of the worldbuilding that are kinda cringy. Even putting that aside, the book left me with more questions than answers, and a wish that we’d been presented with a slightly different story in the same universe rather than the one we got. (For example, if one of the protagonists had gone back with the “Traders” to their homeland rather than continuing to live in the Native village in which he found himself.)
November 22, 2018
This book has a very interesting concept. We follow three groups of people. But Let me set the stage. WW3 is being waged and it’s not going well. A time machine is invented and some 200 people volunteer to go back in time to prevent the start of the war. The first person we follow is one man who is an advance scout who is sent first. Something happens and he ends up in a primitive past but not of our universe. Here there is no Christianity. The moslem faith is world wide and though he lands in what turns out to be roughly early 2000 it is very primitive with natives ruling North America. The second is the rest of the vanguard who also are misplaced in time and space. The third group is archaeologists of our universe in the early 1900s who come across the remains of the groups which is anomalous as there are horse and rifle remains in what was pre horse and rifle America.
The book is way too short and should have been a five book series as so much is quickly glossed over. It could have been so much more.
But it is well written and a hell of a great concept so 4 of 5 stars from me.
The book is way too short and should have been a five book series as so much is quickly glossed over. It could have been so much more.
But it is well written and a hell of a great concept so 4 of 5 stars from me.
February 25, 2023
I'm not a huge fan of alternative history stories so I wasn't prepared for how much I enjoyed this book.
A one hundred and forty-one strong team is sent back in time from a post war radiation riddled 2002 (it was written in 1984 so I had to mentally adjust this date point several decades from our current time but otherwise the story stood the test of time well) to the 1930's to prevent a future devastating nuclear war. One man, Leake, ends up separated in one alternative past and the remaining team get sent to another. Both have ended up much further back in time than was intended.
We follow the stories of Leake and the team in their respective alternative pasts in the Mississippi Basin , as well as a third story where an archeological team in 1929 are trying to make sense of the should-be-impossible finds in the ancient burial mounds they are working on.
This was a fascinating read and I'm glad I came across it.
A one hundred and forty-one strong team is sent back in time from a post war radiation riddled 2002 (it was written in 1984 so I had to mentally adjust this date point several decades from our current time but otherwise the story stood the test of time well) to the 1930's to prevent a future devastating nuclear war. One man, Leake, ends up separated in one alternative past and the remaining team get sent to another. Both have ended up much further back in time than was intended.
We follow the stories of Leake and the team in their respective alternative pasts in the Mississippi Basin , as well as a third story where an archeological team in 1929 are trying to make sense of the should-be-impossible finds in the ancient burial mounds they are working on.
This was a fascinating read and I'm glad I came across it.
November 15, 2018
“Making all that’s past a moment.”
I tore through this book in a few hours, and it was time well spent. Fewer books are making a physical appearance on my shelf these days, but this will be one of them.
Sure it’s a time travel book, but it’s layered so well, and develops such an good pace, you won’t want to put it down. You might think it can’t be good, what time travel trope isn’t strangled with predictable cliche’s? Well, I’d say this one.
The story is very well written, and it’s continually urged along by a smaller story that ramps up along with the main plot to keep you glued to your seat.
Besides the story there is poetry that is perfectly scattered in to flavor this book with
a pensive and melancholy feeling that ties in with the bittersweet theme of this book.
I loved every page.
I tore through this book in a few hours, and it was time well spent. Fewer books are making a physical appearance on my shelf these days, but this will be one of them.
Sure it’s a time travel book, but it’s layered so well, and develops such an good pace, you won’t want to put it down. You might think it can’t be good, what time travel trope isn’t strangled with predictable cliche’s? Well, I’d say this one.
The story is very well written, and it’s continually urged along by a smaller story that ramps up along with the main plot to keep you glued to your seat.
Besides the story there is poetry that is perfectly scattered in to flavor this book with
a pensive and melancholy feeling that ties in with the bittersweet theme of this book.
I loved every page.
August 6, 2023
2/10
I really don’t know what to say. I didn’t get the point of this book at all. Some of the imagery was cool, I guess.
The only really interesting of the stories was the one with the mound builders and Aztecs. But like, as someone from Louisiana, I wanted more Louisiana. More alligators, snakes, and nutria. More bayou. And why was plague JUST starting to spread even though trade had been happening for ages.
Also, I didn’t like how “primitive” the guy from the future became so quickly. Like, suddenly he’s beheading people as if it’s totally normal. Except for the small amount of guilt he feels after.
Yeah, maybe I missed something.
I really don’t know what to say. I didn’t get the point of this book at all. Some of the imagery was cool, I guess.
The only really interesting of the stories was the one with the mound builders and Aztecs. But like, as someone from Louisiana, I wanted more Louisiana. More alligators, snakes, and nutria. More bayou. And why was plague JUST starting to spread even though trade had been happening for ages.
Also, I didn’t like how “primitive” the guy from the future became so quickly. Like, suddenly he’s beheading people as if it’s totally normal. Except for the small amount of guilt he feels after.
Yeah, maybe I missed something.
September 28, 2025
In an anthropological dig in 1929 in a bayou in southern USA an archaeologist finds a horse skeleton and a brass bullet casing - from sediments of the 16th century! In the mid 21 st century a military force is sent back in time to the 1930s in order to prevent a global war but misses by about 400 ears, and a single traveller lands in the southern USA in the 16th century to a world where there is no Christianitv and Muslim traders have electricitv... Howard Waldrop draws a picture of Amerind moundbuilders warring with Aztecs and Woodpecker Gods and Death fighting and ties up the multifarious threads to a satisfying conclusion! RECOMMENDED.
October 14, 2025
A very intriguing time travel story set mostly in a pre-Columbian past that gets stranger and stranger. We have three interweaving storylines that honestly give a lot of food for thought. I really enjoy Waldrop's voice, especially for characters like Leake, and the way he paced everything was pretty good, even with such a short book. It's definitely a much better novel than his cowritten novel from 10 years earlier! I think another thing that makes this book unique is that even with some of the humor elements, there's a lot of darkness about the world's fate that I think many authors wouldn't do.
May 25, 2018
Quirky and poignant time travel/alternate history yarn. The vibe of the main character's humor and storyline reminded me a bit of Hap and Leonard. (those Texas authors though) Howard Waldrop is known more for his short fiction and I sure hope some of his stories are in my collection of sci-fi anthologies.
Fun: Audie Murphy and Larry, Curly and Moe references. ❤
Curious: Is Madison Yazoo Leake named after locations in Mississippi, the author's home state?
Fiction is informative: Fascinating and factual description of a passenger pigeon migration.
Fun: Audie Murphy and Larry, Curly and Moe references. ❤
Curious: Is Madison Yazoo Leake named after locations in Mississippi, the author's home state?
Fiction is informative: Fascinating and factual description of a passenger pigeon migration.
July 11, 2020
Three story threads tell the tale of a last ditch attempt to change an untenable present. Unfortunately, the untested machine throws the protagonist into another apocalypse, the North American epidemics resulting from first contact with Europeans. Terrific anthropological and archaeological angles, adventure and friendship.
Full review at: https://stellajorette.com/book-review...
Full review at: https://stellajorette.com/book-review...
July 14, 2023
It's time travel gone wrong, leading to a past (and possibly a present) in an alternate reality. This is a clever, quick book, with a woodpecker god, a mound of slightly disappointing treasure, and steadily approaching floodwaters. Waldrop's marvellous imagination is a romp, but more fantasy than sci-fi. Them Bones is a counterfactual reverse sort of science fiction where the way things really happened is acknowledged, but overturned. I liked it.
November 8, 2017
Isoa tekstiä oli nopea lukea, ja tarina oli ihan viihdyttävä. En muistanut tarinasta oikeastaan muuta kuin sen kohdan, jossa hevosen ensi kertaa tapaavat intiaanit tarjoavat lihaa moiselle pedolle. Lisäksi on aina huvittava lukea vanhempaa tieteiskirjallisuutta, jonka tulevaisuus on jo menneisyyttä. Onneksi ei tullut kolmatta maailmansotaa vuonna 2002.
August 6, 2018
Them Bones
This is book on time travel and again it is not. You will not have read anything thing like it. I can honestly say it's the best book I have ever READ. It gives me hope for mankind both past and fututure. I TOTALLY RECOMMEND THE READ. YOU will not out it down or forget it.
This is book on time travel and again it is not. You will not have read anything thing like it. I can honestly say it's the best book I have ever READ. It gives me hope for mankind both past and fututure. I TOTALLY RECOMMEND THE READ. YOU will not out it down or forget it.
November 10, 2018
While this book is well written, and its multiple narratives interesting and well-conceived, I ultimately found it disappointing because the various threads eventually just sort of "petered out."
Nonetheless, the conceit of the story -- a time-travel mission to save the future gone awry -- is very inventive and the alternate reality (realities, really) intriguing.
Nonetheless, the conceit of the story -- a time-travel mission to save the future gone awry -- is very inventive and the alternate reality (realities, really) intriguing.
November 20, 2018
This book was terrifically confusing, but I wanted to know what happens in the end, so I kept reading until I finished it. Lots of blood and gore, main character and his Indian side-kick were interesting. I think you have to be a hard-core time-travel fan and have taken a bunch of anthropology classes in college to really enjoy this. But then, that's just my opinion....
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