What do you think?
Rate this book
Time War
MAN AGAINST TIME
John Lux was an electronic scientist, a level-headed industrialist, an ordinary twentieth-century man--at least he thought he was an ordinary man
...until he discovered he could teleport himself
...until he discovered that forces 200,000 years beyond his time were trying to destroy him
...until he discovered that civilization of the future was being pampered into extinction in a kindergarten world and he was the only man in all eternity who could save it.
But until John discovered how to use his dormant neuro-radionic powers, he was a helpless pawn in a time war--and both he and the planet were doomed...
John Lux was an electronic scientist, a level-headed industrialist, an ordinary twentieth-century man--at least he thought he was an ordinary man
...until he discovered he could teleport himself
...until he discovered that forces 200,000 years beyond his time were trying to destroy him
...until he discovered that civilization of the future was being pampered into extinction in a kindergarten world and he was the only man in all eternity who could save it.
But until John discovered how to use his dormant neuro-radionic powers, he was a helpless pawn in a time war--and both he and the planet were doomed...
160 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published November 1, 1974
5 people are currently reading
68 people want to read
About the author
Lin Carter
419 books171 followersLin Carter was an American author, editor, and critic best known for his influential role in fantasy literature during the mid-20th century. Born in St. Petersburg, Florida, he developed an early passion for myth, adventure stories, and imaginative fiction, drawing inspiration from authors such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, and J. R. R. Tolkien. After serving in the U.S. Army, Carter attended Columbia University, where he honed his literary skills and deepened his knowledge of classical and medieval literature, myth, and folklore — elements that would become central to his work.
Carter authored numerous novels, short stories, and critical studies, often working within the sword-and-sorcery and high fantasy traditions. His own creations, such as the “Thongor of Lemuria” series, paid homage to pulp-era adventure fiction while adding his distinctive voice and world-building style. His nonfiction book Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings was one of the first major studies of Tolkien’s work and its mythological roots, and it helped establish Carter as a knowledgeable commentator on fantasy literature.
Beyond his own writing, Carter was a central figure in bringing classic and forgotten works of fantasy back into print. As editor of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series from 1969 to 1974, he curated and introduced dozens of volumes, reintroducing readers to authors such as William Morris, Lord Dunsany, E. R. Eddison, and James Branch Cabell. His introductions not only contextualized these works historically and literarily but also encouraged a new generation to explore the breadth of the fantasy tradition.
Carter was also active in the shared literary universe of the “Cthulhu Mythos,” expanding upon the creations of H. P. Lovecraft and other members of the “Lovecraft Circle.” His collaborations and solo contributions in this genre further cemented his reputation as both a creative writer and a literary preservationist.
In addition to fiction and criticism, Carter was an active member of several science fiction and fantasy organizations, including the Science Fiction Writers of America. He frequently appeared at conventions, where he was known for his enthusiasm, deep knowledge of the genre, and willingness to mentor aspiring writers.
Though sometimes critiqued for the derivative nature of some of his work, Carter’s influence on the fantasy revival of the late 20th century remains significant. His combination of creative output, editorial vision, and scholarly enthusiasm helped bridge the gap between the pulp traditions of the early 1900s and the expansive fantasy publishing boom that followed.
Lin Carter’s legacy endures through his own imaginative tales, his critical studies, and the many classic works he rescued from obscurity, ensuring their place in the canon of fantasy literature for generations to come.
Carter authored numerous novels, short stories, and critical studies, often working within the sword-and-sorcery and high fantasy traditions. His own creations, such as the “Thongor of Lemuria” series, paid homage to pulp-era adventure fiction while adding his distinctive voice and world-building style. His nonfiction book Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings was one of the first major studies of Tolkien’s work and its mythological roots, and it helped establish Carter as a knowledgeable commentator on fantasy literature.
Beyond his own writing, Carter was a central figure in bringing classic and forgotten works of fantasy back into print. As editor of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series from 1969 to 1974, he curated and introduced dozens of volumes, reintroducing readers to authors such as William Morris, Lord Dunsany, E. R. Eddison, and James Branch Cabell. His introductions not only contextualized these works historically and literarily but also encouraged a new generation to explore the breadth of the fantasy tradition.
Carter was also active in the shared literary universe of the “Cthulhu Mythos,” expanding upon the creations of H. P. Lovecraft and other members of the “Lovecraft Circle.” His collaborations and solo contributions in this genre further cemented his reputation as both a creative writer and a literary preservationist.
In addition to fiction and criticism, Carter was an active member of several science fiction and fantasy organizations, including the Science Fiction Writers of America. He frequently appeared at conventions, where he was known for his enthusiasm, deep knowledge of the genre, and willingness to mentor aspiring writers.
Though sometimes critiqued for the derivative nature of some of his work, Carter’s influence on the fantasy revival of the late 20th century remains significant. His combination of creative output, editorial vision, and scholarly enthusiasm helped bridge the gap between the pulp traditions of the early 1900s and the expansive fantasy publishing boom that followed.
Lin Carter’s legacy endures through his own imaginative tales, his critical studies, and the many classic works he rescued from obscurity, ensuring their place in the canon of fantasy literature for generations to come.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
March 9, 2018
Lin Carter's fantasy books were ubiquitous when I was growing up and I read a lot of them--The Green Star series, Callisto series, Zanthadon series, Thongor series, etc. He also wrote various standalones, and Time War is one of these. Pretty much every Carter book was a near pastiche of some other writer, most frequently ERB, and Time War is a kind of A. E. Van Vogt pastiche, as Carter indicates in his afterword.
I don't consider Carter to be a terribly good writer but I have enjoyed quite a bit of his fantasy work. Time War is SF, though, and is definitely not Carter's strength. This was a very weak book and completely predictable, although my ability to predict these kind of plots is probably based in part on having read so many of these kinds of stories. Anyway, I can't really recommend it, but it was a quick and easy read.
I don't consider Carter to be a terribly good writer but I have enjoyed quite a bit of his fantasy work. Time War is SF, though, and is definitely not Carter's strength. This was a very weak book and completely predictable, although my ability to predict these kind of plots is probably based in part on having read so many of these kinds of stories. Anyway, I can't really recommend it, but it was a quick and easy read.
March 23, 2024
Yeah, no. Awful, awful writing, DNF.
July 18, 2016
Time War (1973) by Lin Carter was a tribute to A. E. van Vogt. This sort of novel was a huge throwback to a former days of SF, in the 30's and 40's, when van Vogt wrote his convoluted stories of the super man. (And, incidentally, reminds us of the racism of the time which so permeated SF.) Lin explains the the style of the novel in the epilogue.
In this story, a man learns that he can teleport, and soon after, learns that he is a radionic superman, a rare event in the history of the world. From there develops not only a convoluted plot, taking only 160 pages to resolve, but endless amounts of describing and redescribing the same situation over and over. Yes, at merely 160 pages, the book feels padded. Quite often, my eyes glazed over and I failed to read paragraphs at a time, but that didn't matter. The same facts were deployed again and again, just in case you missed one.
In case you were in doubt, there's only one beautiful woman in the book, and the guy ends up with her end in the end. This sort of book is a male self-fulfillment fantasy.
This books also feels a bit like a conservative fulfillment fantasy as well. It should be noted that the ordinary people of the future acted like children, lived without responsibility, and were not awake to their predicament. That sounds like an awful lot like today's modern Conservative rhetoric. In contrast, the Conservative Superman takes his business to the top, his astonishing mind destroying his foes, untangling tangles plots, and generally self-making himself. He needed no help.
In all honestly, I can't rate this book as low as it deserves, but I can't rate it highly at all. The book bored me in a mere 160 pages. That's an astonishing feat. If you happen to like this classic stuff, then maybe you'll enjoy it. Myself, I'll give it a pass. I'll also give Lin Carter another try, just not by reading a tribute to a classic style.
In this story, a man learns that he can teleport, and soon after, learns that he is a radionic superman, a rare event in the history of the world. From there develops not only a convoluted plot, taking only 160 pages to resolve, but endless amounts of describing and redescribing the same situation over and over. Yes, at merely 160 pages, the book feels padded. Quite often, my eyes glazed over and I failed to read paragraphs at a time, but that didn't matter. The same facts were deployed again and again, just in case you missed one.
In case you were in doubt, there's only one beautiful woman in the book, and the guy ends up with her end in the end. This sort of book is a male self-fulfillment fantasy.
This books also feels a bit like a conservative fulfillment fantasy as well. It should be noted that the ordinary people of the future acted like children, lived without responsibility, and were not awake to their predicament. That sounds like an awful lot like today's modern Conservative rhetoric. In contrast, the Conservative Superman takes his business to the top, his astonishing mind destroying his foes, untangling tangles plots, and generally self-making himself. He needed no help.
In all honestly, I can't rate this book as low as it deserves, but I can't rate it highly at all. The book bored me in a mere 160 pages. That's an astonishing feat. If you happen to like this classic stuff, then maybe you'll enjoy it. Myself, I'll give it a pass. I'll also give Lin Carter another try, just not by reading a tribute to a classic style.
May 21, 2016
It's sort of incredible how consistently Lin Carter manages to fall short of my most modest expectations. This is my third encounter with him, and it was exemplary of the problems I have with him. In the afterward, Carter tells us this is a pastiche of A.E. Van Vogt. I've never read that author, but if his books are at all like this one, I'm not likely to try.
Much like in the earlier “The Tower at the Edge of Time” (a sword & planet pastiche), Carter introduces a hero and proceeds to drag him through a half-assed adventure for a few chapters before giving him ridiculous superpowers. That's no spoiler, it's on the back of the book. You'd think a guy with superpowers would be given some pretty formidable protagonists to contend with but the whole thing just becomes boringly easy.
I'm pretty sure that apart from a couple of random extras, you could count all the characters in “Time War” on one hand. John Lux survives two attempts on his life by instinctively teleporting and then meets a woman from the future who tells him he's a “neuro-radionic superman” and he needs to go to a city in the far future and free mankind from stagnation by bypassing a “null sphere” so that the “weapon machine” can take out the “city brain”. Our hero goes on the run and hides from “the silver men” and manages to interact with as few other human beings as possible so as to eliminate any potential for “man-on-the-run”-style suspense.
I'd question whether it's the Vogt stylings that nullify opportunities for entertainment here, but I think that's probably just how Carter writes since the same problems happened in “The Black Star” and “The Tower at the Edge of Time”.
The beginnings of this story had the potential to turn into a couple of different very entertaining science-fantasy formats and I feel like any other author would have picked up on them. For example, John Lux is an engineer who runs a firm that is working on a new kind of ICBM and soon hears from a lady in the future about the “weapon machines”, essentially a far-future smart-bomb. One might expect the “time war” to be a struggle by future forces to stop a weapon before it was invented. Nope. Carter focused on super powers and some really intensely boring deduction.
John Lux doesn't really do anything besides ponder what's happened to him so far and try to draw conclusions. Even though his character becomes absurdly overpowered he's still essentially passive and has to wait for more stuff to happen to him to work up to a conclusion which comes as no great shock because it's sheer dumbness is mind-numbing.
I was totally with this book for about the first 10 pages, and at various points there was some interesting description and scenery, but the rest was a total loss. I can't be the only one who looked at that sweet cover that Frazetta made of a ripped Lux holding a gun with Lady Lis watching the faceless Silver Men emerging from the enigmatic Null Sphere and imagined a way better book. Kudos to the staff at Dell for tricking me into reading another one.
Much like in the earlier “The Tower at the Edge of Time” (a sword & planet pastiche), Carter introduces a hero and proceeds to drag him through a half-assed adventure for a few chapters before giving him ridiculous superpowers. That's no spoiler, it's on the back of the book. You'd think a guy with superpowers would be given some pretty formidable protagonists to contend with but the whole thing just becomes boringly easy.
I'm pretty sure that apart from a couple of random extras, you could count all the characters in “Time War” on one hand. John Lux survives two attempts on his life by instinctively teleporting and then meets a woman from the future who tells him he's a “neuro-radionic superman” and he needs to go to a city in the far future and free mankind from stagnation by bypassing a “null sphere” so that the “weapon machine” can take out the “city brain”. Our hero goes on the run and hides from “the silver men” and manages to interact with as few other human beings as possible so as to eliminate any potential for “man-on-the-run”-style suspense.
I'd question whether it's the Vogt stylings that nullify opportunities for entertainment here, but I think that's probably just how Carter writes since the same problems happened in “The Black Star” and “The Tower at the Edge of Time”.
The beginnings of this story had the potential to turn into a couple of different very entertaining science-fantasy formats and I feel like any other author would have picked up on them. For example, John Lux is an engineer who runs a firm that is working on a new kind of ICBM and soon hears from a lady in the future about the “weapon machines”, essentially a far-future smart-bomb. One might expect the “time war” to be a struggle by future forces to stop a weapon before it was invented. Nope. Carter focused on super powers and some really intensely boring deduction.
John Lux doesn't really do anything besides ponder what's happened to him so far and try to draw conclusions. Even though his character becomes absurdly overpowered he's still essentially passive and has to wait for more stuff to happen to him to work up to a conclusion which comes as no great shock because it's sheer dumbness is mind-numbing.
I was totally with this book for about the first 10 pages, and at various points there was some interesting description and scenery, but the rest was a total loss. I can't be the only one who looked at that sweet cover that Frazetta made of a ripped Lux holding a gun with Lady Lis watching the faceless Silver Men emerging from the enigmatic Null Sphere and imagined a way better book. Kudos to the staff at Dell for tricking me into reading another one.
August 23, 2020
Interesting adventure story, if you can ignore the breaches of internal logic and the illogical leaps of thought. There was even one instance of a scientific observation given in detail, then an immediate summary sentence that was completely in opposition of the detailed observation.
This was supposed to be hard sci-fi, but it relies on events never explained, and events explained through an unknown, unobservable process (AKA magic). The "science" is merely a platform to explain a superman. To make it worse, this superman consistently perform actions beyond his "scientifically explained" abilities.
Basically with this story, while there is an overall structure to it, sometimes the details are resolved illogically to keep the story going.
Oh, and the protagonist is already phenomenally successful, rich, scientific and business genius who is suddenly learns that he is a mutant superman (which had nothing to do with his previous genius and success). The mutation happening in only once in the multi-million-year history of humanity.
A great man becomes greater, story. Very much in the style of van Vogt.
This was supposed to be hard sci-fi, but it relies on events never explained, and events explained through an unknown, unobservable process (AKA magic). The "science" is merely a platform to explain a superman. To make it worse, this superman consistently perform actions beyond his "scientifically explained" abilities.
Basically with this story, while there is an overall structure to it, sometimes the details are resolved illogically to keep the story going.
Oh, and the protagonist is already phenomenally successful, rich, scientific and business genius who is suddenly learns that he is a mutant superman (which had nothing to do with his previous genius and success). The mutation happening in only once in the multi-million-year history of humanity.
A great man becomes greater, story. Very much in the style of van Vogt.
April 7, 2024
This book has a decent plot but was poorly written and definitely does not age well.
1. It is very fast paced book that did not allow you to enjoy the adventure of the journey that any author would want you to have.
2. I spent so much time looking up words that it took away from the the emersion of the book for me. I don't understand why some of words where used except to set a lvl of vocabulary that the reader would be require to have....? Such as "don" fyi means to - put on (an item of clothing)... was he saving on letter space or something in the book?!
3. The over descriptive of scientific objects, places, people, and odd buildings?! just felt like he was trying to be hard science but failed... half of the time I didn't understand what the author just describe to me and I had to go back and reread it sometimes three times.
4. The book art matches little of what happens in the book, good job.
I will not recommend this book to someone that does not read primarily early science fiction books because the plot is the only thing i liked about it.
1⭐️ DNF or Forced myself to Finish
2⭐️ It's Just a book
3⭐️ A Good Book
4⭐️ On My Reread List
5⭐️ god mode
1. It is very fast paced book that did not allow you to enjoy the adventure of the journey that any author would want you to have.
2. I spent so much time looking up words that it took away from the the emersion of the book for me. I don't understand why some of words where used except to set a lvl of vocabulary that the reader would be require to have....? Such as "don" fyi means to - put on (an item of clothing)... was he saving on letter space or something in the book?!
3. The over descriptive of scientific objects, places, people, and odd buildings?! just felt like he was trying to be hard science but failed... half of the time I didn't understand what the author just describe to me and I had to go back and reread it sometimes three times.
4. The book art matches little of what happens in the book, good job.
I will not recommend this book to someone that does not read primarily early science fiction books because the plot is the only thing i liked about it.
1⭐️ DNF or Forced myself to Finish
2⭐️ It's Just a book
3⭐️ A Good Book
4⭐️ On My Reread List
5⭐️ god mode
November 22, 2020
A story that belongs in the pulp era of science fiction. I was surprised to find that it was written in the 1970s instead of the 1930s.
The main character is visited by someone from the future who tells him that he has special powers that will enable him to save humanity. Totally white male wish fulfillment. Everything is two-dimensional.
I rated it 2 stars instead of one because I was able to finish it, but if it had been longer (or if I hadn't been using it for an SRC challenge) I probably would have given up.
The main character is visited by someone from the future who tells him that he has special powers that will enable him to save humanity. Totally white male wish fulfillment. Everything is two-dimensional.
I rated it 2 stars instead of one because I was able to finish it, but if it had been longer (or if I hadn't been using it for an SRC challenge) I probably would have given up.
June 28, 2025
Fairly basic novelette about a man who turns out to be a “neuro-radionic superman”. Which, to me, translates to a powerful mutant with the ability to teleport, travel through time, and manipulate energy. Most of the short novel is John Lux learning to use his powers and deciding how to save our world thousands of years in the future.
It’s good as a light sci fi novel, but not terribly deep. Get it as a quick summer read. As an added bonus you can appreciate the Frazetta cover.
It’s good as a light sci fi novel, but not terribly deep. Get it as a quick summer read. As an added bonus you can appreciate the Frazetta cover.
Read
March 17, 2024Not his best stuff, but then it's a Van Vogt pastiche instead of an ERB/Howard/Vance pastiche. On the plus side, while I can see a certain flatness of character and pulp-ish predictability throughout, it's kind of fun in how deeply weird (and dated) it is. Overall, I'd give it a miss unless you are a AEVV fan or just love the silliness of the Golden Age SF sci fi.
May 10, 2017
Read years ago, fun for beginning Sci-Fi readers, remember with fondness and I am a big Lin Carter fan
June 16, 2022
OK
It is dated & unfortunately not his best work. But if you like old science fiction, it is certainly passable.
It is dated & unfortunately not his best work. But if you like old science fiction, it is certainly passable.
November 22, 2025
"A winged flying thing ought to be a bird, by all logic and reason." (p. 55)
Wanna bet?
This book reminds us that some people should never, under any circumstances, be allowed near a typewriter. Terrible writing comes in many forms. In this case, we have a convoluted and ludicrous story centered around a bored multimillionaire who just happens to be (according to him) a 1-in-100,000,000,000 "neuro-radionic superman with a nervous system capable of tapping, controlling, and directing energy flow throughout the entire electromagnetic spectrum."
Then there's the extremely redundant narrative. Never have I encountered prose that states and restates the exact points to this degree; you might find 4 or 5 repetitions of any given particular on a single page. It gets progressively worse towards the end. Imagine reading a novel by Mojo Jojo from The Powerpuff Girls, or by whoever wrote "The Book of Armaments": "... Then, thou shalt count to three. No more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count. And the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, accepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out! Once the number three, being the third number, be reached..." Carter nearly put me to sleep describing the gaudy architecture in the "Living City". And he would've succeeded had I attempted to read it all in one sitting. The prose is also overly dramatic; the sheer number of exclamation points is staggering! Having never read anything from A. E. van Vogt, I cannot say whether this pastiche of his work is faithfully bad or whether Lin Carter is entirely to blame.
The story has one deeply fascinating aspect. On pp. 42-43, Lux calls up his lawyer, who informs him he's wanted for the murder of his old college professor/psychologist/friend and is considered a homicidal maniac to be shot on site. My headcanon is that his lawyer spoke the truth; he's had a psychotic break, killed his friend, and none of the fantastical events occur outside of his head. He never teleports, does not travel 200,000 years into the future, etc. The motive offered in the exchange is perfectly believable, and there's plenty of evidence to back it up (that Lux, of course, denies). There's also a body... It's a bit of a spoiler, but the supposed murder victim is later revealed to be a time-traveling robot, contradicting the human corpse back in the 20th century. This brief conversation with the lawyer is the only sensible thing in the entire book. Every one of Lux's decisions and each turn of the plot only deepens my conviction that he's a psychopathically unreliable viewpoint character. There's a scene where Lux observes a boy sustain a head injury, prompting a sentient picnic table to glide over to him and perform first aid as the surrounding crowd "titters with amusement" and "laughs uproariously"... Tell me this man isn't out of his marbles.
...
What?!:
P. 14: Lux: "I'll stay the night, if you have no objections."
P. 18: "... finishing the evening rather too late to drive back to his town house. The Doctor had asked Komo to open one of the seldom-used guest rooms for him, insisting that Lux spend the night."
...
So this guy conveniently forgets all about that one time in the Korean War when he miraculously teleported himself half a mile to safety? Sure. (p. 16)
-
For a lady short on time, she sure is verbose... (pp. 20-26, 132-148)
-
On p. 32, Lux is flying his private plane at 3000 ft, pursued by 7 menacing UFOs, and he decides, "Now's the time... to try a bit of teleportation!" What about the plane? Into whose house will it eventually crash if you succeed?
-
And what does he do once he believes he's got a superhuman unconscious defense mechanism? He plays five-finger fillet without looking at the table... And when that doesn't work? And I want to emphasize that it does not work! He hangs himself with his necktie from the shower curtain rod in his hotel room... repeatedly! (pp. 47-49)
-
He must have superhuman eyesight, too. Because he keeps spotting these Silver Men from "about a half-mile behind his plane, and two thousand feet above it" (p. 31), or "five or ten miles behind him" Behind him... (p. 57)
...
Carter used the word "glisten" three times on page 64; that's got to be a record! He then proceeds to use it twice on page 106 and twice more on page 120 (and in one paragraph, no less!). In the same manner, "gleam" appears twice on both pages 11 and 14, respectively.
-
Uses of "here and there": 3
Uses of "loom" (verb): 2
Uses of "to and fro": 1
Characters "whirl": 1x
Characters "demand": 5x (they "demand incredulously" two pages in a row, pp. 135,136)
-
Uses of "glitter": 12+
Uses of "glisten": 8 (only the last glisten is by itself; all the others are joined by their fellows)
Uses of "gleam": 6 (the first two are together on p. 11, and the next two are likewise on p. 14)
Uses of "glow": 5
Uses of "glimmer": 2
Uses of "glint": 1
...
3/10
Wanna bet?
This book reminds us that some people should never, under any circumstances, be allowed near a typewriter. Terrible writing comes in many forms. In this case, we have a convoluted and ludicrous story centered around a bored multimillionaire who just happens to be (according to him) a 1-in-100,000,000,000 "neuro-radionic superman with a nervous system capable of tapping, controlling, and directing energy flow throughout the entire electromagnetic spectrum."
Then there's the extremely redundant narrative. Never have I encountered prose that states and restates the exact points to this degree; you might find 4 or 5 repetitions of any given particular on a single page. It gets progressively worse towards the end. Imagine reading a novel by Mojo Jojo from The Powerpuff Girls, or by whoever wrote "The Book of Armaments": "... Then, thou shalt count to three. No more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count. And the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, accepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out! Once the number three, being the third number, be reached..." Carter nearly put me to sleep describing the gaudy architecture in the "Living City". And he would've succeeded had I attempted to read it all in one sitting. The prose is also overly dramatic; the sheer number of exclamation points is staggering! Having never read anything from A. E. van Vogt, I cannot say whether this pastiche of his work is faithfully bad or whether Lin Carter is entirely to blame.
The story has one deeply fascinating aspect. On pp. 42-43, Lux calls up his lawyer, who informs him he's wanted for the murder of his old college professor/psychologist/friend and is considered a homicidal maniac to be shot on site. My headcanon is that his lawyer spoke the truth; he's had a psychotic break, killed his friend, and none of the fantastical events occur outside of his head. He never teleports, does not travel 200,000 years into the future, etc. The motive offered in the exchange is perfectly believable, and there's plenty of evidence to back it up (that Lux, of course, denies). There's also a body... It's a bit of a spoiler, but the supposed murder victim is later revealed to be a time-traveling robot, contradicting the human corpse back in the 20th century. This brief conversation with the lawyer is the only sensible thing in the entire book. Every one of Lux's decisions and each turn of the plot only deepens my conviction that he's a psychopathically unreliable viewpoint character. There's a scene where Lux observes a boy sustain a head injury, prompting a sentient picnic table to glide over to him and perform first aid as the surrounding crowd "titters with amusement" and "laughs uproariously"... Tell me this man isn't out of his marbles.
...
What?!:
P. 14: Lux: "I'll stay the night, if you have no objections."
P. 18: "... finishing the evening rather too late to drive back to his town house. The Doctor had asked Komo to open one of the seldom-used guest rooms for him, insisting that Lux spend the night."
...
So this guy conveniently forgets all about that one time in the Korean War when he miraculously teleported himself half a mile to safety? Sure. (p. 16)
-
For a lady short on time, she sure is verbose... (pp. 20-26, 132-148)
-
On p. 32, Lux is flying his private plane at 3000 ft, pursued by 7 menacing UFOs, and he decides, "Now's the time... to try a bit of teleportation!" What about the plane? Into whose house will it eventually crash if you succeed?
-
And what does he do once he believes he's got a superhuman unconscious defense mechanism? He plays five-finger fillet without looking at the table... And when that doesn't work? And I want to emphasize that it does not work! He hangs himself with his necktie from the shower curtain rod in his hotel room... repeatedly! (pp. 47-49)
-
He must have superhuman eyesight, too. Because he keeps spotting these Silver Men from "about a half-mile behind his plane, and two thousand feet above it" (p. 31), or "five or ten miles behind him" Behind him... (p. 57)
...
Carter used the word "glisten" three times on page 64; that's got to be a record! He then proceeds to use it twice on page 106 and twice more on page 120 (and in one paragraph, no less!). In the same manner, "gleam" appears twice on both pages 11 and 14, respectively.
-
Uses of "here and there": 3
Uses of "loom" (verb): 2
Uses of "to and fro": 1
Characters "whirl": 1x
Characters "demand": 5x (they "demand incredulously" two pages in a row, pp. 135,136)
-
Uses of "glitter": 12+
Uses of "glisten": 8 (only the last glisten is by itself; all the others are joined by their fellows)
Uses of "gleam": 6 (the first two are together on p. 11, and the next two are likewise on p. 14)
Uses of "glow": 5
Uses of "glimmer": 2
Uses of "glint": 1
...
3/10
January 22, 2013
I enjoyed this one when I read it over 30 years ago. I just wish that I could find my copy.
June 2, 2012
abit dated now - still an ok time travel read
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews