Time Crime

Time Crime #1

by Carnegie Olson

THE FUTURE IS THE PAST. AND THE PAST IS UNDER SIEGE. The architecture of Time itself is threatened and only Mr. Z.'s shrewd powers of observation, keenness for cosmic lore and psi-powered courage can avert irreversible, destiny-shattering, world-destroying calamity. Welcome to TIME CRIME, a science fiction thriller featuring an irregular, mythologically astute scholar and his inexperienced yet alluring protégé leading double lives as academics and time traveling detectives in a far-future Earth. Together they thwart abduction, galactic annihilation, the clash of cultures and a crime against Time via adventures in Queens, the Swiss academic enclave of Eranos and nineteenth century Egypt.

Synopsis: Mr. Z. and Vixy respond to a red-level summons at Time Detective Headquarters in Queens only to discover they’re being tailed by a far-flung initiate of the mysterious Mothman realm - devotees of ancient, Oriental-style divination and the so-called Way, an otherwise inscrutable, occult society rumored to cultivate the most lethal assassins in the cosmos.

In the fallout of a botched assassination attempt against world-renowned comparative mythologist, psi adept and I CHING scholar Hannelore Wilhelm, PhD, Vixy is kidnapped, vanishing into a perilous void of space-time and provoking Mr. Z. and the Time Detective Contingent into investigative overdrive to find her. Mysterious oracular revelations, an ominous supernatural encounter and Mr. Z.’s Egyptological insights unveil evidence of malignant cosmo-political sedition and provocative yet unwieldy clues to Vixy’s whereabouts.

Five, a Moleman engineer cadet struggling to embody his fraught heritage and the dubiously altruistic imperatives of his technologically unmatched, steadfastly secular culture is surreptitiously deployed to the Giza Plateau in 1881 Egypt to re-initiate the engineering of the golden ball – the inaugural component of the Cosmic Clock Project, a cosmos-wide space-time supremacy plot that demands the stilling of the Earth and the destruction of the planet’s population.

Unholy alliances, murder, mystery and the vagaries of fate conspire to bring Vixy and Five face-to-face in the shadow of the Pyramids where the mole-man experiences a traumatic psychological schism – a Jungian-style enantiodromia - goes rogue and intentionally sabotages his own mission, sacrificing himself to an awakened humanity he can’t fathom, doomed to exile, on the run.

Meanwhile, Mr. Z. risks all, plunging heedlessly into the past to rescue the beleaguered Vixy, she herself clinging to hope and fighting to decipher the magnitude of the unfolding time crime, her fate hinged to that of the Earth itself - to the technological horror awakened within the bowels of the Great Pyramid. Can the cataclysm be averted? Can they ever get home? Book One in a forthcoming series.

Genres: Science Fiction, Mystery, Fiction

396 pages, Hardcover

Published January 31, 2020

About the author

Carnegie Olson is a novelist and an independent scholar of comparative mythology, mythography (the historiography of mythology) and the psychology of religion. He resides in Ann Arbor but his heart is at home in locales across the cosmos - past, present and future. For example, he'd enjoy lunch with the Jena Romantics in 1799 or so (provided someone could translate the German), or perhaps seafaring shoulder-to-shoulder with Joseph Conrad in the Indian Ocean in the nineteenth century. Likewise, he'd be thrilled to be assigned cook's duties on a hyper-dimensional space train.

Email him: carnegie@carnegieolson.com

Reviews

[Carnegie Olson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hi, I'm the author, and I'm here to introduce the Time Crime series. Indeed, the books reside solidly within the genre of science fiction and further still within the subgenre of time travel. There's a bit of a space opera vibe, too, and many folks are keen to compare it to Frank Herbert's Dune. In terms of science, it's neither soft nor hard as genres go; rather, "firm" may express things most accurately in terms of the technical. But the mythology is most definitely hardcore. It's what I study. It's what inspires me. Which is to say, if there were a legitimate sub-subgenre available called modern mythology, well, this would be that. Because folklore and religion - the spiritual or contemplative traditions, what have you - for me, all belief systems, such as there are, are at home beneath the sheltering sky (nod to Paul Bowles) of mythology. The myths are not untruths. Rather, they are true fictions, if you know what I mean.

The series, then, is not for everyone. There is no woke agenda. It is neither YA, nor gender queer, nor LBGT+. There is subtle romance, but no sex. There are footnotes. And expletives. Violence, too, though never gratuitous (note that in this particular novel there is an attempted rape scene and in the next book, a brief scene of torture). There are a handful of phrases in foreign tongues. A couple of cool illustrations. In all, the series is perhaps as quirky and strange and conventional and familiar as, well, life itself, I guess. Happy reading.

[Arista]

Very clever book! Its almost like a combination of sci-fi, mystery and suspense. It was as if John Titor wrote a book...

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best books are the ones that defy categorization. Time Crime is a science fiction tale that blends future and past, mythology, philosophy, and archaeology. The characters are interesting with realistic, believable flaws. The author includes footnotes throughout, and a glossary, which lends to the feeling that this is history, not just historical (science) fiction.
I believe this is Olson's first novel. He is an "independent scholar of comparative mythology, mythography and the psychology of religion," and he puts all of this knowledge to good use in this novel.

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

*Goodreads First Reads copy*

I will preface this review by saying that I know most of what I disliked about this book may very well be what causes other people to enjoy it highly.

First and foremost, I found this story felt more like a textbook or perhaps a thesis. The usage of, and the sheer volume of endnotes drove me insane. In a written book they may be less jarring, but in an e-book they completely take one out of the story. One cannot easily flip back and forth between the story and the endnotes. An abundance of these endnotes were just citations. To me, it seemed like the story was comprised of too much of someone else's words.

My second problem with the story dealt with the majority of the conversations between characters. It seemed like a combination of a lecture and an information dump. Many times this was where the quotations occurred. I'm not sure all of this was truly necessary to move the plot forward.

I found the story to be more science than fiction. I love learning new things. However, every time I thought the story was starting to pick up, the author brought back the long-winded explanations and technical information. Every time it destroyed the pacing of the story. It made it difficult for me to truly immerse myself in the story.

The final distraction that I found with the story was the author's choice of names for the alien races. I found them to be too similar. It took me half the book to realize it was two distinct races rather than just an error of calling one race by two different names. Molemen and Mothmen are too similar. Just like having two characters with similar first names would be unrecommended due to the chance of reader confusion, I would think the author would make it easier to discern between the races.

I will say that the characters were well developed. Many seemed to have rather interesting quirks. They also seemed quite realistic. None of them felt too perfect. They had their flaws, but they were understandable.

I wish I could have liked this story more. It just was not my style of writing.

[Sakura-Chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I won a copy of this book during a Goodreads giveaway and this is my honest review.

I signed up for the giveaway for this book a long time ago, and feel so bad that I'm only getting around to it now... The plot sounded interesting so I signed up for the giveaway. I decided to listen to this book in audiobook format and the narrator had a nice voice, however unfortunately the book wasn't resonating with me as I read through the first chapter. I feel like this book wasn't capturing my attention as much as I hoped it would. This would be a perfect book to read of you adore the sci-fi genre especially if you enjoy themes of "time" and "wormholes" and such. If you also like detective based stories, this may be the perfect book for you. This book wasn't for me personally, but it may be your next favorite read!

[Catie Clark]

I stopped reading it due to this “disclaimer” on Amazon.

“This is not a woke novel. And as a tale conceived in 2015 and published prior to the sham-demic nonsense, the cover image does NOT portray a mask. Rather, this book and its sequel, akin to any classic myth, seeks to communicate, in metaphorical terms, our human predicament and what it is to seek the experience of being properly alive.”

[Diana · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF

This seems more a philosophical treatise than a fiction book. I kept skipping through drawn out explanations of technical mumbo jumbo. I just wanted a good story and kept waiting for more to happen until I finally just gave up.