The Depths of Time

The Chronicles of Solace #1

by Roger MacBride Allen

Time is of the essence when you're stranded in the future....

Humanity is running out of time.

The settled universe is filled with terraformed worlds linked by timeshafts -- temporal wormholes in deep space. These timeshafts are the only way to travel the vast distances between the stars.

The Chronologic Patrol is charged with guarding the timeshaft wormholes and preventing time paradoxes at all costs. But one critical mission ends in disaster, turning Anton Koffield, captain of the Upholder, into a dark legend....

As ships carrying relief supplies to a crippled planet approach a timeshaft, they are mercilessly set upon by mysterious attackers -- their crews are murdered and the sanctity of time itself is at risk.

In response, Koffield is forced to do the he must stop the invasion by destroying the timeshaft. Marooned eighty years in the future, he lives as a cursed figure, the villain who killed a world.

And his odyssey through time has only just begun....

Genres: Science Fiction, Time Travel, Fiction, Space Opera, Hard Science Fiction

496 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Roger MacBride Allen is a US science fiction author of the Corellian Trilogy, consisting of Ambush at Corellia, Assault at Selonia, and Showdown at Centerpoint. He was born on September 26, 1957 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He grew up in Washington D.C. and graduated from Boston University in 1979. The author of a dozen science-fiction novels, he lived in Washington D.C., for many years. In July 1994, he married Eleanre Fox, a member of the U.S. Foreign Service. Her current assignment takes them to Brasilia, Brazil, where they lived from 2007 to 2009.

Reviews

[Paul Weiss · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The planet was dying … exactly on the schedule predicted”

THE DEPTHS OF TIME is a modern space opera written with complex, expansive themes on an enormous canvas that uses time travel as a device to place living characters over a period of hundreds of years and a geography that encompasses hundreds of light years. Captain Anton Koffield, later to be promoted to Rear Admiral locked away on useless make-work projects, is perceived by the world at large as a villain. His decision to shut down access to a wormhole to prevent the violation of causality and the certain creation of dangerous time paradoxes, resulted in the destruction of a small fleet of cargo ships destined for a terraforming project over 100 light years distant from home base on earth. Despite the fact that he was forced by his duty to act exactly as he did, Koffield found himself cast in the role of being the cause of the ultimate death of the planet, “a villain who killed a world”.

Although the first few chapters moved at a dazzling, proverbial light speed, the novel ultimately settles into a more contemplative, low speed mental challenge that deals with Koffield’s discoveries about the basis of terraforming and the destiny of off-world colonies. THE DEPTHS OF TIME is a challenging, interesting, provocative novel that takes concentration – no, make that intense concentration – and patience. And, (I suspect that I’m not alone in this one), it occurred to me to wonder if Roger MacBride Allen’s relationship with Isaac Asimov didn’t bring him to put more than a little of Hari Seldon’s psychohistory into Ulan Baskaw’s mathematical principles underlying the science of terraforming and the future colonization of these planetary projects. For what it’s worth, I also see the possibility that Oskar DeSilvo, the architect of Solace, the colony that appears to be desperately close to the edge of failure, and the erstwhile genius who singlehandedly created the entire science of terraforming, may be cast in the role of “Mule” for the second and third novels in Allen’s trilogy. My personal jury is out on that for the moment.

I should rush to add that I’m not accusing THE DEPTHS OF TIME as being derivative in any way. Personally, I think it’s much more likely that MacBride Allen’s plot ideas are riffs on Asimov’s themes of long-term, probabilistic mathematics applying to big projects and a way of paying homage to the good doctor’s ideas and mastery of sci-fi as a genre.

And now it’s on to THE OCEAN OF YEARS, the second instalment in THE CHRONICLES OF SOLACE trilogy.

Paul Weiss

[Phill Coxon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having purchased this book in a bulk lot of 30 from a local auction website I wasn't expecting much.

I was very pleasantly surprized.

This novel feels like an Asimov book. Not surprising really considering both authors worked together on some three laws robots books.

There is a real hard science feel - the book opens quickly demonstrating how humanity has created artificial worm holes that use time travel combined with years of sub light travel in cryogenic suspension to travel interstellar distances and arrive at the destination at almost exactly the same time that they left. i.e.: Travel 35 light years in cryo to a wormhole hole half way to your destination, drop through the wormhole 70 years into the past and then travel another 35 years in cryo to your destination. The net result being that you come out of cryo only a few days or weeks after the date you left Earth.

The author does a great job of quickly building an interesting base for how the technology works, the problems with it and the associated dangers - for example people trying to use the wormholes to travel backward in time with knowledge of the future which could catastrophically adjust history.

As a result I found myself drawn into the story and the Allen's universe with many "WOW!! I never considered that!" realizations about the problems and implications of space / time travel, the difficulity of terraforming and the use of cryogenics to live hundreds of years beyond what would have been your natural life span.

The book ends with a fantastic cliffhanger climax that left me wanting more. I immediately consulted the internets, discovered it was the first in a trilogy and started a search for the the second and third books in local libraries and auction sites.

I expect that many people won't like this book because there is quite a bit of dialogue and soul searching by the key characters and apart from the open chapter or two, very little intense action.

Some people will hate the cliffhanger ending - it comes as a surprize and there is no warning on my copy of the book that it is the first in a trilogy. So now I'm stuck trying to track down a copy of books two and three while the details are still fresh in my mind.

Most importantly it was the hard science feel and the implications & issues of that hard science really captured my interest and imagination.

I'm very much looking forward to reading the other books.

My apologies for the very brief review - I'm in a rush and really don't have a clue how to write an interesting review yet :)

[StarMan · Rating 3 out of 5]

VERDICT: 3 stars (goodthink). Some 4-star concepts and passages, but excessive 2-star stretching out of the story. Thus 3 stars overall.

Or as one GR reviewer aptly said, "really boring but very interesting."

Two good main characters. Plot includes time-wormholes, mystery attackers, planetary terraforming going bad, long-lived characters (via technology), and a mystery or two that need solving.

Ends as things finally get more interesting. You'll have to read Boooks 2+ to find out the rest of the story (both past & present).

A borderline recommendation IF you like time paradoxes, sci-fi/mystery mashups -- AND you don't mind skimming some yawn-inducing parts, and ending on a bit of a cliffhanger.

---
2nd read, 3.5 years later: still 3 stars. Nice time travel method, a slog through the middle, and gets uber-preposterous towards the end.

[Alien · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dies hätte ein ausgezeichneter SF-Roman sein können. Die Plot-Idee ist eigen, interessant und "erwachsen".
Leider ist der Autor einer von den Erzählern, die es lieben, ihre Erzählung endlos auszuschmücken und auszudehnen. Er ist durchaus ein begabter Erzähler, aber ich ertappe mich immer wieder bei dem Wunsch, er möge sich doch bitte kürzer fassen. Der Roman beginnt mit einer langen Actionsequenz, die beim Leser eine falsche Erwartungshaltung aufbaut. Actionfans werden danach recht enttäuscht werden.
Während diesem ersten Kapitel treibt er die Verzögerung auf eine geradezu absurde Spitze.
Auch scheint er nicht gerade auf die Intelligenz seiner Leserschaft zu vertrauen, da er öfters eine Sache, die er gerade erklärt hat, einfach NOCHMAL erklärt.
Allerdings will ich jetzt nicht zu negativ tönen, wie ich anfangs erklärt habe, hat das Buch durchaus Qualitäten.
Er baut einige Rätsel auf, die schon interessant sind. Sie werden am Schluss allerdings nur teilweise aufgelöst, das Buch ist ja Teil einer Trilogie.
Ob ich die anderen Teile noch lesen werde, weiß ich noch nicht.

BTW: Walter Brumm, der ewige Übersetzer von Heyne, darf auch hier wieder seinem Steckenpferd frönen: Englische Redewendungen wortwörtlich übersetzen, egal ob es einen Sinn ergibt oder nicht. Früher regte mich das auf, jetze macht es mir Spass, diese Fälle aufzuspüren.

[Mikayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

*spoiler*

Really good book, my only complaint is that he killed my favourite character in the first fifty pages... I was so sad I actually stopped reading for a week. I picked the book up again however and was pleased that it was still quite a good book.

[Elliot · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Depths of Time is engagingly written, has a thoughtful and well-crafted setting, and ultimately does not have a lot going on within its pages.

After some spectacular action in the first 50 pages, the rest of the book is simply talking and walking. That doesn't make it bad, since there is still a very interesting central mystery and the characters are vibrant and fun. It's a very approachable book that nonetheless deals with some hard science concepts. Knowing that it is the first book in a series (thought not having read the next two books...yet), it feels like a novel-length prologue for the actual action of the series, setting up the main players and the driving themes while not having much excitement of its own to speak of. Some side characters had one or two passages written from their POV, with absolutely no payoff—I suspect that will be remedied in the next book.

Ultimately, I think Allen is a great writer, and that's why I rate this book as highly as I do. It kept me interested even once I realized that the rest of the book was going to be nothing but calm conversation. If the next two books in the series can deliver on the promises of The Depths of Time, then that will recommend it even more.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

really boring but really interesting at the same time.
I'll certainly get the next one but won't rush as its an intensive book to read/listen too.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of this story is that humanity has taken to the stars. The catch? We haven't discovered faster than light travel. We don't have FTL travel but we've learned how to manipulate black holes into wormholes that travel through TIME. Now my suspension of disbelief didn't snap at that, my boyfriend's however did. That actually got him to pick the book up.

I did find myself confused about the timeshafts for at least the first third of the book. The terms upshaft and downshaft were a bit confusing and I found myself struggling to remember which one was future and which was past. Fun fact there is a glossary in the back of the book and it would have helped with the confusion. I found myself referencing the diagram at the beginning of the book often just to keep the logistics in mind. I haven't gotten book two or three yet but I hope they have the diagram as well. The book is very interesting going from time travel to terraforming pretty quickly.

I feel so bad for Anton, being stranded in time nearly a century from everyone and everything he knew. And then to be known as a monster to a whole planet. Becoming a fucking boogeyman used by parents to get their kids to behave. Like that fucking sucks. Anton has nothing left, leave the poor man alone.

Fuck Oskar DeSilvo by the way.

' "They don't have the codes to open the access nexi," she objected. "There aren't any public codes for going uptime. Just the ones we used to move the Upholder uptime." ' I think this is where I got confused. Because later they talk about the future not being able to come into contact with the past. Understanding their system better now I understand. Ships are in cryo for decades traveling to the time shaft. They transport from the future to the past. Travel for decades in cryo again. And then end up at their destination not long after they left their planet in the future. That was just a big brain struggle for me.

' A portal nexus was a massively powerful gravict distorter that, in effect, pushed aside the singularity's event horizon, opening up a whole in time through the hole in space. The nexi orbited at the fringe of the wormhole's event horizon, at hellishly fast velocities. Approach the timeshaft wormhole when a Chronologic Patrol ship had sent the proper code to open a nexus, and you dropped through the nexus, down the timeshaft, into the past. If the CP ship got the code wrong, or failed to send it, when the portal nexus controllers detected your ship approaching they would leave the nexus shut. Your ship would not go through the wormhole formed by the singularity's warping of space, but instead would spiral down into the black hole itself. '

' Most of the crew regarded the ship shields as more nuisance than protection. They sucked in inordinate amounts of power, jammed or degraded every detection system on board, and tended to scramble computer circuits that weren't shielded with absolute perfection. Worst of all, it was impossible to fire the engines with the shields up. '

' The whole system of defense around a timeshaft wormhole was based on the uptime ship, the ship on the "future" end of the wormhole, being in the future, but not of the future. The yotime ship had no contact, no link, no knowledge of the uptime universe, or of the history of the years between the uptime and downtime ends. That willful ignorance ensure that the uptime ship had no hidden agendas, could not knowingly or otherwise exchange information with incoming ships, could not be suspected of manipulating events and passing the information to someone on the downtime side. A ship that arrived at the uptime guard post from the uptime universe would be utterly contaminated with all sorts of knowledge of the future, as seen from the downtime end. But a patrol ship and crew arrived at the downtime end and moved through the wormhole to the uptime guard post, and followed all the safeguards against receiving contaminated knowledge, could remain safely ignorant of the future during her tour of duty, and then withdraw back through the wormhole and go back home to the past, because her crew would know nothing of the future. '

' "Terrible Anthon closed up the sky. Horrible Anthon made Glister die. Closed up the sky, made Glister die. Made Glister die, no ship could fly. Hideous Anthon closed up the sky." '

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although old, the Sci Fi book Depths of Time by Roger MacBride Allen tells the story of Captain Koffield, A military captain of the future. I loved this book and how it was written. I would suggest this book to anyone who is 13 and up. I gave this book 4 and a half stars because it was a great book, however I feel as if it was really 2 books in one, because it had 2 different climaxes. I do not think that everyone would like reading this book. This book is a very serious book, but it makes up for the powerful story it gives. One thing that I find funny is that in the book smoking is more common than during present day, which reflects that the book is 18 years old. The Depths of time was a great book, however I fear that it might be hard to find because it is an old book.

Koffields normal life changes after an incident at a time shaft in which his ship is attacked by drones and, other ships. (A Time Shaft is a portal that sends a ship back into time to account for the time that, is taken to travel from one star system to another. Through use of a Time Shaft one is able to travel from one star galaxy to another in a couple days or weeks). Through protocol Koffield must disconnect the time shaft that bonds a rural solar system from other solar systems to prevent disruption of time. With many people suffering as well as the economy of several planets due to the disconnection, Koffield is now considered a destroyer of worlds. “she watched as a child knelt by a pool, struck her hand in the water, and splashed it back and forth”(300). This quote shows a homeless child drinking from a pool. However Koffield through his research has found that many of the terraforming planets are doomed. In an attempt to save theses doomed planets he travels to them to give the people of the planets a warning, but the ship he is traveling on was interfered with “there has been a-ah slight navigation problem.”(124) sending them 127 years into the future.

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was better than I remembered. I read this back in 2000 or 2001 for part of a SF/F book club. I remember the reception towards the book being fairly lukewarm and maybe that colored my memory of it, or at least my vague feelings towards it, because I remembered nothing about the book at all. While the book has some very interesting passages, there's not a lot of story here. There are a few key events that occur, and they are filled out with a lot of worldbuilding and concept exploration in the form of character monologues or dialogues. I found many of these parts to be fascinating, which was good, because the story had almost stalled or seriously slowed down. The story here can be very simply broken down into a contest of wills between two characters, with one personifying duty, and the other pride. The science wasn't overwhelming, in fact, in some parts it is glossed over, especially when it comes to terraforming. Also, for a story that takes place in the far future, the tech doesn't seem like its 3000 years ahead of ours, but more like 300-500 years ahead. But that was just a small observation. It didn't hamper my enjoyment of the book. I found the story compelling enough that I want to see where it goes next.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has a quite fascinating method for allowing relatively quick travel between the stars; ships travel at well below light speed, but have time travel wormholes spaced between the stars so that ships can travel back in time roughly the length of their voyages. A Chronological Patrol makes sure that no one misuses the time travel wormholes to, e.g., go back in time and mess with the past.
Ok, so that was a fascinating concept, and central to the first section of the book (where the Patrol guarding a wormhole is attacked). Most of the book relates instead to the failing terraforming of the planet Solace, which becomes central character Koffield's next focus after the initial battle. I found the book quite slow-paced (large parts reminded me of Star Trek I), and the terraforming explanations felt unconvincing, either on the small-scale or on the large scale.

[Juan Sanmiguel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Capatin Anton Koffield made a tough decesion. As a result he became a pariah. In order to protect the time stream Koffield closed a wormhole and thus cut off a world from the interstellar continuity. In the process he strands his crew in the future. Some time later Koffield is sent on a mission. The ship he is on is sabatoged. Koffield is stranded in the future again. Koffield tries to slavage the mission and attempts to help the planet Solace which is suffering a catastrophic environmental crisis. There are some interesting bits here . Like how interstellar travel works in this universe. The answer to the mystery is obvious although there is a twist. Might read the sequels.

[C. Steinmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hm. Some parts are rightous boring. I don't want to read the same thoughts three times if someone is contemplating the same topic for the third time. Up to two thirds of the book, the action is always stalling. Besides this, the book is pretty SF.

[Waterford Township Public Library · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are into time travel and epic space odyssey's this book series is for you. Really enjoyable trilogy that does not sweat the actual science very much.

[Tanner · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute hidden gem. An interesting mystery with a great setting and enjoyable characters.

[Zeke Chase · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't remember much about this trilogy as I read it when it was a fresh release, but it's deserving of a review and there's so few on Goodreads that I thought I might jot my thoughts down before I forget too much of it. Please note this is in regards to the entire trilogy ("The Depths of Time", "The Ocean of Years" and "The Shores of Tomorrow")

I doubt I'm going to read this trilogy again, as there was many problems with it, but I do still remember it with a certain fondness. This is hard sci-fi. Hardcore hard sci-fi. It takes place 3000 years in the future, and involves an elaborate and entirely plausible method of traversing long distances through space by a process of cryogenics and time travel. The Chronologic Patrol protects causality from paradoxes and are more or less the CIA or Secret Service of military police. Admiral Anton Koffield is set up by strange, faster than light ships threatening causal disturbance, and he acts the only way he can, by destroying the wormhole and dooming a damned world in need of relief supplies. An official hero but a cursed public figure, he takes a private job working for world architect Oskar DeSilvo on his new terraforming project, Solace. Along the line, he discovers Solace is doomed to a failure in the terraforming process and, furthermore, all terraformed planets are doomed. His attempts to alert DeSilvo are met with further sabotage reminiscient of the faster than light ships, and it sparks a galaxy-wide manhunt for a missing DeSilvo. Only he may hold the key to saving every terraformed world....

Sounds pretty good, and elements of it were. The time travel, the manhunt, elements of the world building, the terraforming was all great. Howeverm there were problems with the book. The characters were fairly flat. The only one to have a somewhat unique voice was Jerand Bolt. The structure was just a little too loose considering this is one massive story, not a novel with two sequels. There was a lot of formulaic stuff in there. There were too many colloquial references back to "the near ancient period" - our own - without any referencing the time between now and the events of the novel. There is a lot of political intrigue that comes out towards the end of the trilogy, but theres too little explanation of the politics of that world. Allen gets sidetracked on tangents from time to time. And I think I may have noticed a plothole towards the end that would completely unravel the central conflict of the novel, thus eliminating the foundational pillar of any written piece - the problem.

But all that is minor in comparison to what struck me hardest. The trilogy in totality is about 1450 pages. The first novel could be trimmed down a little but is paced relatively well. The second novel becomes a bridge and tests the limits of patience (he spends 60-some-odd pages just getting off Mars at one point). But the third novel... this is where he struggled to find new characters and story tangents to prattle on about. In total, the entire trilogy could have been done in a tight 250 pages, maybe 400, 500 on the outside edge if he wanted to rework the pacing a little and tighten up the prose, perhaps add in a little more elaboration on the political intrigue. That would have made it a great novel. Instead, it became so tedious that I don't remember it with a great deal of fondness.

[Kyle Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much like I said in my review of Bright of the Sky, I wanted to give this book a 4-star rating. In this case though, it wasn't Roger Allen MacBride's writing style that disappointed, it was his rushed ending. The book started out brilliantly, I read the first 100+ pages almost without stopping. In fact, because I was on vacation and didn't have access to a bookstore, I had to force myself not to finish the book as quickly as I might have!

First though, a minor complaint. FictionConnection, a resource my library system (and perhaps yours) provides access to, has been pretty good about showing me books similar to the title I've searched for. Typically, I search for Pandora's Star or The Dreaming Void by Peter F. Hamilton, click the Find Similar button, and start browsing. In this case, I was trying to limit myself to recent books, as I was leaving soon for a 2-week vacation and had planned on sharing books with my father. The Depths of Time showed up on the list, and the description (or maybe the Publisher's Weekly review) painted the book as having a great handle on time-travel. This certainly interested me, as the concept is always interesting but the execution often leaves my head spinning. Causality can be a huge monkey wrench in the works it becomes distracting (Star Trek is a prime example, except "Cause and Effect" oddly enough). In the case of The Depths of Time, its preventing causality that gets to be a distracting issue. But worse still, time-travel actually has little to do with the story beyond those first tense, exciting 100 or so pages.

Eventually, I suspect I will read the next book in this apparent series. I'm not really sure what I expect to get out of it, though. The end of The Depths of Time obviously points the way to book 2, but doesn't really hint at an interesting plot. The great opening to book 1 gets explained, vaguely, at the end. Sadly though, its explanation curtails the potential for another such scene in the next book. While I haven't looked yet, I suspect reviews on Amazon.com for the next book won't be quite as good as they were for this book.

[Shirley Ostrander · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise is fascinating. The content is slow and repetitive. I'm listening to the book. It's a 14+ hour book. It took three hours to describe the event that set the stage for the rest of the book/series. Three hours to describe how bad guys threaten to create paradox by trying to go through wormhole back in time and how the good guys destroy the wormhole...three hours...then jump ahead 80 yrs. I'm going to try to finish it, but won't get the next two. Maybe they are better in print so you can skim...

*** update ***

I finished the book and was interested enough to purchase an ebook version of the next book. I've elevated the rating to *** stars for that reason.

This is the beginning of a highly complex, drawn out, mystery/chase. It involves intrigue on a galactic level spanning thousands of years. While I lamented the three hours it took to destroy the wormhole, I can say that this wormhole and the nearby world become pivotal points in the trilogy. That was very hard to see until late in the first book. There are some surprises in the book although readers will figure them out before they are revealed. I still count them as surprises because you don't expect them and once you see where the story is going you are surprised.

Expect lots of twists and turns. Expect the book to be well edited in terms of spelling and grammar. Expect to find things that don't make sense when jumping forward in time hundreds of years. Expect those things to be explained. (For instance, I was rolling my eyes at the idea that language, idioms, clothing styles, etc. didn't seem to change in a span of 120+ years...then the characters noticed and an explanation was eventually provided)

I recommend the book and the series. Just know that there will be tedious passages which explain things that have already been explained.

I recommend the written version over the audible version. The narrator added to my frustration. His voice increased the feeling of plodding along throughout the book. The next two books (yes I got both) benefited greatly from skimming over repetitive parts.

[Peter Goodman · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The Depths of Time,” by Roger MacBride Allen (Bantam, 2000). Surprisingly rich hard SF, though ultimately disappointing. Centuries in the future, homo sapiens has discovered how to travel across the universe: through time-travel, using relativity and wormholes to pass into the future light years away from where you started, and to return to the past. To prevent paradoxes, the past must never learn anything about the future: so the Chronologic Patrol stations ships at either end of wormholes to prevent the unauthorized from contaminating the past. Meanwhile, humanity has spread to the stars by terraforming dozens---hundreds---of planets to support life. But something penetrates a wormhole, destroying one CP ship, crippling another and vanishing at faster-than-light speed. Anton Koffield, captain of the surviving ship, must destroy the wormhole, thereby marooning the planet which depends on it, and stranding him in the future. Meanwhile, the planet Solace is slowly dying as its environment begins to decay. Through all sorts of adventures, it turns out that Oskar DeSilvo architect of terraforming, had stolen the idea and technology from Ulan Baskaw---and she had discovered there was a fatal flaw in the process, which meant that every terraformed planet would eventually destroy itself. Lots of good detail about the ships, the planets, the bits and pieces of everyday life. It held my attention almost to the end---when it turns out there is a deus ex machina and the book itself appears to be the first volume of a continuing set. Oh well.

http://www.sff.net/people/Roger.Allen/

[Bookmole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really more than 3* but definitely less than 4*.

Firstly, this book has sticking power. I started it, and plodded through the first couple of chapters, which are full of explanation as to time travel, paradox and the to-and-fro nature of space travel in this universe. I like hard science fiction. This just dragged. I did not want all that information delivered in a dry and, to me, hard to understand format.

Then POW a battle! Oh, shit, this is bad. Oh, death. Oh, dear.

Then, even though I had decided to give up, every time I picked up my kindle, and it was still in the book, I just read a bit more and a bit more and suddenly I was half-way through and enjoying it more than a little bit. It was when it stopped trying to dazzle me with science and started being more of a mystery that I really got into the mind-set this book requires.

However, I hated the ending, with a passion. And such a clever, clever arch-villain? I sort of found him hard to believe.

Not rushing to read books 2 and 3. I will, but am reading The Girl with All The Gifts right now, and enjoying that book immensely right from page 1.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just reread this on a long plane trip, and had forgotten how much I enjoyed it (or I enjoyed it more this time). The scientific basis for the space/time travel system is somewhat contrived, but Allen has thought it through, and provides a good story to go along with the complicated background. My only complaint is that the writing is sometimes repetitive - for example, one character is refered to (by the narrative voice) by his full name (first, middle and last) and title several times in one chapter. I look forward to reading the rest of this series.

[Flora · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unfortunately it took me a very long time to get to this book after I started it, bceause I kept taking breaks to read different ones, but I finally just sat down and read and I finished it in an insanely short amount of time. Especially by the end this book was hard to put down, and the ending makes you want to immediately start the next book! Fantastic!

[P.T. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the time travel element and human life in 3000 years however this was the first in a trilogy that I did not realize until half way through and I don't think I care enough about the characters to make finishing the trilogy a high priority.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the tech in this book and the various mysteries, but the payoff and reveal was weak. I wanted more.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of slow to start, but doesn't fail once you get to the end. Offers an interesting perspective on the future of the human race.

[Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

1

[Ric · Rating 3 out of 5]

At best - average. Thought it was appropriately titled as you are well and truly aware of the 'Depths of Time' when you finish reading this novel.

[Todd Sherman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the entire trilogy and enjoyed the characters and plot.

[Gort · Rating 3 out of 5]

Voluptatem sed iure aut. Voluptatum quibusdam explicabo repellat impedit quis. Ea vel non magnam dignissimos.

[Anthony Faber · Rating 2 out of 5]

book 1 of the chronicles of solace. Middle of the road space opera.