The Time Ships

by Stephen Baxter

The highly-acclaimed sequel to H G Wells’s THE TIME MACHINE, from the heir to Arthur C. Clarke.

Written to celebrate the centenary of the publication of H G Wells’s classic story The Time Machine, Stephen Baxter’s stunning sequel is an outstanding work of imaginative fiction.

The Time Traveller has abandoned his charming and helpless Eloi friend Weena to the cannibal appetites of the Morlocks, the devolved race of future humans from whom he was forced to flee. He promptly embarks on a second journey to the year AD 802,701, pledged to rescue Weena. He never arrives! The future was changed by his presence… and will be changed again. Hurled towards infinity, the Traveller must resolve the paradoxes building around him in a dazzling temporal journey of discovery. He must achieve the impossible if Weena is to be saved.

Genres: Science Fiction, Time Travel, Fiction, Steampunk, Speculative Fiction, Adventure, Hard Science Fiction

514 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Stephen Baxter is a trained engineer with degrees from Cambridge (mathematics) and Southampton Universities (doctorate in aeroengineering research). Baxter is the winner of the British Science Fiction Award and the Locus Award, as well as being a nominee for an Arthur C. Clarke Award, most recently for Manifold: Time. His novel Voyage won the Sidewise Award for Best Alternate History Novel of the Year; he also won the John W. Campbell Award and the Philip K. Dick Award for his novel The Time Ships. He is currently working on his next novel, a collaboration with Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Mr. Baxter lives in Prestwood, England.

Reviews

[Bionic Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1995, a hundred years after H.G. Wells's novel "The Time Machine", the Wells' estate authorised an official sequel by Stephen Baxter. The Time Ships went on to win several prestigious SF awards, including the British Science Fiction award for that year. It is an ambitious project and an exciting read in its own right.

The novel starts where the original left off, in 1891, with "the Time Traveller" preparing to return to the year 802,701 to save Weena, the young female Eloi who died in the fire with the Morlocks, a fact for which he had felt guilty and responsible ever since.

We learn that the time machine had been constructed from quartz, and fuelled by a radioactive substance called "Plattnerite", which had been given to the traveller by an unknown and mysterious benefactor, twenty years earlier. Incidentally, Stephen Baxter has coined this word using the name of a character in one of Wells's short stories entitled "The Plattner Story". Published in a collection in 1897, the story is about a school teacher, "Gottfried Plattner" who chemically analyses a green powder of uncertain origin which had been given him by his students. When lit, the powder violently launches him into a mysterious parallel dimension, where he is observed by mute "Watchers of the Living". There are further references to these beings later in this novel.

With the aid of the Plattnerite, the Time Traveller sets off into the future and stops in 657,208 , when the daytime sky has gone permanently dark. At this point there is an unexpected twist in the tale, as the traveller is horrifed to find himself seized and abducted by a gang of Morlocks. However, these Morlocks turn out to be far more more culturally advanced than the ones he met before. The traveller feels the same repugnance for the Morlocks that he did before, but gradually comes to realise that it is the Morlocks who have inherited the world's knowledge and civilisation, and not the Eloi.

Stephen Baxter introduces the second main character at this point - the Morlock Nebogipfel. Here he has appropriated a name which H. G. Wells used in an earlier short story - also about a time machine - called "The Chronic Argonauts". The Time Traveller assumes that Nebogipfel is a vastly important being in this society. He is sadly disillusioned to find that, on the contrary, Nebogipfel is a teacher, and not considered very knowledgable at all. Because the Morlock has an unusual interest in ancient times and cultures, he was given the task of caring for the Time Traveller. After hearing the Time Traveller's own story Nebogipfel explains that the conflict between Eloi and Morlocks never occurred, because of "the Writer" (ie. H. G. Wells)'s publication of the story which became "The Time Machine". A neat little joke there on the current author's part! But it therefore followed that Weena would be impossible to locate, because the timeline he sought to go to was now inaccessible.

There are a lot of definitions and explanations relating to quantum physics, which the reader assumes to be either theoretical or even pseudoscience. It is tempting to wonder whether H. G. Wells himself would have written this sort of hard SF, had he had access to the scientific advancements of the next hunded years. It is certainly consistent with the style of his SF novels and stories. Another example of this is the "Dyson sphere" which from Nebogipfel's description, the Morlocks in the present timeline have evidently constructed around the inner solar system. They use the sun's energy to power it. (A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical colossal spherical structure, constructed around a star, completely surrounding it, thereby capturing most or all of its power output.) The Time Traveller is told that descendants of the humans he expected to see do exist, but they live on the sunlit inner surface of the Sphere, while the Morlocks live on the outer shell.

Eventually the Time Traveller manages to capitalise on Nebogipfel's interest and desire to learn about him, and tricks the Morlock into taking him back to his Time machine, ostensibly so that he can show Nebogipfel how it works. The reader is identifying with the Time Traveller by this point, so has a good idea of what will happen next. Sure enough, as soon as he can, the Time Traveller reactivates his machine and travels to 1873 to persuade his younger self to stop his research on Plattnerite. He had tried to escape alone, but as soon as Nebogipfel realised what he was doing, and much to the Time Traveller's disgust incidentally, he grabbed hold of him to follow him there.

There follows the sort of scene much beloved by all SF readers, an apparent impossibility due to diverging timelines, where the Time Traveller meets his younger self. The author and the viewpoint character call this younger self "Moses", which is the original Time Traveller's name in H. G. Wells's book. The Time Traveller attempts to persuade his younger self to stop his research by using Nebogipfel's appearance as proof that reality is changed by time travel. This part of the book is full of wit and gentle humour. It is very much in keeping with Wells's writing style, and the stiffness and pomposity of Edwardian characters is well conveyed, amusing both the viewpoint character, reverting backwards from his point in time, and the readers, from ours.

The Time Traveller is stupefied to see an enormous tank pull into Moses's yard, and equally so when the commanding officer on board is not a man but a young woman, Hilary Bond. She is accompanied by the Time Traveller's friend Filby, now much older. They all seem to know more about what is happening than either the Time traveller or Moses, and take both of them, plus Nebogipfel, forward to their 1938, where World War I is still continuing.

Much subdued, the Time Traveller is told that this is partly due to the discovery of time travel, which had been influenced by his work. Britain's major cities are all encased in domes, and they are still at war with Germany. Baxter's inclusion of domes here is reminiscent of the post world war "Bombproofs" mentioned as existing in London after the second world war in H. G. Wells' novel "The Shape of Things to Come." As well as referencing Wells, Baxter also introduces an actual person from history here, an Austrian expatriate Kurt Gödel, who was considered to be one of the most significant logicians in history. In real life, Gödel made an immense impact upon scientific and philosophical thinking in the 20th century. In this novel, the British government hoped to win the war by making use of Gödel's experiments, to alter Germany's history.

Nebogipfel realises and explains to both the Time Traveller and the reader that this is yet another future, resulting from their actions when they met Moses. During a bombing raid on London by the Germans, Gödel shows the travellers that not only does he have a vial of Plattnerite, but also the prototype of a Time-Car. The Time Traveller and Nebogipfel manage to escape, but Moses is killed in an explosion when he tries to save Gödel.

In this section of the book, Gödel comes across almost as a mouthpiece for H. G. Wells, as Baxter makes him a prescient character describing what society would be like after the war. This is a very bleak and pessimistic view, which seems to be similar to Wells's own. With no clear plan, the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel are thrust back to the Paleocene, where the time machine is wrecked on a tree. They barely survive, and adapt to their new lives in the Paleocene, which seems now to be permanent. At one point, the Time Traveller nearly dies because of a bacterial infection, as his body is not adapted to the environment. This reminds the reader very much of the ending of H. G. Wells's novel, "The War of the Worlds" when it is the Martians who succumb.

Eventually a scouting party from the "Chronic Expeditionary Force" in 1944 discovers them. It is commanded by Hilary Bond, who had investigated human archaeological remains in her time, and deduced from their discrepancy in the fossil record, where the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel would be likely to have arrived. Ironically, it transpires that a German Messerschmitt plane has followed them, and it drops a "Carolinum" bomb, on the site, leaving virtually nothing but devastation.

This is another example of Baxter's theorising and literary references. In our world the bomb would be an atomic bomb, with its nuclear energy produced by uranium. In this novel the science is slightly different. The suggestion is that the universe of the Time Traveller is not ours, but a slightly different one, consistent with H. G. Wells's novels. In Wells's world, nuclear energy is produced from a material called carolinum, which allows Plattnerite to be produced relatively easily. These Carolinum bombs, contrary to A-bombs, continue to detonate for years with an eerie purple glow. The name "carolinum", and the reference to continuous detonation are both based on Wells's novel, which he called "The World Set Free". Prophetically, he wrote it in 1913, and in it H. G. Wells predicted nuclear weapons of a more destructive and uncontrollable sort than the world has yet seen.

Nebogipfel and the Time Traveller return to the devastated campsite, and over the next year and a half, a handful of maimed surviving soldiers including Hilary Bond start a colony which they call "First London." Nebogipfel insists on repairing the Time-Car although the Time Traveller is irritated by what he sees as a useless waste of time. As one would expect in a good SF story however, shavings of Plattnerite were somehow acquired to power it on a journey through time. The Time Traveller and Nebogipfel travel through fifty million years, seeing "First London" expand and develop colonies on the moon and in Earth's orbit. They also witness extensive human destruction of the Earth's environment, rendering the planet uninhabitable.

Eventually they run out of Plattnerite fuel, and wake up to find they are being looked after by a "Universal Constructor", which Nabogipfel has worked out must be a colony of life forms based on nanotechnology. Few stars are left in the night sky, because Dyson Spheres have been constructed around many host stars to provide colonies. None of the beings who have descended from humans are at all recognisable as life forms to either Nabofgipfel or the Time Traveller, being far distant in time from either. The Universal Constructor's goal is to harvest the energy of the sun, using the Plattnerite to build time-travel vehicles to travel to the beginning of the universe. Nebogipfel, who has been partly enhanced with nanotechnology, works out that this goal will take a million years, a time period which does not seem to signify to either him or the Universal Constructor.

The Time Traveller however, sees that it is not necessary to wait for a million years. They acquire enough Plattnerite from the Constructors to travel forward a million years in their time machine, to when the Constructors will have finished building their time ships. Once there, reality seems to change, and there is clearly a grand plan with different beings or a consciousness which replaces the Universal Constructor. Although it is unseeable and virtually unknowable, Nebogipfel and the Time Traveller deduce that the new consciousness seems to have more understanding than the Universal Constructor whom it replaces. As a consequence, the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel are relocated to 1871, in the Time Traveller's original history. Gratifyingly, as the reader suspects, the Time Traveller himself had been the mysterious stranger with the Plattnerite sample. Under the alias "Gottfried Plattner", he had given the sample to his younger self. Because of this, the timelines are consistent, and the history which ends up creating the Constructors and their successors proceeds. Nebogipfel, always eager for knowledge and new experiences, leaves the Time Traveller behind to travel with the successors of the Constructors.

But the story would not satisfy unless it concluded with an attempt to save Weena. The Time Traveller makes one final journey forward to a slightly earlier point in 802,701, and in a very exciting episode just manages to save Weena from the death she suffered before. But since the timeline must not be changed again, the Time Traveller has to destroy the machine. He stays with the Eloi, encouraging them to learn how to farm and to gradually reduce their dependence on the Morlocks for food and clothing, so that they will one day be separate.

The Time Traveller writes an account of his adventures sealing it within some Plattnerite, in the hope that it would be found at some point in the future. He finally records that he plans to go into the world of the Morlocks again, so that he could add an appendix to the story. The last sentence of the novel says that no appendix was found.

Stephen Baxter has written a hugely ambitious sequel, which succeeds on just about every level. It captures the voice and style of H.G. Wells, as well as being an absorbing and exciting read on its own. The characters are engaging throughout, and the development of the Morlocks provide a very neat twist on the original. References to Wells's other works, mean that the novel is even more enjoyable.

[Apatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Taking on the task of writing a sequel to H.G. Wells’ classic The Time Machine must have been like painting a target on his back. Having read Baxter’s Xeelee Omnibus I was very curious if Baxter can pull it off as the Xeelee books are very hard sci-fi with some very complicated scientific expositions (half of which went well over my head). His prose style in those books is readable but not so high on literary merit. In contrast The Time Machine is a beautifully written and fairly straight forward sci-fi adventure. Baxter’s The Time Ships does seem to be quite popular among his books so I was intrigued to find out how he managed to make a success of it.

The Time Ships continues directly from the end of The Time Machine where the unnamed protagonist has recently returned to 1891 from his adventures in the far future where he battled Morlocks, witnessed the end of the world, almost get eaten by weird giant crabtrocities etc. After a few days home it occurs to him to go back to the future to rescue Weena, the little Eloi girl who befriended him and was carried off by Morlocks for her troubles. This is the initial premise to the start of a truly epic adventure in time and space in both past and future directions this time.

One missed opportunity about Wells’ The Time Machine is that the “timey wimey” paradox is not featured in the book, the story feels kind of linear in spite of the journey to the future and the return journey at the end. The science fiction genre, which Wells has helped to give birth to, has developed very far since Wells’ time, and Baxter has taken full advantage of that subsequent development. It is as if Baxter has turbo charged the original book, or - perhaps more accurately - strapped a FTL drive to it. From the Edwardian settings Baxter goes on to incorporate post-humanism, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, parallel universes, space elevators and many other modern sci-fi concepts. The Time Ships does not read like a sequel that Wells may have written it himself. It reads more like fan fiction written by a scientist and eminent sci-fi author. Fortunately this time Baxter’s science (mostly) did not go over my head, I certainly find The Time Ships more accessible than his Xeelee books. The plot is completely unpredictable and the occasional illustrations are wonderful, there is even a great anti-war message. Baxter also makes the time machine itself more believable:

“Well, then, this is the essence of my Time Machine,’ I concluded. ‘The machine twists Space and Time around itself, thus mutating Time into a Spatial Dimension – and then one may proceed, into past or future, as easy as riding a bicycle!”

“We cannot help but interact with History, you and I. With every breath we take, every tree you cut down, every animal we kill, we create a new world in the Multiplicity of Worlds. That is all. It is unavoidable.”

Nicely put! Stephen Baxter’s faux-Wellsian prose is a valiant effort though he does not really have Wells’ finesse with the language. He certain overuses exclamation marks in his narratives and dialogue, a habit which I find quite jarring. He did quite well with the character development though, at least with the two central character, the Time Traveler and his Morlock friend Nebogipfel (no, I won’t elaborate on the “Morlock friend” part). The Time Traveller seems to be more badass and pugnacious than I remember from the Wells book. Baxter has the advantage of modern science knowledge which he applied cleverly to the story.

In spite of some stylistic flaws I would rate this book at 5 stars because I had 5 stars worth of entertainment out of it. By far the best Stephen Baxter book I ever read and it has made me a regular customer of his.

[Xabi1990 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pág. 224, 40% y abandonado.
Por Dios y por la Virgen, qué aburrimiento.

Dicen que es steampunk, género por el que siento aprecio. Que lo digan, pero de momento solo parcialmente época victoriana y el vapor, poco o nada.

El autor es matemático e ingeniero, y parece ser que eso le ha llevado a más explicaciones de las que me gustan. Se enzarza con las paradojas temporales que sí posibles o no y lo soluciona con el tema de universos múltiples/paralelos. Pues vale.

El autor es inglés. El pobre no tiene la culpa, pero no me matan los autores ingleses. Pocos triunfan conmigo. Y es que se enrolla con las localizaciones de Londón y me sobran.

El libros es una continuación autorizada de La máquina del tiempo de Wells. Pues bien, como presentación no está mal, pero el desarrollo aburre.

Y he aguantado esas 200 págs. Y ya. Y mira que quería que me gustara por todo lo anterior (salvo la pertenencia a Albión) y porque siempre que empiezo CF recuerdo el “sense of wonder” que me asaltaba en mis lejanos comienzos con la CF y me gustaría que volviera, pero es difícil (leed Projecto Hail Mary de Weir, que ese sí lo consigue)

Pues eso, que lo aprecies si podéis (otros del autor tampoco han triunfado conmigo, por cierto)

[Raed · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love The Time Machine. It’s the grandfather of time travel stories, and still one of the best. H.G. Wells’ classic story tells of a nameless Time Traveller who takes a quick jaunt to the future to prove a scientific point, and then returns home to tell the tale

The Time Ships is a book crammed with ideas, essential for the hard sf reader, complete enough as a novel to satisfy those beyond the subgenre. Towards the end it falters a little, it stops being the story of the people and becomes the story of the ideas - a big, wild tumble of speculative physics

Behind the 10 miles of physics and philosophy this book is a love story:

I was a murderer of the future: I had taken on, I realized, more powers than God himself. By my twisting-up of the workings of History, I had wiped over billions of unborn lives—lives that would now never come to be. And I realized now that I could never retrieve Weena.

The Time Traveller reached the end and the beginning of Multiplicity, not for the big picture of his species or his life or his power, just to save Weena : a creature that gave him Unconditional Platonic love...

[bsc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Baxter did a great job capturing the feel and style of The Time Machine. What he didn't capture of H.G.'s brevity. There are some truly fascinating ideas in this book. The problem is that there's too many ideas. The result of this was a longing for the book's satisfying but predictable conclusion.

[Brian Clegg · Rating 4 out of 5]

There has been a long tradition of writing sequels or variants of H. G. Wells classics - think, for example, of Christopher Priest's mashup of The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds in The Space Machine. This 1995 novel from Stephen Baxter is, in one sense, a straight sequel to The Time Machine, picking up immediately after the time traveller returns to the 'present' of 1891. If I'm honest, The Time Machine is my least favourite of Wells' SF novels. Although the early chat about time as a fourth dimension was distinctly visionary, I find the actual adventure in the distant future heavy going. There are still elements of that in this sequel - but there's no doubt that Stephen Baxter managed to go way beyond Wells' original vision.

Firstly, Baxter invokes the Many Worlds hypothesis, to enable time travel without paradoxes, which intriguingly means that every journey through time potentially produces a totally different future. Then he brings in other concepts from Wells' writing, notably his books covering modern warfare and presaging a sort of atomic bomb (though, as described in Wells' The World Set Free, very different from the real thing). Time travel is envisaged of a way of fighting a war... and then totally transforms the history of humanity and its successors.

Towards the end it all goes a little over the top. Early in his career, Baxter was involved with Arthur C. Clarke and we get some parallels with the star child sequence in 2001, combined with echoes of the ending of James Blish's Cities in Flight books. When we arrive at such lofty, heavyweight concepts it can be easy to lose any sense of engaging storytelling, especially combined with the cod Victorian writing style. There's a quote from New Scientist on the back of my copy that says that Baxter 'joins [the] exclusive ranks [of those who write] science fiction in which the science is right'. There is certainly a fair dollop of speculative physics here, but we sometimes get it in exchange for great writing. And there is one bit of dodgy history of science, where the time traveller talks knowledgeably about radium some eight years before it was named.

However, despite sometimes getting a little bogged down, there is no doubt this is a novel with both a fantastic span and a whole collection of excellent ideas. Time travel is great in theory as a storyline, but it's rare that time travel fiction really explores it implications. Baxter does this in some depth - and it's impressive stuff.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls · Rating 3 out of 5]

This canonical sequel to H.G. Wells' enduring Science-Fiction novella about an inventor who travels into Earth's distant future to explore humanity's legacy was authorized by Wells' estate and the H.G. Wells Society and published in 1995, the 100th anniversary of the original publication of The Time Machine. Baxter, a hard sci-fi author who considers himself heavily influenced by Wells and who would become Vice President of the H.G. Wells Society in 2006, was a natural choice to write the sequel; he would later write The Massacre of Mankind in 2017, an authorized sequel published for the 120th anniversary of The War of the Worlds's original publication. The Time Ships opens just after the original story ends, with our inventor preparing to revisit the future Earth of the Eloi and the Morlocks in search of his beloved Weena, but the story quickly expands beyond a simple linear sequel into an exploration of many different facets of time travel (alternate history, multiple universes, etc.) and other hard sci-fi topics (Dyson spheres, Von Neumann self-replicating space exploration craft, etc.) with many, many loving touches included for Wells fans (land ironclads from the short story of the same name, the name "Nebogipfel" from the story "The Chronic Argonauts" which foreshadowed The Time Machine, etc.). Like many hard sci-fi novels, the characters and the story take a back seat to exploring the ideas, which gets tedious at times, particularly since Baxter successfully apes Wells' rambling Victorian prose which might not be overly compelling to a modern reader, and the book's scope is so vast that 520 pages of tiny-point type can be exhausting by the end, but that detracts only slightly from Baxter's grand accomplishment.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 'sequel' to H.G. Wells' The Time Machine was well done. Baxter starts off very much in Wells' style but while maintaining the fundamentals of the Time Traveler's character, he swiftly brings the story out of Wells' philosophical dystopian mode into the (equally philosophically tinged) modern idea of multiplicity resulting from quantum mechanics.

Some of the various histories were just as horrifying as the original world of the Eloi and Morlocks & some were Utopian though challenging to our ideas of what is important/right.

I particularly liked the fact that in the end, Baxter brings the main character back to Wells' version of the future. A wonderful centennial tribute to Wells!

[fromcouchtomoon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cool because it's a sequel to The Time Machine; dull because it's written like a sequel to The Time Machine. A slow start that grows from intriguing to dull and back again, but Baxter's Hard SF misses the boat, er, ship, rather, when he mostly neglects Wells' primary social concerns for engineering sensawunda. Also, Morlocks probably don't call themselves Morlocks.

[Max · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I felt as if The Time Machine was somewhat too short, this novel was almost certainly too long. Baxter did do a good job of presenting this as a sequel to The Time Machine. However, as a few other reviews note, the Time Traveler does not make for a compelling protagonist. The Dyson Sphere and Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics were interesting elements to include, although I've seen both elsewhere, and handled much better. Some of the histories were interesting, and the alternate World War I would be a brilliant setting for a novel or series of novels. However, the second half of the book is paced rather poorly. The time spent in the Paleocene is largely a recapitulation of "random guy stuck on an island" stories with a Morlock thrown in. Even worse, the time spent on the "White Earth" is just unutterably dull. It is full of far too much exposition and absolutely no depiction of the intriguing post-human future. The subsequent introduction of the titular Time Ships leads to another rather uninteresting stretch. The trip back through time to the dawn of the universe is alright, but all the subsequent action is explained poorly, and not in a good way. I am sometimes okay with sufficiently unexplained or complex endings, if they provoke thought. This, on the other hand, was nonsensical dribble. The Watchers are barely explained and in the end prove to be almost completely superfluous. Thus, I would say it is best to read the first few sections if you wish to read any of this at all, and then set the book aside. Trust me, you will not miss very much.

[Bookworm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Baxter is usually always a good choice. Among his singletons , "Time Ships" (like "Evolution", in my opinion his best novel) is one of his most remarkable works.

He is the only one who succeeds in giving Wells' story a cosmological twist.

The description of the change of his protagonist (who has just returned from the Eloi future of the Wells classic) towards the Morlock scientist(!) Nebogipfel (against whom he has prejudices - partly based on his encounter with them before) is convincing.

Nebogipfel, on the other hand, is the consistently positive character in his patience and loyalty to the time traveler.

A must-read, as it connects the Victorian hero with the most distant civilizations, right up to the end of the universe.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an approved sequel to H.G. Wells' classic The Time Machine that I reviewed here on GR. I was not enamored with the original because I felt the tone was archaic and the narrative was a bit sluggish at times. Baxter's update published exactly 100 years later in 1995, starts rather slow, but then builds up a head of steam and becomes more fun to read. The protagonist was a bit more well-rounded in the sense that he evolves throughout the long book whereas in the original story, I felt he was more one-dimensional. This book didn't win any of the big three (Hugo, Nebula, Locus) but was still highly praised and won a smattering of 2nd tier awards. Is it essential 90s sci-fi? Probably because of its lineage and the fact that the Wells estate allowed him to bring back this classic and update it. Its vision of the future is no less pessimistic than Wells', but the bond between the protagonist and his Morlock friend is believable and even touching. If you can make it through the first 100 pages or so, then the pace never relents until the end of the book as you travel back and forth through time creating eddies of alternative histories left and right.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3248667.html

This is a sequel to The Time Machine, authorised as such by the H.G. Wells estate. (I've had more dealings with the estates of deceased writers in the last week than I can remember from my whole life before the Worldcon.) I have previously mentioned that I always appreciate the breadth and scope of Baxter's vision - the commitment to sensawunda if you like - but that he doesn't always succeed in communicating it in a human way to me. I thought this book ticked the right boxes. The Time Traveller of Wells' novel tries to return to the year 802,701 and save Weena, but gets caught up in the parallel universes of the Many Worlds theory, and visits a number of very well depicted possible futures and pasts along with a friendly Morlock called Nebogipfel. Particularly vivid passages are set in a war-torn London of 1938, where the exiled Kurt Gödel is helping the British government, and a Paleocene setting where they become involved in setting up a wildly premature human colony in the past. Other bits are a little duller, but the overall plot of time paradoxes, which seems in danger of veering out of control at one point, is wrapped up very satisfactorily. Apparently there are lots of references to other H.G. Wells stories as well, which I missed due to not being in that fandom. Overall I enjoyed it.

[Erik]

Baxter takes the classic HG Wells novela and expands it in new and interesting ways, while still being faithful to the original piece. Here the Time Traveler is more thoughtful and more scientifically minded than he was in "The Time Machine," but the characterization is the same.



His journey starts where the first book ends and is split up into seven smaller "books" within the more than five-hundred page paperback. Each book takes the the Time Traveller from a child-like understanding of time, to a sad adulthood where time travel causes only bad futures, and back again to a hopeful place of maturity and wonder.



It is not an easy book to start and delves into a lot of scientific digressions that even ardent science fiction fans might not be used to. In between the theoretical monologues (and eventually, dialogues) is a pensive character piece that questions the nature of reality, infinity and eternity.



While challenging and a bit hard to read at points, "The Times Ships" is a novel that is exciting, heart breaking and demands to be finished.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yeah. Well, I finished it but I'm not sure why.

I love the work of H.G. Wells and I was interested in a book beginning at the point where Wells' The Time Machine left off. After all, there have been many such works and most of the have been interesting and a couple of have been downright brilliant.

Baxter got the "voice" of the times just right but, he didn't quite capture Wells. Wells wrote story which had interesting and original thought experiments for the times.

Wells at his wordiest cannot begin to approach the word bloat infecting Baxter's novel. I desperately looked for anything at all, a la Wells, but failed to find any. What I found was an endlessly repetitive pseudo-explanation of time travel couched in 20th C scientific theory. That, and endless descriptive passages. True, Baxter does descr4iption very well; he even does rationalization of the scientifically impossible well enough to make the impossible seem merely improbable.

But, if you are also looking for story, with believable characters, you would do well to look elsewhere.

[GreyAtlas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, truly I did. But I just can't. I really liked the original Time Machine by H.G. Wells, so I thought I would like this one. I read the first 1/4 of this book and then skipped to the ending. It was good until *spoiler* they went back in time to see the narrators former self. The part I loved about the original Time Machine is that the world of the Morlocks and Eloi is believable, at least to me. This book by Baxter crosses from science fiction to fantasy, and had SO MUCH unnecessary shit in it, and I nearly stopped reading it. The ending was okay, but the book had the feel of that movie, Interstellar. The style that Baxter writes in is decent, pretty descriptive. I liked the first part of the book where he became captured by *spoiler* the new Morlocks of the future. But then, shit hits the fan, and the book just fails. It was a good attempt, but overall, just boring and unbelievable.

[prcardi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Storyline: 2/5
Characters: 4/5
Writing Style: 3/5
World: 3/5

An authorized sequel written on the centennial of what is perhaps the foundational science fiction book - how does one review such a thing? You could ask if it pays proper homage to the original, if it adequately captures the tone of the first, or perhaps if it builds on and betters what was originally there. And I'll address all of those in the process of this review. My overriding concern, however, when I started reading this, was whether or not this needed to be situated in the same world as H.G. Wells's The Time Machine. Was this a story that could have just as easily been told without reference to 1891 London, Morlocks or Eloi? Was Baxter using the centennial and reference to the original as an excuse to sell what would otherwise have been an unrelated book? And the answer to those questions is a decided "No." The Time Ships is very much a sequel to The Time Machine but not a sequel that Wells could ever have written. That, in fact, was one of the definitive characteristics of this telling. Baxter wants to show readers how humanity has progressed in the hundred years since the 1895 Time Machine was originally published. And what Baxter can conceive now in contemporary times, was inconceivable in the 19th century.

The book starts off in homage. Wells's prose is obviously and laboriously emulated and the character of the Time Traveler excellently captured. The writing style, however, was there but for the transition, to help us readers make the shift from Wells to Baxter. It doesn't take many chapters for Wells's prose to disappear and for Baxter's to dominate. It made for a lazy homage and does not throw Baxter into a positive light. One of the - if not the - primary marks of the original Time Machine was the prose, and the most that can be said for Baxter's writing is that it demonstrates how even a capable writer pales in comparison to a truly gifted one. The Time Ships is more successful, however, with the narrator. Here, too, this is probably not properly termed "homage" since Baxter is doing far more than venerating Wells. In fact, there is a certain disparaging taking place here - not slighting Wells personally, but slighting the 19th century humanity that could come up with the character of the Time Traveler. For Baxter knows something that appears to have eluded Wells. Wells's Time Traveler was never as noble, as honorable, as open-minded as Wells thought him to be. Wells's Time Traveler was a man of his own time, and Wells only scratched the surface of what that really meant. Baxter, however, can see the 1895 Time Traveler for all his flaws and most importantly, in a way that Wells's never could have: from the viewpoint of the end of the 20th century. What Baxter decides to do with the Time Traveler is the real heart of the book. Baxter is going to make him confront his assumptions and prejudices. The Time Traveler is going to have to truly see what a "man out of time" would have to be. There's other aspects to enjoy as well. Baxter has grand ambitions with technology and physics, incorporating some of the more elaborate and sensational theoretical possibilities into a very readable hard science fiction novel. And he stays true to the theme of the original - what would you discover if you traveled through time and how would you make sense of it? All this is done, as it was in the original, through the actions and perspectives of the Time Traveler.

Somehow, despite having 416 more pages to develop the story, I found that I didn't enjoy the plot of this one anymore than I had the 104-page precursor. That, in part, has to do with the goals of both authors, entertaining plotting not high among them. Both Wells and Baxter want to look at humanity. The irony with Baxter's twist on Wells's Time Traveler is that Baxter is no more freed from his time than was Wells was his. Thus though Baxter has the Time Traveler rethink his patriotism, chauvinism, or prudishness; he has taken on the identity of a 20th century empiricist. Baxter takes the Time Traveler through experience after experience, having him shed his Victorian Gentleman sensibilities, preparing him to be a real "man out of time." What Baxter does, though, is to sterilize humanity; robbing it of culture, values, or the supernatural. This is the future of humanity for Baxter, and it is a paean to science. And as a thought experiment, it is an idea worthy of contemplating. I have doubts, though, that Baxter thought of this as debatable. In his efforts to reveal to us the ethnocentricity and naivete of Wells's original narrator - to show us what a time traveler would have to become - Baxter gives us an ideal that I wouldn't recognize as human. And to his credit, Baxter has the Time Traveler voice these same concerns, but it is always further evidence of the Time Traveler's limited mind, of his inability to overcome his ingrained prejudices. What results, then, is a main character every bit as trapped by a particular (and limited) worldview. To be able to see that in Wells's Time Traveler is evidence of how a book can achieve more than it intended - the Time Traveler being much more complicated (and flawed) than Wells intended. One gets to see the same thing here as well, only this time the Time Traveler reveals to us the assumptions and ideals of a modern day scientist - valuing neutrality and objectivity above all else. By the end of this story I thought that time travel and Baxter's vision of humanity were horrors, and I don't think we were supposed to leave with those impressions. Still, it is a remarkable book, an ambitious one, but not an overly entertaining one. I might have enjoyed the hard science fiction elements more in 1995. Though Baxter does a fairly good job integrating a mind-bending science fiction possibility the many worlds hypothesis, it is not so novel or strange to me anymore, and veteran science fiction readers reading this anew today will probably not find it as fresh and inventive as it was twenty years ago.

[Wayne Fenlon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this authorised sequel to The Time Machine. Stephen Baxter really captured the original feel while also pulling in today's science into the mix. Some of this was way beyond me, but it didn't spoil the time I had. Really glad I read this one. Loved the different take on the Morlocks.

Solid 4 stars.

[Thom · Rating 1 out of 5]

Narrative exposition is the insertion of important background information within a story. This story (an authorized by the Wells estate sequel to The Time Machine) is nearly all exposition, and much the worse for it. If you haven't read the original, do so - but skip this.

Yes, there is some action in this story, or rather should I say stories. Contained in this long volume are several stories strung together into one narrative. None of the brevity of the original. Herein you may find:

- Enemy Mine, where the Morlock is more civilized than the Human
- Robinson Crusoe, stranded this time in the Paleocene (with the Morlock as Friday?)
- The Prisoner, striving to break free from one prison and falling into another
- a far future run by nanobots (and yet another prison)
- Back to the Future, where interference changes the future, wait no, is required for the future

All with suitable exposition on Dyson sphere's, survival, and quantum mechanics.

There are three theories of time travel where the past is involved, and Wells never chose which one belonged to his story (set in the far future). Baxter seems to have decided to use all three, which makes life that much more confusing for the reader - nothing a little more exposition can't fix!

When I started writing this review, I was thinking 2 stars - but I seem to have talked myself into a lower rating. Sorry Stephen, this book just wasn't for me, and I can't recommend it.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't be fooled by the doofy title; this book is a marvellously reimagined "sequel" to HG Wells' classic THE TIME MACHINE. As much as Wells' book was social allegory for the issues of his day, THE TIME SHIPS plumbs some of the questions of 21st century man through the lens of Wells' 19th century hero. I am so impressed with how Baxter uses those Victorian values and perceptions as a lens to grapple with very modern issues...the narrator comes off as remarkably cosmopolitan, open-minded and intelligent despite the limitations of his cultural sphere. The final leg of the book gets a little too "acid trippy" for me (well, the line between "acid trip" and quantum mechanics is always a thin one), and the book is weakest when Baxter tries to showcase his knowledge of abstruse cosmological/astrophysical theory...but despite these flaws, the book is one I couldn't put down, and would recommend to anyone who has read the TIME MACHINE (while you COULD read this book as a standalone, the book vastly rewards a knowledge of Wells' tale).

[Jordi Balcells · Rating 5 out of 5]

Continuación "apócrifa" de La máquina del tiempo, de H.G. Wells, me recuerda a las idas de olla metafísicas de Arthur C. Clarke con su saga Odisea.
El viajero, con cada nueva visita al pasado o al futuro, cambia su línea espacio-temporal y se desespera porque cree que con ello niega la existencia de todos aquellos atrapados en una realidad que ya no existe. Como buen autor hard, Baxter no se corta un pelo con la física, hasta tal punto que hacia el final del libro parece más bien metafísica, ya que está a años luz (jaja) de nuestro punto de vista y comprensión del cosmos. El penúltimo capítulo es un viaje a los límites de la inteligencia y la existencia humana.
Debido a la estructuración en sublibros / líneas argumentales, se hace un poco largo y da la impresión de que Baxter tenía suficiente material como para hacer una trilogía sin despeinarse.
Aparte de esto, es una verdadera joyita. Lectura muy recomendable, pero con paciencia, que esto no es para novatos en la ciencia ficción.

[Nick J Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have lost count how many times I've read this book. I first encountered it directly after finishing a Literature Masters on Wells' early writing. To say Baxter's The Time Ships was right for where my head was at would be an understatement. It is now one of my all-time favourite novels, just below of course Wells' original, The Time Machine, and alongside Ronald Wright's equally brilliant but extremely different sequel, A Scientific Romance.

[Stig Edvartsen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Conflicted about this one. On one hand it really captures the tone and language from the original, but on the other hand it is....umm...kinda dull. I was never invested in what happened to the protagonist. Much in the same way he didn't seem to see the characters around him as people.

[Boris · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Dustin]

Sometime in my youth (mid--late 90's,) I recall starting this, but for whatever reason, I never finished it. And now, of course, I no longer own a copy. Thankfully, e-books are much more affordable than physical editions.

[Jonatan FA · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ca reste mon livre préféré haha

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very unique reading experience, in the fact that Stephen Baxter wrote this as a kind of sequel to H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, and adapted the style and speech mannerisms of that older work in order to enforce the illusion. It was well done, but that might not be for everyone because it is actually like reading an historical book, with its historical sensibilities, and use of "men" everywhere to denote humans, and exclamation points to express emotion, etc. It does create a lot of interesting ironies, having someone of a previous era explore future possibilities past even our modern era, and seeing their reactions, and wondering if our reactions would be all that different. Further, it did seem that the original story provided an interesting starting off point for the exploration of more modern ideas about time travel.

As a story, the plot takes a lot of lengthy detours, and I found it a bit long-winded, and lost steam in a lot of places. Based on story alone I probably would only rate it 3 stars, but the feat Mr. Baxter has accomplished in writing this from the point of view of the time traveler in The Time Machine, plus, some pretty amazing and thought-provoking ideas scattered at important climaxes in the book, brought it up to 4 stars for me. I would recommend it for those interested in time travel, in particular those fans of H.G. Wells' classic work. I would not recommend it to those whose excitement is based on the title, or the cover (at least on my paperback copy) which shows luminous futuristic ships in space, because if you think this book will read like that, you will be sorely disappointed. Again, think of the original classic story, with some modern twists, and that is a much better starting place for your expectations.

[Pseudonymous d'Elder · Rating 4 out of 5]

_______________________________________________
“The Arrow of Time Wounds All.”

In 1891, the time traveler from the original Time Machine returned from his voyage to the year A.D.802,701 just long enough to pick up a few candles, some matches, a change a clothes, grab his Kodak box camera, and briefly relate his adventures to a certain unnamed writer friend who had been waiting for him. Then he jumps back into his time machine and heads back to the future to save his love, the sylph-like Weena. He never returns.

This second novel starts out in the same place, but the traveler soon learns that there are much scarier things in the universe than the chthonian human descendents called Morlocks who eat their pretty delicious, fruitarian human cousins known as Eloi: he realizes that his time machine is changing history and expunging the existence of billions or trillions of future people. Talk about cancel culture.

Wells moralizes and preaches a bit in the original novel by comparing the predator/prey relationship between the Morlocks and Eloi as prophetic of what will happen if the hard working laborers in 19th century England ever get the upper hand on England’s effete, vapid, and dissipated upper classes

Even now, does not an East-end worker live in such artificial conditions as practically to be cut off from the natural surface of the earth?

Stephen Baxter does quite a bit of his own moralizing and societal naval-gazing in The Time Ships, mainly about war and the human capacity for violence. His characters also spend quite a bit time discussing scientific theories from the 20th and 21st century: i.e., relativity, quantum mechanics, and the theoretical existence of an infinite number of parallel universes.

Despite all the talk in the novel, I enjoyed it big time. 4 Stars
________________________________________
If you remember only one thing from this review, let it be this:
Time Flies Like an Arrow, but Fruit Flies Like a Banana. ―Groucho Marx

[Robert Hamilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up Time Ships mainly because I enjoy works by Stephen Baxter. I had no idea he was such a Wells enthusiast. Apparently Baxter is the Vice-President of the international H. G. Wells Society. I didn't know this when I bought the book, but it's an authorized (by the Wells estate) sequel to the H.G. Wells classic "The Time Machine".

The book is simply remarkable. Baxter really captured Wells use of language and vocabulary and the general tone of 1895. You would swear Wells himself had created this novel. I was so much in awe of the style and language for the first half of the book that not much else mattered.

Trying to introduce quantum theory in the voice of H.G. Wells is no small feat but Baxter pulls it off. It's also satisfying to see a few of the loose ends from The Time Machine tied up even if it's not by H.G. himself.

Baxter introduces some new characters - a very intelligent Morlok for one. He makes each new character someone we can care about and introduces several interesting story lines. Baxter even introduces a few complete alternate histories of England, the earth and even the universe.

The best part of the book was still the style of H.G. Wells. Sadly language and style can only carry a book so far. By the end the book did tend to drag. A pleasure to read but also a pleasure when I was finished.

All in all, this one still earns a very well deserved 4/5 as a remarkable work from one of the greatest of his genre.

[David Ramirer · Rating 5 out of 5]

hier ist stephen baxter ein meisterwerk gelungen, indem er den roman "die zeitmaschine" von h.g. wells als steilvorlage in einen direktpass ins gegenüberliegende tor verwandelt hat. spannend und fesselnd von der ersten seite an verbindet baxter gewohnt bizarre zukunftsvisionen mit vielen paradoxas, die die idee des zeitreisens mit sich bringt. am ende wird es sehr abgedreht, obgleich alles logisch im rahmen bleibt und immer noch ein wissenschaftliches fundament hat: ein kunststück, das nur stephen baxter so elegant vorzuführen vermag. ist in meinen augen daher ein standardwerk über zeitreisen, das ich jedem, der dieses thema mag, nur empfehlen kann.