What do you think?
Rate this book
The Fall of Chronopolis / Collision with Chronos
- GenresScience Fiction
399 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published December 1, 1989
46 people want to read
About the author
Barrington J. Bayley
71 books40 followersBarrington J. Bayley published work principally under his own name but also using the pseudonyms ofAlan Aumbry, Michael Barrington (with Michael Moorcock), John Diamond and P.F. Woods.
Bayley was born in Birmingham and educated in Newport, Shropshire. He worked in a number of jobs before joining the Royal Air Force in 1955; his first published story, "Combat's End", had seen print the year before in UK-only publication Vargo Statten Magazine.
During the 1960s, Bayley's short stories featured regularly in New Worlds magazine and later in its successor, the paperback anthologies of the same name. He became friends with New Worlds editor Michael Moorcock, who largely instigated science fiction's New Wave movement. Bayley himself was part of the movement.
Bayley's first book, Star Virus, was followed by more than a dozen other novels; his downbeat, gloomy approach to novel writing has been cited as influential on the works of M. John Harrison, Brian Stableford and Bruce Sterling.
Bayley was born in Birmingham and educated in Newport, Shropshire. He worked in a number of jobs before joining the Royal Air Force in 1955; his first published story, "Combat's End", had seen print the year before in UK-only publication Vargo Statten Magazine.
During the 1960s, Bayley's short stories featured regularly in New Worlds magazine and later in its successor, the paperback anthologies of the same name. He became friends with New Worlds editor Michael Moorcock, who largely instigated science fiction's New Wave movement. Bayley himself was part of the movement.
Bayley's first book, Star Virus, was followed by more than a dozen other novels; his downbeat, gloomy approach to novel writing has been cited as influential on the works of M. John Harrison, Brian Stableford and Bruce Sterling.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 24, 2018
Apparently Bayley worked with the bbc on some of the Doctor who stories back in the day, and the launch into time travel in this story seems to capture some his deeper thinking about how it might work. Unsurprisingly, it is hard to conceptualize what is being conveyed - time is depicted as having multiple dimensions of both parallel streams and depth of some sort, for example - but this is as it should be. We exist in linear time and whether time travel is even remotely possible, our experience of it gives a strong limit to our imagination. Which makes this story a wonderfully strange exploration of the idea.
I would not want to give the impression that it's only philosophical ponderings lacking story. I thought the story was strong enough, but it is not simplistic like doctor who episodes. The attempt to grapple with the real challenges of a time travel story require some patience - and I'm not sure I kept up completely. Overall I can understand why his stories didn't make it far from the core of scifi fans into more mainstream reading. It seems they retain too much of the background mechanics, too much of his homework perhaps. But this is the heart of scifi - not mere war stories set in space (or the like), but the use of imagination to speculate on what might be possible, set to story. And sometimes it's the latter that comes second to the former.
I would not want to give the impression that it's only philosophical ponderings lacking story. I thought the story was strong enough, but it is not simplistic like doctor who episodes. The attempt to grapple with the real challenges of a time travel story require some patience - and I'm not sure I kept up completely. Overall I can understand why his stories didn't make it far from the core of scifi fans into more mainstream reading. It seems they retain too much of the background mechanics, too much of his homework perhaps. But this is the heart of scifi - not mere war stories set in space (or the like), but the use of imagination to speculate on what might be possible, set to story. And sometimes it's the latter that comes second to the former.
December 30, 2022
First read of Barrington Bayley's work.
The Fall of Chronopolis - Interesting ideas regarding time travel, with an imperial time corps at war with a future society. Basically ignores time travel paradoxes by having history repeating with the changes made. Unsure how original his ideas were, but the first time I'd quite read anything like it. Interesting enough plot to go along with the premise with a couple of interesting characters, but the majority stuck to the generic religious zealot that the society had become.
Collision with Chronos - Another time-travel story which has nothing in common with the other story. Earth is basically run by a society of nazis obsessed with racial purity. Hard to find any particularly likable characters in this story, but again follows a reasonable plot and has probably more sophisticated ideas about how time works.
The Fall of Chronopolis - Interesting ideas regarding time travel, with an imperial time corps at war with a future society. Basically ignores time travel paradoxes by having history repeating with the changes made. Unsure how original his ideas were, but the first time I'd quite read anything like it. Interesting enough plot to go along with the premise with a couple of interesting characters, but the majority stuck to the generic religious zealot that the society had become.
Collision with Chronos - Another time-travel story which has nothing in common with the other story. Earth is basically run by a society of nazis obsessed with racial purity. Hard to find any particularly likable characters in this story, but again follows a reasonable plot and has probably more sophisticated ideas about how time works.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews