British Summertime

by Paul Cornell

Alison Parmeter can read anything—body language, expressions, the shape of a city. Squadron Leader Leyton is a pilot from a utopian future. He’s dropped back in time, but it’s startlingly different from anything he learned in history lessons. Jocelyn, his navigator, is a head without a body, captive in a world she can’t trust. This group must map out a quest for Alison's best friend, who was stolen by the Golden Men, who some call Angels. This quest reaches back to the New Testament, and forward to the end of time.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2004

About the author

Paul Cornell is a British writer of science fiction and fantasy prose, comics and television. He's been Hugo Award-nominated for all three media, and has won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, and the Eagle Award for his comics. He's the writer of Saucer Country for Vertigo, Demon Knights for DC, and has written for the Doctor Who TV series. His new urban fantasy novel is London Falling, out from Tor on December 6th.

via Wikipedia @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cor...

Reviews

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was close to five stars...one of those books I couldn't stop reading. A fascinating mix of good vs. evil; sci-fi time travel and the coming of age of a young woman who has empathic abilities and a degree in math and ends of working for a bookie.

[Lois · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very fun - especially as a who fan, for whom this book demonstrated that Cornell NEEDS a call back at least 10 years ago! (He certainly balances RTD's warm characterisation and hits of realism with Steven Moffat's scope and whimsical use of sci fi concepts) The politics and pastiche were sometimes a bit on the nose, and I still don't quite understand why on earth they were called 'Bears' but overall, very entertaining and readable.

[LisaSpecious · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sci-fi story with political thriller, theology, romance, spy novel and philosophy all thrown in. There is a lot of story in these pages, and it will keep you wondering what is going to happen next.

[Edward C Bleaney · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a story with a grand sweep through time and history ... but ultimately it felt like the author was trying too hard. I found the characters inconsistent and the story too convoluted to be convincing.

The phrase "British summer time" is a reference to British "day light savings time". I assume this supposed to symbolically allude to the parallel time lines that play out in the story.

It felt like the book was supposed to be a grand story about grand ideas and events. In the end, I felt it was a muddle of ideas with a conclusion that was convenient and unbelievable.

The all powerful beings that were redefining all of history were just too easily defeated.

[Sara]

I feel it
end the time
new testment
without map i feel it
golden men stole y
angel take somthing from ya
lost in math
bears thee
still fealing that
autumn road
rain faith come alive
i cant accept the far
the end
the lost
i will be search
to find years
hours
still y remmber old time
sweet moment togather
laugh move elephent joke
stile y insid me
r y remmber me
our coffy time
our speed heart
my news thee come
to kill the soul
to make end true

[Tim Hicks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wonderful setup, disappointing rollout.

I really liked Cornell's Shadow Police series, but to be fair they were written years later. Looking at the rest of his work, including Doctor Who etc., I see an author who, were he a fighter, would be all wild haymakers rather than scientific jabs and ripostes. That's what we have here.

You can't fault Cornell for lack of boldness. Alien civilization, time travel, the Crucifixion, disembodied heads, an obvious Dan Dare takeoff, ... lots of fun there.

But, as with nearly every time travel story ever written, the tale bogs down with the need to tie all the loops off and resolve all the impossibilities. Cornell does that, but I just didn't find it satisfying.

I never really bought the premise of the Golden Men. Not could I accept that with all their powers, they could be stopped with a sturdy punch or a shot from a tiny handgun. That last part felt like the work of an author who was really tired of bringing all the loose ends together and just wanted to get the blasted thing done and off to the publisher.

All in all, too much [impossible thing happens] --> [explained by handwaving], all very Doctor Who and probably easier to accept on TV than in a book. I mean, really, I doubt that the Weeping Angels would work in a book either, but didn't we all watch that one from behind the sofa?

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange but ultimately compelling blend of sci-fi action-adventure, socialist polemic, and sincere affirmation of Christian faith, Paul Cornell's time-twisting tale gets top marks for originality. A 20-year-old woman with the power to read the emergent patterns of reality finds herself allied with a square-jawed, timelost space pilot and his hilariously, awesomely British navigator (a cheerily disembodied head) to battle a nefarious quartet of devils in angels' clothing. Unless these Golden Men -- the living embodiment of greed itself -- are stopped, they'll alter history to replace the pilot's paradisical future with a ruinous hell of capitalism run amok. I found this book weirder and less accessible than Cornell's top-flight work on "Doctor Who," and the mix of Cornell's open-hearted, deeply admirable take on Christianity and his apparently vehement disgust with capitalism is a bit difficult to wrap one's head around. I can't say I entirely agree with his philosophy, or at least the economic parts of it. But the book's plenty entertaining all the same; Cornell's use of Christian symbology in his imagery and plot is quite clever, and the book's remarkable closing chapters establish a dizzying and dazzling array of temporal loops to make all the storyline's loose ends fit.

[Roy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good imagery. Unique story mixing religion, economics, time travel, and two main characters:
- a woman with an amazing ability to deeply read situations who ends up working setting odds for a bookie and sees the end of the world coming
- a man from another future timeline where things are better

The story weaves a complicated time travel theme with all of the above from the time of Jesus to the future and sorts it out in the end. I read this book twice separated by a few months and enjoyed it just as much the second time.

Watch out for the angels...

[Nathan]

"A dense, thoughtful, idiosyncratic recursive time travel story that spans several histories of the world. Improbably, the author pulls it off. The writing is slightly more opaque than I usually like, but the sheer level of imagination and inventiveness, not to mention the writerly balls it took to even write this thing, are most impressive. Good characters, too. Only one moment that stuck out as implausible, no mean feat considering all the fantastic goings-on. Definitely recommended."

[Michael Mcnally · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like Paul Cornell's work with Doctor Who and his most recent novel, "London Falling" so "British Summertime" was a bit of a disappointment. The pacing felt odd at times, and it was difficult to gain any traction in the story - some of the inventiveness in the telling detracted from the actual readability. That said, it wasn't a bad book and had some interesting ideas about time travel and timelines.

[Ray Duncan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went looking for this book after reading two excellent Paul Cornell short stories, "The Copenhagen Interpretation" and "One of our Bastards is Missing." It turned out to be an odd mix of space opera, time travel, alternate history, Ian McLeod politics, and CS Lewis-like religious allegory. Complicated time loops are not the least of it. It will be interesting to see what this author will come up with in the future, besides Dr Who scripts.

[Lesley Arrowsmith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very clever time travel SF, with the most desireable future being basically Dan Dare's. One main character is even called "the pilot from the future". Good women characters, and realistic religion - and set in Bath, which makes a nice change of location (London isn't the only city in the UK after all). But how the main characters suffer!

[Philip]

Another book I'd really like to finish but cannot concentrate on because of my awful job. I'll revisit this book later.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wholly bizarre, but also interesting, strange, and innovative.

[Steve Clark]

Edition: New edition