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Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations #1
Watching the Clock
There’s likely no more of a thankless job in the Federation than temporal investigation. While starship explorers get to live the human adventure of traveling to other times and realities, it’s up to the dedicated agents of the Federation Department of Temporal Investigations to deal with the consequences to the timestream that the rest of the Galaxy has to live with day by day. But when history as we know it could be wiped out at any moment by time warriors from the future, misused relics of ancient races, or accident-prone starships, only the most disciplined, obsessive, and unimaginative government employees have what it takes to face the existential uncertainty of it all on a daily basis . . . and still stay sane enough to complete their assignments.
That’s where Agents Lucsly and Dulmur come in—stalwart and unflappable, these men are the Federation’s unsung anchors in a chaotic universe. Together with their colleagues in the DTI—and with the help and sometimes hindrance of Starfleet’s finest—they do what they can to keep the timestream, or at least the paperwork, as neat and orderly as they are. But when a series of escalating temporal incursions threatens to open a new front of the history-spanning Temporal Cold War in the twenty-fourth century, Agents Lucsly and Dulmur will need all their investigative skill and unbending determination to stop those who wish to rewrite the past for their own advantage, and to keep the present and the future from devolving into the kind of chaos they really, really hate.
That’s where Agents Lucsly and Dulmur come in—stalwart and unflappable, these men are the Federation’s unsung anchors in a chaotic universe. Together with their colleagues in the DTI—and with the help and sometimes hindrance of Starfleet’s finest—they do what they can to keep the timestream, or at least the paperwork, as neat and orderly as they are. But when a series of escalating temporal incursions threatens to open a new front of the history-spanning Temporal Cold War in the twenty-fourth century, Agents Lucsly and Dulmur will need all their investigative skill and unbending determination to stop those who wish to rewrite the past for their own advantage, and to keep the present and the future from devolving into the kind of chaos they really, really hate.
496 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published May 1, 2011
133 people are currently reading
945 people want to read
About the author
Christopher L. Bennett
66 books220 followersChristopher L. Bennett is a lifelong resident of Cincinnati, Ohio, with a B.S. in Physics and a B.A. in History from the University of Cincinnati. A fan of science and science fiction since age five, he has spent the past two decades selling original short fiction to magazines such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact (home of his "Hub" series of comedy adventures), BuzzyMag, and Galaxy's Edge. Since 2003, he has been one of Pocket Books' most prolific and popular authors of Star Trek tie-in fiction, including the epic Next Generation prequel The Buried Age, the Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations series, and the Star Trek: Enterprise -- Rise of the Federation series. He has also written two Marvel Comics novels, X-Men: Watchers on the Walls and Spider-Man: Drowned in Thunder. His original novel Only Superhuman, perhaps the first hard science fiction superhero novel, was voted Library Journal's SF/Fantasy Debut of the Month for October 2012. Other tales in the same universe can be found in Among the Wild Cybers and the upcoming Arachne's Crime, both from eSpec Books. His Hub stories are available in two collections from Mystique Press.
Christopher's homepage, fiction annotations, and blog can be found at christopherlbennett.wordpress.com. His Patreon page with original fiction and reviews is at https://www.patreon.com/christopherlb..., and his Facebook author page is at www.facebook.com/ChristopherLBennettA....
Christopher's homepage, fiction annotations, and blog can be found at christopherlbennett.wordpress.com. His Patreon page with original fiction and reviews is at https://www.patreon.com/christopherlb..., and his Facebook author page is at www.facebook.com/ChristopherLBennettA....
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 119 reviews
August 29, 2011
I'm beginning to think Bennett is my favorite Star Trek author; his style is comfortable, humorous, and he captures the canon characters correctly, completely, and comprehensively. Bennett knows his Trek and we feel like we do, too, after reading one of his novels.
Agents Lucsly and Dulmer, Department of Temporal Investigations, were first introduced in the Deep Space 9 episode "Trials and Tribble-ations." (One of my all-time favorite Star Trek Episodes.) Bennett takes the time to develop the two characters to the point where the reader sees them as another classic Trek duo in the nature of Kirk & Spock, Picard & Riker, LaForge & Data. Hopefully, there will be more stories of the unimaginitive, obsessive, stalwart, and unflappable pair who always seem to be drawn to the right place and the right time in future. These two are drawn to temporal tamperings like ships named Enterprise are drawn to spacial anomalies.
All the time travel/ alternate universe episodes of all 5 series have an impact on the plot. And the recently departed (see the trilogy, Singular Destiny) Borg are revealed to have served a greater beneficial purpose during their tenure of terror!
A new aspect of the Trek Universe to discover, this first novel about the Department of Temporal Investigations, will keep your mind off the clock and unawares of time passing.
Agents Lucsly and Dulmer, Department of Temporal Investigations, were first introduced in the Deep Space 9 episode "Trials and Tribble-ations." (One of my all-time favorite Star Trek Episodes.) Bennett takes the time to develop the two characters to the point where the reader sees them as another classic Trek duo in the nature of Kirk & Spock, Picard & Riker, LaForge & Data. Hopefully, there will be more stories of the unimaginitive, obsessive, stalwart, and unflappable pair who always seem to be drawn to the right place and the right time in future. These two are drawn to temporal tamperings like ships named Enterprise are drawn to spacial anomalies.
All the time travel/ alternate universe episodes of all 5 series have an impact on the plot. And the recently departed (see the trilogy, Singular Destiny) Borg are revealed to have served a greater beneficial purpose during their tenure of terror!
A new aspect of the Trek Universe to discover, this first novel about the Department of Temporal Investigations, will keep your mind off the clock and unawares of time passing.
January 2, 2016
This not a book that you can just pick up as a Sci-fi reader and read, it helps to be a die hard Trekkie.
Based on the DTI agents, Lucsly and Dulmur from DS9's episode Trials and Tribble-lations. This book covers all the different series TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise, as well as the movies. It bring a episode of time travel from each series, as well as bringing in characters such as Jean-Luc Picard, Kathryn Janeway, William Riker, Deana Troi and Worf. So if you haven't seen them it will confuse you.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, bringing out the big geek in me! It jumps back and forth through time and introduces new characters to DTI.
Based on the DTI agents, Lucsly and Dulmur from DS9's episode Trials and Tribble-lations. This book covers all the different series TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise, as well as the movies. It bring a episode of time travel from each series, as well as bringing in characters such as Jean-Luc Picard, Kathryn Janeway, William Riker, Deana Troi and Worf. So if you haven't seen them it will confuse you.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, bringing out the big geek in me! It jumps back and forth through time and introduces new characters to DTI.
April 11, 2018
How do you ruin a fun time-travel novel? I think that one of the best ways to do so is to attempt to explain the time travel via some stultifying, made-up pseudo-science. And, that's unfortunately what Bennett does, offering some weird theory about divergent timelines that reconverge and erase each other ... and who cares. Just say that time travel is a threat to the present, and have fun with it! (Mind you, he does hit some other great time travel tropes, like time loops and predestination and such, but you don't need the stupid science for that.)
How else do you ruin a fun time-travel novel? Don't allow the protagonists to time travel! I mean, sure, you can make them the guardians of the present, but that doesn't mean that you have to take the core joy of the time travel experience away!
Even aside from that the book has troubles.
First, it's relatively plot free for at least the first 250 pages (and it doesn't really come together for 400 pages). Oh, there are a few different plots, but they're all over the place, and all of the character flashbacks really don't help. Even after we get a big plot, the story continues to be scattered.
Second, it's got an ending that's a murky muddle that then anti-climaxes by moving everything off-screen. (At least Bennett gets the codas right, one of which is the strongest part of the book.)
Third, it's slavishly devoted to Star Trek continuity. I mean, I love me my continuity and I think that trying to figure out the hash of plots about the Temporal Cold War from Enterprise is a worthy cause, but referencing every time travel story ever in Star Trek canon just drags the book down, as do the continued attempts to retcon other temporal events that the author doesn't agree with.
Overall, this was a struggle to finish. I definitely won't be continuing the series.
How else do you ruin a fun time-travel novel? Don't allow the protagonists to time travel! I mean, sure, you can make them the guardians of the present, but that doesn't mean that you have to take the core joy of the time travel experience away!
Even aside from that the book has troubles.
First, it's relatively plot free for at least the first 250 pages (and it doesn't really come together for 400 pages). Oh, there are a few different plots, but they're all over the place, and all of the character flashbacks really don't help. Even after we get a big plot, the story continues to be scattered.
Second, it's got an ending that's a murky muddle that then anti-climaxes by moving everything off-screen. (At least Bennett gets the codas right, one of which is the strongest part of the book.)
Third, it's slavishly devoted to Star Trek continuity. I mean, I love me my continuity and I think that trying to figure out the hash of plots about the Temporal Cold War from Enterprise is a worthy cause, but referencing every time travel story ever in Star Trek canon just drags the book down, as do the continued attempts to retcon other temporal events that the author doesn't agree with.
Overall, this was a struggle to finish. I definitely won't be continuing the series.
June 22, 2011
"'So was it altruism or fear?
'It can be both. People are complicated.'
'Hm,That's the problem with them.'"
I bought this on a whim, figuring a story out of the flow of any of the television series' or novel arcs would be different enough to warrant spending £5. Bennett has nailed characterisation superbly, and the fact that many of the characters aren't ones with which we are overly familiar means he's got an open canvas - and boy, does it show.
"a force of negative entropy acting on a holistic level could explain the mystery of macrorealm convergence."
The treknobabble (or should that be tempobabble?)is profuse, and although the protagonists are from the DTI (department of Temporal Investigations) and the majority of the happenings take place in 2381, there's quite a collection of other temporal agencies and authorities scattered throughout - some of which are mentioned onscreen, many more springing up relaunch. Keeping on top of all of these can be a stretch if you're not versed in the field, but even that doesn't detract from the story, simply adds a layer of richness thereto.
The author says "Effectively every Star Trek episode and film pertaining to time travel is at least obliquely alluded to". I'm sure I didn't get them all, but the level of detail is admirable here, a novel painstakingly researched. That really comes through, and the list of acknowledgements and further reading is enough to make your head spin.
Overall, the story is well told, fascinatingly chronologized and a hard one to put down. I don't know if it's blazing a trail for further DTI stories, they'd work, I think. If not, this is worth reading just for the insight into a side of Starfleet not often seen.
One thing worth noting, my Kindle version was littered with malformed HTML and CSS. Only a little here and there, but it was enough to irritate me. Furthermore, I'd have appreciated better navigation - but EPub is spoiling me. A critique on the format and publisher more than the author.
'It can be both. People are complicated.'
'Hm,That's the problem with them.'"
I bought this on a whim, figuring a story out of the flow of any of the television series' or novel arcs would be different enough to warrant spending £5. Bennett has nailed characterisation superbly, and the fact that many of the characters aren't ones with which we are overly familiar means he's got an open canvas - and boy, does it show.
"a force of negative entropy acting on a holistic level could explain the mystery of macrorealm convergence."
The treknobabble (or should that be tempobabble?)is profuse, and although the protagonists are from the DTI (department of Temporal Investigations) and the majority of the happenings take place in 2381, there's quite a collection of other temporal agencies and authorities scattered throughout - some of which are mentioned onscreen, many more springing up relaunch. Keeping on top of all of these can be a stretch if you're not versed in the field, but even that doesn't detract from the story, simply adds a layer of richness thereto.
The author says "Effectively every Star Trek episode and film pertaining to time travel is at least obliquely alluded to". I'm sure I didn't get them all, but the level of detail is admirable here, a novel painstakingly researched. That really comes through, and the list of acknowledgements and further reading is enough to make your head spin.
Overall, the story is well told, fascinatingly chronologized and a hard one to put down. I don't know if it's blazing a trail for further DTI stories, they'd work, I think. If not, this is worth reading just for the insight into a side of Starfleet not often seen.
One thing worth noting, my Kindle version was littered with malformed HTML and CSS. Only a little here and there, but it was enough to irritate me. Furthermore, I'd have appreciated better navigation - but EPub is spoiling me. A critique on the format and publisher more than the author.
November 1, 2012
This book is kind of a mess. It's the first in what I guess will be a series of novels detailing the adventures of the Federation's Department of Temporal Investigations, or DTI. As it is the first in a potential series there of course has to be a significant amount of character development. The problem then, is that the book is mostly character development. Each central DTI member gets a few chapters devoted to their "origin story", if you will, and every now and then the author sprinkles in a chapter which furthers the slightest bit of overall plot that there is. And even then, there are two completely separate "main" plots that have nothing to do with one another. There's a feeble attempt near the end to tie some of the many strings together but it falls pretty flat.
And the techno-babble....my God the techno-babble. Any seasoned Trek fan can put up with (or even enjoy) this to a certain extent, but I swear, if I hear the word "quantum" ever again I might lose it. Bennett sometimes goes on for an entire page or more about some abstract time-travel-related concept that probably is not even a real thing. And if it is a real thing, you need at least one advanced degree to fully understand it. My eyes glazed over on several occasions.
All that being said, I would not be against reading another novel with these characters. I guess the upside of having a novel that is almost entirely character development is that you really get to know the characters very well. And they are very well-constructed.
And the techno-babble....my God the techno-babble. Any seasoned Trek fan can put up with (or even enjoy) this to a certain extent, but I swear, if I hear the word "quantum" ever again I might lose it. Bennett sometimes goes on for an entire page or more about some abstract time-travel-related concept that probably is not even a real thing. And if it is a real thing, you need at least one advanced degree to fully understand it. My eyes glazed over on several occasions.
All that being said, I would not be against reading another novel with these characters. I guess the upside of having a novel that is almost entirely character development is that you really get to know the characters very well. And they are very well-constructed.
October 6, 2018
I picked this one up to read on a flight from Chicago. It's been awhile since I read a Star Trek book. Alas, this one didn't make me want to pick up another anytime soon. Watching the Clock is not a tale of one of the TV series, but rather focuses on two characters from an episode of Deep Space Nine, who are agents of the Department of Temporal Investigations. It's a rambling tale consisting of various subplots that culminates in a shootout of sorts involving a variety of time travelers. Mr. Bennett managed to include a reference to every time travel episode from the franchise. I admire his research, but overall the book was unsatisfactory. I wouldn't necessarily toss it into the Elbe River, but I doubt if I'd fish it out if it happened to fall in.
September 2, 2022
DNF at 33%. I really gave this one a try. In principle, it’s nice to get a story so far removed from the typical Star Trek narratives and characters. Lucsly and Dulmur could be fascinating characters if written more three-dimensionally. However, this book suffers from a lack of narrative structure. I get the sense the author didn’t have every chapter planned out neatly and so there are occasionally whole sections that feel superfluous or out of place. The narrative does not progress at a satisfactory pace, because it feels like the author makes too many unnecessary asides. The level of research into Trek lore and instances of time travel across multiple series is commendable, but the story itself is a slog.
January 9, 2012
I highly recommend Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations: Watching the Clock, but only if you are very familiar with the many "canon" stories of the Trek universe. Watching the Clock contains spoilers for literally every incarnation of Star Trek (yes, even the 70s animated series!), and readers who haven't watched all of the episodes may find themselves either lost or annoyed at having future viewing experiences spoiled.
Absolutely outstanding, and I hope Department of Temporal Investigations is revisited again in the future. Or the past. Or in an alternate timeline?
Full review: http://treklit.blogspot.com/2011/06/w...
Absolutely outstanding, and I hope Department of Temporal Investigations is revisited again in the future. Or the past. Or in an alternate timeline?
Full review: http://treklit.blogspot.com/2011/06/w...
February 13, 2015
I'm not usually a fan of Christopher Bennett writing, but this book was his best writing I've seen. I loved his take on the DTI and time travel and thought he did a wonderful job with the introduction of DTI. He seamlessly brought a storyline together while at the same time explaining temporal mechanics, which is no easy feat, but he successfully pulled it off. I am definitely looking forward to reading the next couple DTI books.
January 7, 2017
Like watching quantum leap episode. It was interesting but It was like an I don't care episode.
February 21, 2023
tl;dr: Expected more of "Trials and Tribble-ations," got "Edith Keller must die" x many billions.
Tonal dissonance makes this book a surprisingly difficult read. The characters of Dulmur and Lucsly were introduced in one of the most unabashedly comedic and fun episodes of the franchise. In stark contrast, the book itself is about the agents of the Department of Temporal Investigations (DTI) leading mostly grim and joyless lives as, in the words of one character, “gears in a clock.” That is true of those lucky enough not to be killed (multiple times), driven insane by the stress of the job, or simply erased from the timeline with almost no one remembering they ever existed. The main themes are duty, responsibility, self-denial, sacrifice, and letting billions be slaughtered and assimilated (or a few friends die preventable deaths) for the sake of preserving the correct timeline.
It is full of references to most (if not all) other time-travel stories in Star Trek, jokes, fan service, and puns. One of the characters even calls the mysterious future figure from Enterprise “Future Guy!” I think these elements are meant to be fun and humorous, but to me, they feel like sour notes that create painful dissonance and reinforce the overall bleakness of the story.
Dulmur abandons his wife, whom he met and married before he knew DTI existed, to go back to DTI. After that, he makes a pervy comment on Dina Elfiki; not only is it unprofessional, he makes it after she has been through her own traumatic time-travel ordeal. I think that is another attempt at humor that seems tone-deaf and mean-spirited in the context of the story. I lost a lot of respect for his character after that.
When the Sponsor (a.k.a Future Guy) is finally caught and identified, it is anticlimactic. He is a character we have never seen before and appears briefly to reveal that he is just another mad scientist using genetic engineering for evil.
I have a Ph.D. in physics, and I appreciate the significant effort and research the author put into grounding this work in real science. As far as I understand our current knowledge of physics, traveling backwards in time is not possible. Parallel universes, if they exist, cannot communicate with or affect one another. After reading this book, I am glad for that.
Tonal dissonance makes this book a surprisingly difficult read. The characters of Dulmur and Lucsly were introduced in one of the most unabashedly comedic and fun episodes of the franchise. In stark contrast, the book itself is about the agents of the Department of Temporal Investigations (DTI) leading mostly grim and joyless lives as, in the words of one character, “gears in a clock.” That is true of those lucky enough not to be killed (multiple times), driven insane by the stress of the job, or simply erased from the timeline with almost no one remembering they ever existed. The main themes are duty, responsibility, self-denial, sacrifice, and letting billions be slaughtered and assimilated (or a few friends die preventable deaths) for the sake of preserving the correct timeline.
It is full of references to most (if not all) other time-travel stories in Star Trek, jokes, fan service, and puns. One of the characters even calls the mysterious future figure from Enterprise “Future Guy!” I think these elements are meant to be fun and humorous, but to me, they feel like sour notes that create painful dissonance and reinforce the overall bleakness of the story.
Dulmur abandons his wife, whom he met and married before he knew DTI existed, to go back to DTI. After that, he makes a pervy comment on Dina Elfiki; not only is it unprofessional, he makes it after she has been through her own traumatic time-travel ordeal. I think that is another attempt at humor that seems tone-deaf and mean-spirited in the context of the story. I lost a lot of respect for his character after that.
When the Sponsor (a.k.a Future Guy) is finally caught and identified, it is anticlimactic. He is a character we have never seen before and appears briefly to reveal that he is just another mad scientist using genetic engineering for evil.
I have a Ph.D. in physics, and I appreciate the significant effort and research the author put into grounding this work in real science. As far as I understand our current knowledge of physics, traveling backwards in time is not possible. Parallel universes, if they exist, cannot communicate with or affect one another. After reading this book, I am glad for that.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 23, 2025
I went into this expecting to find an agency full of people engaging in time travel shenanigans, and that was a mistake. The point of the Department of Temporal Investigations is to prevent exactly the kind of time travel adventures that I enjoy. If I'd gone in realizing that I might have been a bit less disappointed. This book is a lot of character development for the different people who work for the agency, so it didn't come together until a couple hundred pages into the book. This might've worked better as a series of linked short stories rather than a novel because there wasn't really an overarching plot through most of it. A reader would need an encyclopedic knowledge of all trek episodes to follow all the references, and though I'm a fairly serious fan I'm not obsessive enough to have been able to follow some though of course I did get others. Overall this was interesting, and I might Continue with the series to see where it goes now that I know who the characters are. 3.5 stars
January 24, 2016
Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations: Watching the Clock is a Star Trek novel by Christopher L. Bennett. My first thought: its title is a bit of a mouthful. My second is: Goody-goody! Time Travel! I love time travel!
For the uninitiated, the Department of Temporal Investigations was introduced in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations." Someone in the writing room must have noticed that with the literally dozens of time-travel related plots in Star Trek, there had to be someone whose job it was to deal with their aftermath.
Agents Lucsly and Dulmur, named after the primary X-files protagonists, pretty much scour the Federation for time-travel occurrences and oddball scientific tech to prevent the past from being altered. This book is more or less impenetrable to non-Trekkies because it references elements from all across the many Star Trek series and movies. It furthermore includes elements from the Star Trek novels, so if you haven't read Star Trek: Destiny (like me) you might be as lost as anyone else. The references range from the famous, like the Guardian of Forever from "City on the Edge of Forever" to the obscure. For example, a minor character from the episode "The Neutral Zone" plays a starring role.
Still, I'm enough of a fan to have gotten the majority of the references even if I have very little experience with the Star Trek: Expanded Universe. Christopher Bennet is nice enough to explain everything away, so it wasn't really necessary to have recently seen the episodes he referenced. Which is good since the last time I saw "The Neutral Zone" was when it was on the air twenty-two years ago.
Surprisingly, he improves on the characters in many places. Clare Raymond, the aforementioned character from "The Neutral Zone", was nothing more than a caricature in the episode she was introduced but comes alive as an outsider's perspective to the United Federation of Planets. A human woman from the 1980s, she basically gets to talk about how much society has changed from an era not too far removed from our own.
It's all well and good to be told it's a utopia to viewers every week, but Clare Raymond nicely illustrates what a culture shock it must be for someone in the 1980s to be confronted with a world utterly lacking in nationalism, sexism, crime,pollution, and homophobia. Star Trek doesn't have the best track record in handling gay issues but Christopher Bennett tries to make up for that. Much like in Battlestar Galactica (2nd version), it's a complete non-issue in the 24th century.
The book is mostly made of short-stories dealing with the various temporal loose-ends leftover from the shows. There's the USS Bozeman, which is a ship from Captain Kirk's time, and what exactly was to be done about Captain Janeway after she violated the "Temporal Prime Directive" several dozen times in the Star Trek: Voyager finale. For the most part, all of these incidents were highly entertaining. Though, frankly, I would have liked some follow-up on the USS Bozeman incident since I really bonded with those characters.
The primary protagonists of the book, though by no means the only ones, are Agents Lucsly and Dulmur and we get to know them extremely well over the course of the book. Lucsly is the skeptic of the two, basically having a near-religious devotion to the idea of a "true" timeline un-tampered with by time-travelers. Dulmur is the more likable of the two, basically being a Joe Friday sort of character who treats temporal crime as just another job.
Frankly, I think Lucsly came off as a bit of a lunatic in the book. This is ironic because he's meant to be the more sensible of the two. The very nature of relativity means that ANY faster than light travel is going to involve time-travel of one sort or another with Star Trek being the only series to really treat the idea with as much prevalence as it would have. So Lucsly's belief that the "true history" must be protected at the expense of the present is just nonsensical.
There's also an odd attitude that everyone "Uptime" automatically has authority over temporal matters versus people in the current timeline. This is ridiculous because people up-time do not necessarily exist except as possibilities. In my opinion, giving them authority is a bit like handing over things to Kang the Conqueror or Apocalypse since they MIGHT eventually rule the future. It's more of Lucsly's belief there's one "true timeline" that the book goes to great lengths to illustrate is just ridiculous. Hell, Christopher Bennet devotes at least one chapter to talking about how Lucsly's view is erroneous.
One bit I really appreciated was the level of detail given to "real science." Star Trek passed the point where hard science was replaced by magic pretty early in the original series. About the time the Talosians showed up, I think.
(Give yourself a geek point if you get the joke in that sentence.)
Still, sometimes, I think Star Trek doesn't even try to justify itself. Doctor Who can get away with it because that's what Doctor Who is all about. I get A LITTLE annoyed by it in Star Trek because Star Trek science is supposed to mean something.
Call me crazy.
Christopher L. Bennett gives a lot of attention to real ideas in quantum physics, which helps make sense (of a sort) out of the wide variety of oddball ways Star Trek time-travel functions. I'm not sure he really needed to try quite so hard as he does in this book but I appreciate the effort.
Overall, I was very impressed by this book and very much enjoyed it. If Christopher Bennett were to make this a regular series I would definitely buy it. The characters were interesting, the plots entertaining, and it tackled large science-fiction ideas. Which is what I expect/want from Star Trek.
Good show.
9/10
For the uninitiated, the Department of Temporal Investigations was introduced in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations." Someone in the writing room must have noticed that with the literally dozens of time-travel related plots in Star Trek, there had to be someone whose job it was to deal with their aftermath.
Agents Lucsly and Dulmur, named after the primary X-files protagonists, pretty much scour the Federation for time-travel occurrences and oddball scientific tech to prevent the past from being altered. This book is more or less impenetrable to non-Trekkies because it references elements from all across the many Star Trek series and movies. It furthermore includes elements from the Star Trek novels, so if you haven't read Star Trek: Destiny (like me) you might be as lost as anyone else. The references range from the famous, like the Guardian of Forever from "City on the Edge of Forever" to the obscure. For example, a minor character from the episode "The Neutral Zone" plays a starring role.
Still, I'm enough of a fan to have gotten the majority of the references even if I have very little experience with the Star Trek: Expanded Universe. Christopher Bennet is nice enough to explain everything away, so it wasn't really necessary to have recently seen the episodes he referenced. Which is good since the last time I saw "The Neutral Zone" was when it was on the air twenty-two years ago.
Surprisingly, he improves on the characters in many places. Clare Raymond, the aforementioned character from "The Neutral Zone", was nothing more than a caricature in the episode she was introduced but comes alive as an outsider's perspective to the United Federation of Planets. A human woman from the 1980s, she basically gets to talk about how much society has changed from an era not too far removed from our own.
It's all well and good to be told it's a utopia to viewers every week, but Clare Raymond nicely illustrates what a culture shock it must be for someone in the 1980s to be confronted with a world utterly lacking in nationalism, sexism, crime,pollution, and homophobia. Star Trek doesn't have the best track record in handling gay issues but Christopher Bennett tries to make up for that. Much like in Battlestar Galactica (2nd version), it's a complete non-issue in the 24th century.
The book is mostly made of short-stories dealing with the various temporal loose-ends leftover from the shows. There's the USS Bozeman, which is a ship from Captain Kirk's time, and what exactly was to be done about Captain Janeway after she violated the "Temporal Prime Directive" several dozen times in the Star Trek: Voyager finale. For the most part, all of these incidents were highly entertaining. Though, frankly, I would have liked some follow-up on the USS Bozeman incident since I really bonded with those characters.
The primary protagonists of the book, though by no means the only ones, are Agents Lucsly and Dulmur and we get to know them extremely well over the course of the book. Lucsly is the skeptic of the two, basically having a near-religious devotion to the idea of a "true" timeline un-tampered with by time-travelers. Dulmur is the more likable of the two, basically being a Joe Friday sort of character who treats temporal crime as just another job.
Frankly, I think Lucsly came off as a bit of a lunatic in the book. This is ironic because he's meant to be the more sensible of the two. The very nature of relativity means that ANY faster than light travel is going to involve time-travel of one sort or another with Star Trek being the only series to really treat the idea with as much prevalence as it would have. So Lucsly's belief that the "true history" must be protected at the expense of the present is just nonsensical.
There's also an odd attitude that everyone "Uptime" automatically has authority over temporal matters versus people in the current timeline. This is ridiculous because people up-time do not necessarily exist except as possibilities. In my opinion, giving them authority is a bit like handing over things to Kang the Conqueror or Apocalypse since they MIGHT eventually rule the future. It's more of Lucsly's belief there's one "true timeline" that the book goes to great lengths to illustrate is just ridiculous. Hell, Christopher Bennet devotes at least one chapter to talking about how Lucsly's view is erroneous.
One bit I really appreciated was the level of detail given to "real science." Star Trek passed the point where hard science was replaced by magic pretty early in the original series. About the time the Talosians showed up, I think.
(Give yourself a geek point if you get the joke in that sentence.)
Still, sometimes, I think Star Trek doesn't even try to justify itself. Doctor Who can get away with it because that's what Doctor Who is all about. I get A LITTLE annoyed by it in Star Trek because Star Trek science is supposed to mean something.
Call me crazy.
Christopher L. Bennett gives a lot of attention to real ideas in quantum physics, which helps make sense (of a sort) out of the wide variety of oddball ways Star Trek time-travel functions. I'm not sure he really needed to try quite so hard as he does in this book but I appreciate the effort.
Overall, I was very impressed by this book and very much enjoyed it. If Christopher Bennett were to make this a regular series I would definitely buy it. The characters were interesting, the plots entertaining, and it tackled large science-fiction ideas. Which is what I expect/want from Star Trek.
Good show.
9/10
January 4, 2019
My head was spinning during the final act of this novel; I felt as if my brain was going to turn into jelly if I didn't receive a flow-chart keeping track of all the time-line changes (or possible changes). But in spite of the mind-shredding, I have no qualms about awarding this novel 5 stars. This is the most monumental achievement in fanwank since Lance Parkin wrote the "Doctor Who" novel "The Infinity Doctors". So many continuity references, so many in-jokes (the Whoniverse ones left me howling)...all tied together with incomparable skill, and never forgetting that it should all be in service to the telling of a good story. It's certainly not a story for newbies, but for Trek fans this is a solid gold brick of cross-series gorgeousness.
January 6, 2019
This is a fun story centered around the two humorless guys in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations." Dulmur and Lucsly are members of the Federation's Department of Temporal Investigations, and their job is to protect the timeline from damage from threats past, present and future.
The plot of this novel is so convoluted that I won't spend time trying to summarize all the storylines, but we mainly have the DTI agents- Dulmur, Lucsly, and a few characters of Bennett's creations, namely Ranjea the sexy Deltan male, and Garcia, a human female who is naturally attracted to the Deltan man's intense pheremones. There are a bunch of temporal agents from "uptime" and "downtime" (meaning in the future or past, respectively), including Jenna Noi, Ducane, and Daniels (familiar to Star Trek Enterprise fans). And the Enterprise-E and Titan even make an appearance.
So that's the cast of characters. Basically, this novel is a glimpse into the life of a DTI agent. The only real storylines involve a confusing "time station" called the Axis of Time, and a meeting between prominent temporal physicists that turns into a battle when several temporal regulatory agencies from the future want to prevent it or kill the scientists. My main gripe with all of this is that it was very confusing to follow; either that, or I just got impatient with it. Also, Bennett's dialogue, while an improvement on the last novel of his I read (Over a Torrent Sea), was still the main weakness of the novel. There are way too many long, over-detailed sciency conversations between characters about the nature of time or about how time will be affected if a certain action is taken.
But it was still a pretty fun read. Fans of Dulmur and Lucsly will find something to enjoy here, and it's a satisfying enough Star Trek adventure in its own right.
The plot of this novel is so convoluted that I won't spend time trying to summarize all the storylines, but we mainly have the DTI agents- Dulmur, Lucsly, and a few characters of Bennett's creations, namely Ranjea the sexy Deltan male, and Garcia, a human female who is naturally attracted to the Deltan man's intense pheremones. There are a bunch of temporal agents from "uptime" and "downtime" (meaning in the future or past, respectively), including Jenna Noi, Ducane, and Daniels (familiar to Star Trek Enterprise fans). And the Enterprise-E and Titan even make an appearance.
So that's the cast of characters. Basically, this novel is a glimpse into the life of a DTI agent. The only real storylines involve a confusing "time station" called the Axis of Time, and a meeting between prominent temporal physicists that turns into a battle when several temporal regulatory agencies from the future want to prevent it or kill the scientists. My main gripe with all of this is that it was very confusing to follow; either that, or I just got impatient with it. Also, Bennett's dialogue, while an improvement on the last novel of his I read (Over a Torrent Sea), was still the main weakness of the novel. There are way too many long, over-detailed sciency conversations between characters about the nature of time or about how time will be affected if a certain action is taken.
But it was still a pretty fun read. Fans of Dulmur and Lucsly will find something to enjoy here, and it's a satisfying enough Star Trek adventure in its own right.
January 30, 2016
Time travel! It's a staple of Star Trek. No crew among the show's five series has been able to resist gallavanting around in the timestream, not even in the movies. But for every temporal adventure, there's a mess left behind to clean up...and that ornerous task falls to the Department of Temporal Investigations. DS9's "Trials and Tribble-lations" introduced us to Agents Lucsly and Dulmur, two humorless grey-suited cosmic bureaucrats whose are renoun for their skill at keeping the timeline pristine. The two are joined by a Deltan and a DTI newbie on two distinct cases that span the book, involve both the USS Titan and the USS Enterprise. The narrative is dense; Bennett somehow makes temporal mechanics seem sensible in the light of both current quantum theory and the time travel we've seen on screen. Frequent flashbacks ensure that a narrative rich in exposition is peppered too with action and humor, and no time-traveling incident in the entire Trek canon goes without being mentioned. Bennett even works in Deep Space Nine's Millenium series.
Bennett has given life two two stiffs, managed offer a view of time that makes all the myriad temporal incidents seem as though they could have occurred in the same universe, and initiated an altogether unique series in Trek literature. Its success has been followed by a sequel, Forgotten History, which establishes DTI's beginnings in the TOS era.
Related:
The End of Eternity, Isaac Asimov (which Bennett cites)
Bennett has given life two two stiffs, managed offer a view of time that makes all the myriad temporal incidents seem as though they could have occurred in the same universe, and initiated an altogether unique series in Trek literature. Its success has been followed by a sequel, Forgotten History, which establishes DTI's beginnings in the TOS era.
Related:
The End of Eternity, Isaac Asimov (which Bennett cites)
September 13, 2018
After three rather grim Star Trek books in a row I wanted something a little more high concept. Now, considering their only appearance in canon was as a comedic framework device, I assumed the Department of Temporal Investigations novel was going to be an all out comedy like most of the early Star Trek: New Frontier or the late lamented Corps of Engineers books.
That's not what I got. But I was not disappointed either. What I found inside the book was a wild, at times hilarious but at times quite sad look at the way time travel works in the Star Trek multiverse.
And it's got a nice twist page turning aspect to it. Enough that even though my health hasn't been much the last week or so, I wanted to finish it.
There is however, that is quite possibly the worst things I've seen in a Star Trek book since The Killing Time. However, the way it is handled and the repurcussions that are hinted will come from the incident down the line were played just right. But it's presence at all is sort of enough to keep it from being one of the best Star Trek books I've read this year.
That's not what I got. But I was not disappointed either. What I found inside the book was a wild, at times hilarious but at times quite sad look at the way time travel works in the Star Trek multiverse.
And it's got a nice twist page turning aspect to it. Enough that even though my health hasn't been much the last week or so, I wanted to finish it.
There is however, that is quite possibly the worst things I've seen in a Star Trek book since The Killing Time. However, the way it is handled and the repurcussions that are hinted will come from the incident down the line were played just right. But it's presence at all is sort of enough to keep it from being one of the best Star Trek books I've read this year.
May 29, 2017
This is the first Star Trek book that I've read set in the post-Nemesis time period and it's amazing how much has happened. Its seems that Star Trek has taken the Star Wars route and done better coordination in the novels to move the story of the universe forward.
This book features a couple of minor characters from a throwaway scene in an episode of DS9: Luclsly and Dulmur from the Department of Temporal Investigations. The author did a great of looking the universe from a civilian bureaucrat's perspective, which I really enjoyed. He weaved almost every time travel reference from the five series into the book which got a little distracting at times, but at least he ignored the abomination that was Abrams Trek.
Overall, it was enjoyable book, though a bit scattered from the introduction/re-introduction of so many characters. I hope it goes on to become a new series in the Star Trek
This book features a couple of minor characters from a throwaway scene in an episode of DS9: Luclsly and Dulmur from the Department of Temporal Investigations. The author did a great of looking the universe from a civilian bureaucrat's perspective, which I really enjoyed. He weaved almost every time travel reference from the five series into the book which got a little distracting at times, but at least he ignored the abomination that was Abrams Trek.
Overall, it was enjoyable book, though a bit scattered from the introduction/re-introduction of so many characters. I hope it goes on to become a new series in the Star Trek
May 7, 2017
I hate giving this book such a low rating but the truth is, I started it several months ago and got lost in the temporal technobabble and returned it. I decided to give it another chance, got a little further along and realized that nothing about this book was appealing to me and I returned it, again.
The reason I hate to give it such a low rating is I like almost everything else Christopher Bennett has written. The mechanics are done well and it is a good idea. Something about it just fell flat to me and didn't give me enough cause to care about what was happening or the characters.
I will not continue with this series. Chris Bennet has written plenty of other things that I DO like and I look forward to his future contributions to the Trek tie-in universe.
The reason I hate to give it such a low rating is I like almost everything else Christopher Bennett has written. The mechanics are done well and it is a good idea. Something about it just fell flat to me and didn't give me enough cause to care about what was happening or the characters.
I will not continue with this series. Chris Bennet has written plenty of other things that I DO like and I look forward to his future contributions to the Trek tie-in universe.
March 1, 2019
This book tries to do way too much.
There are too many threads: 3 backstories of how people joined DTI along with 2 main plot lines all jumbled together.
There are too many nods to other time traveling events in the Star Trek universe. We don't need to see how DTI was involved in all of them in one book.
There is too much "shop talk" among the characters about potential time travel mechanisms.
There are too many versions of the same characters running around.
I found myself skipping entire chapters and hardly losing anything.
There are too many threads: 3 backstories of how people joined DTI along with 2 main plot lines all jumbled together.
There are too many nods to other time traveling events in the Star Trek universe. We don't need to see how DTI was involved in all of them in one book.
There is too much "shop talk" among the characters about potential time travel mechanisms.
There are too many versions of the same characters running around.
I found myself skipping entire chapters and hardly losing anything.
May 27, 2023
“People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective point of view, it’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff.” At least according to Doctor Who.
Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I spotted their TARDIS, or at least a TARDIS, somewhere (or somewhen) in the mass of confiscated time travel detritus stored in the Department of Temporal Investigations’ Vault on Eris. But I could be wrong. Or it might not be there now. Or then.
The thing about time travel, is that it messes up any sense of past, present and future, in the grammatical sense as well as every other way, more than enough to give anyone trying to talk about it – or write about it – a terrible and unending headache.
Just as the folks at the Federation’s Department of Temporal Investigations, whose entire existence, across space and time, owes itself to Starfleet’s pressing need to clean up after Jim Kirk’s all too frequent messing about with time.
I really want to make a Law and Order reference to “these are their stories” because it does kind of work, even if DTI Agent Gariff Lucsly’s affect and mannerisms owe a lot more to Joe Friday in Dragnet.
The story in Watching the Clock combines two elements and both go back and forth in time more than a bit. Time which always seems to wibble just when it’s expected to wobble – and very much vice-versa. Seemingly ad infinitum and always ad nauseam.
The biggest variable often seems to wrap around who is getting the nauseam this time around.
As this is the first book in the Department of Temporal Investigations series, and that’s an agency that appears – often in rueful commentary – in several episodes across the Star Trek timeline without being the center of any incident – after all, DTI are more of a cleanup crew than an instigating force – a part of this book is to set up the agency, its primary officers, and its place within Starfleet.
Which results in more than a bit of that wibble and wobble, as the case that Agents Lucsly and Dulmur find themselves in the middle of is also in the middle of both the actual case (even if they’re not aware of it) and the Trek timeline, so the story needs to establish who they are, how they got to be where (and when) they are, and who they have to work with and against.
But the case they have before them – also behind them (time travel again) – is rooted in the Temporal Cold War, which seems to be heating up again. Assuming concepts like “again” have meaning in the context of time travel. Someone is operating from the shadows, manipulating the past in order to keep the Federation from defeating their aims in the future.
Which sounds a lot like what the Borg were attempting in First Contact. As it should. When it comes to time travel, this has all happened before, and it will all, most certainly, happen again. And again. And AGAIN.
Escape Rating A-: I picked this up because last week ended with some really frustrating reads. I was looking for something that I was guaranteed to be swept away by – no matter what. (I started the next St. Cyr book, What Darkness Brings, but it was too soon after the previous. I love the series, but like most series reads, I need a bit of space between each book so that the tropes don’t become over-familiar.)
It’s been a while since I read one of the Star Trek books, but I have a lot of them on my Kindle because they are one of the things Galen picks up when he’s looking for a comfort read. So there they were, and I hadn’t read this series. Although now I will when I’m looking for a reading pick-me-up.
There’s always plenty of Trek nostalgia to go around, and I’m certainly there for that, especially in the mood I was in. Howsomever, as a series set in the ‘verse but not part of one of the TV series, this one needed a bit more to carry this reader through all 500ish pages. Because that’s a lot, even for me. Especially when I’m flailing around for a read.
Watching the Clock combined the kind of buddy cop/partnership story that works so well in mystery – and this is a mystery – with that lovely bit of Trek nostalgia with a whole lot of thoughtful exploration of just what kind of a mess time travel would cause if it really worked.
Because the idea that going back in time would “fix” history, for certain definitions of both “fix” and history, sounds fine and dandy in fantasy but in SF just makes a complete mess out of causality and pretty much everything else.
(If you’re curious about other visions of just how badly it can go, take a look at One Day All This Will Be Yours by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The Tchaikovsky story, published a decade AFTER Watching the Clock, looks back on their version of a time war from the perspective of a battle-scarred, PTSD-ridden survivor and it’s not a pretty sight. But it is a fascinating story – also a lot shorter exploration of the same concepts as Watching the Clock.)
So, if you’re looking to get immersed in a familiar world while reading a completely original story set in that world, Watching the Clock is a fun read and Lucsly and Dulmur and all the members of the Department of Temporal Investigations are interesting people to explore it with. I had a ball, and if you’re a Trek fan you probably will tool.
If the concepts interest you but Trek isn’t your jam, check out One Day All This Will Be Yours.
Originally published at Reading Reality
Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I spotted their TARDIS, or at least a TARDIS, somewhere (or somewhen) in the mass of confiscated time travel detritus stored in the Department of Temporal Investigations’ Vault on Eris. But I could be wrong. Or it might not be there now. Or then.
The thing about time travel, is that it messes up any sense of past, present and future, in the grammatical sense as well as every other way, more than enough to give anyone trying to talk about it – or write about it – a terrible and unending headache.
Just as the folks at the Federation’s Department of Temporal Investigations, whose entire existence, across space and time, owes itself to Starfleet’s pressing need to clean up after Jim Kirk’s all too frequent messing about with time.
I really want to make a Law and Order reference to “these are their stories” because it does kind of work, even if DTI Agent Gariff Lucsly’s affect and mannerisms owe a lot more to Joe Friday in Dragnet.
The story in Watching the Clock combines two elements and both go back and forth in time more than a bit. Time which always seems to wibble just when it’s expected to wobble – and very much vice-versa. Seemingly ad infinitum and always ad nauseam.
The biggest variable often seems to wrap around who is getting the nauseam this time around.
As this is the first book in the Department of Temporal Investigations series, and that’s an agency that appears – often in rueful commentary – in several episodes across the Star Trek timeline without being the center of any incident – after all, DTI are more of a cleanup crew than an instigating force – a part of this book is to set up the agency, its primary officers, and its place within Starfleet.
Which results in more than a bit of that wibble and wobble, as the case that Agents Lucsly and Dulmur find themselves in the middle of is also in the middle of both the actual case (even if they’re not aware of it) and the Trek timeline, so the story needs to establish who they are, how they got to be where (and when) they are, and who they have to work with and against.
But the case they have before them – also behind them (time travel again) – is rooted in the Temporal Cold War, which seems to be heating up again. Assuming concepts like “again” have meaning in the context of time travel. Someone is operating from the shadows, manipulating the past in order to keep the Federation from defeating their aims in the future.
Which sounds a lot like what the Borg were attempting in First Contact. As it should. When it comes to time travel, this has all happened before, and it will all, most certainly, happen again. And again. And AGAIN.
Escape Rating A-: I picked this up because last week ended with some really frustrating reads. I was looking for something that I was guaranteed to be swept away by – no matter what. (I started the next St. Cyr book, What Darkness Brings, but it was too soon after the previous. I love the series, but like most series reads, I need a bit of space between each book so that the tropes don’t become over-familiar.)
It’s been a while since I read one of the Star Trek books, but I have a lot of them on my Kindle because they are one of the things Galen picks up when he’s looking for a comfort read. So there they were, and I hadn’t read this series. Although now I will when I’m looking for a reading pick-me-up.
There’s always plenty of Trek nostalgia to go around, and I’m certainly there for that, especially in the mood I was in. Howsomever, as a series set in the ‘verse but not part of one of the TV series, this one needed a bit more to carry this reader through all 500ish pages. Because that’s a lot, even for me. Especially when I’m flailing around for a read.
Watching the Clock combined the kind of buddy cop/partnership story that works so well in mystery – and this is a mystery – with that lovely bit of Trek nostalgia with a whole lot of thoughtful exploration of just what kind of a mess time travel would cause if it really worked.
Because the idea that going back in time would “fix” history, for certain definitions of both “fix” and history, sounds fine and dandy in fantasy but in SF just makes a complete mess out of causality and pretty much everything else.
(If you’re curious about other visions of just how badly it can go, take a look at One Day All This Will Be Yours by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The Tchaikovsky story, published a decade AFTER Watching the Clock, looks back on their version of a time war from the perspective of a battle-scarred, PTSD-ridden survivor and it’s not a pretty sight. But it is a fascinating story – also a lot shorter exploration of the same concepts as Watching the Clock.)
So, if you’re looking to get immersed in a familiar world while reading a completely original story set in that world, Watching the Clock is a fun read and Lucsly and Dulmur and all the members of the Department of Temporal Investigations are interesting people to explore it with. I had a ball, and if you’re a Trek fan you probably will tool.
If the concepts interest you but Trek isn’t your jam, check out One Day All This Will Be Yours.
Originally published at Reading Reality
August 17, 2022
I Wish I Could Have Enjoyed This More
Time travel stories are almost always interesting to me, but this one was a struggle. As Worf says at one point, “Please stop explaining because you just keep confusing me!”
Time travel stories are almost always interesting to me, but this one was a struggle. As Worf says at one point, “Please stop explaining because you just keep confusing me!”
August 25, 2020
This was good - very good. I don't know how anyone could write something like this, but it surely must be someone who's life is so steeped in Star Trek and time travel that these story sequences just come naturally. Mr. Bennett is someone I'd like to meet and talk to, I think!
Love it, love it. I love that adrift feeling you get when your trying to find your way around through three dimensions of time - as is done in this book. Never have I fought through such a mishmash of past, uptime, has happened, might happen, parallel and converging timelines. But it's not a mishmash; indeed, when you finish up and step back it ends up being a complete mosaic of a very complicated story. Not only are there multiple timelines and people displaced in time, but it also jumps forward and backwards telling present story-lines intermixed with backstories, all while incorporating a battalion of characters from dozens of different species each with their own sub-groups, historical races, and temporal investigators. This book might touch on every time travel episode in Star Trek canon. Knowing your Star Trek (ships, species, characters, time periods) is helpful (necessary?) to keeping the story from becoming totally muddled. And yet with the right amount of focus and ability to push through without getting bogged down, this book comes together with a nice tidy ending (not very likely in time travel, but something you come to expect in Star Trek, making the two genres a bit of a juxtaposition.)
The time-travel doesn't get too paradoxy until the last quarter, but man is it worth it. At the crux of the action everything is so mixed up and happening so fast, I really don't think there is a correct or original timeline to ever get back to. It almost becomes an effort just to keep your own history intact so you don't cease to exist!
Perhaps my favorite character was Meneth, the Simperian civet familiar (yes, like witches have) of one of the Aegis agents (ancient preservers of the timeline). This non-canon cat growls and squeaks, yet is somehow a step ahead of most of the Starfleet officers and temporal agents when it comes to problem solving, and is hands-down (paws-down?) superior at negotiations.
Unfortunately a great deal of the story circles around a Deltan agent and his time-displaced human partner who is ga-ga enthralled with him. Deltans are known for their powerful sexual relationships - a form of emotional bonding that is vital to their mental and physical health and well-being. I say this is unfortunate because it creates a quite pathetic and child-like reaction in his partner, Teresa, who is human and thus mentally inferior and would be ruined for life if she ever got involved with him. Even though she's well aware of that, it's such a cliche, "I must have you at any cost/Sorry, I'm just too hot to handle/Waa - it's not fair!" situation, strait down to his Herculean gorgeousness, that I kinda just wish I didn't have to read it, let alone it be an integral part of the plot. But then I watch any early Star Trek episode and am reminded just how women are portrayed in Star Trek's advanced civilization, even in the light of all the backwards chauvinism found in other non-Federation species, and I guess having this theme in the story is right on target.
I'm trying to think if there's anyone I know who I'd recommend this book to. No, I guess not, but gosh I wish I did - that person would be awesome to nerd out with! I'm absolutely going to seek out the next and following books in this series, although something tells me the order in which I read them will not matter since sequential time is basically and illusion. ;P
Albert Einstein once reportedly said that "Time is what keeps everything from happening at once." Unfortunately, that was no longer true in Professor Vard's lunar facility. Something had turned the timeline into a mulidimensional knot. Past, present, and future had become interchangeable, completely nonlinear. Lucsly deeply hated that. It left him feeling adrift, unsure of himself.
Love it, love it. I love that adrift feeling you get when your trying to find your way around through three dimensions of time - as is done in this book. Never have I fought through such a mishmash of past, uptime, has happened, might happen, parallel and converging timelines. But it's not a mishmash; indeed, when you finish up and step back it ends up being a complete mosaic of a very complicated story. Not only are there multiple timelines and people displaced in time, but it also jumps forward and backwards telling present story-lines intermixed with backstories, all while incorporating a battalion of characters from dozens of different species each with their own sub-groups, historical races, and temporal investigators. This book might touch on every time travel episode in Star Trek canon. Knowing your Star Trek (ships, species, characters, time periods) is helpful (necessary?) to keeping the story from becoming totally muddled. And yet with the right amount of focus and ability to push through without getting bogged down, this book comes together with a nice tidy ending (not very likely in time travel, but something you come to expect in Star Trek, making the two genres a bit of a juxtaposition.)
The time-travel doesn't get too paradoxy until the last quarter, but man is it worth it. At the crux of the action everything is so mixed up and happening so fast, I really don't think there is a correct or original timeline to ever get back to. It almost becomes an effort just to keep your own history intact so you don't cease to exist!
Ducane-3 studied his own tricorder. "It's a subspace fracture. An after-effect of the temporal disruptor."
"You mean a before-effect," Noi said. "Retrocausal echoes of an event that hasn't happened yet."
"Like the ones that drew us here in the first pace," Elfiki said.
"And tipped off everyone in the future about this 'secret' conference," Noi added.
Worf frowned. "But are they not the ones whose intervention caused the distortions?"
"They were," Rodal said. "They just didn't know it yet."
"The disruptor will interact with the other temporal fields," Ducane-3 went on, "warping spacetime severely enough to create rifts bracketing the detonation time. Don't know why the quantum lock isn't stopping them . . . we must have shifted back to before it was activated."
Perhaps my favorite character was Meneth, the Simperian civet familiar (yes, like witches have) of one of the Aegis agents (ancient preservers of the timeline). This non-canon cat growls and squeaks, yet is somehow a step ahead of most of the Starfleet officers and temporal agents when it comes to problem solving, and is hands-down (paws-down?) superior at negotiations.
Unfortunately a great deal of the story circles around a Deltan agent and his time-displaced human partner who is ga-ga enthralled with him. Deltans are known for their powerful sexual relationships - a form of emotional bonding that is vital to their mental and physical health and well-being. I say this is unfortunate because it creates a quite pathetic and child-like reaction in his partner, Teresa, who is human and thus mentally inferior and would be ruined for life if she ever got involved with him. Even though she's well aware of that, it's such a cliche, "I must have you at any cost/Sorry, I'm just too hot to handle/Waa - it's not fair!" situation, strait down to his Herculean gorgeousness, that I kinda just wish I didn't have to read it, let alone it be an integral part of the plot. But then I watch any early Star Trek episode and am reminded just how women are portrayed in Star Trek's advanced civilization, even in the light of all the backwards chauvinism found in other non-Federation species, and I guess having this theme in the story is right on target.
I'm trying to think if there's anyone I know who I'd recommend this book to. No, I guess not, but gosh I wish I did - that person would be awesome to nerd out with! I'm absolutely going to seek out the next and following books in this series, although something tells me the order in which I read them will not matter since sequential time is basically and illusion. ;P
August 11, 2019
Wow. O_o This is like the ultimate nerd book. You have to not only be a mega Star Trek fan, but a quantum physics geek as well! This story made my head spin with all the wiggly wobbly timey whimey stuff! I really enjoyed it, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if it had been organized better and not so intent on making sure it referenced so much Star Trek lore. You really have to be in the know to fully appreciate the scope of everything. I mean don't get me wrong this book is incredibly creative and clever. The whole concept of making stories about the DTI and how time would be a fluid and ever-changing thing from their perspective is so awesome! I mean - time detectives saving the universe and dealing with spacetime anomalies?? YES PLEASE. This book quite literally has everything I love: Star Trek, quantum physics, and high concept ideas! That is why I would have appreciated if it had been more a little easier to follow. Some of the emotional moments between Lucsly and Dulmer and their other DTI colleagues could have had an even bigger emotional impact if the story didn't jump between character perspectives and time so much. The story, by its very nature, is already dealing with complex interweaving concepts, so I think it should have been focused on its leads a little more consistently to bring some clarity, and not rely so much on exposition from the characters. You could say this book definitely over explains, so some of that could have been stripped down.
Oh well, I guess I shouldn't critique too much. Ever since I saw the DS9 tribbles episode where the DTI were introduced and Sisko had to be questioned by their agents, I thought it would be so awesome to tell stories about their department! The whole idea fascinated me, and it was such a shame they were just in a one-off episode! But now Mr. Bennett has satiated my curiosity by creating a multi-faceted story that has provocative implications for the Star Trek universe. Also, I have actually recently been studying more about the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum physics, so having that fresh in my mind kind of helped in understanding about how timelines would work within that context.
I do love Lucsly and Dulmer as characters. I enjoyed Bennett's making them into fully realized individuals. I am always a sucker for a good detective bromance! And their relationship is just gold! 🥰 They fall into all the "buddy cop" tropes, and I loved every moment of it. I also found it hilarious how the both of them get so annoyed by Starfleet. Their snarky remarks about how Starfleet are a bunch of reckless adventurers who have no thought for how their actions have ramifications for the timeline is just the best. To tell the story of Star Trek spacetime anomalies from the perspective of two mundane, average, "pencil-pushing" detectives (who just so happen to be saving the whole universe - no prob) is just genius. It brings a whole new dimension (no pun intended) to the Star Trek universe and how there are faceless, tireless individuals working behind the scenes to preserve reality as they know it. Science fiction doesn't get better than this!
P.S. I also love how this book was highly influenced by Isaac Asimov's End of Eternity, which is one of my favorite science fiction stories ever. Major props! 👍
P.S.S. I will mention for anyone reading his review that things get WEIRD regarding the characters Garcia and Ranjea. Prepare for ˚✧Much Awkward✧༚. Sexuality and romantic entanglements have never been science fiction’s strong suite. 🤦♀️ Although I did find the Deltan race to be an interesting concept!
Oh well, I guess I shouldn't critique too much. Ever since I saw the DS9 tribbles episode where the DTI were introduced and Sisko had to be questioned by their agents, I thought it would be so awesome to tell stories about their department! The whole idea fascinated me, and it was such a shame they were just in a one-off episode! But now Mr. Bennett has satiated my curiosity by creating a multi-faceted story that has provocative implications for the Star Trek universe. Also, I have actually recently been studying more about the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum physics, so having that fresh in my mind kind of helped in understanding about how timelines would work within that context.
I do love Lucsly and Dulmer as characters. I enjoyed Bennett's making them into fully realized individuals. I am always a sucker for a good detective bromance! And their relationship is just gold! 🥰 They fall into all the "buddy cop" tropes, and I loved every moment of it. I also found it hilarious how the both of them get so annoyed by Starfleet. Their snarky remarks about how Starfleet are a bunch of reckless adventurers who have no thought for how their actions have ramifications for the timeline is just the best. To tell the story of Star Trek spacetime anomalies from the perspective of two mundane, average, "pencil-pushing" detectives (who just so happen to be saving the whole universe - no prob) is just genius. It brings a whole new dimension (no pun intended) to the Star Trek universe and how there are faceless, tireless individuals working behind the scenes to preserve reality as they know it. Science fiction doesn't get better than this!
P.S. I also love how this book was highly influenced by Isaac Asimov's End of Eternity, which is one of my favorite science fiction stories ever. Major props! 👍
P.S.S. I will mention for anyone reading his review that things get WEIRD regarding the characters Garcia and Ranjea. Prepare for ˚✧Much Awkward✧༚. Sexuality and romantic entanglements have never been science fiction’s strong suite. 🤦♀️ Although I did find the Deltan race to be an interesting concept!
May 31, 2023
I enjoy the characterizations of all the characters. I was especially fond of Lucsly and Dulmur. I enjoy their dynamic and how dedicated they are to their jobs, and also how they interact together. I did also enjoy Garcia and Ranjea. I thought their dynamic was also fun to read about. And it got especially fun to read closer to the end. It felt like any slower pacing in the narrative suddenly picked up a lot more.
I enjoyed the overall story, and I love all of the references to various things that happened in previous Star Trek lore. And if you’re big on the Star Trek lore, and can keep up with all of it as it occurs, then absolutely recommend it.
But I can’t give it the full 5-stars because I will admit there were a few points in the middle where it got confusing. Sometimes the back and forth between the past and present viewpoints could feel a little longer than they needed to be, or otherwise it felt like sometimes there was too much middling narrative in between pieces of dialogue of characters, which could take me out of it a little bit, as it slowed things down when it didn’t necessarily need slowing down every time. There’s also the fact that there’s a lot of temporal/time travel sci-fi jargon, and if you’re not prepared for it that can feel overwhelming to process within the story itself.
If you’re a new trekkie, or you much prefer the newer Star Trek series (such as Discovery, Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, and Prodigy), I’d hold off on this one as it’s just slightly older than those series are, and will not feel the same. The references that are made to the canon are from the older series (There’s a lot of mention of things that happened in TOS, TAS, Enterprise, TNG, DS9, and Voyager, as well as multiple occurrences of a few of those characters showing up in the story itself). So if you haven’t seen them, I’d recommend holding off on this one until you’ve seen some of the previous canon, or a lot of it will feel like you missed something at certain points.
Also, if you prefer super fast paced action, this one may not be for you. It’s definitely got some action in it, and those moments are great, but it also has a level of feeling slower and more cerebral or philosophical in specific ways.
However, if heavy sci-fi time travel talk is your thing, and you love Star Trek, then I’d say you could give it a go and probably find it an enjoyable time to do so. It never hurts to try something new even if you end up not liking it yourself.
Overall, I enjoyed it. I loved the characters. It started feeling fantastic at a certain point, and if you’re a long-time fan of Star Trek all the references are kind of fun to try and remember. Some of the narrative really feels cool in certain moments, and if you really like to think about things, it’s fun to try and figure out.
While I can objectively see this not being everyone’s cup of tea, I really rather liked it and plan to continue on with the series.
I enjoyed the overall story, and I love all of the references to various things that happened in previous Star Trek lore. And if you’re big on the Star Trek lore, and can keep up with all of it as it occurs, then absolutely recommend it.
But I can’t give it the full 5-stars because I will admit there were a few points in the middle where it got confusing. Sometimes the back and forth between the past and present viewpoints could feel a little longer than they needed to be, or otherwise it felt like sometimes there was too much middling narrative in between pieces of dialogue of characters, which could take me out of it a little bit, as it slowed things down when it didn’t necessarily need slowing down every time. There’s also the fact that there’s a lot of temporal/time travel sci-fi jargon, and if you’re not prepared for it that can feel overwhelming to process within the story itself.
If you’re a new trekkie, or you much prefer the newer Star Trek series (such as Discovery, Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, and Prodigy), I’d hold off on this one as it’s just slightly older than those series are, and will not feel the same. The references that are made to the canon are from the older series (There’s a lot of mention of things that happened in TOS, TAS, Enterprise, TNG, DS9, and Voyager, as well as multiple occurrences of a few of those characters showing up in the story itself). So if you haven’t seen them, I’d recommend holding off on this one until you’ve seen some of the previous canon, or a lot of it will feel like you missed something at certain points.
Also, if you prefer super fast paced action, this one may not be for you. It’s definitely got some action in it, and those moments are great, but it also has a level of feeling slower and more cerebral or philosophical in specific ways.
However, if heavy sci-fi time travel talk is your thing, and you love Star Trek, then I’d say you could give it a go and probably find it an enjoyable time to do so. It never hurts to try something new even if you end up not liking it yourself.
Overall, I enjoyed it. I loved the characters. It started feeling fantastic at a certain point, and if you’re a long-time fan of Star Trek all the references are kind of fun to try and remember. Some of the narrative really feels cool in certain moments, and if you really like to think about things, it’s fun to try and figure out.
While I can objectively see this not being everyone’s cup of tea, I really rather liked it and plan to continue on with the series.
June 2, 2023
I remember watching Star Trek in its several incarnations on television. I always enjoyed it because James T Kirk, Picard and the other shows, including the ones on the Space States were great adventures. All the ships (the Enterprise) involved traveling though the universe discovering formerly unknown races of being. While the space stations were based on other races coming to the station and us seeing them as visitors, the stories by and large were stories of "going where no man has ever gone before".
However, there are a quite a few books that have written in the last 10-15-20 years and this is the first of those that I have read. This one starts a series where the travel and exploration is not in the physical universe but though time itself. The Federation has a agency that is set up to control the time line and keep various forces from meddling in that time line. It is revealed that it is a long going conflict and that people are blotted out of "history". There are two agents, Lucsly and Dulmur, that are the center of this study of how the federation works.
Their jobs as agents is to keep the time line safe from malicious or even accident changing of key elements. We get to met agents from all sorts of times and places, but these two men are the focal point of things in this particular novel.
I really enjoy the "normal" Star Trek stories a bit more than the time travel stuff, perhaps because I like seeing stories this complex in a visual format. There were many species involved, and since I can't "see them" I struggled with imagining them and separating who was who reliable. I have no idea if any of this will be made into a movie, but I haven't heard of any, and there seems to be a lot of writers doing new stories, and have been since 2005 at least. Of course at any time, there could be a movie or a new TV show made, but who knows when.
I would recommend this book more for those who can visualize in their minds lots of different creatures without seeing them. I really found my inability to do so a big draw back for my appreciation.
However, there are a quite a few books that have written in the last 10-15-20 years and this is the first of those that I have read. This one starts a series where the travel and exploration is not in the physical universe but though time itself. The Federation has a agency that is set up to control the time line and keep various forces from meddling in that time line. It is revealed that it is a long going conflict and that people are blotted out of "history". There are two agents, Lucsly and Dulmur, that are the center of this study of how the federation works.
Their jobs as agents is to keep the time line safe from malicious or even accident changing of key elements. We get to met agents from all sorts of times and places, but these two men are the focal point of things in this particular novel.
I really enjoy the "normal" Star Trek stories a bit more than the time travel stuff, perhaps because I like seeing stories this complex in a visual format. There were many species involved, and since I can't "see them" I struggled with imagining them and separating who was who reliable. I have no idea if any of this will be made into a movie, but I haven't heard of any, and there seems to be a lot of writers doing new stories, and have been since 2005 at least. Of course at any time, there could be a movie or a new TV show made, but who knows when.
I would recommend this book more for those who can visualize in their minds lots of different creatures without seeing them. I really found my inability to do so a big draw back for my appreciation.
November 29, 2020
Did you say Time Travel?
This is one of my favorite Anthology novels in Star Trek. There isn't much warning, but it really is a whole bunch of stories together over a long period of time tied to together in the Novel we always needed and never got.
This answers The Time Travel Mystery of Star Trek.
WHO IS FUTURE GUY!
While weaving an excellent story of time travel ramifications from Temporal Agents who have to endure the thankless job or picking up the pieces of the damaged lives of Time Travelers.
From the Past or From the Future, Cameos abound from Star Trek, TNG, ENT, VOY, Titan, the list goes on and on.
Picard even gets debriefed after the events of First Contact in 2373.
Its just an amazing novel and I absolutely love it.
I love easter eggs and this is a love letter to the fans told through the eyes of a new recruit and some characters we saw in DS9 that are completely Awesome in this action , Time Travel, Thriller of a mystery novel.
I love the temporal concepts Chris introduces in the novel.
It is one of his finest works , he has so many excellent Star Trek Novels.
He is definitely a strong plotter and a stronger character writer. His writing is easy and fun to read and I ate up this novel in just a few days because I found it so entertaining.
Beam off to be inducted into the Department of Temporal Investigations. Dust off your paperwork PADD and get ready to clean up the lives of those most affected by our favorite main TV shows. You have work to do. And be careful of your Co Workers. They're Deltan afterall.
This is one of my favorite Anthology novels in Star Trek. There isn't much warning, but it really is a whole bunch of stories together over a long period of time tied to together in the Novel we always needed and never got.
This answers The Time Travel Mystery of Star Trek.
WHO IS FUTURE GUY!
While weaving an excellent story of time travel ramifications from Temporal Agents who have to endure the thankless job or picking up the pieces of the damaged lives of Time Travelers.
From the Past or From the Future, Cameos abound from Star Trek, TNG, ENT, VOY, Titan, the list goes on and on.
Picard even gets debriefed after the events of First Contact in 2373.
Its just an amazing novel and I absolutely love it.
I love easter eggs and this is a love letter to the fans told through the eyes of a new recruit and some characters we saw in DS9 that are completely Awesome in this action , Time Travel, Thriller of a mystery novel.
I love the temporal concepts Chris introduces in the novel.
It is one of his finest works , he has so many excellent Star Trek Novels.
He is definitely a strong plotter and a stronger character writer. His writing is easy and fun to read and I ate up this novel in just a few days because I found it so entertaining.
Beam off to be inducted into the Department of Temporal Investigations. Dust off your paperwork PADD and get ready to clean up the lives of those most affected by our favorite main TV shows. You have work to do. And be careful of your Co Workers. They're Deltan afterall.
July 3, 2023
DTI #1: Watching the Clock by Christopher Bennett
Seriously, where was this writing? The first three Christopher Bennett books I read I wasn’t the big fan of, given his writing style. He would just write paragraph after paragraph that wouldn’t add to the story. This changed with the Face of the Unknown, which he seemed to have learned his lesson with this.
But in this case, it works. It moves the plot and story along and it’s also just damn enjoyable. I think it might help that I’m interested in the premise unlike the other books I’ve read by him.
This book is just really a lot of fun and it’s fun to see Bennett tie in the various threads from time travel stories from across all of Star Trek. He also answers a lot of questions in regards to the Temporal Cold War and who “Future Guy” is. The answer was somewhat sasifiying but I like the idea of him being Archer more interesting.
The only complaint I have about the book is that it can get bogged down by the trekbabble about time travel and various temporal mechanics related to it. Also, the constant shift from different time periods can be a bit jarring and confusing to follow. I got uptime and downtime confused a lot. Anyway, a great book and I very much look forward to reading the next one!
7.75/10
Seriously, where was this writing? The first three Christopher Bennett books I read I wasn’t the big fan of, given his writing style. He would just write paragraph after paragraph that wouldn’t add to the story. This changed with the Face of the Unknown, which he seemed to have learned his lesson with this.
But in this case, it works. It moves the plot and story along and it’s also just damn enjoyable. I think it might help that I’m interested in the premise unlike the other books I’ve read by him.
This book is just really a lot of fun and it’s fun to see Bennett tie in the various threads from time travel stories from across all of Star Trek. He also answers a lot of questions in regards to the Temporal Cold War and who “Future Guy” is. The answer was somewhat sasifiying but I like the idea of him being Archer more interesting.
The only complaint I have about the book is that it can get bogged down by the trekbabble about time travel and various temporal mechanics related to it. Also, the constant shift from different time periods can be a bit jarring and confusing to follow. I got uptime and downtime confused a lot. Anyway, a great book and I very much look forward to reading the next one!
7.75/10
September 25, 2018
I need to learn how to grovel entirely because I leant this book to someone.
For a fan of Star Trek, even one that hasn’t spent a horrific amount of time absorbing the expanded universe, this is quite fun to read. The author had a few points to make about time travel in fiction, and the entitlements of the reader. These are spelled out in the authors notes, and I think he makes his points well, he resorts to fringe “science” in places, but this book does drift passably close to real science fiction, not somewhere Trek is necessarily very good at.
We didn’t need to hear any more about the Deltans, unfortunately we heard loads more about the Deltans. As far as I know the only cannon about Deltans was in Roddenberry’s own novelisation of The Motion Picture, (Which was surprisingly sexualised.) and a cryptic line in that film “My oath of celibacy is in record”. Reading between the lines of the authors notes this seems to have been his protest about some of the cliches the books have demonstrated over the years, the novels have often spelled out what the series left to innuendo, but I’ve always skimmed those bits... I’m a little horrified that I’ve got so used to doing so!
For a fan of Star Trek, even one that hasn’t spent a horrific amount of time absorbing the expanded universe, this is quite fun to read. The author had a few points to make about time travel in fiction, and the entitlements of the reader. These are spelled out in the authors notes, and I think he makes his points well, he resorts to fringe “science” in places, but this book does drift passably close to real science fiction, not somewhere Trek is necessarily very good at.
We didn’t need to hear any more about the Deltans, unfortunately we heard loads more about the Deltans. As far as I know the only cannon about Deltans was in Roddenberry’s own novelisation of The Motion Picture, (Which was surprisingly sexualised.) and a cryptic line in that film “My oath of celibacy is in record”. Reading between the lines of the authors notes this seems to have been his protest about some of the cliches the books have demonstrated over the years, the novels have often spelled out what the series left to innuendo, but I’ve always skimmed those bits... I’m a little horrified that I’ve got so used to doing so!
May 31, 2021
En fullständigt magnifik berättelse. Boken innehåller referenser till de flesta större tidsresehändelserna i Star Treks historia utan att på något sätt bli för övertydlig i refernserna. Boken är packad med action från början till slut, trots huvudpersonerna Lucsly och Dulmur som i sina karaktärer är byråkratiska och följande-av-reglerna-perfekt-hela-tiden. Författarnas respekt för Star Treks historia är enorm och han redogör därför för sina källor till de stora mängder av karaktärer och organisationer som nämns i boken (källhänvisningen står i slutet, som sig bör). Det här var en bok som jag aldrig ville lägga från mig (men om tröttheten kommer krypande så måste man ju tyvärr det), och jag rekommenderar därför boken till alla som gillar tidsresor, tidsparadoxer och andra tidsfenomen. Boken kräver att man hela tiden håller huvudet på skaft, och det utmanade mig som läsare på ett mycket positiv sätt.
Helt klart är detta det bästa jag läst inom Star Trek på länge och jag längtar redan efter Christopher L. Bennetts kommande bok i denna bokserie.
Helt klart är detta det bästa jag läst inom Star Trek på länge och jag längtar redan efter Christopher L. Bennetts kommande bok i denna bokserie.
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