Six Degrees of Separation: From Dangerous Liaisons to Before the Coffee Gets Cold

The Six Degrees of Separation meme is hosted by Kate at booksaremyfavoriteandbest. The idea behind the meme is to start with a book and use common points between two books to end up with links to six books, forming a chain. The common points may be obvious, like a word in the title or a shared theme, or more personal. Every month Kate provides the title of a book as the starting point.

The starting book this month is Dangerous Liaisons. This is a French epistolary novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, published in 1782, with the original title of Les Liaisons dangereuses. It tells the story of the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, two lovers who plot to seduce and manipulate others. I don't know much about this book except that it was adapted to film many times; the one I am most familiar with is Dangerous Liaisons (1988), directed by Stephen Frears and starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich. Two other English language versions are Valmont (1989), directed by Miloš Forman, and Cruel Intentions (1999), which relocates the story to modern-day New York.

1st degree:

My first link is to another French novel adapted to the screen, titled D’entre les morts (1954), written by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Hitchcock adapted the story as Vertigo, set in San Francisco instead of France.  The first translation of the  book to English was published in 1956 as The Living and the Dead. Pushkin Vertigo more recently issued a reprint of the novel with the title Vertigo.

2nd degree:

For my next link, I picked another book adapted to film by Hitchcock, The Rainbird Pattern (1972) by Victor Canning. It is the 2nd book in a loose spy fiction series called the Birdcage books. The film version was titled Family Plot, and is very different from the book. The basic elements of the plot remain, but the story is turned into a comedy.

3rd degree:

My husband and I have watched a lot of Hitchcock movies, and another novel that he chose to adapt was Rebecca (1938) by Daphne du Maurier. The adaptation, released in 1940, stars Laurence Olivier as the widower Maxim de Winter and Joan Fontaine as the unnamed woman who becomes his second wife.

4th degree:

Moving away from Hitchcock and adaptations, my next book is another by Daphne du Maurier, The House on the Strand (1969). I was surprised to find out that this book is a time travel story; my son found it for me in the science fiction and fantasy section of the book sale in 2023. I haven't read it yet so check out reviews at Constance's Staircase Wit blog and Kelly's Thoughts & Ramblings.

5th degree:

And now I move to another classic book of time travel, this time with a scientific basis: The End of Eternity (1955) by Isaac Asimov. This book is about a group of people called the Eternals, who live outside of time and either observe time at different points or make Reality Changes to make positive changes for the future. I read this over ten years ago but I remember I liked it a lot. Even though the book has very few women characters, there is definitely a romance of sorts, and it reads like a thriller.

6th degree:

There are many  different takes on time travel stories. Some are science fiction, using machines of some type to take the person back in time. Others lean more towards fantasy. In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, visitors to a tiny café in Tokyo can take advantage of a special service; they can travel back in time if they drink a cup of the special coffee made by this café. This is the first book in a series about the café and its unique brand of time travel.

My Six Degrees took me from France to England and then to the past via time travel. Have you read any of these books? If you did this month's Six Degrees, where did your list take you?

The next Six Degrees will be on  March 1, 2025 and the starting book will be the 2023 Booker Prize winner, Prophet Song by Paul Lynch.

Short Story Wednesday: Book Sale purchases

 

Last Friday, September 16, was the first day of the Planned Parenthood book sale and it will continue through Sunday, September 25. We went to the book sale on both Friday and Saturday. (And we will go back again tomorrow, and Saturday and Sunday.) 

My goal this year was to cut back on short story book purchases, since I have so many, both in print editions and on the Kindle. Yet I went ahead and purchased these three books for various reasons. I have not sampled any of them yet. So, here they are.

MASH UP: Stories Inspired by Famous First Lines

Gardner Dozois  (Editor)

This is an anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories. The subtitle describes the theme. Each author picked a first line of a favorite classic and use it as a first line in a short story. There are thirteen stories in the 400 page book, and each one is around 30 pages in length. My son found this book for me, and I am glad he did.

Isaac Asimov Presents the Golden Years of Science Fiction: Third Series

Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg (Editors)

This anthology is 633 pages, with 20 short stories and novellas by various authors from 1943-1944. Each story is preceded by short introduction by Asimov and Greenberg.

In this case the authors are not listed on the cover, so I will include a list of the stories, from the Goodreads summary:

• The Cave by P. Schuyler Miller
• The Halfling by Leigh Brackett
• Mimsy Were the Borogoves by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore [as Lewis Padgett]
• Q.U.R. by Anthony Boucher
• Clash by Night by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore [as Lawrence O'Donnell]
• Exile by Edmond Hamilton
• Daymare by Fredric Brown
• Doorway into Time by C. L. Moore
• The Storm by A.E. van Vogt
• The Proud Robot by Henry Kuttner [as Lewis Padgett]
• Symbiotica by Eric Frank Russell
• The Veil of Astellar by Leigh Brackett
• City by Clifford D. Simak
• Arena by Frederic Brown
• Huddling Place by Clifford D. Simak
• Kindness by Lester Del Rey
• Desertion by Clifford D. Simak
• When the Bough Breaks by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore [as Lewis Padgett]
• Killdozer! by Theodore Sturgeon
• No Woman Born by C.L. Moore

A Rare Benedictine

by Ellis Peters, Clifford Harper  (Illustrator)

This last book contains only three short stories, from the Brother Cadfael series by Ellis Peters. I already had a copy of this in paperback, but I jumped at the opportunity to get this hardback copy, mainly for greater ease of reading. It also is enhanced by lovely illustrations, so I am doubly happy to have it. My husband found this book for me; I am very grateful that he did.

Reading in July 2021

No wonder this felt like a weird reading month. I only read three mystery novels, although two other books I read were nonfiction related to mysteries. Five of the fiction books read were from my 20 Books of Summer list, the sixth was from my Classics Club list.

Nonfiction / Mystery reference

Southern Cross Crime (2020) by Craig Sisterson

This book is subtitled "The Pocket Essential Guide to the Crime Fiction, Film & TV of Australia and New Zealand," and that describes the contents pretty well. I have been hoping someone would publish this type of mystery reference for those areas, and Craig Sisterson is definitely the one to do it. 

Nonfiction / Memoir

Poirot and Me (2013) by David Suchet and Geoffrey Wansell

Having read almost all of the Poirot novels, and watched ALL of the Poirot TV episodes, I was ready to read this book by Suchet which functions as a memoir of the years that the Poirot series aired. I enjoyed all of it. He includes interesting facts about the various episodes and the parts he played in the years when Poirot was not being filmed. Also discussed is how decisions were made on the portrayal of Poirot and the time setting for all the TV episodes. I found this to be very entertaining and fun to read.

General Fiction / Classic

Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) by Zora Neale Hurston

This was my book chosen for the Classics Club Spin. It was a wonderful read, although I had misgivings before I started reading because much of it is written in dialect.

Historical Fiction

H.M.S. Surprise (1973) by Patrick O'Brian

This the third book in O'Brian's Aubrey & Maturin series. The novel was not that long but took me a while to read. I enjoyed it immensely and I am sure I will be reading all 20 of the books.

Science Fiction

Foundation (1951) by Isaac Asimov

Foundation is a science fiction classic, the first part of a trilogy. My review here.

Crime Fiction

A Killing Spring (1996) by Gail Bowen

This is the 5th book in a mystery series about Joanne Kilbourn, a political analyst and university professor who gets involved in criminal investigations. The setting is Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. I keep coming back because I like the setting, and they are certainly not boring. My review here.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1963) by Ian Fleming

This is the 11th book in the James Bond series, and in my opinion, one of the best in the series. There are three books in the James Bond series that feature the villain Blofeld of Spectre, and this novel was the second one, following Thunderball. I enjoyed the book. I loved it when I first read it because the heroine's name was Tracy and at the time I did not know many girls named Tracy. So it was a nostalgic read for me. The film version stars George Lazenby as Bond and Diana Rigg as Tracy; we watched it back in 2018, and now we will watch it again.

Women with a Blue Pencil (2015) by Gordon McAlpine

This novel is set in 1941, at the time when the attack on Pearl Harbor takes place. A Japanese-American man has written a novel with a Japanese-American protagonist, but after the attack, his editor can't publish it and asks him to change the story. The story is told via two parallel narratives (a version of the original story and the version suggested by his editor), interlaced with the letters from Maxine, the editor, cajoling Tamiko into continuing the new version of the novels. I loved the story, especially when it all came together. My review here.

Reading Next?

I have five books left on my 20 Books of Summer list, and I am having a hard time deciding what to read next. Possibly The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer or Way Station by Clifford D. Simak or The Turquoise Shop by Frances Crane. Those books were all published between 1941 and 1963.

The photo at the head of this post is a Rudbeckia plant in a bed in the front. The photo immediately above shows flowers from two Mandevilla plants in the back patio area, one pink and one dark red. Both photos were taken by my husband. They were planted in the last month and we will have to see how they do over the next few months.

Foundation: Isaac Asimov

I am intimidated by writing a review of a classic of science fiction like this one, when I am not that knowledgeable of science fiction in general. But I will do my best, and I welcome comments and corrections.

As the Foundation series begins, Hari Seldon is predicting the fall of the Galactic Empire. an extremely large group of planets settled by humans. He also predicts that the breakup of the Galactic Empire will cause 30,000 years of turmoil. He proposes to set up a group of men to write an encyclopedia that will include all human knowledge and preserve it, and claims that the effort will reduce the years of turmoil to 1,000.

The Commission of Public Safety accuses Seldon of treason, but they allow him to carry out his project of developing an encyclopedia. They force him to move this group to a remote planet, Terminus. The rest of the book follows the events on Terminus and adjoining planets over a period of about 200 years.

This book was not what I expected. What did I expect? Maybe more of a space opera, maybe more action. That is not to say that there is no space travel or action. The society is futuristic to a point. This novel is more about society and interactions in society. And a lot of talk. People arguing about ideas, people convincing others to do things.

The book was divided into five sections:

• The Psychohistorians
• The Encyclopedists
• The Mayors
• The Traders
• The Merchant Princes

It took me a while to get into the book, especially while reading the first two sections. The writing was sort of dry, and I could not get interested in any of the characters. Each section is about a new set of characters although some characters carry from one section to the next. But with each part the story improves, although I remained confused through at least the third section. There was humor in the fourth section, The Traders. That section read like a good short story, and only later did I realize why. In the end, overall, I thought Foundation was an exceptional story.

After I finished reading Foundation, I read Asimov's introduction to that edition (written in 1982) which explained that he had put each book in the trilogy together from previously written stories. That did explain a lot about the structure and some confusion I had. The introduction was fascinating and I was amazed that doing that worked out so well.

One complaint I had is the lack of women in the story. No women characters at all until the fifth part, which is over 2/3 of the book. And the only woman in that section has no significant role. I know the stories were written in the 1940's and the book was published in 1951, but I found it irritating, regardless.

Also see FictionFan's review.

Foundation was first published as part 1 of a trilogy. The second book is Foundation and Empire and the third part is Second Foundation. Later, more books were added to the series. I will be reading further in the trilogy, and more books by Asimov outside of the Foundation series.

 -----------------------------

Publisher:  Del Rey Books, 1986. Orig. pub. 1951.
Length:     285 pages
Format:     Paperback
Series:      Foundation, #1
Setting:     The Galactic Empire
Genre:      Science Fiction
Source:     Purchased at the Planned Parenthood book sale, 2017.

Short Story Wednesday: Tales of the Black Widowers by Isaac Asimov

Today I am highlighting Tales of the Black Widowers by Isaac Asimov. There are six books of stories about the Black Widowers and this is the first, published in 1974. 

I have only read the first two stories in this book, and so far these two are less crime related, and more about morality or ethics. I enjoyed both of them. The Special Note and the Introduction by Asimov at the beginning of the book was very funny. Each story has an Afterword by Asimov explaining any changes to the story since original publication, and those are entertaining also.

This excerpt from an article by William I. Lengeman III, at Criminal Element gives an overview of how Asimov came up with the Black Widowers stories:

Asimov was a member of the Sherlock Holmes fan organization, the Baker Street Irregulars, and the Wolfe Pack, a fan group convened to sing the praises of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe. But it’s his membership in another group, the Trap Door Spiders, that led to the creation of some of his most popular mystery stories. The Spiders, like their fictional counterparts, the Black Widowers, were an all-male group that convened regularly to eat, drink, discuss, debate and whatnot. Like Asimov, a number of the members of the Spiders were popular science fiction authors, including such notables as L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter and L. Ron Hubbard (in his pre-messianic incarnation).

The Black Widowers were six men from the upper strata of society. Much like the Spiders they would met every now and then for dinner—typically with a single guest on hand—and ended up solving some manner of puzzle presented to them by that guest. 

Here is a list of the stories in the book. When there are two titles for a  story, the first title is the one used in the book, the second is the one used when published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

• “The Acquisitive Chuckle” aka “The Chuckle”
• “Ph as in Phony” aka “The Phony Ph.D.”
• “Truth to Tell” aka “The Man Who Never Told a Lie”
• “Go, Little Book!” aka “The Matchbook Collector”
• “Early Sunday Morning” aka “The Biological Clock”
• “The Obvious Factor”
• “The Pointing Finger”
• “Miss What?” aka “A Warning to Miss Earth?”
• “The Lullaby of Broadway”
• “Yankee Doodle Went To Town”
• “The Curious Omission”
• “Out of Sight” aka “The Six Suspects”

The remaining books are:

More Tales of the Black Widowers (1976)

Casebook of the Black Widowers (1980)

Banquets of the Black Widowers (1984)

Puzzles of the Black Widowers (1990)

The Return of the Black Widowers (2003)

Short Story Wednesday: "The Cross of Lorraine" by Isaac Asimov

I have never read any of Isaac Asimov's stories in the Black Widowers series. Now I find out that they were collected in six books. The one I read recently was in Detective Stories, stories chosen by Philip Pullman. The story was first published in 1976 and was collected in Casebook of the Black Widowers.

"The Cross of Lorraine" is the type of story I did not think I would like, but in fact I enjoyed it very much. A group of middle-aged men gather monthly for dinner, and at that dinner they are presented with a puzzle to solve. I don't know how all the stories go, but in this one the puzzle pops up unexpectedly, it was not brought to them for a solution. 

The story begins with a magician joining the group as a guest, and the group questions him about his experiences in his job. This leads to a puzzle that he has not been able to solve on his on, try as he may. He is trying to find a woman that was traveling on a bus with him. They were traveling at night and she left the bus while he was asleep. The solution is clever and amusing, if a bit far-fetched. But I think it was the tone of the mystery I liked most, playful, light.

So I will be looking for a copy of one of the books of collected stories, hopefully the first one, Tales of the Black Widowers.

Venture Forth: 2020 Summer Reading Program

I am joining in on the Venture Forth 2020 Summer Reading Program described by Carl Anderson at Stainless Steel Droppings.

From Carl's post:

Do you recall Summer Reading programs that were assigned by your school for the Summer break, or were hosted by your local public library? Are these something in which you participated?

Memories of my past, related largely to books and reading, have been triggered during this time of physical distancing as I have communicated via technology with friends. Those memories are influencing my reading of late and even the music I have been listening to.

--- --- ---

So I created my own Summer Reading program: Venture Forth. The name is a play on the idea that we are being allowed to venture forth into certain businesses and venues once again, and that reading always allows everyone to Venture Forth on an adventure.

This isn’t a challenge or event like I’ve hosted in the past. It is simply something that I want to do and want to share with you. If you desire to recapture a bit of that childhood summer experience, please feel free to be a part of this, and feel free to use the gif.

There are no rules. No number of books to read. No prizes outside of the great pleasure of reading.

Carl listed about 20 prompts that fit his situation. I have borrowed some of his and created my own.

My prompts:

book with a Michael Whelan cover 
       [Dragonsdawn (1988) by Anne McCaffrey]
       [Dragonflight (1968) by Anne McCaffrey]

spy fiction written by a woman  [At Risk (2004) by Stella Rimington]

spy fiction written by a man  [The Last Tourist (2020) by Olen Steinhauer]

2020 book purchase

nonfiction book

novel that is part of a series

novel that I have read before

book recommended by another blogger

graphic novel

recommendation from my husband

historical fiction novel

science fiction novel  [The Consuming Fire (2018) by John Scalzi]

book set in Canada   [A Trick of the Light (2011) by Louise Penny]

book written by a Canadian author

book published in the 1940s

book published in the 1950s

NEW prompt added June 5th:
     Clarkesworld Anthology


The prompt for a "book with a Michael Whelan cover" was on Carl's list and I assumed I would switch that to an illustrator that I am more familiar with. But I was curious about Whelan so I looked him up. Amazingly I actually found a book I had with a cover by Michael Whelan. It is Foundation (Book One) by Isaac Asimov and it is on my Classics List. So I will be reading that for sure.

2014 Global Reading Challenge Wrap Up

The goal of the 2014 Global Reading Challenge is to read one or more fiction books set in each of the seven continents. To make it easier, the Seventh Continent can be Antarctica or a "place" of your choice. It is hosted by Kerrie of MYSTERIES in PARADISE.

This year I opted for the Easy Level, just one book for each continent. In most cases I read more than one book for a continent, but it took me awhile to decide on a book from South America.

These are the books I read for each continent:

Africa: The Cairo Affair by Olen Steinhauer (Egypt)
Asia: Slicky Boys by Martin Limón (South Korea)
Australasia: A Few Right Thinking Men by Sulari Gentil
Europe:  The Collini Case by Ferdinand von Schirach (Germany)
North America:  Sleep While I Sing by L. R. Wright (Canada)
South America:  December Heat by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza (Brazil)
The Seventh Continent (outer space): The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov

The Naked Sun: Isaac Asimov

The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov is a cross-genre book with an interesting whodunit and an intriguing picture of two dystopian societies. It paints a picture of the possible ills of isolationism, automation, and the proliferation of technology.

From the back of my book:

A millennium into the future, two advancements have altered the course of human history:  the colonization of the Galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. 

On the beautiful Outer World planet of Solaria, a handful of human colonists lead a hermit-like existence, their every need attended to by their faithful robot servants.  To this strange and provocative planet comes Detective Elijah Baley, sent from the streets of New York with his positronic partner, the robot R. Daneel Olivaw, to solve an incredible murder that has rocked Solaria to its foundations.

Isaac Asimov was in part inspired to start the series of novels that feature Elijah and Daneel by conversations with John Campbell, editor of Astounding Science Fiction. This excerpt is from the Introduction to The Naked Sun, titled "The Story Behind the Robot Novels."

Campbell had often said that a science-fiction mystery story was a contradiction in terms; that advances in technology could be used to get detectives out of their difficulties unfairly, and that the readers would therefore be cheated.

Asimov set out to prove him wrong with The Caves of Steel (my review here), published in 1954. The Naked Sun followed in 1957. Both books were serialized in magazines first.

I found The Naked Sun especially interesting because Elijah is out of his element on the planet of Solaria. Not only is he on a different planet, but the culture and the development of this planet are very different from the direction that humans on earth have taken. He and the people of Solaria have very little in common and many of the people he needs to interview have contempt for the people of earth and for him.

In the future that Asimov has depicted, the people of earth have protected themselves in huge domes and never (or rarely) experience wide open spaces or the outdoors or even elements of nature.  They have developed a fear of being exposed to these experiences. The humans who have settled on other planets in the galaxy are referred to as Spacers, and each group has developed in different ways. The Solarians seclude themselves from other human contact. Even husbands and wives meet face to face only at appointed times. Humans usually meet with each other by "viewing", which sounds something like a sophisticated type of holographic projection. They can play games or eat a meal together, but not be in the same room physically.

The Solarians consider the society that has developed to be near perfect, and have a small population whose every need is met by specialized robots. Thus they don't even have a police force to deal with crime. Elijah is assigned to this case at the request of a Solarian, but comes into the situation with very little knowledge, and gets little cooperation from the Solarians in his investigation. Robot Daneel, again assigned as his partner, does understand much more about the culture of Solaria, but he is from a very influential planet, Aurora, and does not share all of his knowledge with Elijah. The investigation of the crime is thus very different and challenging for Elijah.

I enjoyed this book a lot. I recommend it highly. The way this book is written, the reader can come into it without knowledge of the first book (I had forgotten a lot about that book myself). The next book in the series, The Robots of Dawn, was not published until 1983. I will be getting that one sometime to follow up on Elijah and Daneel.

John at Pretty Sinister Books wrote an excellent evaluation of this book in this post, which includes some lovely book covers.

The Caves of Steel: Isaac Asimov

This is the second book by Isaac Asimov that I have read this month, and I am hooked on his writing. I am not new to Asimov, but it has been a while, and my tastes have changed. I found that his story telling abilities still keep me interested. His characters are a little less compelling, but are fleshed out as the stories proceeds.

Summary from the back of the paperback edition:

A millennium into the future two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. Isaac Asimov's Robot novels chronicle the unlikely partnership between a New York City detective and a humanoid robot who must learn to work together.

The novel blends science fiction and mystery. This was the goal of the author as stated in the introduction in my edition of the book: "I sat down to write a story that would be a classic mystery and that would not cheat the reader — and yet would be a true science-fiction story."

Our hero is New York City police detective Elijah Baley. His boss, the Commissioner of Police, has instructed him to go to Spacetown to investigate a murder, a very unexpected request.


I was captivated by the descriptions of the world Asimov has invented. The introduction to Spacetown is especially well done. I liked the chapter titles, such as "Introduction to a Family." There the reader learns not only Baley's family life, but also living conditions in the City.

This novel presents a picture of a very overpopulated earth where the basics of life are regulated to be able to support the huge population. The relationship between the earthlings and the Spacers was not immediately clear and Asimov reveals this gradually throughout the book.

As the investigation moves along, Baley makes a couple of false guesses about the identity of the culprit, and each time we learn more about the overall situation in his job and family life and the prevailing culture on earth. As new facts are revealed to him, he fights against the logical conclusions because it challenges his view of life on earth.

The story raises philosophical issues: How the regular residents of earth react to the perceived superiority of the Spacers, and why they are fearful of robots. A big issue is robots taking over jobs of humans, and in today's world, that is still a concern.

This review at SF Reviews.net describes it well:

The Caves of Steel goes beyond the boundaries imposed by genre convention. More than merely an entertaining whodunnit, this novel is ultimately about humanity's need to overcome the fears and prejudices which senselessly prevent our own betterment as a species. For 1953, it was a revolutionary idea. Today, it might seem old hat, but, if ongoing racial strife is any indication, it's an idea we still sorely need.

I read this book as a part of the 2013 Sci-Fi Experience at Stainless Steel Droppings.

Check out the Review Site for the Sci-Fi Experience here to see other blogger's reviews and related posts.

I am also submitting this post for The Vintage Science Fiction Month not-a-challenge at the Little Red Reviewer. For that event participants will be "talking about time travel, laser guns, early robotics, first contact, swords and sorcery, predictions for humanity and the authors who came up with it all. Haphazardly, the defining year for 'vintage' is 1979."

Both Margot at Conversations of a Mystery Novelist... and Sergio at Tipping my Fedora recommended this novel to me. I am grateful to both of them. Margot has an In the Spotlight post on this novel, which goes into much more detail.

The End of Eternity: Isaac Asimov

I have a theory that all novels have an element of mystery to them. I don't read enough of any other genre except mystery, crime fiction, and thrillers to really test this out. But when I did read mainstream fiction and science fiction or fantasy in the past, I remember that the "mystery" elements were the ones I enjoyed. What is the problem or issue of the book? How will it be solved? What is the author going to do with this story? What will happen with the main character or the relationships?

And, coincidentally, this evaluation of The End of Eternity at NPR Books says that this book by Isaac Asimov comes close to being a mystery or thriller.

Eternity also works as a futuristic thriller and is particularly effective as a straight-up mystery novel. The last 30 pages of the book move with terrific velocity through a series of startling revelations. Asimov snaps together a dozen story elements cleverly obscured throughout the other chapters.

The End of Eternity was written in 1955, and is one of Asimov's lesser known science fiction novels. The edition I read was a reprint edition published in 2011 by Orb books. It had not been in my reading plans at all. I had picked out other books for the 2013 Sci-Fi Experience at Stainless Steel Droppings.. But my husband saw the book in Carl V.'s list of best books and films for 2012. He bought it and I decided it would be perfect for a science fiction read for this month.

This description from a review at SF Signal provides a good introduction without revealing plot details:

Andrew Harlan is an Eternal, those who live outside time, Observe and create Reality Changes which positively affect the greatest number of people throughout history. Only two periods are unaffected by them – the prehistoric age, before time travel was invented, and the far, FAR-flung future. Harlan’s skill as an Observer in the 482nd attracts the attention of Computer Twissell, who arranges for him to become a Technician (someone who actually performs the change) and teach his hobby of primitive history to a student.

I enjoyed this book very much. There is a love story which is uneven; women did not figure in the book hardly at all, which I usually find a negative. But I was not reading this book for a love story, and I thought that portion of the story worked well in the context of the overall story.

As usual with books I like a lot, it is hard to define why. Within a couple of chapters I was hooked. I liked the way the time travel issues were just handled. I am not really concerned with whether the science behind the story makes sense. There was not a lot of character development; the story was more plot and idea driven. But I found the characters to be believable and the plot entertaining and thought-provoking throughout.


Check out the Review Site for the Sci-Fi Experience here to see other blogger's reviews and related posts.



I am also submitting this post for The Vintage Science Fiction Month not-a-challenge at the Little Red Reviewer. For that event participants will be "talking about time travel, laser guns, early robotics, first contact, swords and sorcery, predictions for humanity and the authors who came up with it all. Haphazardly, the defining year for 'vintage' is 1979.".