By: Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Baxter Publisher: Del Rey Average Rating: Binding: Mass Market Paperback Label: Del Rey Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 384 Publication Date: March 01, 2005 Release Date: March 01, 2005
Product Description: Sir Arthur C. Clarke is a living legend, a writer whose name has been synonymous with science fiction for more than fifty years. An indomitable believer in human and scientific potential, Clarke is a genuine visionary. If Clarke has an heir among today’s science fiction writers, it is award-winning author Stephen Baxter. In each of his acclaimed novels, Baxter has demonstrated dazzling gifts of imagination and intellect, along with a rare ability to bring the most cerebral science dramatically to life. Now these two champions of humanism and scientific speculation have combined their talents in a novel sure to be one of the most talked-about of the year, a 2001 for the new millennium.
TIME’S EYE
For eons, Earth has been under observation by the Firstborn, beings almost as old as the universe itself. The Firstborn are unknown to humankind— until they act. In an instant, Earth is carved up and reassembled like a huge jigsaw puzzle. Suddenly the planet and every living thing on it no longer exist in a single timeline. Instead, the world becomes a patchwork of eras, from prehistory to 2037, each with its own indigenous inhabitants.
Scattered across the planet are floating silver orbs impervious to all weapons and impossible to communicate with. Are these technologically advanced devices responsible for creating and sustaining the rifts in time? Are they cameras through which inscrutable alien eyes are watching? Or are they something stranger and more terrifying still?
The answer may lie in the ancient city of Babylon, where two groups of refugees from 2037—three cosmonauts returning to Earth from the International Space Station, and three United Nations peacekeepers on a mission in Afghanistan—have detected radio signals: the only such signals on the planet, apart from their own. The peacekeepers find allies in nineteenth-century British troops and in the armies of Alexander the Great. The astronauts, crash-landed in the steppes of Asia, join forces with the Mongol horde led by Genghis Khan. The two sides set out for Babylon, each determined to win the race for knowledge . . . and the power that lies within.
Yet the real power is beyond human control, perhaps even human understanding. As two great armies face off before the gates of Babylon, it watches, waiting. . . .
From the Hardcover edition.
Amazon.com: Sir Arthur C. Clarke may be the greatest science fiction writer in the world; certainly, he's the best-known, not least because he wrote the novel and coauthored the screenplay of 2001: A Space Odyssey. He's also the only SF writer to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize or to be knighted by Her Majesty Elizabeth II. This god of SF has twice collaborated with one of the best SF writers to emerge in the 1990s, Stephen Baxter, winner of the British SF Award, the Locus Award, and the Philip K. Dick Award. Their first collaboration is the novel The Light of Other Days. Their second is the novel Time's Eye: Book One of a Time Odyssey.
As the subtitle indicates, Time's Eye is the first book of a series intended to do for time what 2001 did for space. Does Time's Eye succeed in this goal? No. In 2001, humanity discovers a mysterious monolith on the moon, triggering a signal that astronauts pursue to one of the moons of Jupiter. In Time's Eye, mysterious satellites appear all around the Earth and scramble time, bringing together an ape-woman; twenty- first-century soldiers and astronauts; nineteenth-century British and Indian soldiers; and the armies of Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great. The characters march around in search of other survivors, then clash in epic battle. It's not until the end that the novel returns to the mystery of the tiny, eye-like satellites (and doesn't solve it). In other words, the plot of Time's Eye is a nearly 300-page digression, and 2001 fans expecting exploration of the scientific enigma and examination of the meaning of existence will be disappointed. However, fans of rousing and well-written transtemporal adventure in the tradition of S.M. Stirling's novel Island in the Sea of Time will enjoy Time's Eye. --Cynthia Ward
Not quite up to my Arthur C. Clarke expectations... Time's End is the result of a collaboration between Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter.
There is a alien spawned, sudden discontinuity (a "lack of continuity, logical sequence, or cohesion") in time on Earth. This results in a patchwork of geological eras and the subsequent landforms; an Earth's core/mantle and climate attempting to adjust; and a mixture of human civilizations.
The human drama stems from an area near today's Afghanistan, with the discontinuity resulting in a mixture of Greek and Mongolian armies (led by Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan, no less), a year 2037 UN observation team, a 19th century or so British garrison, proto-humanoids, and a few cosmonauts. As you might expect, they either get along, or they don't. And don't count out ancient warriors... they haven't forgotten "fighting in the trenches."
I understand this is one book in a series or future series. This is the only one I've read, and I've read this book twice over a period of perhaps a decade. This second time also left me perplexed. There are no answers regarding the reason for or the identify of the aliens (if they are indeed aliens... could this be a futuristic human spawned event?) behind the discontinuity. In other words, it didn't sit well with me as a stand-alone. This is only a problem if the reader has a clear understanding that it IS a book in a series. I think it was supposed to be able to stand alone, but the questions left behind (the origin of the orbs, the future of Seeker and Grasper, and the development of new civilizations, gods, and alliances) were unresolved.
As a Sir A.C.C. fan, I expected more.
More Baxter, less Clarke This isn't the best Arthur C. Clarke book that you could pick up. For all you ACC fans, you know what one of his books feels like - he manages to inspire you with his imagination that usually calms you down with his perfect illustration of wondrous, near magical events.
This book is not that.
With the exception of a few notable interesting events, this book is completely unrealistic and dead boring, even for a sci-fi book with an incredible plot (space-time on earth rearranged like a jigsaw puzzle). I doubt how much effort ACC put into this book. It has nothing like the beautiful descriptions he gives in his other short and long stories. There is one event in the book where the main female character looks through her binoculars at a glacier in Northern India / Pakistan and sees two nearly-human creatures in the distance slowly looking back and the glint off the binocs and she feels a deep subconscious connection with them from some point deep in time - this is one of the few better real ACC 'moments' in the book. I'd recommend you look at other ACC books and not this one.
The authors manage to make the Mongolians (one of the main groups in the book, the other being the troops of Alexander) look completely uncivilized, little removed from animals - their description of the Mongolians across the book is just plain disgusting, made especially so by the contrast with the description of the 'noble' Macedonian/Greek hordes of Alexander, who have a better sense of morality. No idea why they ruined this. This is my biggest issue with the book. It started off fairly well - then got down to something frustratingly annoying - one of those books where you could skip a dozen pages and not have missed a thing.
Never really liked my favorite authors collaborating with others - the outcome typically tends not to be that great - this book is like the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew working together - less than captivating, quite average.
Btw, I picked up this book after really wanting to finish all of ACC's books after he passed away recently.
I would strongly recommend that you read his other books like Rama, 2001 (the book) and other short stories before you read this.
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Times Eye Typical A.C. Clarke work. Well done. Fast paced. The way what happens in the story, (sorry no spoilers here), you believe it could happen. It's also a splendid example of a what if book, if your into history at all you will like this book.
In Times Eye General Outline: After a series of strange events people from several different parts of history find themselves inhabinting the earth at the same time. Astrounats form 2037 meet with genghis kahn and UN peace keepers meet with Alexander the Great along with sevral other people that were important in the past. The race is on to see who can reach bayblon first and find out why they have become castaways in time.
-- This was a pretty good read, its not really hard scifi more a mixture of fantasy with a few explanations of physics and time travel thrown in. the book does move at a pretty good pace, which means that it does skimp on the background a little (years are skipped and at one point three main characters are caputred out of nowhere)which can make it seem like the historical characters are there just for show, quite a few made me scratch my head at the end wondering why they were even included. But all in all I would recomend this book to any one who like alternate history with a bit of scifi thrown in.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
