Ian Watson (1) (1943–)

This was an interesting book but I found I could only handle it in small doses. Hence it took a long time for me to actually finish it. But that was just my experience - your experience of it may well be wildly different.

It's a collection of short stories, the first several of which are linked, with common characters and background, exploring a series of time machine excursions into the past from a relatively near-future Britain.

Early on, it felt to me like a smashing together of Harry Harrison's The Technicolout Time Machine with Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog. Later on, add some seasoning from Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds. You'll know when.

The author clearly has a love of language and the sound of language. A lot of this book would sound very good read aloud and absorbed in that way. It's very punnish in places.

The second half of the book, the non-Chinese time machine stories, didn't work as well for me. Some good ideas, but the style was becoming too intrusive to my ears by then. The Shakespearean pastiche story in particular I could not cope with.

But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.… (mais)