Continuing along Michael's list of novel recommendations, I've finally found one that I can get behind with enthusiasm: Jack McDevitt's Time Travelers Never Die (Ace Books, 2009; no editor: listed but Ginjer Buchanan* surmised from acknowledgments page) will definitely be on my nominating ballot for Best Novel.
(*Edited 3/11/10 to acknowledge that the author confirms that Buchanan is the editor.)
Despite the book's title, it opens with a time traveler's funeral. Finding out how and why that death happened and whether it contradicts the book's title occupies most of the rest of the novel, which promptly flashes back to just before the disappearance of the dead man's physicist father and the story of the three mysterious little devices he leaves to his son, the to-be-deceased Adrian "Shel" Shelbourne, to destroy.
The devices, of course, turn out to be time machines ("converters"), which explains the locked-room-style mystery of Shel's father's disappearance as well as the very odd clothing in his closet. Equally predictably, Shel does not destroy them, and that is the start of a wonderful set of adventures across the past in search of both Shel's father and the opportunity to interact with the major scientific and cultural figures of the past, including Galileo, Michelangelo, Socrates, Leonidas (of Sparta, just before Thermopylae), Calamity Jane, the marchers at Selma, and many more. Time tourism has never been so much fun or so deliciously complicated, as Shel and his friend Dave try to solve the riddle of how to locate a lost time traveler with 30,000 years of the past to choose from.
But needless to say, there's a catch: time itself resists the creation of paradox, sometimes fatally for the time traveler who tries to create it. Is that how Shel ended up in a coffin in the opening scenes? And then there are dangers in exploring the future, with the irresistible temptation to research one's own life and find how it ends.
As a passionate reader and passionate theater geek, I couldn't help but be entirely charmed that a top destination for Dave and Shel is the great ancient library at Alexandria, with its complete collection of the plays of Sophocles, only a small percentage of which survive today. I was actually in tears at the final appearance of the librarian Aristarchus. Dave and Shel do very much the sort of tourism I'd do if someone handed me a time machine. (Well, except for the baseball games.)
This is a terrifically old-school novel. The characters are, to be charitable, only thinly developed. There's some romance, but it's a rote portrayal that never particularly convinces me, though I was entirely pleased by the love interest's role in the final outcome. And McDevitt does not make even a token attempt to explain the science behind the converters. But quite frankly, I didn't feel the lack of any of this. I was immediately grabbed by the story and had a wonderful time trying to wrap my head around the consequences of the quick jaunts back and forth that Dave and Shel use for convenience:
He lifted the unit and reset it..."Got to go." And he went away.
"Is he coming back?"
Dave smiled. "He already did."
Other than the march at Selma, the historical settings are not overburdened with detail, and some of what there is is suspiciously modern: the check-in procedures at Alexandria bear a remarkable resemblance to those at a major research collection, complete with forms requiring an address and a pretentious clerk ("I've heard of the University of Pennsylvania.") But McDevitt's love of history shines through, and there are cute little jabs at the modern perception of historical times:
Shel had always thought of the ancient world the way Hollywood portrays it: a place inhabited by warriors, elderly philosophers, and maidens who need rescuing. Somehow, older women had been missing, and he'd never visualized teens in armchairs.
I suppose it's obligatory of me to point out that McDevitt muffed the dance reference. The Charleston would not exactly have been the hot dance in 1937; it made its big splash in the early 1920s. I was in far too good a mood by that point in the book to be even momentarily annoyed by this.
McDevitt manages to create a wonderfully elaborate temporal tangle and then unravel it in an entirely satisfactory ending that left me in tears. I'm immensely grateful to Michael for pointing this book out to me. As noted above, it goes straight onto my list of nominees.
Highly, highly recommended.
Read for yourself:
I'll have to look for that; I've enjoyed a lot of McDevitt's other books.
complete with forms requiring an address and a pretentious clerk
The forms require a pretentious clerk? O-kay. (I read it wrong at first. :)
Posted by: Mary Aileen | March 11, 2010 at 02:38 PM
Do you want me to call Jack and ask him who the editor was?
Posted by: Michael A. Burstein | March 11, 2010 at 03:00 PM
Michael:
Well, despite the fact that I abhor the long form editor Hugo, I am dutifully trying to include the pertinent information whenever it's listed and sometimes, as in this one, where I think I can make a reasoned guess. If it wouldn't put you out too much, such a call would be very helpful.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | March 11, 2010 at 03:13 PM
Mary Aileen,
You know how some people seem to think self-publishing and self-editing will produce the same quality fiction as that put out by professional publishing houses who employ other people to do that stuff? They're so wrong. :)
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | March 11, 2010 at 03:27 PM
time itself resists the creation of paradox, sometimes fatally for the time traveler
Time-travel stories where Time actively resists as if it were aware kind of bug me. Still I'll look for the book when it's out in paperback, since you recommend it.
Posted by: Serge | March 11, 2010 at 03:29 PM
Time tourism has never been so much fun or so deliciously complicated, as Shel and his friend Dave try to solve the riddle of how to locate a lost time traveler with 30,000 years of the past to choose from.
I was going to say, surely one does this the usual way (as an example of which I note Poul Anderson's The Dancer From Atlantis*) but
...time itself resists the creation of paradox, sometimes fatally for the time traveler who tries to create it
complicates the situation.
(The usual way is to look for something in history that is anachronistic and generally makes no damn sense, and then you have to weed out the many many many events that fulfill this, but the explanation of time travellers doesn't make it any more sensible)
* The title of which I incorrectly read as "The Danger From Atlantis" when I plucked it off my Dad's bookshelf as a 12 year old and found myself wondering when the danger was going to appear for half the book before I noticed what it actually said.
Posted by: Neil W | March 11, 2010 at 04:22 PM
Jack confirms that Ginjer was the editor. Also, he likes this post. :-)
Posted by: Michael A. Burstein | March 11, 2010 at 04:23 PM
Michael:
Glad to hear both things. I've made an edit to the post.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | March 11, 2010 at 06:02 PM
Oh, and I gave this entry a Facebook link. I'm going to start experimenting with cross-links between FB and my blogs. Maybe I'll get a few more commenters.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | March 11, 2010 at 06:04 PM
Well, he probably won't like this: I think this is his worst book. It's too light, no gravitas, and the plot is even more obvious than normal. I love most of his books and read then when they arrive (rather than when they make it to the top of the to-read piles -- about eight years), and I did read this one when it arrived. I kept wondering if he was okay.
Posted by: Marilee J. Layman | March 11, 2010 at 07:31 PM
Susan... I'm going to start experimenting with cross-links
I've been doing that for some time, being the shameless huckster that I am. I don't know if it has brought me more readers, but it hasn't hurt me, as far as I can tell.
Posted by: Serge | March 12, 2010 at 11:17 AM
The cat version.
Posted by: Marilee J. Layman | March 17, 2010 at 06:45 PM
And now xkcd weighs in.
Posted by: Marilee J. Layman | March 19, 2010 at 05:29 PM
Susan, I guess I'm running a bit late with this, but I wanted to assure Marilee that I'm fine. As far as I know--. I should add that I've never enjoyed writing anything as much.
Posted by: Jack McDevitt | December 23, 2010 at 12:24 PM
Thanks for letting me know, Jack!
Posted by: Marilee J. Layman | December 23, 2010 at 04:36 PM