Time Travel &/or History Books

[konrads]

Originally Posted by Jadon

I checked these out, and am about halfway through the first volume, and impressed. Yes, there's some unlikely wish fulfillment (some characters are unpleasant, but not half as bad as I suspect they'd be), but I'm interested in how things play out.

I haven't gotten to the second volume, so have yet to see another cycle, but that aspect makes me think of the Never Again series by R.J. Rummel, where characters keep going back in time to change history by trying to head off wars and make undemocratic regimes less likely.

I'll check that series out once I have my ereader back (they had to replace the motherboard to make it work again )

Hmm. Yeah, I read the first half years ago, but the site I was reading it on didn't have any more. I was quite surprised when I stumbled across the rest of the series.

Well, for the most part the annoying thing about the iterations is that the same themes keep coming back. Reagan, AIDS/HIV, being gay in the eighties,... They're pretty consistent. The reasons of the iterations always make me roll my eyes as well, but that's probably because I'm Belgian and don't think that highly of patriotism.

But: the beauty of the series is... Well. You get to know the characters very well in that first story - where you're at. And you think: okay, that's just the way they are - some annoying, some kind of over the top. Then you read the next story in the series and you're presented with an entirely different side of the characters - and it works. It kind of really pushes through the 'fact' that anybody can be anybody and that every person has their vices and virtues.

(And yes, I can hear some saying 'Back to the future' did that as well, but not this up close and personal.)

Anyhow, I'm going to stop now. Never actually talked about the reading experience, you might notice.

Oh yeah, I know this is generally intended as a place to recommend books, but if there is one historical book I really wouldn't (recommend, that is) it's Peter Tremayne's The Subtle Serpent (part of the Sister Fidelma series). I doubt it was just the translation, but I found that to be the most boring book I've ever tried to read. (Notwithstanding a Flash XML handbook.)

[BooksForABuck]

I think Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp is a wonderful classic. It's arguably the beginning of alternate history. While on the classics, I loved A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. In historical novels, I've enjoyed reading Roman mysteries which seem to be popular these days as well as Reed and Mayer's John the Eunuch series. The classic for Napoleonic historical fiction is C.S. Forester's Hornblower series. Excellent. I also enjoyed the Aubrey/Maturin series.

Rob Preece
Publisher, www.BooksForABuck.com

[jonsbjons]

Originally Posted by Jadon

I checked these out, and am about halfway through the first volume, and impressed. Yes, there's some unlikely wish fulfillment (some characters are unpleasant, but not half as bad as I suspect they'd be), but I'm interested in how things play out.

I haven't gotten to the second volume, so have yet to see another cycle, but that aspect makes me think of the Never Again series by R.J. Rummel, where characters keep going back in time to change history by trying to head off wars and make undemocratic regimes less likely.

Wow, excellent! Thank you!

[lila55]

I very much enjoyed reading: "All Men Are Mortal" by Simone de Beauvoir and also "Melmoth the Wanderer" by Charles Maturin, both of which contain quite a bit of time travel + history. The latter is available for free here (unfortunately not formatted as ebook yet): http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks07/0700551h.html

[konrads]

@lila55: I did a quick search on Gutenberg (the general one, not the Australian). There's an anthology of stories including Melmoth the Wanderer available. The anthology has an EPUB-version, which can be found here.

[HorridRedDog]

Originally Posted by konrads

@lila55: I did a quick search on Gutenberg (the general one, not the Australian). There's an anthology of stories including Melmoth the Wanderer available. The anthology has an EPUB-version, which can be found here.

This is a great anthology, thank you.

[HorridRedDog]

Not the finest book of time travel, but still a great romp.

This is in the OLD SciFi tradition. So if you want high definition science forget it.

Still, I've read the series several times and would recommend it.

And if you like the first book then there are all of the others in the series.

WARNING - Skip the last book - "Conrad's Time Machine". Really, skip it.

[lila55]

Originally Posted by konrads

@lila55: I did a quick search on Gutenberg (the general one, not the Australian). There's an anthology of stories including Melmoth the Wanderer available. The anthology has an EPUB-version, which can be found here.

Thank you very much, just downloaded it

[konrads]

Somebody mentioned Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, which made me look for some of his other books. He also wrote There Will Be Time, which concerns a mutant-like time traveler. I'm halfway through the novel and my opinion is... mixed. Overall it's a decent book, but at some point the perspective goes... weird. The story starts (and continues for a while) in first person, focusing on that person's experiences with the time traveler. And then, suddenly, the story's told in third person from the point of view of the time traveler with occasional remarks of the aforementioned first person.

Very confusing to read, hence the mixed opinion.

@lila55: You're welcome.

[Jadon]

Originally Posted by konrads

The reasons of the iterations always make me roll my eyes as well, but that's probably because I'm Belgian and don't think that highly of patriotism.

I finished the first, and while I liked the minor twists at the end, much of the last quarter of the book was battle scene boredom. In a battle, all I'm interested in knowing is who won, who lost, who lived, who died, and what the issues were. I'm not interested in long lists of ship names and types, firing long lists of weapon types. With quick cuts and proper music it's not too bad in a movie, but in a novel it's basically a way to cure insomnia.

It's like the Lord Kalvan novels by H. Beam Piper and sequels by John F. Carr. The interesting stuff is the modern man (who falls into a medieval alternate history complete with castles and knights in Pennsylvania) figuring out how to make workable paper and so on. Every time a battle scene is inserted, I just get bored. Which makes it a pity that as the series went on, you got less of the socio stuff, and more play-by-play battles, such that I didn't bother buying the latest volume.

[junkml]

Not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but I thought Lightning by Dean Koontz was pretty interesting.

[HorridRedDog]

Originally Posted by junkml

Not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but I thought Lightning by Dean Koontz was pretty interesting.

I just finished LIGHTNING last week. It had some good twists and turns but the finish was a little weak.

On the other hand some of his other books are very good to great.

Just finished WATCHERS on Monday. Try that one next if you havent already.

Atleast Koontz lets anyone sell his ebooks, and at good prices.

[DMcCunney]

Along the lines of Poul Anderson's "Time Patrol" stories, one I recommend is _Days of Cain_ by J. R. Dunn.

The protagonist is Monitor Gaspar James, an agent of the Moiety. Anderson's Time Patrol is the creation of the Danellians - far future descendants of humanity. The Moiety is really far future. The intelligences that run it are plasmoids existing in the era of the heat death of the universe, when stars and planets are no more, drawing energy from the slow process of universal cooling.

The advanced technology of the far future galactic era made time travel possible, and Gaspar and his fellows labor to prevent changes in history caused by various folks who would prefer to see things come out differently than they actually have. He suffers a crisis of conscience when he is assigned to stop a rogue Moiety agent who has decided she will alter history, and intends to use her knowledge and weaponry from the future to prevent the Holocaust.

The experience forces Gaspar to re-examine his beliefs about the job he does and the motives of those he serves.

It's a science fiction examination of the theological "the problem of pain" - if there is a just, merciful, and loving God, why does He permit atrocities to occur? The Moiety could alter history and prevent the Holocaust (or other great atrocities of history). Why don't they? They have reasons, but all may not agree with them.

I don't believe it's available as an ebook, but Amazon has paper copies:
http://www.amazon.com/Days-Cain-J-R-Dunn/dp/038079280X
______
Dennis

[konrads]

Originally Posted by Jadon

I finished the first, and while I liked the minor twists at the end, much of the last quarter of the book was battle scene boredom. In a battle, all I'm interested in knowing is who won, who lost, who lived, who died, and what the issues were. I'm not interested in long lists of ship names and types, firing long lists of weapon types. With quick cuts and proper music it's not too bad in a movie, but in a novel it's basically a way to cure insomnia.

It's like the Lord Kalvan novels by H. Beam Piper and sequels by John F. Carr. The interesting stuff is the modern man (who falls into a medieval alternate history complete with castles and knights in Pennsylvania) figuring out how to make workable paper and so on. Every time a battle scene is inserted, I just get bored. Which makes it a pity that as the series went on, you got less of the socio stuff, and more play-by-play battles, such that I didn't bother buying the latest volume.

Ah, you see, that's what I forgot about that part. Yeah, the military mumbo jumbo kind of brings the story down. I don't mind action scenes (in military settings), but people who write those do tend to forget that not everybody knows or even cares about this military branch and that one.

There's some (minor) action in the next installments, but not as extensive as in the first. I actually thought the second or third story were the best, but the thing is that you can't grasp the magnitude by skipping some of them.

[junkml]

Originally Posted by HorridRedDog

I just finished LIGHTNING last week. It had some good twists and turns but the finish was a little weak.

On the other hand some of his other books are very good to great.

Just finished WATCHERS on Monday. Try that one next if you havent already.

Atleast Koontz lets anyone sell his ebooks, and at good prices.

Thanks, I'll have to check that one out.