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Title: The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson ISBN: 0-8125-4524-9 Publisher: Tor Science Fiction Pub. Date: 17 June, 2002 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.79 (82 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: superb premise that is ultimately wasted
Comment: I was anxious to read this book because of the wonderfully original and exciting premise -- in the year 2020, huge monoliths begin to appear in various places around the world, each paying tribute to a future conqueror named Kuin. Our narrator is at the site of the first chronolith's appearance and is involved thereafter, through acquaintances and his job, in trying to understand their significance and their effect on the world.
Wilson is a fine writer, but ultimately this book was disappointing. I kept waiting for some revelation about Kuin, but we never even find out for sure who it is, as if the author intends to write a sequel. Though the narrator is reminiscing from a future after Kuin has made his conquests, we never learn who it is or hear about any of the events commemorated in the chronoliths. Scott Warden is a likeable and complex protagonist, but a majority of the narration, being his discussion of his relationships with his wife, ex-wife, daughter and colleagues, could be transplanted into any novel of any genre. The discussions about the chronoliths themselves are vague jargon-y monologues by Scott's employer, who we are told is brilliant, but every time she begins an explanation someone cuts her off because they won't be able to understand what she is telling them and, in a pivotal scene, she describes events such as Scott's presence at various "arrivals" as significantly coincidental when in fact she often controlled events that precipitated those occurrences.
I suppose what I found most disappointing was the difference in scale -- the premise sounds so grand and magnificent, but the trip we take with Warden is mundane and peripheral. It's as if you were fortunate enough to be in Paris when Napoleon rode through the streets, but you were two blocks over and taking a nap -- something fascinating was happening nearby, but you didn't see a thing; Warden is supposedly in the thick of things *and* writing from a future perspective, yet we still never find out who Kuin is or what brought him/her to power, etc. Instead we gets lots of hand-wringing comments of the we-are-all-doomed and will-your-children's-children-ever-laugh-again variety.
I wanted to like this book, but I was disappointed. I thought it was a great idea wasted.
Rating: 5
Summary: A good story, extraordinarily well told
Comment: I haven't read any of Robert Charles Wilson's other books, so I don't know how typical this one is of his output. But it's a darned fine book. It's difficult to review it without including any spoilers, but I won't give away any details that you wouldn't learn in the first few pages.
Here's the deal: It's 2021, and software developer Scott Warden is hanging out in Thailand with his wife and daughter when a big giant monument just sort of _appears_ out of nowhere, causing massive damage and death. What's even odder is that an inscription on the monument (dubbed a "Chronolith" by journalists) makes clear that it commemorates some sort of military victory by somebody named "Kuin" -- twenty years and three months in the future.
The rest of the story, of course, I'm not going to tell you. But it's very cool.
It will probably take you eighty or a hundred pages to get your mind around Warden (at least it did me). He's not in general a very sympathetic character, but give him time to grow on you; he's as interestingly flawed as, say, Charlie Armstead in Spider and Jeanne Robinson's _Stardance_, and you'll find that there _are_ reasons he's the way he is.
You'll also like Sulamith (Sue) Chopra, an academic odd duck who is both an engaging character and a handy person to have around for another reason.
See, most of the actual _science_ in this book takes place offstage, and Wilson relies on a device that's at least as old as Dr. John H. Watson's chronicles of Sherlock Holmes: there really _is_ some science behind the events in the novel, but the narrator isn't the one who knows it, so he conveniently doesn't have to explain it. Well, Sue Chopra does know it, and she gets to give little bits of pseudo-explanation in terms of "tau turbulence" and such -- but since Warden, rather implausibly, just can't get a handle on her explanations, the reader never really learns much about it. (That's the main reason I deducted a star from the book's rating.)
But boy, does the narrative draw you in. You'll probably have a hard time putting it down. You won't have any trouble keeping the characters straight, either; Wilson paces things nicely and gets everybody properly introduced. And it does all come together in the end, very neatly.
Don't expect a hope-filled, Spider-Robinson-like resolution, though; this is a pretty dark book and the characters are put pretty thoroughly through the mill.
(By the way, extra points to Tor Books for a very nice piece of cover art. Unlike Baen, Tor seems to have its covers designed by people who actually read the books, and that view of the giant Chronolith next to the Wat comes straight out of the text.)
Rating: 3
Summary: Where's the SF?
Comment: A science fiction story with a great premise: giant monuments, commemorating a conqueror's future victories, start appearing in cities all over Earth, creating social and political chaos--perhaps the very chaos that led to him to power in the first place. It's an original idea, and I love time travel, so I had high hopes for this book.
Unfortunately, the story never lived up to its potential. The mechanics of the Chronoliths and the associated time travel were never explained, he barely touched on the potentially fascinating aspect of how politics and culture would be affected, and the story had a very vague and unsatisfying ending. It barely even qualifies as science fiction; Kuin and the Chronoliths were pushed far in the background in favor of the extremely boring relationship between the father and daughter. You could have taken the Chronoliths out of the story completely, and it wouldn't have made much of a difference at all--definitely not a good sign in a science fiction novel. I was enormously frustrated by the wasted potential in this book.
Loved the idea, disappointed with the execution. Gorgeous cover art, though.
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Title: Darwinia : A Novel of a Very Different Twentieth Century by Robert Charles Wilson ISBN: 0812566629 Publisher: Tor Science Fiction Pub. Date: 15 July, 1999 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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