A Time Odyssey, Book 1
It’s been a while since I read a good sci-fi, so I thought I’d give it a shot with Arthur C. Clarke. I’ve previously enjoyed his 2001: A Space Odyssey as well as several of his short-story collections, so I figured he’d be a safe go-to. Honestly, I wasn’t all that impressed with this one.
The setting of this book is Earth at an unknown point in time where groups of humans from varying points of history are thrust together in a tangled mess of confusion. Astronauts from 2037 meet up with the armies of Genghis Kahn. UN Peacekeepers also from 2037 meet up with soldiers in the British East India Company. There’s a Lucy-like ape-woman and her child as well as Alexander the Great and his forces (and gay lovers). There’s a young Rudyard Kipling and alien spheres called “eyes” that hover all over the place. It’s a story that has potential as an alternate-history novel, sure, but not the kind of sci-fi I was hoping for.
The sense I got from this was that Clarke and Baxter sat around playing a “what if?” game and came up with, “What if history’s greatest empires ever faced off against each other?” And then with this came the, “Yeah, but how?” Well, through aliens of course! And so we’re dealt this war-drama, filled with conniving, murder, death, and sex—and very occasionally, a reference to the alien technology that’s brought them all together.
The only time we get to meet the aliens—the “Firstborn”, a hijacked name of Jesus, no less—they describe their own history and fear that other intelligent beings will one day overproduce and misuse energy to the destruction of their species. Due to the far-in-the-future look at Earth as a desolate wasteland destroyed by nuclear weapons, I’m sure this is just some long political tract about nuclear disarmament, which doesn’t really whet my appetite for more.
As curious as I am about the overall direction the series might go, I’m definitely not interested enough to continue with Book 2. I’ve got plenty of other things to read that really will whet my appetite. Too bad, but at least I tried.
©2022 E.T.
Read More from Arthur C. Clarke:
- Childhood’s End (1953)
- The Nine Billion Names of God (1966)
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
- Time’s Eye (2003)