The Time Ships

The following quote is not mine, but it bears repeating:

"This book reminds me why I started reading science fiction."

The story, written to commemorate the 100th anniversary of H G Wells's "The Time Machine", picks up where the original finishes, with the time traveller heading back to the future in order to rescue Weena.

However, it soon becomes apparent that the future has changed as a result of the time traveller's initial journey. Not a unique concept to anyone who has seen "Back to the Future", perhaps, but rather a shock to a Victorian citizen such as the time traveller. Full marks to Baxter for conveying his reaction so well.

Without giving away too much of the plot, the book whisks us on an intriguing journey through alternate futures and pasts. A future in which a Dyson sphere surrounds the Sun; a 1938 in which the First World War rages; a Jurassic in which a nuclear bomb explodes; a present in which the remote ancestors of a group of humans have conquered the stars.

Baxter extends (dare I say "improves on"?) the original in a convincing way, and maintains the viewpoint and style of the time traveller throughout. Quite deliberately, the book reads like the original, and much of the technology works in a way that Wells might have anticipated. The Time Ships could so easily seem contrived, but in Baxter's hands it has an extra appeal that makes it exciting to read.

What a brilliant story; keenly constructed, compellingly told. This is an entertaining book by any standards, and that's surely the main reason we read fiction - to be entertained. I'd never read any Baxter before, but I will certainly read more in the future.

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