The Time Engine: The Fourth Book of the Moonworlds Saga |
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Author:
Sean Mcmullen
By Tor Books
Average Customer Rating:   
List Price: $27.95
Our Price: $13.96
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Product Description
Swords, sorcery, and time travel are a strange and dangerous mix
Wayfarer Inspector Danolarian saw his world’s future and did not approve. The inspector knew about time travel because he had once met his future self. What he did not know was that he would be abducted into the future, and wind up on the run with a constable who had shape-shifted into a cat. Danolarian would also find himself marooned in the ancient past, where he would have to recover his time engine from five thousand naked, psychopathic horsemen.
A faulty repair plunges him another three million years back in time, to a world of strange, beautiful people living idyllic lives in splendid castles. But things are not always as they seem. After being attacked, he learns from his unlikely rescuer that time travel is not entirely real. A furious Danolarian returns to his own time, planning revenge against the time engine’s true builders.
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Good but not his best work, 2008-09-28
Sean McMullen has been one of my favorite authors since I read his Great Winter Saga a few years ago. This is the 4th of his Moonworld books. While the story is interesting and he continues to riff on Wells, the end of the book is just not what makes for a satisfactory conclusion.
All in all, it's a good effort but it's not up to his usual standard.
McMullen Channels Wells and Heinlein, 2008-08-18
In McMullen's last novel, Voidfarer: A Tale of the Moonworlds Saga (The Moonworlds Saga), Wayfarer inspector Danolarian Scryverin and his friends defeated an invasion from the adjoining Moonworld, Lupan. Shades of H.G. Wells. In this sequel, Danolarian must cope with the time-traveling descendant of Riellan, one of Danolarian's constables. And if Eloi and Moorlocks make appearances, it's certainly not in ways you expected.
A hallmark of a McMullen fantasy is that no one is who they seem to be, and this time the mystery extends to the very events themselves. The ending resonates with some of Heinlein's later books, especially Job: A Comedy of Justice. And along the way most time traveling tropes get the McMullen treatment.
While McMullen is never so crass as to lay it all out, in this, the fourth book of his Moonworld series, the Moonworlds orbit the Lord World, Miral, much as Jupiter's Copernican moons orbit Jupiter. Verral is one of the Moonworlds, and while Jupiter's moons move through intense magnetic fields, Verral and its sister satellites' movements generate etherics, the foundation of Moonworld magic.
The mysteries and loose ends from the previous three books are mostly resolved, although there is still plenty of scope for more tales. Parts of the novel will make you laugh out loud. And some parts will stun you.
I recommend reading Voidfarer: A Tale of the Moonworlds Saga (The Moonworlds Saga) before this novel; events will make more sense. My only regret is that this is by far the shortest of the Moonworld stories, and the plot is much less complex as a result.
It's a mystery to me why McMullen, an Australian, isn't more popular here in the states. He is a first rate writer, and despite the homages to Wells an Heinlein, he brings originality, wit and charm to a fantasy genre that is stale and flat.
Recommended, with the suggestion you read Voidfarer: A Tale of the Moonworlds Saga (The Moonworlds Saga) first.
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780765318763
ISBN: 0765318768
Label: Tor Books
Manufacturer: Tor Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 304
Publication Date: 2008-07-22
Publisher: Tor Books
Release Date: 2008-07-22
Studio: Tor Books |
