Sunday, August 9, 2009

The Year of the Quiet Sun by Wilson Tucker




Time travel book which is very much rooted to its' writing time (late 60s).
Brian Chaney is a historian, who has just made a new translation of the dead sea scrolls and by that caused a lot a controversy. His has worked earlier for government, and apparently that is the reason he gets drafted for government's time travel experiment. The first thing they want to know is if the current president will be elected again. The first half of the book consist mainly of discussions of different subjects, mainly having fairly peripheral connection to time travel. When they start their journeys the books gets marginally more interesting, but not much. The future is very sixties-like future, where racial war and increasing racial tensions are destroying the world. Practically all characters are irritating, and not likeable in any way. This book is among David Pringle's top 100 science fiction novels of all time. I don't really see why – the writing is ok, but it is not especially impressive, and feels fairly clumsy at some places, and the book doesn't really go anywhere.

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