Pages : 224
Overall Mark : 8/10
In the year 2093, human consciousness has expanded to the point that man can visit the past using a technique called ‘mind-travelling’. Artist Edward Bush returns from e lengthy ‘trip’ to the Jurassic period to find the government overthrown by an authoritarian regime. Given his mind-travel experience, he is recruited by the new regime to track down and assassinate a scientist whose ideas threaten to topple the status quo. However, the job of an artist is not to take orders but to ask questions…
BRIAN ALDISS (1925-2017)
Brian Wilson Aldiss was born in 1925. He was a highly decorated science fiction author who achieved the rare feat of acceptance as a writer of real significance by the literary establishment in his lifetime. As well as his many award-winning novels he has been a hugely important anthologist and editor in the field. He also wrote the pre-eminent history of the genre (with David Wingrove), Billion Year Spree (later expanded and revised as Trillion Year Spree). He died the day after his 92nd birthday.
VERDICT
This started off well, with some entertaining and well written back and forth between Ed Bush and the rest of the characters, but then it gets a little confusing, especially at the end where it’s hard to tell what exactly we are expected to believe has happened so far in the narrative. Fans of classic sic-fi will enjoy this, but it can get a little bogged down at the end by trying not to explain to obviously what has happened throughout.
