Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait
category: science fiction, author:K. A. Bedford
published by Fremantle Press,original copyright 2009, read in July 2010
Agamedes' opinion: 6 out of 10
I had to think carefully about my rating. Balance gut feel with lasting impressions. Consider all the factors:- It's by a West Australian author. I like to support Australian authors. I enjoyed the way that the action takes place in familiar -- futur-ified -- local locations. But I don't want that to bias my rating.
- It's about time machines. (Okay, we all guessed that one!) There are some good -- and original -- ideas in dealing with time machines. But some of the bigger ideas are not new -- and are not satisfactorily dealt with.
- The conclusion was... well... inconclusive.
Really, I feel let down by the ending.
You know how time travel works: quantum theory, plans sent anonymously from the future, go back and kill your own grandfather, stuff up that key point in history... Well, Bedford mentions the theory that history is already the result of numerous idiots stuffing up historic events! Brilliant! A simple explanation for so much historical idiocy :-)
A smaller but equally clever mention of the problems with cats: They are always getting lost inside the quantum engine. Pull the thing apart, no sign of the cat. Open the same engine cover yet again -- and there's the cat...
The splitting timelines stuff is more common. It's accepted quantum theory, if I understand my quantum theory. (Not that I do.) This sort-of leads Bedford's hero to the conclusion that there is no such thing as free will. Nor is there predestination. Good point -- but I see it somewhat differently...
Every time you make a decision, the timeline splits: one line for each decision. In one timeline you paint the town red but in another you decide to stay home and admire your black and white etchings. There are umptazillions of timelines, one for each possible combination of decisions. So. Why bother to decide at all?
You decide to go out and paint the town red. Which means that -- in a parallel timeline -- you decide to stay home. So what's the point of making a decision?!
In Time Machines the hero keeps getting advice on what to do from his future self. But why bother?! Every time he takes the advice -- time splits, and in a new timeline he decides to not take the advice. In the "story" timeline he saves the girl -- which means that, in other timelines he fails to save the girl. So what's the point of it all?!
Bedford writes a good story -- but fails to convince me that the action was worth following.
Then there's the ending.
Trying not to give it away... So what?! Other than being a manipulative, power-mad megalomaniac, what was wrong with the villain? What was he doing that made him a villain? Other than being a self-centered creep, that is. What valid reason was there, for the hero to attempt to destroy the villain?
At the end of the book I thought, that was pointless. Still...
The ending seems to suggest a sequel. That would be good: the book was fine, it's just the plot that lacked a point. I just hope...
I just hope that, in a sequel, Bedford provides a more convincing explanation of the villain's villainy. And that a major villainy is really prevented, hopefully with the quantum bomb which wipes out a person or action from all timelines. (What's the point of stopping it once, when quantum theory tells you that it still happened in another timeline?)
Great view of the impact of time machines. Good characters. Needs a better purpose.
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