Helpful Score: 4
First Line: Andrew Harrington would have gladly died several times over if that meant not having to choose just one pistol from among his father's vast collection in the living room cabinet.
The Map of Time is a rollicking homage to the Victorian world and to H.G. Wells and the concept of time travel. When it succeeds, it has the power to transport readers to a fascinating world. When it doesn't, reader interest can rapidly wander.
The book is divided into three sections. The first deals with traveling back to the past. The second, with traveling into the future, and the third and final section with the future coming back to the past.
The first section was by far the best of the three. Andrew Harrington, the poor little rich boy who's been terrorized by the prototypical power-mad father, has decided to commit suicide. He lost the love of his life six years ago. (If I were to say "Mary Kelly" and "1880s London", aficionados of that particular time period will know where this is headed.) Andrew's best friend is not going to let him go quietly into that good night, and comes up with the only solution he can think of: Go to the man who owns Murray's Time Travel to see if they can't pay to go back in time to prevent the death of Andrew's beloved Mary Kelly. This section is full of the bustle, the smells, the sound of Victorian London. Palma also shows a deft hand at humor when describing the origins of the senior Harrington's wealth.
The second section was much less successful. I love time travel, and I'm the most willing subject to suspend my disbelief to enter a story. However, once details crop up that don't sync with that story, I can get thrown out very easily. This is what happened in the second section. Some of the jarring details were to clue the reader in on the fact that things weren't what they seemed. However, when you tell me in one sentence that the hero is flat broke, then two paragraphs later (without benefit of payday or windfall) I'm told the same hero is treating a lady to tea and sandwiches AND paying for a room in a boarding house, I get thrown out of the story and am more likely to search for other discrepancies.
I was completely hooked in part one, suspicious in part two, and by the time the time traveler from the future showed up, my interest began to wander. Badly. Partly because it was rather obvious what the time traveler was up to, and partly because the story had the feeling of a helium balloon with a slow leak.
Historical figures play a large part in this book-- in particular H.G. Wells, author of The Time Machine. The use of historical personages as characters doesn't bother me as well as it's done well, which it is in The Map of Time. I loved the premise, I loved the historical detail, I loved the characters. However, the plot just wasn't meaty enough to hold up through six hundred pages.
The Map of Time is a rollicking homage to the Victorian world and to H.G. Wells and the concept of time travel. When it succeeds, it has the power to transport readers to a fascinating world. When it doesn't, reader interest can rapidly wander.
The book is divided into three sections. The first deals with traveling back to the past. The second, with traveling into the future, and the third and final section with the future coming back to the past.
The first section was by far the best of the three. Andrew Harrington, the poor little rich boy who's been terrorized by the prototypical power-mad father, has decided to commit suicide. He lost the love of his life six years ago. (If I were to say "Mary Kelly" and "1880s London", aficionados of that particular time period will know where this is headed.) Andrew's best friend is not going to let him go quietly into that good night, and comes up with the only solution he can think of: Go to the man who owns Murray's Time Travel to see if they can't pay to go back in time to prevent the death of Andrew's beloved Mary Kelly. This section is full of the bustle, the smells, the sound of Victorian London. Palma also shows a deft hand at humor when describing the origins of the senior Harrington's wealth.
The second section was much less successful. I love time travel, and I'm the most willing subject to suspend my disbelief to enter a story. However, once details crop up that don't sync with that story, I can get thrown out very easily. This is what happened in the second section. Some of the jarring details were to clue the reader in on the fact that things weren't what they seemed. However, when you tell me in one sentence that the hero is flat broke, then two paragraphs later (without benefit of payday or windfall) I'm told the same hero is treating a lady to tea and sandwiches AND paying for a room in a boarding house, I get thrown out of the story and am more likely to search for other discrepancies.
I was completely hooked in part one, suspicious in part two, and by the time the time traveler from the future showed up, my interest began to wander. Badly. Partly because it was rather obvious what the time traveler was up to, and partly because the story had the feeling of a helium balloon with a slow leak.
Historical figures play a large part in this book-- in particular H.G. Wells, author of The Time Machine. The use of historical personages as characters doesn't bother me as well as it's done well, which it is in The Map of Time. I loved the premise, I loved the historical detail, I loved the characters. However, the plot just wasn't meaty enough to hold up through six hundred pages.
Helpful Score: 3
I got this book to review through the Amazon Vine program. It was a very long and very pretentious read about time travel...kind of.
The book is broken into three parts. In part 1 Andrew falls in love with a whore named Marie who is murdered by Jack the Ripper. After many years of depression his cousin Charles convinces him to go to a time traveling emporium to travel back in time and save her. When the time traveling company revels they can only send people to the year 2000, Andrew despairs. But the business owner suggests they talk to HG Wells. HG Wells confesses he has a time traveling machine and sends Andrew back in time to save Marie; or so Andrew thinks.
In Part 2 we follow the story of Claire who is determined to leave her world and travel to the year 2000 with Murrays Travel Emporium. When in the year 2000 she meets the hero of the human race, Shackleford, and falls in love with him. What follows is twisted and sorted relationship involving a love affair that occurs backwards in time. H G Wells again ends up involved by writing love letters for one of the involved parties.
In Part 3 we follow Inspector Garrett who is convinced that Shackleford is the one murdering people in the streets with a futuristic weapon. Besides Garretts perspective we hear from HG Wells a lot. In the course of all of this we find out that this book has nothing to do with any of the characters weve met except coincidentally. The true star of this novel is HG Wells for reasons that are again twisted and fairly unbelievable.
The book is written in three parts and each part features a set of different characters...although the characters do run into each other across parts. The one continuous theme is HG Wells and time travel.
This book diverges constantly and sidetracks into random stories before finally wandering back to the main point. The language is flowery...this is the kind of book where if you miss a paragraph or two you're not really missing any of the story. In fact I think you could probably cut out half of this book and still not miss the main story.
Most of the book is not about time travel at all, but about human nature and the lying and scheming nature of humans. As you can imagine none of these characters are very admirable or easy to engage with. The pacing is very slow and it was very hard for me to finish this book.
The story takes a seriously implausible twist in the last 60 pages or so. I find it ironic that after spending so much time with Murray trying to justify the plausibility of his sci-fi novel, that the last 80 pages or so of this novel are completely unbelievable, implausible, and absolutely crap for pacing. Ah the irony of it; this book is just as pretentious, wordy, and ultimately implausible as the author sets out to say that Murrays work is in the novel itself. Is this irony the intention of this novel?...I am not sure. But in the end I just didnt care and if I hadnt received this book for review, I would have stopped reading it at page 100.
Overall I did not enjoy this book. I guess if you are a huge HG Wells fan and interested in reading fiction about him you might like this. In reality though it's a pretty wordy and lengthy novel to deliver such an awkward message.
The book is broken into three parts. In part 1 Andrew falls in love with a whore named Marie who is murdered by Jack the Ripper. After many years of depression his cousin Charles convinces him to go to a time traveling emporium to travel back in time and save her. When the time traveling company revels they can only send people to the year 2000, Andrew despairs. But the business owner suggests they talk to HG Wells. HG Wells confesses he has a time traveling machine and sends Andrew back in time to save Marie; or so Andrew thinks.
In Part 2 we follow the story of Claire who is determined to leave her world and travel to the year 2000 with Murrays Travel Emporium. When in the year 2000 she meets the hero of the human race, Shackleford, and falls in love with him. What follows is twisted and sorted relationship involving a love affair that occurs backwards in time. H G Wells again ends up involved by writing love letters for one of the involved parties.
In Part 3 we follow Inspector Garrett who is convinced that Shackleford is the one murdering people in the streets with a futuristic weapon. Besides Garretts perspective we hear from HG Wells a lot. In the course of all of this we find out that this book has nothing to do with any of the characters weve met except coincidentally. The true star of this novel is HG Wells for reasons that are again twisted and fairly unbelievable.
The book is written in three parts and each part features a set of different characters...although the characters do run into each other across parts. The one continuous theme is HG Wells and time travel.
This book diverges constantly and sidetracks into random stories before finally wandering back to the main point. The language is flowery...this is the kind of book where if you miss a paragraph or two you're not really missing any of the story. In fact I think you could probably cut out half of this book and still not miss the main story.
Most of the book is not about time travel at all, but about human nature and the lying and scheming nature of humans. As you can imagine none of these characters are very admirable or easy to engage with. The pacing is very slow and it was very hard for me to finish this book.
The story takes a seriously implausible twist in the last 60 pages or so. I find it ironic that after spending so much time with Murray trying to justify the plausibility of his sci-fi novel, that the last 80 pages or so of this novel are completely unbelievable, implausible, and absolutely crap for pacing. Ah the irony of it; this book is just as pretentious, wordy, and ultimately implausible as the author sets out to say that Murrays work is in the novel itself. Is this irony the intention of this novel?...I am not sure. But in the end I just didnt care and if I hadnt received this book for review, I would have stopped reading it at page 100.
Overall I did not enjoy this book. I guess if you are a huge HG Wells fan and interested in reading fiction about him you might like this. In reality though it's a pretty wordy and lengthy novel to deliver such an awkward message.
Helpful Score: 3
I did manage to read the whole book but it was a real struggle to finish it. Oh, it was interesting but my main objection to the book is the length of the sentences. At times a sentence was so long that there were only 2 sentences in a paragraph and the paragraph filled the whole page. I just couldn't get my mind to want to read and read on. It took me several sessions to finish the last few chapters. I just felt like I couldn't handle the mental work it took to read on.
Helpful Score: 1
This book was interesting, but a little long. I actually read part 1 & 2 and then read another book and then finished part 3. All parts tied together well but could have maybe been two books.
