This book grabbed me right at the start and didn't let me go until we were done. Varley has done a great job of characterization here, and used the gimmick of time travel to tell a fun mystery-in-two-parts story. Two parts, because there's one thread of consciousness told from the perspective of a 1980s airline accident inspector, and one thread from a time-travel agent 40,000 years in the future.
Yes, this is the book that Varley wrote after the disaster of the movie of the same name; in fact the copyright is owned by MGM/UA. But where the movie was bad, this book is quite good.
The whole time I was reading it, I was thinking how much better it was than Fritz Leiber's Hugo-winning "The Big Time".
Yes, this is the book that Varley wrote after the disaster of the movie of the same name; in fact the copyright is owned by MGM/UA. But where the movie was bad, this book is quite good.
The whole time I was reading it, I was thinking how much better it was than Fritz Leiber's Hugo-winning "The Big Time".
Fun page turner from John Varley, who is not only a fun popular novelist but also knows how to write. The book is written in alternating first person between Bill Smith who is a airplane crash scene investigator and Louise Baltimore who had something to do with the airplane crash being investigated. Varley did his research and I enjoyed the real life information on how Air Traffic Control works and how airplane crashes are researched.
