Timeswitch John Gribbin 9781848637290 Books
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SYNOPSIS
A time traveler from the 20th century is in a desperate race against time across 11th century England in an attempt to change the course of history. But which history? And which 20th century? With chilling overtones of the environmental crisis facing us today, but incorporating the latest scientific thinking about the Multiverse, John Gribbin offers a unique blend of real science and adventure fiction. Old fashioned hard Sf at its best all the science in the story is real, even the time travel. It just hasn't happened yet or has it?
Timeswitch John Gribbin 9781848637290 Books
I don't think I've seen an alternate-history story - before this one - that ends in anything but an alternate history. This read a little like a puzzle, in the way that a good mystery story will, and that was one of the things I enjoyed most about it.This novel relies on the reader's knowledge of science history - particularly in physics - to be wholly appreciated, but you don't have to actually be a physicist. An educated layman's gloss is sufficient. There are multiple places in the narrative when key developments and key discoverers in science are mentioned, but using variant terms.
It was the variant terminology that tickled me in part because it indicated that Gribbin had essentially pushed back scientific discovery dates by a couple of centuries, attributing them to different luminaries than the ones currently credited; he was providing contextual clues to orient the reader in that alternate timeline. Thus, the reader is expected to be aware of the fact that it was not Newton who worked out the basics of QM (following Galileo's equivalence of mass with energy), in the same way that it was not Harold who won at Hastings, or that the US is not New England. So, to underscore that notion, we have neutralinos instead of neutrinos; and we have analogues for particle/wave interactions of light and for Planck time, as well as quite a few other things. (Starting with Ockham; I should've kept notes.)
One subtle point Gribbin makes by using this method is that the facts uncovered by science are objective facts, awaiting discovery and description by anyone qualified enough to find them, so what they're called - or whom they're discovered by - is irrelevant. e=mc^2 is a foundational axiom of the universe, in other words, and is true regardless of who develops the equation.
Since finishing the novel, the thing I've been noodling with is when the Complex was first constructed. Based on how its control interface works, the barest minimum time of construction could sensibly be 300 years in the future; however, based in the way the time limits work (and depending how long it might take to build and put into place), I could see it being up to 900 years from now. The builders, obviously, were concerned that it would be discovered - but not so concerned that they wanted to make it absolutely impenetrable. Presumably they figured that whomever dug it up in the past would either (1) be bright enough to understand and be wary of its operation; or (2) too dim to actually use it to do serious harm. The choice of Stonehenge was a good one; it's been around a hell of a long time and is recognizable enough to be significant to many generations of people, from many different societies. It's also considerably less jejune than a pyramid would've been.
Why build such a thing? Jan provides the answer; he's an historian and can't wait to get his hands on it.
One other point that I can't quite put down is the way organic matter is handled. It all comes back at the same time, which is handy … but we're not isolated chunks of organic matter. We take in organic matter, assimilate it, and excrete more.
So suppose you have lunch with Newton and eat a nice fillet of sole. When you return, what happens to all the organic molecules that were in the sole? They had been a part of your cellular structure; but the story suggests they must get left behind. Also, anything you leave in the privy must somehow return with you.
More scatologically, suppose you get eaten by a tribe of cannibals. What returns of you would have to be digested biomass, one presumes - so what happens to the cannibals that had eaten you and used your biomass to build the cells in their bodies? Perhaps I've missed something here, but it's an intriguing (and somewhat delightfully disgusting) thing to consider.
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Tags : Timeswitch [John Gribbin] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <b>SYNOPSIS</b> A time traveler from the 20th century is in a desperate race against time across 11th century England in an attempt to change the course of history. But which history? And which 20th century? With chilling overtones of the environmental crisis facing us today,John Gribbin,Timeswitch,Drugstore Indian Press,1848637292,Science Fiction & Fantasy Science Fiction
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Timeswitch John Gribbin 9781848637290 Books Reviews
I don't think I've seen an alternate-history story - before this one - that ends in anything but an alternate history. This read a little like a puzzle, in the way that a good mystery story will, and that was one of the things I enjoyed most about it.
This novel relies on the reader's knowledge of science history - particularly in physics - to be wholly appreciated, but you don't have to actually be a physicist. An educated layman's gloss is sufficient. There are multiple places in the narrative when key developments and key discoverers in science are mentioned, but using variant terms.
It was the variant terminology that tickled me in part because it indicated that Gribbin had essentially pushed back scientific discovery dates by a couple of centuries, attributing them to different luminaries than the ones currently credited; he was providing contextual clues to orient the reader in that alternate timeline. Thus, the reader is expected to be aware of the fact that it was not Newton who worked out the basics of QM (following Galileo's equivalence of mass with energy), in the same way that it was not Harold who won at Hastings, or that the US is not New England. So, to underscore that notion, we have neutralinos instead of neutrinos; and we have analogues for particle/wave interactions of light and for Planck time, as well as quite a few other things. (Starting with Ockham; I should've kept notes.)
One subtle point Gribbin makes by using this method is that the facts uncovered by science are objective facts, awaiting discovery and description by anyone qualified enough to find them, so what they're called - or whom they're discovered by - is irrelevant. e=mc^2 is a foundational axiom of the universe, in other words, and is true regardless of who develops the equation.
Since finishing the novel, the thing I've been noodling with is when the Complex was first constructed. Based on how its control interface works, the barest minimum time of construction could sensibly be 300 years in the future; however, based in the way the time limits work (and depending how long it might take to build and put into place), I could see it being up to 900 years from now. The builders, obviously, were concerned that it would be discovered - but not so concerned that they wanted to make it absolutely impenetrable. Presumably they figured that whomever dug it up in the past would either (1) be bright enough to understand and be wary of its operation; or (2) too dim to actually use it to do serious harm. The choice of Stonehenge was a good one; it's been around a hell of a long time and is recognizable enough to be significant to many generations of people, from many different societies. It's also considerably less jejune than a pyramid would've been.
Why build such a thing? Jan provides the answer; he's an historian and can't wait to get his hands on it.
One other point that I can't quite put down is the way organic matter is handled. It all comes back at the same time, which is handy … but we're not isolated chunks of organic matter. We take in organic matter, assimilate it, and excrete more.
So suppose you have lunch with Newton and eat a nice fillet of sole. When you return, what happens to all the organic molecules that were in the sole? They had been a part of your cellular structure; but the story suggests they must get left behind. Also, anything you leave in the privy must somehow return with you.
More scatologically, suppose you get eaten by a tribe of cannibals. What returns of you would have to be digested biomass, one presumes - so what happens to the cannibals that had eaten you and used your biomass to build the cells in their bodies? Perhaps I've missed something here, but it's an intriguing (and somewhat delightfully disgusting) thing to consider.
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