Time travel books are like roller coaster rides.If you think about them too much, your head will hurt. If you spend too much brain waves examining the struts and the rivets and musing over the scale and heights and drops, you will be a nervous wreck and will forget – in the 1.5 minutes it takes to ride – that you’re there to have fun. Let go of the rails, throw your hands up in the sky, lift your head high, and make sure to flip the camera a bird when you go through the last turn.Having fun is w...

Hm. Clever, and fairly good, but I kept getting caught up by how dated this is, both in the sense that it was published in 1983 and in the sense that it was written in the 20th century.I should probably explain the second part: the book takes place in two times, December in an unspecified year in the 1980s, and about 50,000 years in the future. (I don't think it's ever explicitly said when, but I vaguely recall "50,000 years" being mentioned.) The main character from the future constantly refers...

I'm not really sure what I had expected from this book, but I am sure it wasn't this. After I finished reading, I took a few days to figure out how I felt about it, but I'm still not really sure. The ingredients are there for a good story: time travel, airplane crashes, mysterious happenings... and I even kinda liked the world-building Varley used to sketch the future, even if it was very weird and unlikely. What I didn't like were the characters. The airplane crash investigator, I've already fo...

This is told from 2 main points of view, one from Bill the other Louise. Each has a very specific and important job to do and they cross paths. This was overall a fun novel and I appreciated all the the little twists and turns. I can honestly recommend this, especially if you enjoy time travel.

This book is sort of confusing and the ending is very rushed, but the premise and world that Varley has built is FASCINATING. I’m deeply intrigued by the future he supposes and I only wish this book dug more into it.

This was a fun read. I’ve been chasing a good sci-fi book for a while and finally this random find in the depths of my sister’s bookshelf happened. The future and time travel and a hella sarcastic heroine(debatable?) is definitely my cup of tea.

The story takes an unexpected turn into predestination, manipulation, and intelligent design. How much free will exists when your actions are known, and your 'uptime' descendants rely on those actions in order to exist?

It is a downer book, not just from the crapsack dying earth future, but from the flaws of the characters.

Great short story; mediocre novel; terrible movie.

It's a odd duck, but it quacks quite nicely....First off, this is a Time Travel novel (capitalization intended). We have paradox and consequences and rules and messages from the future and chronal instability and characters seeing the same events in different orders. It's more than a puzzle story, but the puzzle emphasis is huge (think Connie Willis for a more modern example). Secondly, there is a large emphasis on mortality. Our two protagonists are Bill Smith (an employee of the NTSB) and Loui...

Clever and thoughtful time travel story, with a dash of 80s style. When I first read this I didn't realize the chapter titles were related to Time Travel short stories - even though it is one of my favorite genres. I wonder if anyone has put together a collection of these notables?This tale is mostly told from two perspectives - a current day air crash investigator and a far future rescue team leader. A few twists and a nice pace keep the novel going at a good clip. The ending, with both a culmi...