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rmichno's review against another edition
4.0
Another good sci-fi novel by Robert Charles Wilson. I liked the main characters and time travel premise. The story moved along at a good pace and it never felt like there were any dull moments.
It also had a few interesting new ideas around time travel.
The ending had a bit of an "action movie" feel to it, but I found it satisfying.
It also had a few interesting new ideas around time travel.
The ending had a bit of an "action movie" feel to it, but I found it satisfying.
stanwj's review against another edition
4.0
(I would actually rate this a strong 3.5 stars if possible.)
Wilson loves to play around with time travel and time paradoxes and A Bridge of Years is one of his earliest efforts, originally published in 1991.
In a few superficial ways it is reminiscent in structure to King's 11/22/63 (though it's important to note King's novel came out 20 years later) in that a young man travels back to the early 60s and then pretty much falls in love with the era (and a woman) and wants to stay there. The specifics of Wilson's story have a much stronger science fiction flavor than King's, though Wilson doesn't go into great detail on how the time travel and other future tech works.
Because it's time travel, there are complications.
I found the protagonist Tom Winter, a 30 year old man coming out of a failed relationship and lost job as rather curious--there is a setup for the inevitable character arc of him finding himself, but that never exactly happens. He learns things about himself, but by the end he has only a vague plan for moving forward (without spoilers--I won't say where he is at story's end). In a way it's anticlimactic, but at the same time I rather liked that it bucked convention, even if it is less viscerally satisfying overall.
The realtor character of Doug "I want to believe in weird shit but have never really seen anything" Archer is entertaining, and serves as a reliable foil to the more conservative tom.
The purported villain of the piece is another young man named Billy, a soldier thrust from the future into the past and equipped with golden armor that makes him virtually indestructible and fills him with an insatiable appetite to kill. This is easily the most chilling aspect of the story, taking the common concept of fusing a person to machinery to augment and enhance their abilities, but to chemically change them to absolutely need to kill. I have no difficulty imagining future governments creating these kinds of soldiers if the technology existed.
Less impressive is how quickly everyone jumps into bed together. I guess causal sex is timeless. :P
Also, unlike King's million-page behemoth, A Bridge of Years feels a bit too short, leaving the whole 1962 part of the story feeling a bit underdeveloped. We are shown (and told) how Tom comes to want to stay in the past, but it never feels overly convincing. His erstwhile 1962 girlfriend Joyce offers a more nuanced take on the era (obviously having a better feel for living in it), but even she never gets more than sketches.
Still, the sketches are effective and while the ride is short, I did enjoy it. Wilson doesn't bog down the story with a lot of explanations about how the time travel works, and this is for the best. He lays down a few rules early on, then uses them to buttress the rest of the story.
If you like a good time travel yarn and don't want to get bogged down in an epic-length adventure, A Bridge of Years is a solid entry in the crowded field of time travel novels.
Wilson loves to play around with time travel and time paradoxes and A Bridge of Years is one of his earliest efforts, originally published in 1991.
In a few superficial ways it is reminiscent in structure to King's 11/22/63 (though it's important to note King's novel came out 20 years later) in that a young man travels back to the early 60s and then pretty much falls in love with the era (and a woman) and wants to stay there. The specifics of Wilson's story have a much stronger science fiction flavor than King's, though Wilson doesn't go into great detail on how the time travel and other future tech works.
Because it's time travel, there are complications.
I found the protagonist Tom Winter, a 30 year old man coming out of a failed relationship and lost job as rather curious--there is a setup for the inevitable character arc of him finding himself, but that never exactly happens. He learns things about himself, but by the end he has only a vague plan for moving forward (without spoilers--I won't say where he is at story's end). In a way it's anticlimactic, but at the same time I rather liked that it bucked convention, even if it is less viscerally satisfying overall.
The realtor character of Doug "I want to believe in weird shit but have never really seen anything" Archer is entertaining, and serves as a reliable foil to the more conservative tom.
The purported villain of the piece is another young man named Billy, a soldier thrust from the future into the past and equipped with golden armor that makes him virtually indestructible and fills him with an insatiable appetite to kill. This is easily the most chilling aspect of the story, taking the common concept of fusing a person to machinery to augment and enhance their abilities, but to chemically change them to absolutely need to kill. I have no difficulty imagining future governments creating these kinds of soldiers if the technology existed.
Less impressive is how quickly everyone jumps into bed together. I guess causal sex is timeless. :P
Also, unlike King's million-page behemoth, A Bridge of Years feels a bit too short, leaving the whole 1962 part of the story feeling a bit underdeveloped. We are shown (and told) how Tom comes to want to stay in the past, but it never feels overly convincing. His erstwhile 1962 girlfriend Joyce offers a more nuanced take on the era (obviously having a better feel for living in it), but even she never gets more than sketches.
Still, the sketches are effective and while the ride is short, I did enjoy it. Wilson doesn't bog down the story with a lot of explanations about how the time travel works, and this is for the best. He lays down a few rules early on, then uses them to buttress the rest of the story.
If you like a good time travel yarn and don't want to get bogged down in an epic-length adventure, A Bridge of Years is a solid entry in the crowded field of time travel novels.
danlewisfw's review against another edition
4.0
This is one of those books that will make you think about it well after you have finished reading it. I did think the ending was a little disappointing, but it was more of a ending after the ending. So there was a good ending but then the book went on a little after that into a disappointing one. I was on the edge of my seat throughout this book, I did not want to put it down and just kept going with it until late last night and finished it today. Very good book from a very good author.
edgeworth's review against another edition
4.0
A very readable time travel romp about a heartbroken divorcee in 1989 who discovers the house he just built has a mysterious tunnel back to New York City in 1962. Feeling depressed and with nothing to lose, he sets off to build a new life for himself in the past, but is unaware that mid-century Manhattan is also the refuge of a cybernetically enhanced super-soldier deserter from a war-torn future, who thought the tunnel was his escape alone and will kill to hide his secret. This book further cements Wilson in my eyes as a reliable writer of sci-fi potboiler thrillers with a prose style that's a cut above most of his fellow travellers in the genre. I particularly liked how well he humanises the novel's "villain," who's basically just a scared kid turned into a killing machine by his unethical government and is ultimately difficult not to sympathise with.
alexctelander's review against another edition
3.0
Bestselling author Robert Charles Wilson’s book, A Bridge of Years, recently re-released in paperback, has an interesting play on the idea of time travel, but remains true to its “rule” that there are always repercussions when one plays around with time travel, even when someone thinks they’ve been given a second chance.
Tom Winter has made a right old mess of things, now without a job and a wife who’s left him; he’s hit rock bottom. With some leftover inheritance money he buys a simple little house in the secluded Pacific Northwest, looking to just get away from things for a while, and try to figure his life out. The only problem is the simple house he bought turns out to be a prime example of real estate where everything isn’t as it seems or should be. It begins minutely with his unclean plate with a few leftovers that he leaves by the sink overnight; in the morning it has been licked clean by something.
At first he thinks it’s nothing, but it keeps on happening and he tries to film it but the camera mysteriously shuts off during the filming. Then there’s the weird sounds he keeps hearing, like little machines zooming around his house; a flickers of minute movement out of the corner of his eye. Then in the basement he discovers an extra room that leads to a tunnel that takes him back to another time and another place: 1963, New York City.
Wilson has fun playing around with time travel in this short novel, building the mystery and setting up a far more complex story than readers will be expecting. As to the answer of what is eating the leftover food and why, it is both gruesome and shocking, but at the same time makes perfect sense.
Originally written on April 9, 2012 ©Alex C. Telander.
For more reviews, check out Bookbanter.
Tom Winter has made a right old mess of things, now without a job and a wife who’s left him; he’s hit rock bottom. With some leftover inheritance money he buys a simple little house in the secluded Pacific Northwest, looking to just get away from things for a while, and try to figure his life out. The only problem is the simple house he bought turns out to be a prime example of real estate where everything isn’t as it seems or should be. It begins minutely with his unclean plate with a few leftovers that he leaves by the sink overnight; in the morning it has been licked clean by something.
At first he thinks it’s nothing, but it keeps on happening and he tries to film it but the camera mysteriously shuts off during the filming. Then there’s the weird sounds he keeps hearing, like little machines zooming around his house; a flickers of minute movement out of the corner of his eye. Then in the basement he discovers an extra room that leads to a tunnel that takes him back to another time and another place: 1963, New York City.
Wilson has fun playing around with time travel in this short novel, building the mystery and setting up a far more complex story than readers will be expecting. As to the answer of what is eating the leftover food and why, it is both gruesome and shocking, but at the same time makes perfect sense.
Originally written on April 9, 2012 ©Alex C. Telander.
For more reviews, check out Bookbanter.
mistree's review
3.0
This was a strange tale that I am not sure I can say I completely liked. It was not quite the story I expected.
5wamp_creature's review against another edition
3.0
three stars may be a bit generous for this. It IS completely unadorned as time-travel/sci-fi. Not as fully realized as SPin or Chronoliths. In the big ending while Tom is doing big, exciting things, where are the other main characters who had been really nearby? that bugged me. And the driver of the car, or course. Pretty tidy!
alexctelander's review
3.0
Bestselling author Robert Charles Wilson’s book, A Bridge of Years, recently re-released in paperback, has an interesting play on the idea of time travel, but remains true to its “rule” that there are always repercussions when one plays around with time travel, even when someone thinks they’ve been given a second chance.
Tom Winter has made a right old mess of things, now without a job and a wife who’s left him; he’s hit rock bottom. With some leftover inheritance money he buys a simple little house in the secluded Pacific Northwest, looking to just get away from things for a while, and try to figure his life out. The only problem is the simple house he bought turns out to be a prime example of real estate where everything isn’t as it seems or should be. It begins minutely with his unclean plate with a few leftovers that he leaves by the sink overnight; in the morning it has been licked clean by something.
At first he thinks it’s nothing, but it keeps on happening and he tries to film it but the camera mysteriously shuts off during the filming. Then there’s the weird sounds he keeps hearing, like little machines zooming around his house; a flickers of minute movement out of the corner of his eye. Then in the basement he discovers an extra room that leads to a tunnel that takes him back to another time and another place: 1963, New York City.
Wilson has fun playing around with time travel in this short novel, building the mystery and setting up a far more complex story than readers will be expecting. As to the answer of what is eating the leftover food and why, it is both gruesome and shocking, but at the same time makes perfect sense.
Originally written on April 9, 2012 ©Alex C. Telander.
For more reviews, check out Bookbanter.
Tom Winter has made a right old mess of things, now without a job and a wife who’s left him; he’s hit rock bottom. With some leftover inheritance money he buys a simple little house in the secluded Pacific Northwest, looking to just get away from things for a while, and try to figure his life out. The only problem is the simple house he bought turns out to be a prime example of real estate where everything isn’t as it seems or should be. It begins minutely with his unclean plate with a few leftovers that he leaves by the sink overnight; in the morning it has been licked clean by something.
At first he thinks it’s nothing, but it keeps on happening and he tries to film it but the camera mysteriously shuts off during the filming. Then there’s the weird sounds he keeps hearing, like little machines zooming around his house; a flickers of minute movement out of the corner of his eye. Then in the basement he discovers an extra room that leads to a tunnel that takes him back to another time and another place: 1963, New York City.
Wilson has fun playing around with time travel in this short novel, building the mystery and setting up a far more complex story than readers will be expecting. As to the answer of what is eating the leftover food and why, it is both gruesome and shocking, but at the same time makes perfect sense.
Originally written on April 9, 2012 ©Alex C. Telander.
For more reviews, check out Bookbanter.
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