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voeggroll's review
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
It's effectively a rehash of "The Warlord of the Air," but, you know, on land.
Bastable meets an alternate timeline Gandhi (presiding over South Africa) and eventually ships out with the "Black Atilla," who's express mission is to liberate to world's Black population from the tyranny of the Whites.
Bastable struggles again with where his loyalties lie before certain events force hla decision.
Bastable meets an alternate timeline Gandhi (presiding over South Africa) and eventually ships out with the "Black Atilla," who's express mission is to liberate to world's Black population from the tyranny of the Whites.
Bastable struggles again with where his loyalties lie before certain events force hla decision.
arthurbdd's review
3.0
For the most part continues the standards of the previous novel in the Oswald Bastable series, but it's marred by a "both sides are just as bad" attitude which frames black militants as equivalent to the KKK, but given the direction in which institutional privilege runs this concept doesn't hold water. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/the-warrior-of-the-timestreams/
djinn_n_juice's review against another edition
2.0
This is more of the same.
Homeboy gets transported to a new time, and he KNOWS that he's hanging around with the goodguys. Then, he gets captured by the other side, and he's belligerent--but wait! Then, he realizes that NOW he's with the REAL goodguys! Until he's stolen by someone else, and he's belligerent again, until he realizes that THIS TIME he's with the goodguys! And so on.
I think this process happens about five times over the 340 pages of the first two volumes of this series. It gets tedious.
Alright, plot synopsis: Michael Moorcock's grandfather (also named Michael Moorcock) travels to China in the attempt to find the time traveler Oswald Bastable, who told him about his first adventures (printed in The Warlord of The Air) years ago before disappearing. Moorcock doesn't manage to find Bastable, but he DOES stumble across a second manuscript written by Bastable, chronicling another of his adventures. (This whole goofy framing of the story takes up a third of the book, and doesn't add anything to the story. Nor does it seem the least bit plausible.)
Bastable's actual adventure begins with his return to the temple that originally caused him to be thrown into the time stream. Once again, the temple sends him through time. However, to his dismay, it doesn't send him back to his own time, but sends him to yet another world ravaged by war.
In this world, an especially brilliant scientist has invented all sorts of complicated weapons and bombs, and then dedicated himself to designing machines to improve life for the people of Earth, and make everyone's life leisurely and relatively comfortable. But, with all the free time this gave the less wealthy, they began demanding real equality. Then, things get ugly. War breaks out, and diseases ravage the land. The world is a wasteland, and most everyone wants to be on the sea to avoid plagues that have broken out everywhere, and the Afro Samurai...I'm sorry, the 'Black Atilla'...is leading a crusade across the world, conquering areas and enslaving the Caucasians! Bastable ends up in a small Utopia-like country which is ran by President Gandhi, but then Gandhi sends him as a diplomat to work with the Black Atilla. The Black Atilla has decided to take over the USA, using his gigantic digging machine, The Land Leviathan. Of course, once Bastable is with this dude, Bastable learns that he isn't such a bad guy after all, and that he isn't really enslaving people, he's simply giving the Black People positions of slightly greater power and putting White Guys in more menial of tasks. In effect, he is simply switching the power around as a bit of revenge for all the sufferings his people went through.
It all ends with a big war and stuff. Bastable is fine, and so is the Black Atilla. And Gandhi is just fine, and charming as ever.
If all of this sounds remarkably silly, then I've done a good job of capturing the feeling of the book. I don't know how intentional the silliness is, and perhaps in a much longer book, the storyline could be made more plausible. But the storyline and characters are way, WAY less interesting than the strange world Bastable is stuck in.
Superficially, the book seems to be about issues of race. As far as what the book is actually SAYING about race, I don't know. One never gets the feeling that Moorcock condones the actions of Attila--he seems to find this racism less awful than the more extreme racism being exacted by the Caucasians still in the USA (they have reverted to slavery, forcing the Blacks to toil to the point of death). So, apparently, cruel racism is worse than more tolerant racism. Thanks, Moorcock. You really pulled out the philosophy degree for that one.
Perhaps I'm being overly harsh on this book. But, despite the short investment of time I made in reading it, I feel like I got ripped off. I put back a copy of The Lies of Locke Lamora to buy this, and now it's going on the Craptastic shelf. Damn you, Moorcock!
Homeboy gets transported to a new time, and he KNOWS that he's hanging around with the goodguys. Then, he gets captured by the other side, and he's belligerent--but wait! Then, he realizes that NOW he's with the REAL goodguys! Until he's stolen by someone else, and he's belligerent again, until he realizes that THIS TIME he's with the goodguys! And so on.
I think this process happens about five times over the 340 pages of the first two volumes of this series. It gets tedious.
Alright, plot synopsis: Michael Moorcock's grandfather (also named Michael Moorcock) travels to China in the attempt to find the time traveler Oswald Bastable, who told him about his first adventures (printed in The Warlord of The Air) years ago before disappearing. Moorcock doesn't manage to find Bastable, but he DOES stumble across a second manuscript written by Bastable, chronicling another of his adventures. (This whole goofy framing of the story takes up a third of the book, and doesn't add anything to the story. Nor does it seem the least bit plausible.)
Bastable's actual adventure begins with his return to the temple that originally caused him to be thrown into the time stream. Once again, the temple sends him through time. However, to his dismay, it doesn't send him back to his own time, but sends him to yet another world ravaged by war.
In this world, an especially brilliant scientist has invented all sorts of complicated weapons and bombs, and then dedicated himself to designing machines to improve life for the people of Earth, and make everyone's life leisurely and relatively comfortable. But, with all the free time this gave the less wealthy, they began demanding real equality. Then, things get ugly. War breaks out, and diseases ravage the land. The world is a wasteland, and most everyone wants to be on the sea to avoid plagues that have broken out everywhere, and the Afro Samurai...I'm sorry, the 'Black Atilla'...is leading a crusade across the world, conquering areas and enslaving the Caucasians! Bastable ends up in a small Utopia-like country which is ran by President Gandhi, but then Gandhi sends him as a diplomat to work with the Black Atilla. The Black Atilla has decided to take over the USA, using his gigantic digging machine, The Land Leviathan. Of course, once Bastable is with this dude, Bastable learns that he isn't such a bad guy after all, and that he isn't really enslaving people, he's simply giving the Black People positions of slightly greater power and putting White Guys in more menial of tasks. In effect, he is simply switching the power around as a bit of revenge for all the sufferings his people went through.
It all ends with a big war and stuff. Bastable is fine, and so is the Black Atilla. And Gandhi is just fine, and charming as ever.
If all of this sounds remarkably silly, then I've done a good job of capturing the feeling of the book. I don't know how intentional the silliness is, and perhaps in a much longer book, the storyline could be made more plausible. But the storyline and characters are way, WAY less interesting than the strange world Bastable is stuck in.
Superficially, the book seems to be about issues of race. As far as what the book is actually SAYING about race, I don't know. One never gets the feeling that Moorcock condones the actions of Attila--he seems to find this racism less awful than the more extreme racism being exacted by the Caucasians still in the USA (they have reverted to slavery, forcing the Blacks to toil to the point of death). So, apparently, cruel racism is worse than more tolerant racism. Thanks, Moorcock. You really pulled out the philosophy degree for that one.
Perhaps I'm being overly harsh on this book. But, despite the short investment of time I made in reading it, I feel like I got ripped off. I put back a copy of The Lies of Locke Lamora to buy this, and now it's going on the Craptastic shelf. Damn you, Moorcock!
jayshay's review against another edition
4.0
I like that Moorcock leaves it up in the air whether anything has changed by the end of the novel. I rather suspect that slavery will continue unabated but the former slave-owners will be wearing the chains now. The 'Black Atilla' is an interesting character - not just an evil villain. A continuation of the affectionate subversion of the adventure tales of old with their white supremacist roots. Moorcock shows us the horrible 'other' and the other is us.
therealbluestocking's review against another edition
https://www.spdhpod.com/spdhepisodes/2017/6/21/episode-1-islands-in-the-time-streams-1
jgkeely's review
3.0
And so the adventures of Oswald Bastable continue, thrusting him yet again through the barriers of time and into a strange Earth at once familiar and disturbing. The themes and characters we explore are similar to the first volume, featuring at the center yet another Nemo-esque warlord whose methods give our narrator uneasy pause. By the end, we find ourselves liable to agree with Mr. Bastable's suspicion that time is having a laugh at his expense, forcing him to experience history as 'variations on a theme', and not a theme he appreciates reliving.
Usually, describing a book like this as 'alternate history' is a malapropism, since 'alternate' means to shift back and forth between things while 'alternative' means 'of a different sort'. So, if we described wind power as an 'alternate energy' to coal, that would mean we would be constantly switching between wind and coal, not replacing one with the other. But in Moorcock's case, both terms are actually applicable, which must be a boon to sci fi fans that have trouble keeping words straight.
So, if our theme is 'world-shaking war', the variation here is 'global politics of racism'. There is a certain tension throughout the book because Moorcock presents a lot of genuinely racist characters of different stripes and degrees, and even lets prejudice slip into his narrator's mouth. It's clear that the violence and rhetoric of the Civil Rights Era tickled Moorcock's unyielding imagination, so we get quite a few powerful (and somewhat unsettling) scenes charged with the complexities race dynamics.
Moorcock also seemed to take a bit more time with his narrative as compared to the last book, and didn't rely quite as much on bare exposition to carry the story along, which was nice--but as usual with Moorcock, it was a fairly straightforward adventure with some interesting concepts driving it along throughout, but lacking polish and care.
Reminds me of this charming episode of Neal Degrasse Tyson's StarTalk where sex researcher Mary Roach talks about the fact that long-term couples experience better sex because they tend to take their time and get lost in the moment, whereas newer couples are often 'going through the motions' of what they think should work. It's the same with writing books, people: don't just go through the motions when you should be in the moment, taking the time to give your narrative the attention it deserves.
Usually, describing a book like this as 'alternate history' is a malapropism, since 'alternate' means to shift back and forth between things while 'alternative' means 'of a different sort'. So, if we described wind power as an 'alternate energy' to coal, that would mean we would be constantly switching between wind and coal, not replacing one with the other. But in Moorcock's case, both terms are actually applicable, which must be a boon to sci fi fans that have trouble keeping words straight.
So, if our theme is 'world-shaking war', the variation here is 'global politics of racism'. There is a certain tension throughout the book because Moorcock presents a lot of genuinely racist characters of different stripes and degrees, and even lets prejudice slip into his narrator's mouth. It's clear that the violence and rhetoric of the Civil Rights Era tickled Moorcock's unyielding imagination, so we get quite a few powerful (and somewhat unsettling) scenes charged with the complexities race dynamics.
Moorcock also seemed to take a bit more time with his narrative as compared to the last book, and didn't rely quite as much on bare exposition to carry the story along, which was nice--but as usual with Moorcock, it was a fairly straightforward adventure with some interesting concepts driving it along throughout, but lacking polish and care.
Reminds me of this charming episode of Neal Degrasse Tyson's StarTalk where sex researcher Mary Roach talks about the fact that long-term couples experience better sex because they tend to take their time and get lost in the moment, whereas newer couples are often 'going through the motions' of what they think should work. It's the same with writing books, people: don't just go through the motions when you should be in the moment, taking the time to give your narrative the attention it deserves.
smcleish's review
4.0
Originally published on my blog here in March 2000.
As in the Jerry Cornelius novels, each of the Oswald Bastable series is set in a different world, an alternative vision of contemporary society. (This is accomplished by twisting a standard plot element of science fiction so that instead of time travel to different dates, Bastable travels to the same date each time with a different history connecting it to his origins in 1903.) The similarity with the Cornelius novels is increased by the way in which he meets the same characters each time, some of whom even being shared with the earlier series.
The premise behind the alternative history in this novel is that an inventive genius came up with a totally new power source in the early years of the twentieth century, and that the technological revolution which followed brought prosperity across the Earth. Through the short sightedness of governments, this lead to a massive wave of nationalism, and a series of totally destructive wars in which biological weapons almost brought the downfall of civilisation. Bastable arrives as the terrible plagues die down in Europe, and witnesses the expansion of an anti-colonial African empire, led by a man known as the "Black Atilla", determined to wreak revenge for the racism he encountered as a young man.
One of Moorcock's most pessimistic novels, The Land Leviathan makes strong points about racism and nationalism, even if in a somewhat exaggerated manner.
As in the Jerry Cornelius novels, each of the Oswald Bastable series is set in a different world, an alternative vision of contemporary society. (This is accomplished by twisting a standard plot element of science fiction so that instead of time travel to different dates, Bastable travels to the same date each time with a different history connecting it to his origins in 1903.) The similarity with the Cornelius novels is increased by the way in which he meets the same characters each time, some of whom even being shared with the earlier series.
The premise behind the alternative history in this novel is that an inventive genius came up with a totally new power source in the early years of the twentieth century, and that the technological revolution which followed brought prosperity across the Earth. Through the short sightedness of governments, this lead to a massive wave of nationalism, and a series of totally destructive wars in which biological weapons almost brought the downfall of civilisation. Bastable arrives as the terrible plagues die down in Europe, and witnesses the expansion of an anti-colonial African empire, led by a man known as the "Black Atilla", determined to wreak revenge for the racism he encountered as a young man.
One of Moorcock's most pessimistic novels, The Land Leviathan makes strong points about racism and nationalism, even if in a somewhat exaggerated manner.
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