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A review by sevskywalker
Time Was by Ian McDonald
3.0
This is my first Ian McDonald book. I have wanted read a book by him since I learned that he wrote a duology of books about India in 2047(seriously, how cool is that?). But I was never really ready to read those books, so to familiarise myself with his writing and style I picked up this novella.
The other reason that I instantly picked up this is that the synopsis of this book grabbed my attention the moment I read it, as it also did for a lot of people who are now very very angry that it was very misleading and untrue.
I do think this is partly true, because it paints the story as an epic love story of two men who are stranded through time due to a botched quantum experiment. And it is that story in parts, but there is also another facet to the story and this is what I believe a lot of people are angry about. There is a character named Emmett who acts as the narrative device for the author to tell his story. He is such a curious characters. Most of the story is about him trying to find these two lovers and how it connects with their own story by the end.
What I can say about this story is that it had a lot of potential, but I cannot say that it was wasted but only unspent and delivered in a very unsatisfied manner. The length is one of the major problems here, as I felt that the story and characters are just too big to fit into a novella and should have been made into a longer novel.
Finally, I did very much enjoy what was presented to us, but I thought there was larger story going on than this and it lead to me being very unsatisfied If there are other stories from this world and characters, I would love to read and know more about them.
Until then.... Time Was, time will be again.
- Sudeep
The other reason that I instantly picked up this is that the synopsis of this book grabbed my attention the moment I read it, as it also did for a lot of people who are now very very angry that it was very misleading and untrue.
I do think this is partly true, because it paints the story as an epic love story of two men who are stranded through time due to a botched quantum experiment. And it is that story in parts, but there is also another facet to the story and this is what I believe a lot of people are angry about. There is a character named Emmett who acts as the narrative device for the author to tell his story. He is such a curious characters. Most of the story is about him trying to find these two lovers and how it connects with their own story by the end.
What I can say about this story is that it had a lot of potential, but I cannot say that it was wasted but only unspent and delivered in a very unsatisfied manner. The length is one of the major problems here, as I felt that the story and characters are just too big to fit into a novella and should have been made into a longer novel.
Finally, I did very much enjoy what was presented to us, but I thought there was larger story going on than this and it lead to me being very unsatisfied If there are other stories from this world and characters, I would love to read and know more about them.
Until then.... Time Was, time will be again.
- Sudeep