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This romantic fiction book offers a unique take on the concept of time travel. The book follows Henry as he travels through time and appears, disappears and reappears in Clare's life. His age is ever-changing throughout the book and Clare is forever skirting around what is his past, his future and his present. The reader is left like Clare, wondering where in Henry's life we are entering every time he reappears.
This extremely popular book was all a little too perfect for my tastes. Romantic, perfect and with an interesting twist and a purely confusing chronology; it entices the reader in. Despite all this, the character development leaves a little to be desired. The book also develops very well though, despite the fact we are taken from year to year, from seeing Clare as a young child to a grown woman. The whole concept of waiting for a man for that long sort of annoyed me, especially because Clare never seemed to question her own state of affairs. We also never hear enough about Henry's past, although we definitely know it is troubled. One would imagine that disappearing at random intervals only to appear unexpectedly again would create difficulties to say the least.
So it was mainly the plot and the design of the various intervals that seemed too "perfect" to me and because of the lack of character development inherent in the plot, it was also too easy to believe. A good book overall but it didn't ring true in my mind.
This is the first book I have read by this author, being a general fan of science fiction and less so fantasy, I enjoyed it a lot. It begins with a child wailing after a serious natural disaster on her planet, but she is not wailing like a normal child does. Only telepaths can hear her wrenching cries and it is made clear to the reader from the beginning of the book that the Rowan (named after her hometown) is a "Talent" which immediately leaves her destined for a life learning to fine tune her talents. She is immediately noticed as one of the most powerful talents to come through Altair (the human colony world where she lives).
As the Rowan grows up and learns to use her talents under the watchful eye of the harsh Siglen, she feels incredibly lonely. A small electronic toy called a "Purza" is her best childhood friend and later a large cat. As she gets older, the Rowan tries to find out more about her past and looks towards a lonely future, before deciding to do something about it and there her life branches out.
I really enjoyed the Rowan's character, her stubborn will and her determination to not remain alone like the rest of the "primes" had before her made her paticularly likeable. It perhaps pissed me off a bit that she went on to have kids instead of becoming the most awesome prime in the universe (a spot which her husband got) but it was a good story. Recommend to any fantasy/sci fi fans.
This was recommended to me by my father in the library, he said it's a "classic" that I can't miss. Fred Hoyle was a renowned astronomer and physicist who wrote books as well, science fiction books. For this reason, I found this book extremely interesting, all of the fiction was backed up in scientific theory and often scientific fact. Some of the sections of the book even had footnotes where an equation to work something out was showed or similar.
The "black cloud" referred to in this book is one spotted by astronomers who seeing what effect it is going to have get a government-funded sanctuary to further research its effects and why it has come so close to Earth that it is in the same orbit around the sun. The characters are pretty delightful. I mentioned to my father at one stage the evident dislike of politicians, especially by Kingsley who has organised the sanctuary. My father then told me that this is shown in most of Hoyle's books, although there is always at least one likeable politician apparently.
This is definitely science fiction of the purest kind. Unlike Asimov, Scott Card or Clarke, Hoyle makes all of the events closer as her manages to ground them in explanations about what they mean. The characters become more and more engrossed as the book goes on and this results in an astonishing twist. I paticularly liked the inclusion of the character Joe, a simpleton who later features in an important part of the book.
Would highly recommend to anyone, paticularly if you are a space geek like myself.
Imagine that other planets got to us before we got to the moon. Imagine that halfway through the space race, space travel came to a grinding halt when we were invaded by aliens. Aliens who appeared above us and watched over us with capabilities far beyond what humans had come to. This is the world that Clarke takes us to in this exceptional science fiction novel and if I had half the imagination of this man and half the scientific brain I would be a happy girl.
This novel written in 1954 takes you to a world where nothing is as it seems. As well as focusing on the scientific, there is also a huge part of the book dedicated to paranormal and psychic phenomena. As well as this, the human characters are developed through each passage of time after the invasion to the point where you find yourself almost being able to predict their movements.
Every chapter is also a surprise. In a book such as this, it is impossible to know where you will be taken next, to what time, to what people. This is done effectively throughout the book.
I would highly recommend this, especially if you are interested in science fiction. I also recommend by the same author 2001: A Space Odyssey.
