I haven't actually finished this, but it's so good that I thought I'd post now anyway. It is primarily a love story between Henry and Clare DeTamble, and I don't think I've read a love story since 'Fair Stood the Wind for France' at school! But it is also a very good Time Travel story! I do like Time Travel strories of any kind.
I thought I had already read the best time travel books. I would still recommend David Gerrold's 1973 novel 'The Man Who Folded Himself' for the most complexities, but that book is out of print and was never a best seller. You have to give dues to an author who can write a time travel story and top the best seller lists, and have women trying to follow the tangled intricasies of plot it creates.
Like other Time Travel books, Henry is drawn back again and again to those important life-changing moments in his life. They are mostly sad ones. This he does involuntarily, and for a different amount of time each occasion, as he has a new kind of genetic disorder that causes it. I'd rather it was just unexplained than put down to genetics. I think Ray Gower said in another thread how genetics had become the new radiation, as in the fifties every scifi mutation was a result of radiation, and now in the noughties it is due to genetic change. The reason for the first time travel event is interesting though and makes the whole idea work.
The most interesting aspect of the writing is how events are told not just from the point of view of alternative versions of Henry, but also from Clare. This really makes the story interesting, and quite believable. The authors writes about Chicago as though she knows it well and the characters, including the minor ones, are fully drawn out with all their good and bad aspects. The other interesting thing is how the characters change as they grow older. Clare has known Henry all her life, since the age of 6, and thinks she knows him, but has never met the younger Henry until she is 20. The younger Henry has never met Clare, and so she knows more about his future than he does, but his life is a mess due to various events which the time travelling has only exagerated. The older Henry seems to have everything sorted out, but I know there are secrets he is still keeping, and I also know that the ending is a tear-jerker.
I thought I had already read the best time travel books. I would still recommend David Gerrold's 1973 novel 'The Man Who Folded Himself' for the most complexities, but that book is out of print and was never a best seller. You have to give dues to an author who can write a time travel story and top the best seller lists, and have women trying to follow the tangled intricasies of plot it creates.
Like other Time Travel books, Henry is drawn back again and again to those important life-changing moments in his life. They are mostly sad ones. This he does involuntarily, and for a different amount of time each occasion, as he has a new kind of genetic disorder that causes it. I'd rather it was just unexplained than put down to genetics. I think Ray Gower said in another thread how genetics had become the new radiation, as in the fifties every scifi mutation was a result of radiation, and now in the noughties it is due to genetic change. The reason for the first time travel event is interesting though and makes the whole idea work.
The most interesting aspect of the writing is how events are told not just from the point of view of alternative versions of Henry, but also from Clare. This really makes the story interesting, and quite believable. The authors writes about Chicago as though she knows it well and the characters, including the minor ones, are fully drawn out with all their good and bad aspects. The other interesting thing is how the characters change as they grow older. Clare has known Henry all her life, since the age of 6, and thinks she knows him, but has never met the younger Henry until she is 20. The younger Henry has never met Clare, and so she knows more about his future than he does, but his life is a mess due to various events which the time travelling has only exagerated. The older Henry seems to have everything sorted out, but I know there are secrets he is still keeping, and I also know that the ending is a tear-jerker.
