Sunday, December 11, 2016

Book Review: No Enemy But Time

As I near the end of making my way through David Pringle's Science Fiction: The 100 Best Books, I am increasingly glad for both the new finds and the authors I'm returning to again.

Case in point, last week I read Michael Bishop's 1982 Time Travel novel No Enemy But Time.  This was my third time reading a Bishop novel, but my first time reading his Science Fiction.  Previously I had read the horror novel Who Made Stevie Crye? and the Fantasy novel Brittle Innings and had really enjoyed both.

No Enemy But Time focuses on John Monegal, a chrononaut (Time Travelling explorer) who has been dreaming of the African Pleistocene era since birth, and with the help of an American agency begins the novel by travelling back in time to that specific era.

The novel moves back and forth between his study of the Homo Habilis people he finds in prehistoric Africa and his own life's journey that lead him to this point.

I found the novel fascinating throughout (but was a little confused as to why the cover image (seen above) depicts a white guy when the character is black), and enjoyed both John's journey from boy to man and his later journey with people who only see him as a strange creature.

As a man lost in time novel, it was a heck of a lot of fun, and leaves me interested in both finding more of Bishop's work, and of reading my next (and final) book on this crazy SF list I've been reading for nearly eight years now.

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