Board 8 > join me as I read through my recent haul of old bargain bin sci-fi novels.

(+) Yeah! (+)

As this was apparently a parody, the mention and then total lack of crusty Pop was probably done on purpose.
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I'm still trying to figure out how a cheese launcher is this super-important weapon of destruction throughout the novel.
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No crusty Pop indeed.

azuarc posted...

I'm still trying to figure out how a cheese launcher is this super-important weapon of destruction throughout the novel.

Chuck's dad's cheese is made in a special way that has a certain chemical composition which reacts a certain way to a particle accelerator. They don't blast people with cheese. They use a particle accelerator on the cheese to turn it into a substance which enables them to warp things through space basically. Like when they take out the army, they just drop them into the ocean. When they attack spaceships, they're relocating them to be right beside the nearest star so they get sucked in by its gravity.

I did read that it's not a cheese version of a potato cannon. It's still ridiculous.
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There's this whole explanation about a lambda dimension and a kappa dimension or something. They're constantly doing calculations on the relative sizes and coordinates of the dimensions accurate to fifteen decimal places in their heads.

Man, Sally's way too good for these guys.
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"The Warrior of World's End" and "Time Trap" are tied for 2nd. I'm leaning toward the latter.

turbopuns2 posted...

"The Warrior of World's End" and "Time Trap" are tied for 2nd. I'm leaning toward the latter.

I hadn't yet voted, so I just voted for that one to make your life easier
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I feel like starting with this book has ruined the topic because no other book will be as enjoyable to read the write-ups for.
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Maniac64 posted...

I feel like starting with this book has ruined the topic because no other book will be as enjoyable to read the write-ups for.

Depends on how you look at it. On the other hand, maybe this was best. If it started out dull, it may have never gained any real traction. I'll do my best to keep it interesting.

I'll do the reflection later tonight when I have more time. Have this for now to hold you over:

Book Two

Time Trap
by Keith Laumer
1970

(...back cover...)

ABE LINCOLN IN AFRICA?

He was seen - and photographed - in a Tunisian bazaar. And an ancient Spanish galleon, fully crewed with ancient Spaniards, was taken in tow off Tampa by the Coast Guard...and a few luckless people found themselves living the same day over and over and over and over....

Something was badly wrong with Time - but Roger Tyson didn't know it until he met the lovely agent from elsewhen and started on a mad chase through the dimensions, plagued by a motley bunch of temporal castaways, and pursued hotly by Oob the Rhox!

Tell us more about Oob the Rhox.
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Not Oob the Rhox! Also, I wasn't aware that there were any Spaniards from ancient times.

This story will either be great or terrible. Obviously, we're all hoping for terrible, and it's far more likely.
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Book One Reflection

Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers

Entertaining on every page. The book does a great job of trucking right along without ever stalling on any boring exposition. Often this meant shrugging off hugely complex scientific discoveries and concepts by cramming it down into a super sci-fi rich word salad which left you to infer the meaning of a lot of nonsense buzzwords (examples: "collapsite", a material something that can collapse in on itself is made of. "zombie ray", something the rangers get blasted with which forces them to march in a single file line)

Another thing that made it fun is you have no idea where the plot is headed at any given point in time. When they blast off to Titan by mistake, the primary goal is "get home", and you feel like you understand the premise of the book. But after they land on Domite and vow to help out in the war...you realize that "get home ASAP" is no longer the goal. They're just constantly zapping around the galaxy from one subplot to the next, and you can never really piece it together. It simultaneously allows you to not take any particular scene too seriously while at the same time growing more and more curious about how the hell it's going to attempt to wrap it all up.

As for the characters. The three primary protagonists (Jerry, Chuck, and John) are all pretty much the same. Their characters can all be fully defined as chaotic good fearless mega genius. I bet if I were to cut out snippets of dialogue from throughout the book, it would be tough to guess who said what at any point in time. Often their lines are just used to explain the science briefly and then advance the scene. Nothing feels specific to any of them.

All the alien characters kind of fit that description too, it's just they have more distinctive traits which are rooted in the fact they're all very different as opposed to being humans. Like Prrsi needing the temperature to be above water's boiling point at all times, or Slug-Togath having tentacles and over twenty eyes and being pretty much immune to bullets or other basic injuries.

So basically everyone is just a mega genius or has mega psychic powers, or both. Then there's Sally, of course. They are constantly demeaning to her at every chance and she just takes it.

The moment when I finally decided there was no way the book was taking itself seriously was when the author revealed that one of Chuck or Jerry, don't remember which, has a consistent batting average of .999 and pitched 42 no hitters in a row.

The dialogue used a lot of the same gimmicks throughout, but it didn't get too stale because it was always in a new setting with new characters and races/species. Like the old gag of someone starts explaining something majorly important, they get interrupted, and then they're like "I'm gonna keep talking now, if you don't mind". That came up in like 10 different variations. And other similar means of advancing the dialogue.

Lastly, the chapter list. I figure this is a quick easy way to give you more of a feel for the book without me putting in much effort:

1: Jest 89,000 Volts
2: A Shocking Discovery
3: An Unexpected Journey
4: A Victorious Battle Ends in Terror
5: Defeat Rudely Snatched from the Jaws of Victory
6: Loathsome Garnishee and a Mindless Husk
7: A Great Victory - But Tragedy Strikes
8: The Ghastly Secret Revealed
9: The Last Battle - Or Is It?
10: An Inside Job and a Noble Crusade
11: Encounter in Deep Space
12: Disaster at the Mine
13: Trapped on Haggis
14: Birth of the Galaxy Rangers!
15: They Speak of Krakar
16: Enigma in Space
17: Lo! Such Wonders Stand Revealed
18: The Mightiest Armada - Launched!
19: Loathsome Lortonoi Unveiled!
20: The Secret of the Salami
21: Victory Wrenched from the Salivating Jaws of Defeat!

I thoroughly enjoyed this.
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Read the prologue of book two but was interrupted during my writeup. Coming soon! a.k.a. maybe tomorrow. March madness plus St. Patrick's day isn't conducive to me making it back home tonight.

The prologue is divided into four disjoint parts.

--

Part one, the crew of a ship off the coast of Tampa spot a very odd looking vessel approaching. Looks like a kind of ship they've only seen in history books. So antique they assume someone is shooting a movie in the area and didn't tell them.

Cuban refugees, maybe? Nah, they wouldn't have been able to make it this far unnoticed. The ship gets closer and we learn it has a crew of thirteen men. All of them speak Portuguese and none of them are literate.

--

Part two, Mrs. L. B. (Chuck) Withers sets out on her rigid morning routine. Leaves the house precisely at 10:15am to walk to town, which takes her 10 minutes. She notices a sign that's never been there before

BRANTVILLE - 1 MILE

...not only is the sign inaccurate, but it's old. Rusty and the paint is chipping off. A bit miffed, she continues walking and before long finds herself back in front of her own house.

Must have been daydreaming and taken a wrong turn. She sets off down the road again...and once again ends up back at her house. Goes inside, tries to call people, but every line is busy. Eventually she gives up and just stays home all day. The next morning, she finds the food she had for lunch and dinner the previous day has reappeared in her refrigerator.

--

Part three, an editor for a magazine is looking through a pile of stories for the next issue. Nothing interesting it seems. Until he spots a man who looks identical to Abraham Lincoln in one of the photos. The word is already starting to spread, despite numerous confirmations that Abe is most certainly deceased. Assuming it's some sort of weird impostor situation, they send someone to the location to get to the bottom of it.

--

Part four, husband and wife living a simple life in the country, miles from the nearest neighbor. Their pastor had just paid them a visit, and had recently left for home. After a while he turns up at the door again, seemingly lost. The man of the house figures he's "hiding a bottle somewhere", and offers to walk him far enough down the road to set him straight. But along the way, he discovers that the path has been overgrown with trees and bushes. They chop through it and continue on, only to end up back at the house again. The next morning, the plants they felled are back, seemingly untouched.

turbopuns2 posted...

All of them speak Portuguese and none of them are literate.

*opens mouth*

*closes mouth*

Nah, I won't go there.
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Roger Tyson is a protagonist who thinks out loud a lot.

We join him just as his car runs out of gas, in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, during heavy rain with no food and no money.

Much to his fortune, a headlight appears in the distance. He stands in the road to flag the driver down. It's a woman on a motorcycle. He doesn't get out of the way soon enough, causing her to swerve into a ditch. She's dead within seconds, but manages to deliver a dire message before she goes...

"Beware the Rhox!"

She also tells him to take a button out of her ear and put it into his own. So naturally he does.

A minute later, another headlight appears down the road. Another motorcycle. Roger stands in the road again, and this time it's not a woman, but instead...

...a headless torso, obese, bulbous, brick-red, pear-shaped, ornamented with two clusters of tentacles, like lengths of flexible metal hose. [...] an eye as big as a pizza and similarly pigmented...

And wouldn't you know it, this motorcycle also swerves off the road, resulting in the death of the driver.

The voice of the dead woman speaks to him through the button he placed in his ear. She persuades him to carry out the deliverance of her message. He accepts that he's gone mad, but goes along with it. Drives two hours to the next city, heads into a bathroom, scribbles down a note which she dictates, and attempts to toss it into a magical rainbow wormhole portal type thing, but ends up falling into it himself...

the message:

My attempt to traverse Axial Channel partially successful. Apparent Museum and associated retrieval system work of advanced race capable of manipulations in at least two superior orders of dimensionality. Recommend effort to dispatch null-engine to terminal coordinates to break temporal stasis. Signed, Q'nell, Field Agent.

Driving at night in the middle of nowhere with no money and low on gas? Roger sounds like a real smart guy.
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Yeah. It didn't explain his arrival at that state at all, which leads me to believe he was just thrust into a desperate situation to justify him going with the flow. He used one of the motorcycles to drive, by the way.

turbopuns2 posted...

The word is already starting to spread, despite numerous confirmations that Abe is most certainly deceased.

Er...is this 1863?

Also, Roger, the man capable of defeating the new Mongol horde, when they arrive riding Harley-Davidsons and are all repelled by his motorcycle magnetism.
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This book also seems like it's really something. Just a different kind of something.
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Sand everywhere. He's on...a beach? Nope. Desert.

Tries talking into the ear button, but no voice answers.

Looks like there's a ravine in the distance. Sets off in that direction.

--

After 15 minutes, he's back at the same boulder where he started. Huh?

Walks in a different direction. Same boulder.

Another direction. Same boulder.

Just as he's starting to get a grip of things, he spots the alien creature from before off in the distance - it hasn't seen him yet, but starts following his tracks (in the opposite direction of him...such that it would eventually sneak up behind him due to the strange properties of this place)

It's at this point Roger spots the Aperture. That's the magical rainbow portal. He doesn't hesitate to jump in.

--

Ankle deep in cold water. A steep, high-banked ditch on one side is taller than him. Lots of loud noises like fireworks, and lights in the sky. It's a celebration of some sort?

Walks a ways along the wall of the ditch and notices an open door. Inside, three men are playing cards at a table. After a minute of very confused conversation, Roger pieces together that it's no celebration. September 1918...it's World War 1. The guys have deemed him to be insane, and he quickly retreats to the Aperture again before things go too far south...

--

An encounter with essentially Bigfoot. Before Roger can locate the Aperture for another escape, he's scooped up by the 8-foot tall creature, who starts running off toward who knows where. Roger's head connects with something hard, and he loses consciousness...

Roger wakes up in darkness. Bigfoot is nowhere to be seen. Instead, there's a man who introduces himself as Luke Harwood.

Harwood is from 1908. He also happens to be from the same town the dead lady's voice directed Roger to in order to deliver her message...the place he originally found the Aperture. He's been here for 21 days.

Harwood found Roger unconscious where "Bimbo" left him, and dragged him into his little cave of refuge. Roger convinces Harwood to help him look for the Aperture, and they head out from the cave in search of it.

--

After another brief chase with Bimbo, Roger and Harwood are separated, forced to flee in separate directions.

--

Roger, by now somewhat familiar with the idea of these places looping back on themselves, eventually relocates Harwood, who's hiding. They set out again to search for the Aperture.

Around this time, Harwood mentions he's already killed Bimbo a couple times, but he's always back the next day.

--

When they near the area Roger believes to have initially landed, the monster/alien appears once again from out of the brush. Bimbo finds them again as well, and they leap into the Aperture for a timely getaway.

--

Roger and Harwood are in a place which is too dark to make out any distinguishing features. There's a light in the distance, though. As they walk toward it, Harwood is very excited to tell "his boys back on the poop deck" all about his three week adventure in which he died multiple times. Roger just lets it go, not mentioning the fact they come from totally different decades.

They reach the light, and it's a house. Mrs. Withers. She's been here forty days now. She figured she was the only person left in the world for the past month, so she bursts into hysterical tears at the sight of them. It's 1931 here. Roger runs an idea by her - "What would you say if I told you it was nineteen seventy?" Based on her reaction, he doesn't push the matter.

They agree to get one night's rest before moving on together through the Aperture the next day. Roger stays up late, watching the minutes tick by on his watch in order to observe the exact transition of all the oddities (food reappearing in the refrigerator, scrapes/bruises healing, flowers which were cut growing back, etc.). He notices that while everything else around him keeps resetting...his injuries remain.

turbopuns2 posted...

He notices that while everything else around him keeps resetting...his injuries remain.

I was just gonna ask about this. The other dude dies repeatedly, but I imagine it's game over for Roger. How did Harwood end up in the loop? And does that mean he doesn't need to eat? Also, isn't it curious that he can loop and still remember what happens?
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azuarc posted...

How did Harwood end up in the loop? And does that mean he doesn't need to eat? Also, isn't it curious that he can loop and still remember what happens?

Not exactly sure, but all signs point to Harwood having unwittingly stumbled upon the (an?) Aperture at some point. I'm inclined to think the same happened with Bimbo...a very, very long time ago.

I figure they still get hungry. Mrs. Withers eats the exact same meals every single day. So hunger is probably still an inconvenience but they just reset every night.

It is definitely curious that he can remember. Mrs. Withers can as well. Bimbo supposedly remembers, to whatever degree he's capable.

Morning comes. Roger, Luke (Harwood), and Mrs. Withers head out with lunch and a shotgun. They find the Aperture after a brief search and step through it just fine and FUCK it's cold.

Calf-deep snow. Nobody thought to bring a jacket. They all learn to respect the significance of the one-way functionality of the Aperture.

As there's no going back, they split up to search the area. It's not long before Roger hears a gun shot. Luke was the one with the shotgun.

Roger realizes how much he'd underestimated the probably sub-zero temperature while running back to discover Luke on the ground shot dead.

--

Roger passes out in the snow.

--

Roger wakes up in the husband and wife's house from prologue part four.

ok...now this is starting to get fun.

The scene in this one is that there's the husband, the preacher, the wife, and the gun. They all kill each other all the time. I'm pretty sure each one of them has killed the other two at least once. They've all just come to live that way.

The husband even commented on how they're fine with the wife having either man, really, so long as she kills the other one first.

"long as she's a widder, it don't rightly count"

She tried killing them both at the same time once, but thought it was too lonely. Now she alternates.

When our trio gets into the mix, it's a big to-do over some of the time travelers not wanting to eat Charity's gruel which is supposedly the best ever.

Roger, knowing he's seemingly the only one with a life to lose in this scenario, decides we best not be staying in this time bubble long.

Also a plot twist in this one, our monster friend shows up. Except this time, he takes a shotgun point blank to the gut. Oh, but of course, that doesn't slow him down, because why would it? However, apparently a chair over the head will. Roger knocks him out and bags him up and decides to take him along with them.

After seeing this play out, the preacher also decides it's best if he didn't stay around for long.

Mrs. Withers leaves her can of soup for the couple to keep, as a kind gesture to give them some variety from the gruel. The group returns to the Aperture with a new headcount.

So basically, they're going to just start picking up followers everywhere they go.

Why didn't the preacher's group go exploring and find the aperture? Does it not appear until Roger enters that plane?
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azuarc posted...

So basically, they're going to just start picking up followers everywhere they go.

Why didn't the preacher's group go exploring and find the aperture? Does it not appear until Roger enters that plane?

I think it's more like they have no clue about it, so they wouldn't know to go looking. Roger encountered the motorcycle girl in chapter one, and she directed him to it and told him about it.

Yeah, but I would think if I was stuck in Groundhog Day, in a very small area, I'd eventually explore the entire thing.
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That's fair I guess. They're very simple people.

I've had less time this week due to dogsitting. And ballgames tonight so I won't be reading more until probably tomorrow.

.

Updates tomorrow.

Cool stuff on that Galaxy Rangers book there, haven't read that.

I highly enjoy and recommend the Stainless Steel Rat series by that author Harry Harrison though! A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born (a prequel written in the 80s) was one of my favorite books as a lad. And the original trilogy is great.
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The next chapter is pretty much the gang repeatedly entering and promptly leaving various time bubbles. Nothing meaningful happens...it's just a series of quick "oh shit, nope. let's not be here any more" scenes where they jump right back into the Aperture.

In the last one, they end up running from a bear and Roger accidentally falls into the Aperture himself, without the others coming along.

--

Roger finds himself in captivity. This time he's definitely gone into the future. You can immediately tell by the dialogue. It's a bunch of incomprehensible sci-fi jargon.

There's a team of people who have clearly captured him on purpose. It quickly becomes apparently that they've been tracking his movement through the strange space/time oddities, and were expecting his arrival.

They incorrectly believe that he's a hostile who has been plotting against them. They're all set to melt his brain, but he protests. For the first time since chapter one, the voice in his ear is back....and starts guiding him through the conversation. It's immediately obvious that the girl/voice from before originated in this time period. She knows the exact context of everything.

S'lunt, the person the message from chapter one was addressed to, is leading the interrogation.

Roger stumbles through the extremely confusing conversation, assuming the voice in his head can hear it all and is helping him. However, at a certain point, the girl from chapter one herself (Q'nell) barges into the room and is all like "Kill this dude! He's been reading my mind the whole time he's been here!"

So there's some confusion. It turns out that Roger has stumbled into the time/place this girl was in just before she set out on her mission....the mission on which Roger accidentally caused her death.

Roger eventually pieces this together and can recall just enough detail to get them to believe him. Reciting bits of the message she asked him to write isn't immediately convincing, since none of that has happened yet in this time bubble.

Anyway, it's the 2200s and this group has also been caught in the same...well, let's just call it what it is...Time Trap...that Roger has been stuck in. But, given their advanced tech, they've been able to study its properties and are trying to figure out how to escape it. They've learned there are over 10,000,000,000 time bubbles.

Apparently, the button which was in the girl's ear (which Roger took and placed in his own ear...per her instruction in chapter one) is a one of a kind item, and removing it is what actually killed her. However, they find that there is simultaneously a button (called the "Reinforcer") in Roger's ear and in Q'nell's ear. That's a big factor in them believing him.

These people process all the information they've just learned and decide to still send Q'nell on her mission anyway...and to send Roger with her.

So far, no real indication as to what happened with the rest of the crew.

Finished the book. Summary and reflection tomorrow.

Alright, so, this is the point where the book gets way strange and stays that way until the end.

Roger and Q'nell set out on their mission and it's...well, difficult to explain in brief. They're basically floating through the 5th dimension and everything is really abstract. They've been trained to manipulate things with their thoughts, but naturally Roger isn't quite as good at it as Q'nell. He quickly screws things up.

He can't keep his focus, starts to panic, and shit hits the fan. Imagine a quick sequence of the infinite improbability drive from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. They're horses for a bit at one point. They almost die and stuff.

Eventually, Roger does get a grip on things and gets them back into.....each other's bodies. Yep. The author really wears it out, too. The jokes would not stop. Q'nell, in Roger's body, is all about trying to have teh sexy timez, despite the severe urgency of the situation. Roger, in Q'nell's body, experiences perpetual harassment for the first time.

They keep getting more sidetracked from the mission, which eventually results in Roger getting conked out again...and waking up in captivity...again.

It's Oob the Rhox who's got him. It's at this point that things start to get funny again. Keep in mind, it's Roger Oob has captured, but in Q'nell's body.

Oob explains that his plan the whole time has been to try to negotiate a deal. He's been trying to invade Earth...but not just in the present...he wants to invade it throughout all portions of history. Oob is a 5th-dimensional being.

After Roger refuses to bargain with him, Oob "disposes of him" through some sort of temporal inter-dimensional equivalent of a waste basket. Roger ends up in a strange place and wouldn't you know it, there's an 8th (or 9th?) dimensional robot there named UKR.

After a brief chat, Roger finds out that UKR has been charged with throwing out some "contaminated slides" from his "filing system". Oob, the 5th dimensional being, is what caused the contamination by intruding and allowing a bunch of 3rd dimensional beings (all the characters we've met to this point) to get into the slides. We also learn that Oob is able to generate a bunch of 3rd dimensional forms of himself and send them out into different slides (time bubbles) at once. There is only one true Oob.

UKR is about to dispose of Roger and the rest of the time bubbles, but Roger persuades him to at least give Roger a chance to rid the place of Oob himself. UKR has very little confidence, but agrees to let him try, just for the sake of watching it play out. He agrees to give Roger pointers through telepathy as he goes.

So UKR transports Roger back to where Oob had him. At this point Roger says he's changed his mind and is willing to negotiate. It then is revealed that Roger misunderstood Oob. Oob doesn't want to invade Earth...he wants to make it a circus where other higher-dimensional beings can come gawk at the primitive life forms.

They have a really silly back and forth to try to reach a compromise. Stuff like "I'll let you have the first 2 billions years" - "No, I need at least everything from 18th century on" - "OK, you can have 1931, but you have to stay in Canada only" and etc. It's actually pretty funny. One of the only things that made me laugh out loud in the book was this quote:

"You're greedy," Oob observed. "Can't you at least let me have the Gay Nineties--and maybe a couple of odd decades out of the Renaissance?"

Remember, the book is set in and written in the 70s, and Oob knows the future already. It was just so unexpected and a, like, wtf? moment. I had a good chuckle.

They reach an agreement, and Oob leaves. UKR zaps Roger back to where S'lunt and the gang are. He explains everything he learned. Then suddenly UKR is like "duuuude you won't guess what I just realized!"

Apparently UKR decided to look through his files or whatever the hell a higher-dimensional robot does to look something up. He discovered that Roger...specifically...is the long ago 3rd dimensional form of "The Builder"......effectively UKR will now do anything Roger wants at his command.

So Roger tells UKR to do what he wanted in the first place, which was to let everyone out of all the "contaminated slides" a.k.a. time trap back into normal existence. So he does. Like, instantly. Before Roger can even say bye to anyone. Oh yeah, Luke Harwood and Mrs. Withers get married and get sent back to her original timeline together.

Roger is back in his car in the rain from the beginning of the book. He runs out of gas. Sees Q'nell coming...but decides to stay hidden so that he doesn't kill her, since he loves her and all. She speeds past him...then shortly after doubles back and calls out his name. She came back to stay and marry him. Roger is happy, but worried since he doesn't have a job. That's when UKR speaks up in his head again and Roger realizes he basically has an all-knowing all-powerful genie inside his brain now. He knows everything he'll ever want to know about the stock market, etc.

So...they live happily ever after and in all likelihood are ludicrously rich.

well that's convenient
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Didn't Q'Nell barely know Roger? Now she wants to get married?
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They bonded quite a bit while stumbling through time and space in one another's bodies. I guess.

Wait so what exactly happened with Oob?
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I believe they are talking about the 1890s, not the 1990s.
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Mr Crispy posted...

I believe they are talking about the 1890s, not the 1990s.

Damn you ruined it. I figured it was that but didn't want to look it up and break the magic.

It did seem awfully out of place...and the ending of Star Smashers had me looking for it, I guess.

mnkboy907 posted...

Wait so what exactly happened with Oob?

He agrees to confine his guided tours to the remote past, and promises no more interference with human affairs, especially carelessness with his Apertures.

Looks like in the final agreement, he gets:

-all time prior to 2 million B.C.
-the third century A.D., provided he sticks to the vicinity of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
-1936

He knows Roger isn't bluffing about having connections in higher dimensions when, shortly after they shake on the deal, Roger poofs into thin air as UKR teleports him back to the time bubble Q'nell is from.

Worked all night tonight and didn't have time to even think about this. I'll be choosing the next book once I'm back at it.

Book Two Reflection

Time Trap

Neat is a good word for this one. It's a neat idea.

There's definitely a clear spike in the complexity of it halfway through. The book starts out with a very comfortable and linear progression...an odd occurrence leads to something very strange, and then it gets progressively more curious. Then eventually you turn the page and it's suddenly just a mess.

It almost felt like halfway through the book, someone came in and said "yeah, about the second half....you only have 1/5 the amount of pages you planned on writing to finish the story, but you also can't leave anything unexplained."

A lot of the scene advancements were done via the main character thinking out loud, which I didn't like very much. I don't relate to it, which makes it more difficult to enjoy. I do talk to myself a lot, but not the way he does. Like, just tell me what's going on and what he's thinking. You, the author. Don't make the character do it.

The first half is compelling because you spend time getting to know the characters, and you want them to make it out of this in one piece and get back to their lives. It stays interesting by the fact that each new scenario is totally different. The mingling of different time periods is cute.

The most compelling aspect of the second half is that you know the book is almost over. My eyes kinda glazed over for a lot of it...and it almost seemed intentional. The author very deliberately uses a bunch of sci-fi gibberish to try to create an authentic "third-dimensional being who doesn't have the slightest clue what's going on" vibe. It works, in a sense...but it fails to deliver the sense of utter dread and "pissing your pants" type of feeling that I imagine would come along with actually being in such a situation.

Oob wanting to make a circus out of Earth and all its time periods was fun. The deus ex machina robot granting Roger omniscience was basically necessary to be able to wrap things up. It was fine, really. For some perspective on how quickly that all wrapped up....UKR is introduced on page 117 of 143. So we only know UKR for 27 pages, yet he saves the world and instantly puts Roger's life into "ruler of the world" class. ...Yeah.

And yeah...not much fleshing out of the romance whatsoever. Roger and Q'nell spend most of their time arguing.

I'm glad I read the book, because, like I said, the best part about it was the overall idea. Writing wasn't really my style, and the ending felt really rushed.