Arthur C. Clarke & Stephen Baxter Time’s Eye

Time's Eye

Arthur C. Clarke & Stephen Baxter

Del Rey, Jan 2004, $26.96 368 pp.

ISBN 0345452488

On March 24, 1895, journalists Josh and Ruddy are covering the British Presence in India. It is June 9th in 2037 and U.N. peacekeepers Casey, Abdikadir and Bisesa are running a peacetime flyover in Afghanistan. Also in 2037, the Soyuz craft has disengaged from the space station and Kolya, Musa and Sable are returning after a three month mission to Earth. A woman and her child from prehistory are foraging for food with their tribe when a glowing orb appears.

All these people are ripped away from their own space time continuum and returned to an earth that is made up of bits and pieces of different eras. The Eyes continually watch their every movement and action especially when Genghis Kahn and Alexander The Great fight each other for domination of this new world called Mir.

TIME'S EYE is a fascinating work of science fiction. The concept is simple but the results of the Discontinuity the Eyes have caused are really amazing. Twenty-first century technology aids two great warlords who were previously alive millennia ago and millennia apart. The weather and geographical upheaval caused by this phenomenon are awesome and the authors make that point very clear. There is a sequel to this excellent novel coming soon that should tie up the deliberately dangling threads.

Harriet Klausner