Product Description

1885, the North West Frontier. Rudyard Kipling is witness to a bizarre encounter between the British army and what appears to be an impossibly advanced piece of Russian technology. And then to a terrifying intervention by a helicopter from 2037. Before the full impact of this extraordinary event has even begun to sink in, Kipling, his friends and the helicopter crew stumble across Alexander the Great's army. Mankind's time odyssey has begun. It is a journey that will see Alexander avoid his premature death and carve out an Empire that expands from Carthage to China, beating the time-slipped army of Ghenghis Khan in a battle outside the ruins of Babylon in the process. And it will present mankind with two devastating truths. Aliens are amongst us and have been manipulating our past and our future. And that future extends only as far as 2037, for that is the date Earth will be destroyed. This is SF that spans countless centuries and carries cutting edge ideas on time travel and alien intervention. It shows two of the genre's masters at their groundbreaking best.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #62988 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

About the Author
Arthur C. Clarke is the visionary grandmaster of 20th and 21st century SF. In a writing career than spans seven decades he has both prophesied key, world changing technologies and written SF that has become a benchmark for the genre. Stephen Baxter is the most significant SF writer of his generation. His books are bestsellers and award-winners the world over. Stephen Baxter is the pre-eminent SF writer of his generation. Published around the world he has also won major awards in the UK, US, Germany, and Japan. Born in 1957 he has degrees from Cambridge and Southampton. He lives in Northumberland with his wife.

Customer Reviews

good story but frustrating.
Let me start by saying that i DID really enjoy this book. Its just that having read alot of Sir Arthurs work i couldnt help feeling a little dissapointed? Maybe it is Stephen Baxters influence, as i have not read any of his work so cant really comment. As an earlier reviewer states, it is more history than science, which is where the frustration lies as the science involved is very interesting and i wanted to hear more of it! That said, i am looking forward to Times Eye 2 and expect it to be great, i hope it developes into a series as good as the Rama books. Just one final thing, at one point Rudyard Kipling on page 101 calls the phone, sir gadget? as gadget was a the nickname coined for the first atomic bomb in the early 1940's how could ruddy have known this word and used it? small point granted but im sure Sir Arthur checks is facts meticulously and its little slips like that that can ruin a book for me. kind regards.

Brilliant book
Time's Eye is a splendid book and an intricate combination of science fiction and history.

The authors cleverly integrate the various time 'differences'...which sees an immense battle we could have only dreamed about. The novel also opens up a nice explanation, where the authors use string theory as a means of supporting the possibility of the 'discontinuity'.

However, do not despair, Time's Eye seems to open up to a much wider audience due to its historical content. Even though the science fiction sounds feeble, Time's Eye has tremendous reference to the Macedonians and Mongols at their apex. It also refers to the 1885 and the NW frontier.

The novel has plenty of realism and is simply an alternative possibility to time- travel, nicely hangs on with 'space odyssey' and is a great novel.

Good story, bad science
.
I like these two authors and I like time slip stories. So why did this book not quite reach my expectations?
Well, with both Stephen Baxter and Arthur C Clarke, you expect to get a bit more science in your science fiction – otherwise, it’s just fiction.

The basic outline is that the world is reassembled from pieces from across history. Into the fray are plunged three UN helicopter crew from 2037 patrolling the south west Afghanistan region, a fort full of British and Indian soldiers from the 19th Century at a point in the infamous NW frontier (next to Afghansitan, by coincidence and including no less than Rudyard Kipling), the crew of a Soyuz capsule orbiting over central Asia (by luck!), 13th Century Genghis Khan, the ancient army of Alexander the Great and a “missing link” type ape woman and her child. These are central the story line. Most other humans in that crop up along the way, don’t last long.
Our main characters find themselves suddenly in a disrupted world, surrounded by different time zones. Most have no idea, initially, that anything has happened, although most are bewildered by the sudden apparent movement of the sun in the sky. And then there are the mysterious silver spheres floating silently and immovably at various points across the land.
This reconstruction of Earth in effect makes the world a hotch potch of time where everything and everybody left is in an isolated pocket of their own time. The Earth itself is terribly disturbed with pockets of ice age glaciers in amongst temperate zones, volcanic activity etc. all trying to find a new equilibrium.
What time slip fans always like is how people cope in unexpected circumstances, how they can use their knowledge (often historical) to overcome the crises they face and in the case of military stories, how a few men with modern weapons can defeat overwhelming hordes of historical foes! There is plenty of this sort of thing going on to keep us all amused but with the bonus of well written characters and detailed historical references.

What didn’t sit comfortably was the choice of characters thrown together. UN helicopter crew crashing near to a British NW frontier fort OK, but did it have to include Kipling?. Soyuz crashes to Earth and are picked up by Mongol nomads fine, but did it have to be Genghis Khan? The British encounter a large ancient army, but did it have to be Alexander’s army? There were simply too many celebrities. It may have been the intention of the mysterious force that created the patch work Earth to deliberately throw these different elements together, but this is never revealed or in any other way justified. It seemed the time discontinuity was just a lame excuse to thrust Macedonians against Mongols with a few other characters as dressing.
In addition, too many characters seemed to easily accept the theory of their new position in time, that everyone they new and loved were gone. No one seemed overly disturbed by this or make any serious quest to return home.

Having said that, the story was well crafted and quite compelling reading with some epic moments.