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Time and Time Again Ben Elton 9780593073575 Books

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Time and Time Again Ben Elton 9780593073575 Books

I really enjoyed this offering by Ben Elton. It's not a perfect book by any standard. The beginning of the book dragged, causing me to put it down several times and not take it up again for months at a time. However, because I've enjoyed Elton's work in the past, I didn't give up and I'm glad I persevered. As a qualifier, I don't read a lot of time travel books, so if there are cliches here, I would not have picked up on them. The characterization is decent, although there are a few times the main character behaves foolishly to prove the heavy handed point of the butterfly effect. However, the story itself is the true star, the premise of traveling back in time to prevent future calamities.Not an original premise by any means, but Elton has a rather good take on it and tells his story convincingly and with good, nail-bitng suspense. I like that the parameters of the mission itself kept evolving as the protagonist attempted to tie up loose ends. If nothing else, Elton gives a very detailed discussion on the chain of events leading up the Archduke's assassination. I particularly enjoyed the "twist" n the last few chapters. The pacing was off for the last portion of the book,feeling too rushed, which was disappointing. Also, not being a Brit, I didn't realize that "He who dares, wins" is a term employed by their military; I thought it was just a catch phrase Del-boy used in "Only Fools and Horses", so that was a neat cultural Easter Egg for me.

Spoiler:

Others have complained because this doesn't have a happy ending. I don't think a happy ending would have been organic to this story, which featured heavily dystopian elements. It would have been really awkward to somehow make Berne understand why Stanton assassinated the Kaiser and I can't see them ending up happily. It seems as though Elton ended the story the only way he could and I'm glad he did it the way he did.

I enjoyed this book prodigiously and would highly recommend it!


Tags : Time and Time Again [Ben Elton] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <b>If you had one chance to change history... Where would you go? What would you do? Who would you kill?</b>      It's June 1,Ben Elton,Time and Time Again,Bantam Press,0593073576,Fiction Mystery & Detective General

Time and Time Again Ben Elton 9780593073575 Books Reviews

I'm a sucker for a good time travel book, and this is one of the best I've read.

The plot uses a rather unique method of time travel, and the author seems to have thought through all the implications, contradictions, and paradoxes. "If you could go back in time to 1914, and could change anything, what would you change?" The obvious "Kill Hitler" scenario isn't even mentioned, and the reasons for that don't become clear until about 30 pages before the end of the book. Hitler himself is mentioned only twice, in the last 30 pages, and the reasons for that became clear only at the end.

The characterizations are a bit weak, and I didn't like the protagonist (Hugh Stanton) all that much, but the weaving of different timelines in and around each other was very satisfying.

Time and Time Again is a really fun read!
Ben Elton's Time and Time Again is a cut above the usual time travel adventure--and this is, no doubt, a science fiction adventure (which is why I can't understand the one- and two-star reviewers who were expecting a deeper philosophical premise, unless Time and Time Again is a departure from Elton's other novels).

Hugh Stanton, a former special forces soldier, is sent on a one-way journey back in time from 2024 to 1914 to stop WWI. This first part of his mission is to prevent the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, an agent of the Black Hand, a secret Serbian military group. Despite his foreknowledge and superior equipment, Hugh runs into life-threatening obstacles, sometimes created by his own tendency to get distracted by what seem like minor details or unrelated people.

Elton's descriptions and characterizations help readers to breathe along with Hugh the rich atmosphere of pre-WWI Europe while the suspense builds. As Hugh travels, we learn about fascinating characters from the era like the Archduke and his wife Sophie and Kaiser Wilhelm. Hugh even meets Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Leibknecht, leaders of Germany's Social Democratic Party. As the forces of history turn darker and more deadly, Hugh learns he's not the only time traveler sent back to right history. By the end of the novel, we realize many of our assumptions about the storyline were off, way off.

Time and Time Again is very entertaining science fiction, but not 1984 nor Brave New World. Instead, it has more in common with Jack Finney's Time and Again, Stephen King's 11/22/63, and Connie Willis' Doomsday Book (though for Doomsday, be prepared to wade through 70 pages of farce before the story knocks your socks off).
The author is clearly a good writer, with an interesting premise.....but the plot is so depressing--the most depressing time travel novel I've ever read.

I'm a big fan of the time travel genre, with Connie Willis' Hugo award winning "Doomsday Book" being my favorite. (I've also recently enjoyed the fun, action-packed time thriller, "The Chronothon," by Nathan Van Coops).

The first part of the book was promising, starting with an Isaac Newton conspiracy culminating in a future soldier, Stanton, being sent back to the past to prevent mistakes of the 20th century.

But after Stanton arrives, things don't go as planned. There are unnecessary deaths, a failed romance, and a changed future that is hopelessly dismal. There is no happy ending.

I felt depressed after finishing the book. I'm giving it 4 stars because it is well written, but the depressing plot only merits 2 stars, IMO.

Go read "The Chronothon" instead.
I really enjoyed this offering by Ben Elton. It's not a perfect book by any standard. The beginning of the book dragged, causing me to put it down several times and not take it up again for months at a time. However, because I've enjoyed Elton's work in the past, I didn't give up and I'm glad I persevered. As a qualifier, I don't read a lot of time travel books, so if there are cliches here, I would not have picked up on them. The characterization is decent, although there are a few times the main character behaves foolishly to prove the heavy handed point of the butterfly effect. However, the story itself is the true star, the premise of traveling back in time to prevent future calamities.Not an original premise by any means, but Elton has a rather good take on it and tells his story convincingly and with good, nail-bitng suspense. I like that the parameters of the mission itself kept evolving as the protagonist attempted to tie up loose ends. If nothing else, Elton gives a very detailed discussion on the chain of events leading up the Archduke's assassination. I particularly enjoyed the "twist" n the last few chapters. The pacing was off for the last portion of the book,feeling too rushed, which was disappointing. Also, not being a Brit, I didn't realize that "He who dares, wins" is a term employed by their military; I thought it was just a catch phrase Del-boy used in "Only Fools and Horses", so that was a neat cultural Easter Egg for me.

Spoiler

Others have complained because this doesn't have a happy ending. I don't think a happy ending would have been organic to this story, which featured heavily dystopian elements. It would have been really awkward to somehow make Berne understand why Stanton assassinated the Kaiser and I can't see them ending up happily. It seems as though Elton ended the story the only way he could and I'm glad he did it the way he did.

I enjoyed this book prodigiously and would highly recommend it!