2005: The Ulster Volunteer Force struggles to grasp the meaning of the
term ceasefire, Britain is astonished by the unlikely coincidence that
every known WWI veteran is over 100 years of age, and in what some
experts hope is a sign Britain has begun to emerge from chaos after
the retreat of the Roman Empire, Dr Who is revived.

Which 2005 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Iron Council by China Mieville
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Market Forces by Richard Morgan
River of Gods by Ian McDonald
The System of the World by Neal Stephenson
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

I've read all of them except for the Mitchell and the Niffenegger.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

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On 2025-07-14, James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Does this feel as creepy as the movie adaptation did with the time
traveler grooming a child to become his future wife?

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

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On 15/07/25 08:56, Christian Weisgerber wrote:

On 2025-07-14, James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Does this feel as creepy as the movie adaptation did with the time
traveler grooming a child to become his future wife?

I disliked that book but didn't feel it creepy. It was boring, boring,
boring, boring, boring and silly.
Less than one star. Perhaps a small ember from yesterday's ashes.

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On 15/07/25 08:40, William Hyde wrote:
snip

"Cloud Atlas" was a rich, complex, enjoyable read.  I must reread it
some day to see what is was all about.  Or I could see the movie.

My turn to envy you.
David Mitchell is one of my all time favourite authors and I loved all
of his books except non SF Black Swan Green, his coming of age tale at thirteen. Again, I think that they should be read in publication order
even though they are stand alone as there are references to characters
across books as well as events. The evil but minor supernatural element
is consistent across the books.
I thought that the three hour Cloud Atlas film which followed the five
star book closely was brilliant but didn't have the same consistent
impact for all six stories with one seeming weaker than the book to me
but a minor complaint.

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On 15/07/25 02:41, James Nicoll wrote:
snip

Which 2005 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Iron Council by China Mieville
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Market Forces by Richard Morgan
River of Gods by Ian McDonald
The System of the World by Neal Stephenson
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

I've read all of them except for the Mitchell and the Niffenegger.

The best and the worst.

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On Wed, 16 Jul 2025 17:30:55 +1200, Titus G <noone@nowhere.com> wrote:

On 15/07/25 08:40, William Hyde wrote:
snip

"Cloud Atlas" was a rich, complex, enjoyable read.  I must reread it
some day to see what is was all about.  Or I could see the movie.

My turn to envy you.
David Mitchell is one of my all time favourite authors and I loved all
of his books except non SF Black Swan Green, his coming of age tale at

AKA Adrian Mole in a more rural setting

thirteen. Again, I think that they should be read in publication order

Agreed. I read Cloud Atlas straight after seeing the film version,
then a friend advised me to read The Bone Clocks and Slade House
(neither of us knew then about the links between his books) and thus
had several plot elements spoilered as I later filled in the gaps.

even though they are stand alone as there are references to characters
across books as well as events. The evil but minor supernatural element
is consistent across the books.
I thought that the three hour Cloud Atlas film which followed the five
star book closely was brilliant but didn't have the same consistent
impact for all six stories with one seeming weaker than the book to me

Jim Broadbent in the asylum? My feeling is that this was a tribute to
the obligatory comedy segment in virtually every portmanteau horror
film, going right back to Dead of Night. I also appreciated the irony
of it being a revolutionary inspiration in the future dystopia.

but a minor complaint.

At some point I plan a complete reread, this time in strict
publication order.

--
Jerry Brown

A cat may look at a king
(but probably won't bother)

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Melissa Hollingsworth wrote:

Lynn McGuire wrote:

James Nicoll wrote:

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

I've read all of them except for the Mitchell and the Niffenegger.

The Time Traveler's Wife isn't boundary-pushing SF, but it's a very good
love story. I don't usually read love stories, and I enjoyed it.

Intellectual romance, along the lines of WAR AND PEACE's placid
passages, ranks as one of my favorites. Taken by itself, the romance
element in THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE, is indeed enjoyable.
From my perspective THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE is a jigsawed romance.
Readers must mentally assemble nonlinear story snippets to see the
overarching plot unfold in their mind's eye.
Niffenegger uses an in-story quote from MAN AND TIME by Preistley.
It leaves me with the impression she's read the Preistley. If so,
Niffenegger's well versed in the temporal underpinnings of time travel.
Yet, the tale's tick-tock tempo may metaphorically misdirect. My
copy contains a READING GROUP GUIDE. One of its questions is: "How does
the author use time travel as a metaphor: for love, for loss and
absence, for fate, for aging, for death?"

# # #

CLOUD ATLAS jigsaws its narrative in a different manner. It explores
entangled emotions and events transposed through time. Its small swarms
of symbiotic souls sort of segue through a many worlds universe.

# # #

Neither nonlinear novel is recommended by me. They both spew more
profanity and blasphemy than a obnoxious loud-mouth drunk who fouls
himself sitting in a cheap seat at a Major League Baseball game.

Poe's prose poem EUREKA scratches my puzzle fiction itch better.

Eureka (1848) is the climax of Poe's thinking, in astronomy
and cosmology, and is his most ambitious literary work
employing a considerable amount of scientific information.
His almost lifelong interest in astronomy and other sciences
might result in an attempt to explain the origin and
functioning of the universe. His metaphysical bent would urge
him to fill in by intuition the gaps left by science. His
conscious knowledge of his powers as an author would demand
that he perform better what several less skilful writers had
attempted before him. Instead of being the anomaly in his
writings that some critics have considered it, Eureka is in
some respects the climactic art-product of this literary artist
who took science as a source of material.

(excerpt)

<https://www.eapoe.org/papers/misc1921/cdl51c12.htm>

Danke,

--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. veritas liberabit vos
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

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