The Empire of Time, by David Wingrove, and Crashland, by Sean Williams

Posted on by

Second paragraph of third chapter of The Empire of Time:

Young Urte is there, and Karen, Helge – eight months pregnant by the look of her – and Brigitte, herself in the first stages of pregnancy. And Bella, and Lili and …

Second paragraph of third chapter of Crashland:

‘Yes, by a dupe outside the safe house in Sacramento Bay. We don't have a body, but his blood was found at the scene, plus other evidence strongly suggesting that what you say is true.’

These were the last two books on my shelves acquired in 2014. Sometimes there is a reason why you don't get around to reading a book, and in both these cases I failed utterly to engage with the first fifty pages, and decided that I could not be bothered to take them further. In brief, The Empire of Time seems to have very confused plotting, and Crashland is the sequel to a book I haven't read and annoyed me with an exposition scene where detectives tell a suspect what has been going on. So I put them both aside, and that's the end of my 2014 books.

For comparison, I finished my last book acquired in 2013 exactly a year agothe last from 2012 18 months ago, the last from 2011 just over two years ago, the last from 2010 in just under three years ago, and the last book acquired in 2009 five years ago. I now have about 50 unread books acquired in 2015, and will try to get through them in less than a year. First up will be:

  • Splinters and the Impolite President, by William Whyte – first acquired non-genre (though turns out it is in fact fantasy);
  • Discipline or Corruption, by Konstantin Stanislavsky and others – first acquired non-fiction (though frankly it too turns out to have elements of fantasy);
  • Free Speeches, by Denis Kitchen, Nadine Strossen, Dave Sim, Neil Gaiman and Frank Miller – shortest book from 2015;
  • Shadowboxer, by Tricia Sullivan – first acquired SF; and
  • Day of the Dead, by Neil Gaiman – most popular book from 2015.

I have already read all of these at time of publishing this post, and am queuing up the reviews.

You can get The Empire of Time here, and Crashland here.

One thought on “The Empire of Time, by David Wingrove, and Crashland, by Sean Williams”

  1. Louisiana would have been in long-term trouble regardless of climate change, because the lower Mississippi is overdue to jump out of its bed and find a new course to the Gulf. Big rivers may do this every thousand years or so — the Yellow River famously did it in 1897, killing a great many people in the process — and the Mississippi should have done it sometime around 1950, give or take a few decades. Heavy engineering has kept it in its “correct” bed, but it’s just staving off the eventual inevitable.

    Doug M.

Comments are closed.