“Through Real Time” is an entertaining book that tells a good story, even though it is actually three books written at different times.
The book proposes time travel, although only forwards, using a technology that allows the creation of bubbles that enclose everything inside them in a kind of ecstasy, ensuring that time does not pass for those trapped inside.
The book spans millions of years and tells the story of humanity.
The plot is divided into two parts. The first one places the reader in a near future in which humanity is recovering after a nuclear catastrophe caused by a world war. This part is fun and is pure steampunk literature.
The second part is more traditional Science Fiction (so to speak) and explains what humanity is like in the future, in the distant future... although there are almost no humans left because something happened in the 23rd century and only the humans who were bubbled for one reason or another remain.
The book presents a future society in which humans from different eras and with access to different types of technology (depending on the moment they were bubbled) must coexist, and consequently with different social models. The main task of this society is to perpetuate the human species, even though there are only a few hundred human specimens left.
To liven up the plot a little more, the author includes a murder, a 21st century police officer and even an alien.
100% recommended.
5 responses
Jorge, by now I assume you have already found the novel, but in case you haven't, the novel you are talking about is La Noche de los Tiempos by Rene Barjavel published by Ultramar.
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_noche_de_los_tiempos
Thank you very much Alvaro!!
Hello, I just discovered your site and I like it a lot. I am writing to you because I need a favor. I am a big reader of science fiction and a long time ago (20 years or so, I am 37 today) I was lent a novel that captivated me and led me to approach the genre. It is set in Antarctica where they accidentally find remains of an ancient civilization (Atlantis). I remember that they find a couple of survivors who were in cryogenics and the story constantly takes us from the present to the past of these characters. A captivating story with an unexpected ending.
I ask you if with this little information you could perhaps tell me the author or title of the work. I am bothering you because I have great affection for this work and I would like to have it in my library.
If you can help me I would really appreciate it.
Hi Jorge, I'm sorry to say that I have no idea what book it could be... but I have a few friends, also SF fans and of a certain age, who I'll ask to see if they can think of what book it could be. Do you remember the author's nationality? Any other clues?
We talk to each other.
A big hug.
Hello,
First of all, congratulations on the blog, very interesting, like everything you do (I already read you on noticias.com, where I also collaborated).
As for the book recommendation, I will tell you that it has been withdrawn from sale due to alleged editorial irregularities. The review is therefore valid if the Vinge novels that comprise it are purchased separately.
This series, like most of Vernor Vinge's novels, revolves around the author's favorite theme: the technological Singularity (http://www.libroandromeda.com/PDF/Singularidad_tecnologica.pdf), a topic on which, by the way, I gave a talk at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid (http://www.portal-cifi.com/scifi/content/view/1773/20/) and about which I will soon be speaking in Medellin, at the Fractal'09 meeting, in a cyberpunk session in which people like Bruce Sterling, John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly will also participate. Vinge is a very interesting author.
In the book you are reviewing, he plays with different situations in which the Singularity, having occurred, can be left aside so that one can talk about that moment (you already know that, according to this hypothesis, one cannot write novels set in a post-singularity moment since right now we are incapable of understanding what will happen, in the same way that a mouse passing in front of the White House right now would not understand what is going on inside).
All the best