End of An Era

Author - Robert J. Sawyer ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from Tor Books was reviewed on 18-Oct-2008.

Search ISBN:0312876939 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. End of An Era Reference Book. Classifications : General AAS British World Literature Literature & Fiction Subjects Books Sawyer, Robert J. ( S ) Authors, A-Z Science Fiction & Fantasy Subjects Books General Fantasy Science Fiction & Fantasy Subject . Click the following link to view the cover of End of An Era.

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1) Paperback Book End of An Era by Tor Books. This novel is obviously a joke by Robert J. Sawyer, a palaeontology scholar who know very well his dinos. Were the dinosaurs wiped out by a big bad Asteroid or by a giant volcanic eruption? Two scientists go with a time machine to investigate. The scenario they found is purposedly crazy and unlikely in the extreme: here the model of Sawier is the pulp sci-fi of the thirties, when the words "scientific plausibility" were still unknown, interpreted with today state of the art knowledge The result is a masterpiece of zany imagination, and not to be taken as a serious hypothesis, of course. I loved it!¤

2) Paperback Book End of An Era by Tor Books. I thought I had found all the worthwhile sci-fi writers, but obviously I haven´t. I found Robert J. Sawyer by looking at all the Hugo and other award winners. That would sound easy enough, but not all the Hugo and other award winners write good books.

First off, RJS is a good writer, his books are easy to read and follow. They have a natural flow to them and it´s not a chore to read them. Grisham is another writer like that.

The premise of this book is that a couple of scientists go back 65 million years ago to try and find out what killed the dinosaurs. I won´t reveal the answer and you won´t want me to but the answer will surpise you. Some of the reviewers here didn´t like the answer, because that wasn´t what they were looking for. How funny, in that case they should go find a time travel book with the answer they already like, it´s like going to see a movie only if the ending is what they were expecting. I went in without any preconcieved notions and thought the "answer" was great, an out of the box one. I mean, it´s sci-fi and anything goes, that´s why we read these books right? We buy these books to read someone else´s thoughts.

The only nit-pick I have with these books is the same with all other older sci-fi books: they all fail to predict the future. In the book´s future, they have time travel, but no cell phones, no internet, no Blackberries, etc. But that´s OK, it gives the book a "classic" feel and doesn´t detract from it.

The characters were easy to like and fleshed out enough to make them interesting but not overly so because this is a sci-fi book, not drama. The writer could easily have expanded the book, explored some of the side stories a bit more. He opened those doors but did not get into them, leaving them unexplored.
(Spoiler here: He could have gone into the other timeline with Cheung more, he could have gone into more detail with the hets. The Cheung storyline/timeline was left pretty much unexplored - why were there 2 timelines and what happened to the other one? The het history was pretty much a 2 page treatment - granted this is not a het history book but he could have given it a chapter or two. And the rosette makers could have been explored too.)

So to summarize, I liked the book because like all RJS books, they are easy to read and follow and I really liked the storyline here, a little short maybe but definitely recommended.¤

3) Paperback Book End of An Era by Tor Books. I was delighted with this book. I have loved dinosaurs since I was a small girl which was why I picked it up; but the premise was a surprise and just plain fun.¤

4) Paperback Book End of An Era by Tor Books. A great book involving a small paleontology expedition to the Jurassic to hopefully discover what killed off the dinosaurs, here the author´s expertise in paleontology rings clear as the main character dismisses the asteroid event as the die out. Instead, in the past they find Mars like gravity, colorful dinosaurs marching goose step and the blue-slime Martians behind it all who call themselves Het. When the Het are rapidly realized as a threat the time travelers are unable to escape right away since the time machine remains in the visiting time period for a certain amount of time before coming back, nothing can change that. The ending is too good to give away, although some might deduce what´s going to happen through all the hints the author drops.

Just one word of warning: there are some chapters in the book called Boundary Layer, these take place in the ´present day´ with the same main character, but in he is presumably reading the journal of his from the Jurassic wrote. This confused me and threw me a little off course.¤

5) Paperback Book End of An Era by Tor Books. _End of an Era_ by Robert J. Sawyer I thought would be a fairly standard -if there is such a thing - time travel novel. Scientists/adventures journey to the Mesozoic Era (usually the Cretaceous Period), have some adventures, make some interesting discoveries, something goes wrong, and they get home some how. I knew from the very beginning that the two scientist protagonists in this book - Dr. Brandon "Brandy" Thackeray, curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada and Dr. Miles "Klicks" Jordan, curator of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, also in Canada - had journeyed to the very latest Cretaceous Period to research how the Mesozoic Era ended and dinosaurs became extinct.

However, the story was anything but standard. Set in 2013, the world is gripped by something akin to a severe depression, and there is very little money for science, particularly pure science. The time travel project is run on a shoestring budget, with every possible measure taken to cut costs. The timeship, officially named _His Majesty´s Canadian Timeship Charles Hazelius Sternberg_ though owing to its hamburger-like shape and hardly elegant name, was often just called the _Sternberger_, is built with off-the-shelf components, relying in large part upon corporate sponsorship, and barely has room for the two scientists, their supplies, and a Jeep (thanks to a corporate sponsor). They even launch their timeship in the dead of winter from a crane over the badlands of Alberta, in large part to save money on coolant for the machinery required by the time travel devices designed by Nobel laureate Ching-Mei Huang. The two scientists will have to perform all tasks on their expedition themselves, from trying to capture dinosaur specimens to taking astronomical photographs to cooking and cleaning. Also owning to the lack of budget and dearth of working, professional paleontologists, there is no real way to provide anything like the background checks and psychological screening that say NASA did for its space missions. Unfortunate, as though once Klicks and Brandy were friends, they are no longer, as Klicks is dating Brandy´s ex-wife. Tess. Furthermore, Brandy is convinced that Klicks stole her from him.

Secondly, and more importantly, on their very first day back in the past they came across something they clearly did not expect. Ambushed by a pack of troodons, they feared that these nearly human-sized predators wanted them for food. At first holding them at bay for a bit, the dinosaurs managed to capture them, and then something bizarre happened. Two of the dinosaurs extruded from their heads wriggling, moving blue blobs, quivering like Jell-O, blobs that then moved into the heads of the two scientists, accessed their memories, and then left their heads and returned to the dinosaurs. Moments later, those dinosaurs began to speak English. Astoundingly, they reveal that they were an invertebrate lifeform from Mars called by the humans Hets (or Hhhet, which sounded to Brandy like a person clearing their throat). To say much more is to seriously "spoil" the book, but it gets plenty interesting from there.

Third, there is a plotline also starring Brandon Thackeray, set in the book´s present of 2013. In this plotline, Brandon and Klicks did not journey back to the past, but apparently Brandon - or someone - thought he did, as someone (Brandy himself?) modified his diary, relaying the events of the other plotline. What is the meaning of this? Is someone playing a joke, or did he really travel back to the Mesozoic? Having no idea that was even possible, he researches the particulars of the story, tracking down Dr. Huang.

Finally, the book tackled the reason for the dinosaur´s extinction, and well, it is out there. I can´t say I have ever heard this as a stated reason for their extinction, not even in the wildest science fiction story I have ever read. While I think quite implausible, it was very...interesting. The ending certainly tied in nicely with the events of the novel.

I enjoyed the book, it was a quick read. Maybe a tad more time with the dinosaurs would have been nice but the book focused a lot on the Hets and that is understandable. It certainly was highly original.
¤

6) Paperback Book End of An Era by Tor Books.

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 15-Nov-2008, 03128769399780312876937, 390-260-340-440-460-88B-8

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