Time's Eye

What is that strange, booming sound rising up from the earth? Oh yes. That'll be millions of SF fans jumping up and down in excitement at the prospect of a new collaboration from living legend Arthur C. Clarke and nineties darling Stephen Baxter ... not just a new novel, the first in a series! Even better, the series has "Odyssey" in the title - A Time Odyssey. So, all salivating SF addicts will ask, is this the new 2001? Well, maybe. Time's Eye is intended to do for time what Clarke's Space Odyssey did for space, and fans will sigh in satisfaction at the familiar elements - apes, space stations, and impenetrable, silent alien objects appearing on earth (to do goodness knows what to its inhabitants). But there's more, much more. Something has literally wrenched the world apart: in time. The earth is fractured, like a jigsaw, with chronological and geographical pieces, and their people, from different times - from the dawn of man to 2037 - thrust together into an uneasy and totally unfamiliar existence. The world as we know it has been shattered, in a moment. The pre-human ape encounters the nineteenth-century colonial solider. 21st-century peacekeepers and cosmonauts meet Genghis Khan, who in turn meets Alexander the Great. The collaborations and conflicts that arise in this post-apocalyptic landscape are spectacular (but you'll need a pinch of salt handy). All take place under the watchful 'Eyes', other-worldly orbs that have appeared all over the planet. Some of the questions raised by this epic adventure are fascinating - what happens when time fractures? How would peoples from different stages of evolution and technological development coexist? What caused the Discontinuity, the fracturing of time? Has man destroyed the earth? Who is in control? What are the Eyes doing ... watching, or something more sinister? Is there a way back? But don't expect answers, at least not in this first book. The story is at turns chilling, maddening, gripping and fascinating. It's not a perfect piece, sometimes as fractured as the new earth, but it is a wild ride. It's got to be read. (Kirkus UK)