The Lord of the Sands of Time

by Issui Ogawa and 小川 一水

It's up to the past to save the future. Messenger O has the secret to humanity's survival, but only a queen from Earth's ancient past will listen. Extraterrestrial. Enemies of Terra. Evil Things. O is the only hope to stop the ETs and save humanity. Pushed to the edge of the solar system by alien invasion, Earth's only chance hides in the ancient world.

Sixty-two years after human life on Earth was annihilated by rampaging alien invaders,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1421527626
• ISBN13: 9781421527628
• Release Date: July 2009
• Publisher: Haikasoru
• Length: 202 Pages
• Weight: 0.53 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

I'm not sure why I liked it so much

This book was a very interesting experience for me. I'm still not sure why I liked it so much. With some books, it's the characters or the plots/ideas or the technology. All I can say was this was a very powerful book for me. It seems like such a formulaic situation, go back in time to prevent the time traveling bad guys from destroying humanity (even David Weber did it). But the depth that this book goes to both in terms of time travel and the effects on the future and a branching time-line was, if not unique, then very well done. I was disappointed that the book was so short, but that's all that was needed to tell the story. This is one that will stick with you for a while.

Something different and amazing

I picked up this book while traveling for work, and I was astounded at how good a story it was. I read the majority of it in one sitting. While it is truly a sci-fi story, it is rounded out very well with philosophy and a bit of romance. The writing itself is also quite excellent considering it is a translation. The writing style is very direct and yet elegant at the same time. The main focus of the plot is on ancient Japan, however it isn't an overwhelming cultural tsunami. A great deal of the story also takes place in the future and focuses much more on humanity as a whole for its thought-provoking sub-story. It would definitely be worth a read by anyone interested in the sci-fi genre.

Add a star for alternate timelines fans

I enjoyed this novel, the underlying premise involves time-travelling soldiers of the future attempting to thwart an alien invasion by going to earlier eras and readying the people to fight the aliens. Ogawa handles the premise deftly, weaving in AI and alternate realities ideas into a multiple-timestreams fabric without bogging down in the details. In fact, for a book so full of heady concepts, it's a surprisingly quick and straightforward read. Whereas most alternate realities novels tend towards epic length and breadth, Ogawa keeps a tight focus on characters and plotline, and doesn't lose track of things as he tells the back story in flashback while progressing the current timeline story. Despite the tight focus, and naturally being based in Japanese history, his canvas is indeed world- and epoch-wide. There's plenty of sci-fi action propelling the thought-provoking concepts, I think this one would satisfy most action fans, "hard" sci-fi fans and "deep" sci-fi fans. I'm kinda all three and I enjoyed it.