Time's Child

by Rebecca Ore

Book Overview

Earth, 2308. Multiple pandemic plagues have ravaged the earth beyond recognition. Working desperately, the Philadelphia National Archives uses a mysterious time machine to bring key members of the past into the future, to save humanity from destroying itself.

Pulled from Renaissance Italy, former peasant Benedetta brings a friendship with master artist Leonardo da Vinci . . . and an unprecedented ability to change destiny, aided by her new...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0380792524
• ISBN13: 9780380792528
• Release Date: February 2007
• Publisher: Harper Voyager
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

not for the soft-headed

Some of Rebecca Ore's hard-boiled science fiction of years past, such as her novels SLOW FUNERAL and GAIA'S TOYS, are not for the faint-hearted. TIME'S CHILD is a far gentler read, but not for the soft-headed. The novel is not a heroic or romantic tale at all but more of an anatomy, what Northrop Frye defined as a "satire [that] deals less with people than with mental attitudes [is able to] handle abstract ideas and theories . . . relies on the free play of intellectual fancy and the kind of humorous observation that produces caricature [and] presents us with a vision of the world in terms of a single intellectual pattern." Rather than the consciousness of a beleaguered individual struggling for survival, what holds it together is Ore's dry satiric voice and astute eye for setting. She makes credible and interesting the micropolitics of smart, verbal people from various past eras struggling to determine whom to trust in a future Eastern Pennsylvania landscape. Recommended for readers who are equipped to deal with conversation- or idea-heavy science fiction, such as Blish's CASE OF CONSCIENCE, the last four or five Philip K. Dick novels, and the post-NOVA work of Samuel Delany. Not that TIME'S CHILD is as heavy or as demanding a read --more of a soothing vernal chat with a rapier-witted polymath.

Fascinating, philosophically profound, and loads of fun.

This is what time travel would probably REALLY be like. Archivists from a "now-time" of 2300 send back into history and dip up various people, including a 15th-century Italian camp follower, a not quite come-to-manhook Viking warrior, and a 21st-century internet troll. The now-timers have their reasons, but the displaced out-of-history people have motives of their own. Benedetta, the camp follower, escapes from the archives and liberates her out-of-history friends, and they steal the time machine and go fishing in the past for their idea of who THEY want for company. The out-of-history characters are each complex, unique, very much a product of his or her own historical time and personal history, and utterly convincing. This is a fascinating read. I think TIME'S CHILD sets a new standard for portrayal of alien times, both past and future, and just might become a science-fiction classic. TIME'S CHILD is that rare novel that is both philosophically profound as well as loads of fun.

exhilarating science fiction brave new world thriller

By 2308, plagues swept across the earth killing most people and leaving many of the survivors sterile. People from the future send to the Philadelphia National Archive a time machine to gather humans near death from the past and bring them to the present as a library of human learning. Benedetta, who knew Da Vinci, was one of those scooped away just prior to the French soldiers killing her. Not content to remain a prisoner in a gilded cage, she escapes abetted by Jonah, another incarcerated soul. They free the other time travelers and along with Ivar the Viking steal the time machine. Once they have more machines they plan to scoop people out from different eras and place but there are many people with their own agendas who have plans to manipulate the original people from down-time. The premise of this paradoxical tale will fascinate readers as people from different times and cultures must overcome their Tower of Babel differences in order to save mankind. The twists are terrific, reminiscent of a classic EC comic (no more or the plot will be given away). The characters especially the heroine and her closest allies seem real as their dissimilarities are greater than their similarities except for core values. Rebecca Ore provides an exhilarating science fiction brave new world thriller. Harriet Klausner