Time Travel discussion

What's the best book you've read this year? Please elaborate on why it was so great.

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I've read several good books this year, but I think the one that packed the biggest punch was The Sparrow. I'm still trying to mull it over to write a worthy review. Basically, we hear a musical radio broadcast from another planet and go for a visit. The encounter with the beings on the other planet at first seems to be working out well, but it eventually leaves the lone survivor of the trip in the depths of despair after experiencing the worst parts of the true nature of the culture he encounters. The book is a deep and searching sort that deals with the harder questions of life and existence.

Wool by Hugh Howey. I've described it as a science fiction book that even people who don't like science fiction will like. It's about a post-apocalyptic world where everyone is living underground in a silo. It's forbidden to go outside or even discuss going outside. Severe infractions against the rules are dealt with by being sent out to clean - a sure death sentence in the toxic outdoors. The characters are realistic and the story is fast-paced and exciting. It's the first book in a trilogy and I think it was the best of the 3 books. Highly recommended!

Wool Omnibus

I have read 49 books so far this year (my challenge is 75) and this one is a standout for me.
I felt like I was actually there in the 9th century, the aromas and characters were jumping out of the book into my space. I was actually getting emotionally involved with the characters and loved the speech of the 9th century people compared to the time travelers. The ending was a surprise and I was very sorry it had to end.

An enthralling read.

Um, to pick just one, and one that would be relevant to this group:
A Star Above It and Other Stories .

(from my review:)
I admit, the very first story has some pretty ridiculous purple prose. And there aren't nearly enough strong females. But most of the stories are gracefully written. Some are heartbreaking, some are scary, some are humorous, but alldraw from the same set of themes. What happens when cultures intersect? What do 'primitive' and 'civilized' people have in common, and what divides them? What does it mean to be primitive, or to be civilized? What effect do urbanization and technology have on people? Are people inherently aggressive?

There's no elaborate world-building here, because each world is different - each encounter between peoples is different. Sometimes there's a happy ending with mutual growth, sometimes not.

In thinking back on the novels that were 5 stars for me, this year, I'd have to go with Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak.




I took two months to read this book. I read the novel itself in two different translations, watched two different interpretations of the movie, read the poems in 4 different translations, and next week, there'll be a book coming out, that I pre-ordered:

The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book by Peter Finn, which is the story of the novel being smuggled out of the USSR, and being published in the West. From the Amazon description:

Book Description
Publication Date: June 17, 2014
Drawing on newly declassified government files, this is the dramatic story of how a forbidden book in the Soviet Union became a secret CIA weapon in the ideological battle between East and West.

In May 1956, an Italian publishing scout took a train to a village just outside Moscow to visit Russia’s greatest living poet, Boris Pasternak. He left carrying the original manuscript of Pasternak’s first and only novel, entrusted to him with these words: “This is Doctor Zhivago. May it make its way around the world.” Pasternak believed his novel was unlikely ever to be published in the Soviet Union, where the authorities regarded it as an irredeemable assault on the 1917 Revolution. But he thought it stood a chance in the West and, indeed, beginning in Italy, Doctor Zhivago was widely published in translation throughout the world.

From there the life of this extraordinary book entered the realm of the spy novel. The CIA, which recognized that the Cold War was above all an ideological battle, published a Russian-language edition of Doctor Zhivago and smuggled it into the Soviet Union. Copies were devoured in Moscow and Leningrad, sold on the black market, and passed surreptitiously from friend to friend. Pasternak’s funeral in 1960 was attended by thousands of admirers who defied their government to bid him farewell. The example he set launched the great tradition of the writer-dissident in the Soviet Union.

In The Zhivago Affair, Peter Finn and Petra Couvée bring us intimately close to this charming, passionate, and complex artist. First to obtain CIA files providing concrete proof of the agency’s involvement, the authors give us a literary thriller that takes us back to a fascinating period of the Cold War—to a time when literature had the power to stir the world.

(With 8 pages of black-and-white illustrations.)

http://smile.amazon.com/The-Zhivago-A...


I learned alot reading this novel. I bet I'd have learned even more if it wasn't the first Russian Literature novel I managed to make it through. Those things are DENSELY PACKED.

Wow, I was reviewing the 32 books I read so far this year, and only one of them is time travel. I have read some great books though. I think my favorite was

Not quite done but the best so far this year has to be Words of Radiance

I dig me some time travel but Brandon Sanderson sits alone among authors I enjoy.

Best book of 2013? Oh that would be the winner of the non-existent Temporal Jester Award. Written by one of our own. An Extended Journey

Thanks for your kind comments about "An Extended Journey," Lincoln, and for the Temporal Jester Award. So glad you enjoyed it!

Forgive me for mentioning two 2014 favorites here, but the first one is an honorable mention history book that reads and inspires so much like TT Fiction that Jack Finney would approve. It takes you back to an era that we might otherwise overlook:
One Summer: America, 1927


But my actual #1 favorite so far this year, a Time Travel novel, is artful, original, and fascinating, with skillful writing that grabs you even before you have a clue what's going on. Again, you wonder where past, future, and fiction cross paths, and it's quite satisfying when it all comes together :
Piercing the Elastic Limit