Time Travel discussion

Discussion begins here for Up The Line, chapters 32-44.

OK I thought I best pluck up the courage and continue ploughing through this book after abandoning it at chapter 13. I thought to myself, perhaps I may have been too harsh on it due to my paranoia of its sexual content, having had enough of it in The Man Who Folded Himself. I mean its not explicit, its just there seems to be a lot of it. I mean every single female mentioned in the book, we have at very least a description of her size breasts!

I am now on chapter 34 and it gets worse, we're returning back to f***ing incest again...sheesh.

As with the previous book, the time travel idea is pretty radical. But like Amy and John discussed in chapters 1-13 section, I too have a problem understanding why none of the now-time couriers are spotting their older counterparts. Its not quite making sense. Furthermore, if their younger counterparts are able to spot them, how comes the now-time couriers cant spot their older counterparts. The book blatantly admits to the cummulative paradox and has no explanation of it yet but that's just cheating, there needs to be a solution for this.

I will finish this book even though its very unlikeable but I admit, the time travel premise is quite smartly thought out albeit contained within a rather unenjoyable narrative. And for the love of God, please, no more incest!

I'm not sure the relations that were going on in "The Man Who Folded Himself" could be considered incest but rather "me"-cest.

As I was reading last night, I encountered what I consider to be a serious paradox. It is in Chapter 37. I hope I am not breaking the spoiler rule, but the situation that I have an issue with is when our main character jumps back in time in order to prevent one of his clients from getting killer. Here is my problem: when he jumps forward again to the point that he left, wouldn't there be two of him? The reason I say this is that if he prevented his client's death, then there would have been no reason for the courier to jump back in time to change things. Therefore when he returns to the altered time line, there should be two of him there. Anyone have an alternate opinion on this?

Oh, that's a good point, and I cant conjuure up an explanation for that. Why woud Jud jump back indeed. Agreed, major flaw.

I suppose one could argue that the space-time continuum (or perhaps fate) would create some other crisis that would cause Jud to skip back in time, but then you end up with an endless series of problems that are being fixed and eventually you would get to a point that Jud would have no reason to jump and there would eventually be two of him. Probably a minor point for me to get so hung up on, but I find this situation in so many time travel stories and I have yet to hear an adequate explanation for it.

Okay, I feel vindicated. The author does in fact address this duplication paradox later in the book, and I feel he does a good job of it. I won't say any more out of respect for those who haven't yet finished the book.

I have just finished "Up the Line" and want to add my two cents worth of comments. Overall, I am glad that I read it. I pretty much agree with everyone's comments, both positive and negative. I wish it did not have such obvious (crude) sexual overtones, but that's the book that we have to deal with. For me, the very ending somewhat restored my feeling that I had not wasted my time. My main comment is that the part that took place during the plague reminded me of "Vintage Season."

I did finally finish the book. Very creative ending. I don't think I've ever seen such an ending. I wonder if he planned that from the beginning. But, really, I could have done without the incest and pedophilia. 2 stars.

Yeah, the ending certainly was unique and even drew a laugh from me (though I am not sure if that was intentional to make us laugh).