A review by weaselweader
The Depths of Time by Roger MacBride Allen
4.0
“The planet was dying … exactly on the schedule predicted”
THE DEPTHS OF TIME is a modern space opera written with complex, expansive themes on an enormous canvas that uses time travel as a device to place living characters over a period of hundreds of years and a geography that encompasses hundreds of light years. Captain Anton Koffield, later to be promoted to Rear Admiral locked away on useless make-work projects, is perceived by the world at large as a villain. His decision to shut down access to a wormhole to prevent the violation of causality and the certain creation of dangerous time paradoxes, resulted in the destruction of a small fleet of cargo ships destined for a terraforming project over 100 light years distant from home base on earth. Despite the fact that he was forced by his duty to act exactly as he did, Koffield found himself cast in the role of being the cause of the ultimate death of the planet, “a villain who killed a world”.
Although the first few chapters moved at a dazzling, proverbial light speed, the novel ultimately settles into a more contemplative, low speed mental challenge that deals with Koffield’s discoveries about the basis of terraforming and the destiny of off-world colonies. THE DEPTHS OF TIME is a challenging, interesting, provocative novel that takes concentration – no, make that intense concentration – and patience. And, (I suspect that I’m not alone in this one), it occurred to me to wonder if Roger MacBride Allen’s relationship with Isaac Asimov didn’t bring him to put more than a little of Hari Seldon’s psychohistory into Ulan Baskaw’s mathematical principles underlying the science of terraforming and the future colonization of these planetary projects. For what it’s worth, I also see the possibility that Oskar DeSilvo, the architect of Solace, the colony that appears to be desperately close to the edge of failure, and the erstwhile genius who singlehandedly created the entire science of terraforming, may be cast in the role of “Mule” for the second and third novels in Allen’s trilogy. My personal jury is out on that for the moment.
I should rush to add that I’m not accusing THE DEPTHS OF TIME as being derivative in any way. Personally, I think it’s much more likely that MacBride Allen’s plot ideas are riffs on Asimov’s themes of long-term, probabilistic mathematics applying to big projects and a way of paying homage to the good doctor’s ideas and mastery of sci-fi as a genre.
And now it’s on to THE OCEAN OF YEARS, the second instalment in THE CHRONICLES OF SOLACE trilogy.
Paul Weiss
THE DEPTHS OF TIME is a modern space opera written with complex, expansive themes on an enormous canvas that uses time travel as a device to place living characters over a period of hundreds of years and a geography that encompasses hundreds of light years. Captain Anton Koffield, later to be promoted to Rear Admiral locked away on useless make-work projects, is perceived by the world at large as a villain. His decision to shut down access to a wormhole to prevent the violation of causality and the certain creation of dangerous time paradoxes, resulted in the destruction of a small fleet of cargo ships destined for a terraforming project over 100 light years distant from home base on earth. Despite the fact that he was forced by his duty to act exactly as he did, Koffield found himself cast in the role of being the cause of the ultimate death of the planet, “a villain who killed a world”.
Although the first few chapters moved at a dazzling, proverbial light speed, the novel ultimately settles into a more contemplative, low speed mental challenge that deals with Koffield’s discoveries about the basis of terraforming and the destiny of off-world colonies. THE DEPTHS OF TIME is a challenging, interesting, provocative novel that takes concentration – no, make that intense concentration – and patience. And, (I suspect that I’m not alone in this one), it occurred to me to wonder if Roger MacBride Allen’s relationship with Isaac Asimov didn’t bring him to put more than a little of Hari Seldon’s psychohistory into Ulan Baskaw’s mathematical principles underlying the science of terraforming and the future colonization of these planetary projects. For what it’s worth, I also see the possibility that Oskar DeSilvo, the architect of Solace, the colony that appears to be desperately close to the edge of failure, and the erstwhile genius who singlehandedly created the entire science of terraforming, may be cast in the role of “Mule” for the second and third novels in Allen’s trilogy. My personal jury is out on that for the moment.
I should rush to add that I’m not accusing THE DEPTHS OF TIME as being derivative in any way. Personally, I think it’s much more likely that MacBride Allen’s plot ideas are riffs on Asimov’s themes of long-term, probabilistic mathematics applying to big projects and a way of paying homage to the good doctor’s ideas and mastery of sci-fi as a genre.
And now it’s on to THE OCEAN OF YEARS, the second instalment in THE CHRONICLES OF SOLACE trilogy.
Paul Weiss