Killing Time

Rating:
Summary: "Wasting Time" would have been a more appropriate title...
Review: As an avid Caleb Carr fan, I was thrilled to discover that he had moved into a new genre of literature with this book. What astounds me is how someone who was so masterful at creating imagery in his last two novels has done such a poor job of creating it in this book. The characters lack substance, the futuristic plot is simplistic and ineffective, and Carr's writing lacks the polish of his earlier work. I finished this book not because of its quality, but because of my respect for the author. By reading this, you will truly be "killing time".

Rating:
Summary: Very interesting, if not completely engaging.
Review: I am a big Caleb Carr fan, with a positive bend to sci-fi, so I found this book to be quite interesting.

He shows his prowess as a historian more than a novelist, I think. His view of the future is very obviously based on his understanding of the past. This makes for interesting intellectual questions: the nature of reality, what is the Internet doing to our sense of reality, the good old days weren't always so good, etc.

Unfortunately, it was simply not as engaging a story, because I think the characters were not as engaging. Larissa, as bold and uncompromising as she is, is no Sara Howard (from The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness).

So, I would say it is a good read, but one you will find yourself able to put down. Frankly, reading on my commute to work was perfect.

Rating:
Summary: Caleb Carr has seen the future...
Review: ...and it just doesn't work. Don't get me wrong, I'm a great Caleb Carr fan, having read both The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness.I also respect writers who have the courage to strike out in a different direction, but this one just strikes out, I'm sorry to say. Even after reading Carr's Acknowledgements at the end, which explain the novel's provenance, it still doesn't hold up.

The obviously Jules Verne-inspired plot has Dr. Gideon Wolfe, our protagonist (sorry, I just can't call him a hero, because he's not) joining a group of info-terrorists in the year 2023 in trying to convince the world at large that the Internet and information technology are at the root of all modern society's ills. If you think that's laughable, well, you're right. A series of misadventures follows, during which the gang of misguided geniuses manages to cause a considerable amount of destruction and not improve anyone's life in any way. Dr. Wolfe, a psychologist and criminal profiler, is startlingly dim when it comes to understanding his own motivations and actions, which are basically illogical from the get-go.

What's most disappointing, however, is that NOT ONE character in this novel is remotely likeable. Despite their hifalutin quest to enlighten the masses to their dependence on information technology (could Carr have possibly chosen a less intriguing "villain"?), these characters are moral and emotional ciphers. Wolfe, for one, immediately falls in love/lust with the sole female character, who is a patricidal/matricidal/assassin/sociopath! Oh, and she's a babe in a skintight bodysuit, just in case you were wondering why a supposedly intelligent criminologist would desire a lasting relationship with this so-called person.

Unfortunately, that's just one example of this book's essential wrongness. There's also a lot of plot meandering about three-quarters through, and a totally ridiculous ending that exists, I think, only to justify the novel's title. Moreover, the ending is utterly condescending to readers who have stuck it out thus far, because it presumes that the principal characters maintain knowledge of a possible event, that, if the event did in fact occur, they could not possibly have any knowledge of (sorry to be so vague, but we're in spoiler territory here).

I don't like to be harsh, but it's only because I am one very disappointed fan. Mr. Carr can and has done inordinately better work.

Rating:
Summary: Not THAT bad
Review: Granted, "Killing Time" was rather flat compared to the richer works of the author, but I can see how he might have wanted to escape from the rather restraining neighborhood of New York, late 1800s. This story started out as a serialized novel in TIME magazine, which explains the cheesy "But THEN something TRULY interesting happenned (turn the page)" endings. It's a (hopefully) intentional Verne/ Wells homage, and as such it feels dated in many ways, but then this is a book built around one simple (very simple) premise: Information Isn't Knowledge. True. Yes, it's far from a great book, but much worse hits the top of the bestseller lists with astounding frequency, so don't worry about the generally bad reviews. Maybe you'll enjoy a nostalgic juvenile adventure, and in that case, you can find worse ways to, er, kill time.

Rating:
Summary: It's a novel, People...
Review: KIILING TIME was recommended to me by a friend who had read and enjoyed The ALIENIST. On that basis I picked it up without previewing any reviews and I'm glad I did. Conceptually, the story reminded me of THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS by Clarke and Baxter which comparatively, I have to admit is a superior work although it has its own failings. The point is one reader's 5 star can be another's 1 star. For those who lament this is "the worst book ever," I'm extremely envious they have managed to avoid a truly bad book.

To an extent,a promising concept was given less than optimal treatment, character development was underwhelming, and fantastical science was employed too often to resolve to escape storyline quagmires. However, the writing style is complex enough to hold one's interest and the book remains a reasonably quick read. No, it is not Wells/Verne/Clarke/Heinlein but very few books in this genre are.

It's never going to be a classic but for a lazy afternoon or a long flight give it a chance.

Rating:
Summary: Caleb Carr please come back
Review: Caleb Carr fans will wonder what happened when they pick up Killing Time. I could only get through about 100 pages. I'm not giving up on Carr, however. I'm sure he will return with more pieces of turn of the 19th-20th century detective stories.

Rating:
Summary: He must've needed the cash...
Review: Hey, it happens. Just about every good writer eventually publishes one that he or she should have used as fireplace kindling. Caleb Carr started off with an interesting premise--a combination of a Gibson-esque future, a Matrix-like outlaw band, and X-Files-like conspiracies. But somewhere it all goes terribly wrong. From the start, the futuristic setting is hackneyed and too familiar, while the characters are flat and uninspiring. It's difficult to sympathize with the narrator, who watches emotionlessly as his best friend is gunned down. The other characters are equally bland, and their motivations are incomprehensible. There is a constant sense of melodrama to the writing that never finds fulfillment in the action. I had the constant sense that I was actually reading the abridged version and that the guts had been cut out of the book. Caleb Carr's prose style, so apt for "The Alienist" and "Angel of Darkness", does not come across well for science fiction, and his vision of the future is not startling or original enough to make up for the one-dimensional characterization. Pick it up for an airplane ride, maybe. I hope Mr. Carr soon returns to the more familiar ground of fin-de-siecle New York.

Rating:
Summary: Fairness and Accuracy
Review: I felt that Killing Time was a great read. One of the book's main issue was "does information equal knowledge." I think not. The book delt with my concern that there is a lack of balance when issues are discussed and debated by media outlets. In fact there is no intent to educate but to convert. The media does not reflect the full spectrum of views in a balanced way. The book indicated that the terms of political debate are shaped by the political class. The book starts off slow but but picks up steam though the conclusion is unrealistic.

Rating:
Summary: Killing time - if you have plenty of time to waste
Review: Jesus, I can;t believe I have read thru the whole book. The story is flat and the characters are not interesting at all. And it has the most terrible ending ever written in a novel.

Rating:
Summary: Where is the Caleb Carr I thought I knew?
Review: I read this book over a weekend and, as I was approaching the end, I couldn't stop wondering if it took Caleb Carr any more time to write it than it took me to read it. This is a lazy, lazy piece of writing. I'm glad I read "The Alienist" already, because if this was my first Caleb Carr book, it would also be my last. The other reviews here are pretty much on target - thin plot, zero character development, a one-dimensional view of the information age. The first-person storytelling style became a distraction to me, especially with so many of the chapters ending like this:

"I stepped inside, sure of what I was going to say and hopeful that Malcolm would approve of the plan; wholly unsuspecting, in short, that he was about to tell me what he considered the greatest of his many secrets, a tale so bizarre and unbelievable that it would force me to the conclusion that he had, in fact, lost his mind."

With a cheesy setup like that, the payoff had better be good. And it's not. And this type of thing happens so many times that the book becomes an exercise in page turning. "The Alienist" was so good that many readers will, like me, ignore these bad reviews and give "Killing Time" a try. If you feel compelled to become involved with this book, my advice to you is to listen to that little voice in your head. The first time you hear it ask, "What's the point of all this?", remember this: Caleb Carr says everything he is going to say within the first 25 pages of this book. Don't feel as if you are going to miss out on anything if you stop reading. You aren't.

I wonder how books like this get published. It's like watching a bad movie and wondering what was going through the minds of the people involved - they had to know nothing was working. Even if Caleb Carr didn't realize how awful this was turning out, somebody close to him - an editor, another author, his mother - should have convinced him to stop. A work like this is bad for his career. I just hope that the Caleb Carr who wrote "The Alienist" is the one who sits down at the typewriter next, because I'm only giving him one more chance.