Rating: 
Summary: Despite a strong beginning, this book ultimately fails
Review: "The world wants to be deceived": this is the premise of Caleb Carr's new novel, set in the near future, 2024. By this time, the United States not only has had its first female president, but she has been assasinated. Much of the world has suffered through a global economic collapse and a plague, and the seas are filled with sewage and no life. A band of educated idealists takes it upon themselves (arrogantly, I might add) to better the world through their deceptions, which are made easy by the "modern" internet and the high level of technology. Of course, control is a slippery thing to contain. After I survived the first short chapter that sounded annoyingly like the Myst/Riven series of computer games, I found myself reading furiously. Then, strangely, Carr lost my interest. His characters began pontificating and debating and justifying their actions so much that I could no longer stand it. Characterizations? Barely there. Vivid scenes? Sorry. This book is not filled with bad writing, as another reviewer states, but rather bad fiction. Carr seems to have forgotten how to show, not tell, and the result is heavy-handed and hardly believable fantasy fiction. If you read numerous books during the year, this is an okay addition to your list, but don't bother if you read only occasionally. You'll find far more rewarding books out there.
Rating: 
Summary: This is a joke, right?
Review: I am convinced Caleb Carr did not write this book. My best guess is that he paid a mediocre high school student a small sum while he continued to rest on his past laurels. The result? No character development, the romance is cliche, and the climax is predictable. This novel should be a 40 page essay on the dangers of information technology.
Rating: 
Summary: This could have been better
Review: By 2023, the force of the Internet lies in misinformation and outright lies that easily fools the general public into accepting what it says as Gospel truth. Many individuals stare at their monitor in the same manner couch potatoes watched TV in the previous century. The world is a bad place where excesses have gored the environment and Mother Nature seems bushed. Few places seem pure of the IT disease, but those isolated spots mostly in Africa and Asia are breeding grounds for deadly outbreaks. Historian and best-selling writer Gideon Wolfe learns that the assassination of President Emily Forrester five years ago was digitally altered to trick the public. The widely viewed web page containing the killing is very popular but has split an already divided nation further. Gideon tries to prove his contention only to meet a group of scientists and military experts who were the professional liars behind much of the official public misinformation floating on the Net. Now they fear their web of deceit has released the nuclear genie and unless they can rebottle it, Armageddon will follow. The concept of KILLING TIME is brilliant with the Internet serving as an information source that contains many misleading items and outright lies that seem veracious. The 1984-like story line slows down a bit due to too many cliffhangers (sort of like a nineteenth century serial novel) disjointing the pace. However, the description of the future world and the players surfing the Internet are intelligently described and provides the entertainment that makes Caleb Carr's dark tale worth reading by futurologists. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: well worthwhile
Review: I hardly ever purchase hardcovers for myself any more. But I just couldn't resist this one when I stumbled on it while christmas shopping. I had been anxiously looking for Carr's next next literary foray -- I wasnt' going to wait another year until this one was printed in paperback. I don't regret the decision. This near-future novel set in a reality of extremes occasionally reminded me of Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale," even though its extremes and terrors were of a decidedly different nature. It is an imaginative novel, sharply departing from the subject matter and style of "The Alienist" and "The Angel of Darkness." I confess to having become a great deal more wrapped-up in those two than I was in "Killing Time." This is of little consequence, though, when one enjoys a novel for itself.
Rating:
Summary: Good, up to a point
Review: I've enjoyed reading this author's previous novels, and so I looked forward to reading this new one. Initially I was not disappointed, for there is action from the beginning, and an interesting plot. Unfortunately, as things go on there is so much philosophical-type discussion among the characters that it tends to dominate the pages, and I slowly began to lose interest, even when exciting things began to happen. Perhaps it's just me, but there seemed to be an extremely huge hole in the plot that made the ending of the book completely implausible. The world created and described by the author appears to be a good extrapolation of today's conditions, but that's not enough to rescue this work.
Rating:
Summary: Forget the future!
Review: This book earned an unfortunate honor, i.e. one of the few that I could not even finish. I loved The Alienist and Angel of Darkness, but this foray into the future was confusing and not at all engaging. Sorry, Mr. Carr - give us something with Teddy Roosevelt!
Rating:
Summary: It ain't "The Alienist", folks ...
Review: ... and that is why I am so disappointed in "Killing Time". While the novel's premise - "information is not knowledge" - is indeed timely and intriguing, that's about as interesting as it gets. A good writer SHOWS his readers what's going on - he doesn't TELL them what's going on. In this novel, Mr. Carr tells us virtually everything through Gideon, the narrator, not allowing us to see for ourselves the events and motivations of the characters. And what characters! They are merely a group of (barely) 2-dimensional individuals about whom it is impossible to cheer or care. They're skeletons, bare manifestations of Carr's ability to characterize, which I know he can do from reading "The Alienist" and "Angel of Darkness". (One note: I was especially disappointed in the Barbarella-like sex kitten character, Larissa. C'mon, Mr. Carr - are women in sci-fi novels doomed to perpetual portrayal as laser-blaster-toting sex bombs who can seduce a man and pilot the Millinium Falcon at lightspeed at the same time?) Let's hope Mr. Carr's next novel returns to him to his strength - PAST history - and that from here on out, he lets the future take care of itself.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but ultimately disapointing
Review: Carr's new novel centers itself on the near future, when technology has run rampant, the environment is all but destroyed, countries wage Machiavellian Wars (more than usual) and truth is quickly becoming relative. When writing this novel Carr must have been reading Robert Kaplan's "The Coming Anarchy". So much doomsday themed material must have at least one foot in Kaplan camp of the future. It is a fun book to read, and fairly quick. I enjoyed the somber atmosphere and with the exception of the wild techno-wizardry this may very well be the future that we are headed into. The characters are eccentric but likable. The narrator's final revalation about his insidious activies is a high point that Carr fails to capitalize on. My biggest problem is that the ending is not very good. It seems like Carr just got bored and ended the story laughing at us all. After his previous novels and from such a seemingly gifted writer this comes as a surprise.
Rating:
Summary: This Book Was So Bad.......
Review: I didn't have the fortitude to finish it. I didn't care what happened in Mr. Carr's pulp science fiction novel. Flash Gordon was better. I loved the Alienist, didn't like Angel of Death....and didn't have the strength for Killing Time. I started the book looking forward to Mr. Carr's insightful, beautifully described look into the future. Unfortunately, he offers up one or two twists on what the world will be like in 23 years, kind of like seeing the Statue of Liberty buried in the sand in the "Planet of the Ape's" movie. Only there wasn't enough intelligence in the writing to make me want to keep going. Boring, boring, badly written and a big disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: Help! Go back to the past, Mr. Carr
Review: I was very disappointed in this book. The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness were fascinating, challenging and thoroughly engrossing. I couldn't even finish Killing Time. Please, Mr. Carr, write what you do best. The world is troubled enough as it is without reading the painfully depressing Killing Time. I couldnt even get an ounce of empathy going for the people in the story.
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