Rating: 
Summary: Not much here
Review: Knowing Caleb Carr only by his reputation for his previous two novels, I thought this might be an interesting introduction to his work for an old sci-fi buff like myself. I was wrong. The book is enticing enough with promise to keep one paging forward but it really never delivers. Nothing in it is new though it struggles to remain game and enticing with a real plethora of fake foreshadowing and come ons. I am only 3/4 of the way through and, though I intend to gut it on out, I will be extremely surprised if the end is any different from what I have already guessed it will be. If anything, this demeans the genre and I would respectfully ask Caleb to return to what he does best and leave the hallowed halls of Heinlein, Asimov, Pohl, Cherryh and the immortal Phillip K Dick undisturbed in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Impressively awful
Review: This really is one of the worst written books I have ever seen in print, even if the definition of "in print" is extended to embrace self-published books about people communicating with aliens from the planet Venus. I wonder, was it submitted for the Bulwer-Lytton contest?No, seriously. I'm serious. You read this book, you really are killing time. Yours. I used it to help occupy my time on the throne. Propelled by morbid curiosity, I couldn't turn the pages fast enough, but it was still interminable.
Rating:
Summary: Ego trippin'
Review: The book starts out on a good premise, but it never delivers. It's not quite campy enough to be fun, not smart enough to be satirical (see Matt Ruff's "Sewer, Gas and Electric" for a true satire on the information age), and lacking the logic and detail to be a genuinely thoughtful book. Examples of poor plotting and even worse character development abound. However, I found one bit of bad writing that may be the most telling: In historian/author Caleb Carr's novel, who does the knockout babe fall madly in love with? The main character, who just happens to be a...historian/author! I had a lot of trouble finishing this book (though it's apparent that Carr had a lot of trouble finishing it as well). After reading his first two novels and his historical book 'The Devil Soldier', I expected much more than this piece of claptrap.
Rating: 
Summary: A Highly Recommended Cautionary Tale
Review: In 'Killing Time" Caleb Carr expresses the fear many Americans hold of the present and the future...that we are no longer able to trust the institutions we have created to protect and enlighten us and that this mistrust will have greater reason to grow as time passes and our moral compass and oral history increasingly fade from our memories. Carr expresses these issues in a tone reminisent of past great futurist writers (Verne, Welles, Orwell) and the book has a certain Victorian 'gee whiz' ambience that belies the seriousness of its message. Nevertheless, it is an intriguing, heartfelt and, hopefully, thought provoking work.
Rating:
Summary: Embarrassing
Review: Caleb Carr should be embarrassed that this awful book is in print. An interesting premise, completely unsupported by anything remotely resembling good story-telling. Cardboard characters are a total yawn, and (worse) the protagonist is a passive witness, along for the ride, doing virtually nothing to drive the story forward. Speculative fiction, when done well, draws us so completely into its world that we experience it as though we were there, and care for its characters as though they were brothers. This book doesn't even come close to inspiring the "willing suspension of disbelief" its subject matter requires. I'm glad I got it from the library, and didn't pay a cent for it. I wouldn't have bothered to finish it, but I was curious to see how far downhill it would get by the end. I enjoyed CCs first two books, but if this is what he's writing now, it will be a long time before I waste a minute on another one.
Rating:
Summary: Where do I go to get my money back?
Review: Seldom have I been as disappointed in a book as this one by Caleb Carr. Having read and thorougly enjoyed his first two novels -- The Alienist & The Angel of Darkness -- I was excited to find this newest work and very anxious to read it. Maybe somebody else is writing under his name, because this one shows none of the writing abilities such as the sense of narrative, the attention to detail, the descriptive mastery of his first two. It is almost like this is an outline, sketchy at best, for a tale of great scope. His description of the holocaust created within is so minute, that it removes all sense of purpose for the characters' actions. And he can do so much better. This is just a bad, bad book. Only his name could have sold this one to a publisher. He owes us all an apology and he owes me...
Rating:
Summary: A real disappointment
Review: I waited anxiously for his next book. This one was boring. I could not finish it.
Rating:
Summary: Carr Shifts Gears Unsuccessfully
Review: This hackneyed, poorly constructed futuristic novel is a major diappointment coming on the heels of Carr's previous successes, "The Alienist" and "The Angel of Darkness". Chapters of this book were serialized in magazines, and they read more like the cliffhangers of old Saturday matinee serials than they do an actual story. Chapter after chapter spills out in a directionless mess and one is left to wonder when the next moment of action will occur. When it does, it's a contrived letdown of sci-fi cliches. Carr may have constructed intricate settings and fully realized characters in earlier works, but that's nowhere to be found in "Killing Time". Here, he uses a high-concept approach but has nothing but empty ideas to back it up. A waste of everyone's "time".
Rating: 
Summary: Great ideas, bad execution
Review: The earlier works of caleb carr enthralled me with their incredible sense of atmosphere. Which is exactly what Killing Time is missing, as well as a cast of characters that are likable or at least intresting. The book contains a great forecast of the future including a group of techno-terrorists that use their genius to do elaborate hoaxes including releasing a "fifth gospel" that ilegitimatizes Christianity and burying human bones in South Africa and making everyone believe they are 5 million years old (this is sci-fi), throwing away the threory of evolution. The book also predicts an American invasion of Afganistan, civil war in Malaysia and Kashmir being a nuclear wasteland due to the war between India and Pakistan (the book was written in 1999). The concept of the book is that the Internet has become so available to everyone that people are saturated with info and will believe anything they see. I'm giving away all this because the book story-wise, is terrible. It's like Carr tried to fit a realistic concept and put it in a pulp and cheesy package. Even pulp and cheese can do better than this though. The only reason this gets more than one star is for the set up. Besides that, avoid this stuff and immerse yourself in his brilliant thrillers, The Alienist and Angel of Darkness. His non-fic book on terrorism is also beautifully done. Please dont waste your money on this book.
Rating:
Summary: killing me
Review: Oh, boy. What a disappointment. As a big fan of Carr's previous two historical crime novels, I was anxious for this to come out in paperback. Granted, the summary on the back didn't sound that interesting -- and I love futuristic stories, too. I find it hard to believe this is the same author. I am a stickler for reading books to the end, even if I don't like them -- obsesive compulsive, maybe -- but have resigned to stop reading this book 1/3 of the the way through. I cannot take the arrogant, stiff dialogue and go-nowhere plot. It is without a doubt, the worst book I have picked up in ages. Although I realize the story is set in the future, I find the constant referals to "the storms of 07" or the "e-coli breakout of 09" sort of unecessary. The book is diffused with unbelievable characters, Dean Koontz-ish chatter, and leaves me no desire to finish it. Too bad. What in the world happened??? I normally read a lot of reviews before I write my own, but not this time.... I hope to hear what the rest of you thought.
By the way, I can finish Dean Koontz novels, no matter how bad.
|
