Rating: 
Summary: Awful
Review: I don't usually disklike a book so much that I can't finish it, but with Killing Time I had to put it down after just a few sittings. I have read the Alienst and Angel of Darkness and thoroughly enjoyed them both - so I was very excited to see this new book by Carr. It was awful. The story was so outlandish and the characters so completely unbelievable; it reminded me of a serious Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy. Also, the way his characters spoke and thought gave me more of a sense of the past than the future, yet the environment and events in the book were so far-fetched I could not believe that they were only 20 years ahead of us. Caleb Carr should stick to what he does best, and this is most certainly not it.
Rating:
Summary: 1 Star is 1 Star Too Many
Review: Beware Caleb Carr fans. I could have taken a near future premise if it had any foundation in fact or logic, but it doesn't. I got to page 83 and found it unbearable to go further. His characters are unsufferable. I don't care one whit about what happens to any of them. The diction is pompous. The writing full of irrelevant and gratuitious asides and conclusions. Here is a sample, typical sentence, "As we approached and then entered the armory--a compartment filled with racks of weapons unlike anything I'd ever seen--Eli and Jonah told me that the first members of the team to find their way to one another had been themselves and Malcolm, who had all been in the same class at Yale." No positive description of the armory or the weapons. How does the reader get a mental picture out of this? If it is nothing like what he has seen, WHAT IS IT LIKE? Why don't we hear Eli and Jonah talking about this? If it's not important enough for dialogue, why are sentences like this one constantly in the story. This is not only a departure from his former well-written historical novels, it is a departure from good writing period. This book taught me a good lesson -- I will never buy a book based just on the author's name. I will read the reviews first!
Rating:
Summary: Don't even kill time with this book!
Review: Having read other books by Caleb Carr, I expected a lot of this book, which I bought sight unseen. BIG MISTAKE. I am a science fiction fan as well as a mystery fan, and Killing Time is a waste of time in either genre. The characters are so shallow that even cartoons do better. Carr's idea of character differentiation is to make one character call everything (machines, food, ideas) 'sexy' while another is constantly putting the make on every male she meets. The plot is somewhat weaker than the characters. Save yourself some time and money and give this book a pass!
Rating: 
Summary: Comic book without pictures = Ok reading.
Review: Quick, amusing read. I'd actually rate it as a 1 considered as pure SF and as a 4 when thought of as a comic book without pictures. Clean writing brings the average up to a 3. Radically different in both temperament and execution from his two previous novels (The Alienist, and the Angel of Darkness). If you're expecting similar literary quality, though, don't. As is often then case when writers attempt to jump genres, Carr's attempt to write through-and-through science fiction is well-intentioned, but weak when compared with true practitioners. Fortunately, he generally manages to avoid the self-important pretentiousness I often associate with first-time crossovers to SF by heretofore successful mundane authors. In short, what we have here is a very, very well plotted comic book, and I don't mean that in a pejorative way. He has interesting things to say about the role of technology and the ways in which technology effects (yes, that's the right word) meaning in inappropriate contexts. Sure, there are a couple of gaping tech holes you could drive a starship through, but it's Carr's first crack (that I'm aware of) at SF so I'm willing to cut him some slack. Can't wait for the fully-rendered CGI version. :-)
Rating:
Summary: Who kidnapped Caleb Carr?
Review: Trust these reviews! If you loved the Alienist, and were beguiled by its sequel, preserve your respect for Mr. Carr by ignoring this astonishingly banal and inept clunker. To call it a potboiler would be too high a praise; it's too tepid ever to have been near any kind of flame. It's not the preachiness; novels about dystopias are supposed to preach, and Carr is dead on about the dangers of concentrated intellectual property rights, rampant public gullibility, and One World Government ruled from faceless boardrooms while the planet gasps its last. These are serious concerns, that could have made for a riveting and thoughtful thriller. No, it's the fact that not one word of the book is remotely believable, the "characters" would have to add a dimension or two to achieve the flatness we expect from Danielle Steele, the pacing is both jerky and tired, and the style from beginning to end sounds like a failed entry in the Bulwer-Lytton purple prose contest. It's so phoned-in and mechanical it rarely even rises to the level of self-parody. There is one and only one interesting thing about this Tom Swift and His Amazing Dooomsday Submarine knockoff: trying to figure out how someone with the talent and subtlety of Mr. Carr could possibly have written such a thoroughgoing turkey. One hint is that it began as a magazine serial assignment. But one would also have to postulate that Carr was under the impression that Time magazine is a penny dreadful from the twenties, one that would reject any manuscript which exceeded its minimum editorial expectations. Not likely. So we unfortunates who read the thing are just left scratching our heads. This is the first time I've found myself unable to finish reading a set of acknowledgements, because I kept wincing with vicarious embarrassment for each and every person in it.
Rating:
Summary: Wasting Time
Review: Except for some pre-9-11 references to Afganistan, this book would lose continuity and plausibility and the readers' interest faster than it does now. Save your time.
Rating: 
Summary: our future if we don't act now
Review: Caleb Carr shows us our world if we take this information age too seriously. Here is a story about "don't believe everything you read." Designer people are not far into the future with cloning becoming more and more prevalent in smaller animals and the first human "clone" being produced just 2 months ago. The concept that people are too tied to the internet and the information age is very telling. Our children are attached to video games, MP3s, and the internet. What's next? As a story, it was very compelling. Having a secret "society" trying to fix the world through misinformation and misdirection is a wonderful concept. The story, told through the eyes of a forensic psychologist helps us gain understanding of the people involved and of the population as a whole; why they will believe anything that is printed on the internet as true.
It is a quick read, one that has kept me thinking a month after finishing it. What would we do to fix the problems of the world? Would we go so far as to start a war to end strife in a separate country? All in all, a good book with a great message.
Rating:
Summary: interesting dystopia but a lame deus ex-machina ending
Review: I wasn't disappointed because this novel wasn't another "The Alienist"-- after all, a writer can change styles! I was disappointed because the technique of the novel is bad, despite the interesting near-future setting. This novel had no character development, and little of what I liked about Carr's previous work (a believable and reasonably detailed analysis of the psychological foundations for the behavior of the characters). Instead of this story, I found myself wishing I was reading the physological history of the USA referred to in the novel instead! The worst flaw, though, was the ending. Carr didn't seem to know where to go with the escalating hoaxes, and instead opted for a weak and completely ridiculous ending.
Rating:
Summary: No pre-conceptions but still found it trite
Review: I have not read either of Carr's previous thrillers so I did not have any expectations about "Killing Time". However, I found this book to be unsatisfying on ever level. There was no real character development and certainly no understanding conveyed of the motivation for the actions that occurred. As someone else mentioned, I am not interested in the weapons, hardware, and psuedo-science. I found myself skimming and skipping throughout the book. Definitely not to my taste.
Rating:
Summary: it is happening now
Review: It was meant to be a futuristic book, takes place in 2023, however, the world events described are happening now - Afghanistan, terrorists with bombs, etc. I personally am not interested in high tech weapons, air/marine craft - it was the book's social commentary that was rivoting. Not as well done as his others, but a good read.
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