Rating: 
Summary: Why Caleb Why!!
Review: Looking back on how happy I was to see this book sitting quietly on the shelf in Borders it's funny to think of how much I disliked it. I agree with all the other negative feedback that has been left regarding this book. Anyone who hasn't read Carr's work should read The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness and pretend like this book was written by an author who deserves to be known for writting trash....like Dean Koontz.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining and Thought Provoking
Review: This is the first Caleb Carr book I've read (yea I know). I picked this one up yesterday because of what I've heard about his previous work and the interesting cover. I started reading as the election results were being announced and found myself turning off the coverage - once Gore got Penn. I thought the election was in the bag - to concentrate on the book. Three hours later I finished the book, turned on the TV and wished I could become Dr Wolfe... KILLING TIME is as if Mr Carr has channelled Jules Verne, Terry Southern and Joseph Heller and come up with a wildly entertaining look into the near future. A well crafted tale that is concise with not an extra work or sentence to upset it's delicate balance. Sharp satire, thought provoking ideas and wild adventure pour out of every page. I didn't think Mr Carr was going to pull this story off but he does. Bravo to him as I look forward to reading his previous works and any future writings.
Rating:
Summary: Run away, run very far away
Review: To keep it short- Caleb Carr needs to stick to historical fiction. This novel was well below the standard he created from both "The Alienist" and "The Angel of Darkness".
Rating: 
Summary: He should have written this a hundred years ago!
Review: With his previous books 'The Alienist' and 'Angel of Darkness', Caleb Carr has established himself as the new Conan Doyle, turning a masterful hand to the historical psychological thriller. With 'Killing Time' he becomes the new Jules Verne. Which is a problem. Verne's style of writing went out of fashion a hundred years ago, and in today's literary world there's just no place for long, wordy sentences and naive ponderings of the merits of a brave new world. As a science fiction novel (which this essentially is) it falls flat. Good SF needs big concepts, vivid realistic futurescapes, large chunks of science, elements of the bizarre and perhaps a 'future shock' punch. Killing Time has none of these. The book might have been saved by exceptional character interplay, but sadly Carr's previous flare for such things seems to have deserted him here. The central characters are hackneyed and cliched. There's a romantic interest which completely fails to convince (in fact Carr fails entirely to explain why the two characters were attracted to one another at all, then proceeds from the false assumption that we, the readers, give a damn about them.) The narrative style begins as quaint and old fashioned (in a nice way) but soon becomes tedious and irritating. Carr has a habit of dropping hints about future plot twists too often, overplaying our expectations, so that disappointment becomes inevitable. You'll either guess what's coming or imagine something much beter than you actually get. What audience was Carr targeting this book at, I wonder? Readers of his previous books were never likely to be turned on by a futuristic tale about the virtues of the information age. Whereas science fiction fans are accustomed to something much more imaginitive and 'hardcore' than this. To go back to my original point, the technology that Carr has envisaged is rather fanciful and naive, reminiscent of the victorian 'future-gazing' of Jules Verne and his ilk, while the airship central to the storyline smacks very much of the Nautilus from '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea'. Even the airship's captain is portryed as a social outcast who's trying to save the world from itself. Captain Nemo, anyone? One gets the impression that Killing Time was just a vehicle for Caleb Carr to air his views on the dangers of mis-information and over-dependence on the internet. Point taken, Mr. Carr. However, anyone seeking a good 'old fashioned science fiction' novel would be better advised to read one of Jules Verne's great works instead.
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