Time, Like an Ever-Rolling Stream: A Sequel to the Ragged World

Rating:
Summary: Humans confronting the unknown
Review: The second time I read this book I was somewhat more disappointed than I expected. The story is very interesting as a story, but I found it a bit harder to understand than I expected. There was a lot left unsaid. I think that the reader is expected to draw certain conclusions, and I think, personally, the information given is ambiguous. Apparently this will be resolved in the third volume, if it is ever published. The story will make a lot more sense if the first book, The Ragged World, is first read.

Liam O'Hara, first an Apprentice, and then an employee for the Bureau of Temporal Physics (BTP), is a principal character in this book, but the main character is Pam Pruitt, another Apprentice at the BTP. The book is a story within a story, the internal story having been written by Pam (who has left the BTP because of personal problems) in 2026. The story is about her and Liam's experiences after their first Apprentice year, the 2012-2013 school year (when they were 14 and 15). She sends the book to him for comment. His comments are included after each chapter.

The BTP has been established to train Apprentices to locate the place in history where humanity crossed the magic line when nature and culture were in balance. However, the goal of the BTP seems to have changed somewhat by the end of the book to include the finding of hot spots or holy ground (where ley lines cross "bee lines" or electromagnetic power.) This is not very much developed in the book, but is often brought up peripherally.

Pam and Liam, in this book, go to visit Pam's favorite place, Hurt Hollow in Kentucky on the Ohio River. Liam finds out about born-again Christians and about the difference among the various Christian groups in their attitudes toward the Hefn (aliens explained, more or less, in the first book). The anti-Hefn attitude in the southern midwest is demonstrated in a number of incidents, culminating in the capture of Humphrey, a Hefn, by an anti-Hefn preacher with the help of several Klan men.

The Hefn had been trying to get humans to cooperate with their plan to save the earth through various methods that apparently worked for Hefn. This whole incident showed them that these methods, especially mind wipe, did not work well with humans-it generated a lot of resentment and anger. Because Humphrey bonded with Pam, he listened to her and tried something that worked. As a result, the Hefn started training Missionaries on cooperative farms to preach the new Gaian religion (hopefully to be further explained in Volume III).

There is also another story going on, the confrontation by both Liam and Pam of each of their own demons. We can only assume the problems are eventually resolved, based on hints given in the book.